Chapter Text
The first time D-16 collides with the wall of the chute is enough to wake him from the thick and sickly-sweet haze. Fresh pain welcomes him with force and he starts screaming again.
The second impact dislocates something dangling on his right shoulder and snaps his jaw down hard on his glossia. Energon quickly fills his mouth as his optics fill with stars.
It takes the third crash against the chute walls for him to realize he is falling.
How long has he been falling?
Forever?
Gravity spirals and he feels weightless for a brief moment, like he is floating. It is a welcome bliss that last for the eternity of a single nanoklik.
And then D-16 lands.
The horrible impact slams solidly into D-16’s spinal-strut and his already crowded HUD fills with so many glitchy warning popups he thinks he has gone blind.
Primus, he wishes he could just crash and never wake up again but his body refuses stubbornly. Pain claws everywhere and every circuit burns as vertigo keeps his cracked processor spinning.
He cannot move.
He cannot see.
He hears the phantom whispers of sweet and sinful words.
He feels nothing but pain.
The sensations drag for what feels like cycles.
Or perhaps mere nanokliks.
Does it matter anymore?
The world rapidly grows hot as D-16 feels a terrible heat blanket him as the memory of large greedy hands all over his tarnished silver armor haunt him. The blaze seethes until he is certain he is being dragged to the Pit itself, his brutalized spark to be smelted for all eternity.
When he feels hands solidly seize and drag him, ready to tow him down to a crucible of eternal agony, D-16 lashes out with the last of his strength in a panic. He bellows a primal cry and chokes out one more, surely useless, prayer to Primus that only comes out as garbled static, his vocalizer glitching terribly.
D-16 does not expect someone to answer.
“Oh, my sweet fragging Primus!”
The hands tug harder and the heat suddenly lessens its intensity as D-16 feels himself falling again. He instantly lands on something hard, the endless pain somehow still layering.
Yet still, there is no mercy of unconsciousness.
So, through a laggy haze, D-16 closes each popup marring his vision one by one. Multiple impact alerts to dents and bruising. A warning about damage to his glossia. An antivirus update request due to possible rust sepsis risk. Scar diagnoses to multiple untreated cygar burns along his thighs. A caution alert over the mildly drugged energon that was his only source of fuel during his captivity. Severe welding lacerations to his chassis risking infection. And so, so, many distracting emergency notifications over the state of his… what is left of his equipment.
Eventually, D-16 clears enough of his HUD to find his pixilated visual feed ease back into flawed focus.
Darkness and flickering red greet him.
The endless grind and whirr of machinery rumbles his very being.
He must be at the threshold of the Pit.
D-16 chokes on a broken cry of pure relief.
Any place is a haven compared to that lavish cell of a room he was trapped in, even the damn Pit itself.
Suddenly, bright blue orbs loom over D-16’s broken and battered frame.
The optics of an angel of Primus.
A small mech, armored in gold and black hovers above him, his hands trembling as they hesitate to touch the bleeding ruined silver below. The golden mech looks down at D-16 with concern, light from nearby fire, no doubt from the eternal blaze of the Pit, reflects against his helm like a bright halo.
“Where the frag did you come from?” he asks.
What a slagging question.
And from an angel of Primus, no less.
D-16 just laughs at the absurdity of it all.
But right as the bitter chuckle bubbles up from his glitching vocalizer, his processor decides to crash.
Finally, finally, his prayers are answered and he is gifted blessed nothingness.
***
Then D-16 wakes back up.
Something soft props up his helm as his body lies supine and splayed.
He feels like a dead weight.
Nausea claws from his tank to his throat.
Slowly, he reaches up to the wires of his neck that are tender and bruised from repeated near strangulations but only one hand makes contact.
D-16 takes no notice as awareness brings back the presence of pain.
It is unrelenting.
Dimmed golden-yellow optics blink on but his HUD is obscured by a log window.
His med-jack has been accessed.
The text is impossible to read in this half-online state so D-16 just minimizes the feed and tucks it in a corner.
It takes a lot of effort to refocus his visual input but eventually D-16 sharpens the mess of pixels into something coherent.
The world around him is nothing but red and metal and noise.
Beside him is the golden angel, his hands warm and gentle against the silver mech.
D-16 looks down at the angel’s work and-
Oh…
Oh, merciful Primus, where is his arm?!
It is not a clean detachment, as they were taught to perform in tunnel emergencies.
His right arm had been ripped away.
Torn like the limb from an unwanted toy.
The unloved toy of a spoiled sparkling.
From D-16’s right arm socket, sparking wires dangle obscenely. The primary artery cable is in the golden mech’s hands as he quickly works to stop the trickling flow of energon.
D-16 tries to scream but instead energon and bile purges from his mouth, sputtering down the mess of his heavily scarred and burning chassis.
The angel is startled.
“Nononono! Ah, frag! Take it easy! It’s okay, I’ve got you!”
D-16 feels a warm hand on his face as a gaze of worried blue degrades into blurred pixels as his vision spins.
His body spasms uncontrollably, processor teetering on the edge of crashing and failing completely.
That is when D-16 notices them.
From nearby, three bots watch the two of them in silence, rigid and motionless.
Vessels of judgment?
Merciful Primus, he is sorry he snuck the last of Orion’s smuggled energon goodies and then blamed Jazz and the Twins.
Primus… D-16 just wants to go home to the barracks… to wake up from this nightmare…
He feels another wave of putrid bile catch in his burning throat.
His vents heave and his vision blackens.
Something claws violently at his silver chassis, searching for seams.
“Alright, this might hurt a little. I’m going to try to jumpstart an emergency line to your spark casing so I can keep working on the fuel cables,” a shaky voice announces then D-16’s chassis cracks open with a sickening echo, “Th-There we go…”
D-16 wants to cry at the terrible sensation.
Instead, he just purges again.
“Oh… frag…” someone, the angel, whimpers in horror.
Something gentle wipes at his cracked lips uselessly.
Then something cold digs into the edge of his spark-chamber.
“I… I’m sorry, this is definitely gonna hurt. Just-”
Something fizzles, zaps, then stings into an electric surge that knocks D-16 into darkness again.
“Please,” the golden angel whispers desperately as everything fades, “Please stay with me…”
***
A weight of vile blue and gold is on top of him again.
D-16 tries to crawl away but there is no stopping him.
He is pinned to the berth and the process starts once more.
The silver mech disconnects and a feeling of sweet numbness soothes his psyche. He lets his mind wander as his body is used.
How long has he been here?
He is afraid to look at his chronometer anymore.
Does anyone know he is gone?
Do they even care?
Primus, where is Orion?!
D-16 was told he is fulfilling his new role as mining consultant admirably.
What the slag did that mean?
Why did he wander off during the service facilities tour?
Why didn’t he stay with him?
Why isn’t he saving him?
WHY ISN’T HE HERE INSTEAD?!
Something tears in his valve and D-16’s optics suddenly snap open.
The angel is between his legs.
“Shhh, it’s alright. I know it’s tough but I’ve got to stop the bleeding,” the golden mech coos softly as he withdraws his hand.
It is stained with energon.
D-16 tries to speak but struggles.
He licks his trembling lips and finds traces of vomit dried to a disgusting crust.
The taste makes him heave and retch but his tank is empty.
A soft cry rips free from his vocalizer and he tries to retreat.
But all he manages is a few weak twitches.
“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Fragging Primus, there’s just so much slagging glass!”
Glass?
Oh right.
The Prime had gotten bored with him.
What had he even shoved up there?
D-16 cannot remember.
But he does recall the thruster of the Prime’s pede cruelly slamming right down onto his tank and making something inside him shatter.
He remembers the laughter that followed.
When he stopped moving the Prime grew unimpressed and decided he had enough fun.
The thrill of a pretty toy had faded once the silver tarnished.
So, D-16 was thrown away like used-up trash.
He is startled by the touch spreading his folds back open and the fresh sting of more pain.
“There we go. Good bot, just a few more pieces,” the angel soothes gently, “You’re being so brave…”
As the angel’s energon stained hand reaches back for the mangled junction between his thighs, D-16 crashes back into sweet, sweet oblivion.
***
The smile haunts him. It is wicked and sharp as a glossia runs slowly over pretty lips.
“I only need one miner to proselytize,” the velvety voice purrs, reverberating into thunder in his audials until it feels as if they are bleeding, “Why don’t you stay with me?”
The process starts for the first time and D-16 is left sore but full of bliss.
But then he finds the doors locked.
All around him, the walls are lined with flawless gold and they close in.
“Leaving so soon?” the voice croons as a glossia tastes his growing fear, “We’re just getting started.”
Echoes roar from the sweet whisper, violent and inescapable.
D-16 feels darkness coil around his limbs and cradles his chassis.
The memory of a shackle digs into his phantom arm.
The process starts once more and he is left sobbing.
He prays to Primus for strength.
The process starts once more and he is left too numb to move.
He prays to Primus for rescue.
The process starts once more and his body is left bleeding.
He prays to Primus to see Orion Pax’s face one last time.
And he is given nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then finally he is gifted nothingness itself.
The temptation of the black ichor of the void is sweet enough to burn.
Suddenly, a blinding ray of golden light shatters everything as a bright voice breaks through the dark haze.
“All done.”
***
When D-16 awakes again, he finds the little angel is spooned against his left side.
The angel murmurs softly, voice too low to understand. He snuggles closer to the silver mech instinctually, a small smile on his round faceplates.
Their hands are entwined.
The touch is warm.
D-16 blinks. Cautiously, he looks around at his surroundings.
To his surprise, this is not the Pit.
It is just a room.
Someplace small, dark, cramped, and filthy.
It is noisy as a conveyor belt rattles before them, feeding the angry mouth of a fiery furnace.
His olfactory sensors pick up a stench of rust, rot, and smoke in the air.
It is sickening like the worst high-grade hangover.
Suddenly, there is clarity in D-16’s processor.
Quickly, he boots up every diagnosis window in his HUD. Pain receptors have evened out to a mostly tolerable gauge and his fuel levels are at half a tank with untainted energon. The backlog of damage is distressingly long and is filled with notes and commentary from a series of second party links via his primary med-jack.
Notes like: “don’t worry, I worked with mining medical for a few days. I got this :D,” “fixed the leak with artery lines P-38 and M1A1,” “patched up wire lacerations at system sectors noted in attached file,” “you’ll probably need a new secondary fanbelt… among other things,” “I just realized I forgot about your arm on the conveyor belt. :( A professional should be able to install a new one,” followed by “I’m so sorry, I have no idea what I’m doing,” and lastly “please wake up.”
D-16 looks down at his aching silver frame.
His body is a fraction away from being cocooned by an overuse of electrical bandage tape. Everything, from his helm, to the individual fingers of his remaining hand, to his neck, to every scuff on his pedes, is bandaged to an absurd degree. Strips, wraparounds, crisscrossed patches, and a winding spica wrap at his hips are all dressed with the skill of a newspark playing doctor.
As sloppy as it is, however, everything has clearly been cleaned and welded in spite of the amateur’s touch.
The dangling cabling of his empty arm socket have been delicately protected one by one with wire caps and covered with a double layer of bandage tape for good measure. They are bundled together protectively with a zip tie.
A large smudged blanket has been secured around D-16’s waist, undoubtedly hiding away the painful mess between his thighs.
It was a divinely kind gesture. The silver mech’s protective panels had been torn away long ago.
D-16 turns back to the angel and feels his spark sink.
Upon a closer look, he realizes there is not a speck of gold in his paint.
The plating is just a dull and scuffed yellow.
His savior is cogless, just like him.
A lowly cogless.
The reality crash is just as brutal as everything else.
There is no salvation or reprieve from the pain lingering through his circuits. Everything either aches or is numbed to a destressing degree. The backlog list grows in the corner of his HUD, alerting him to every signal of everlasting agony.
Slowly, he begins to read the log of damage.
Somehow, in the face of that long and terrible list, D-16’s spark still beats, strong and steady.
He is alive.
It isn’t fair…
Primus, he feels so stupid.
Instinctively, D-16 jerks his hand free from the soft embrace. He whines as a fresh layer of pain lances through his entire frame at the motion.
The yellow mech beside him suddenly jolts awake.
“I wasn’t recharging, sir! I’ll have the rest of the minecarts polished in a jiffy!” the little cogless blurts out, his optics flickering back online slowly. He instinctively grabs the hem of the blanket at D-16’s hips and begins rubbing a corner of it frantically against the floor.
D-16 sputters a noise of confusion that snaps the little mech out of his daze.
Bright blue optics stare up at the silver mech in awe.
“Oh…” the yellow mech gasps, expression brightening with the force of a joyous sun, “Oh!”
D-16 freezes as a hug envelopes him. His vocalizer glitches at the feel of warm metal against warm metal.
“You’re awake!” the little cogless cries with pure joy, “Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou, Primus!” He tightens the hug as if the silver mech will disappear and his vocalizer amps into full gear as he starts babbling.
“Sweet Lady Solus Prime, mech, you gave me quite the panic attack when I realized you were alive and real. You were touch and go for a while there but I’m so relieved you pulled through. Slag, I’m still shaking thinking about it. How did you get down here? Oooh, let me guess! Chute maintenance? A dare? Did you think it was like a dumbwaiter and thought it would lead all the way up to the Ceiling Towers? Don’t worry, I thought the same thing when I was a sparkling. No judgment down here. Oh, before I forget, anything need resoldering? The first-aid datapad said-”
D-16 can stand no more and he breaks.
A wretched and pathetic whine bursts from his staticky vocalizer as fat tears bead at the corners of his optics.
The yellow mech falters and grows panicked.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay! Don’t cry, everything’s going to be alright now,” he says as his hands clutch D-16’s, cradling the remaining limb gently, “Let’s get you calmed down. Follow me with some deep vents. Ready? One, two, and…”
The little cogless vents a deep intake.
D-16’s cooling fans rattle as he does the same.
“Good, now reverse fan flow.”
The two heave a sigh of exhaust together.
“That’s it, you’re doing great. Can we try for a few more?”
By the time they are finished, D-16 is still a twitchy mess, but the tears have dried up. He jumps when the bright blue optics flicker and the yellow mech wobbles forward before catching himself.
“Ah, sorry,” the little cogless laughs, rubbing the last of the sleep from his optics, “Didn’t mean to slack off on guard duty. It’s just my recharge schedule has been completely fragged up. I’ve been running wild nonstop these past six days.”
“Days…?” D-16 croaks out, his glitching vocalizer sounding weak and foreign.
“Well, it was at least six days until your chronometer glitched out. Took me a while to realize it was broken. Hope you don’t mind that I tried keeping track every time I plugged into your med-jack. Mine fritzed cycles ago and you would not believe how time flies down here.”
On cue, D-16 looks at his surroundings again, not that he can see much from his position on the floor.
The only light in the dark and suffocating room is from the furnace and a nearby dimly lit alcove. The conveyor belt clunks and clatters endlessly as streams of scrap fall from a chute from a blackened, smoke-stained ceiling.
“Wh…Where…?”
D-16’s hitched voice withers as a finger is pressed to his lips.
“Ah-ah, easy with the vocalizer. You’ve got some nasty damage along your neck. Not that you haven’t got worse elsewhere. I mean yikes. I just don’t want you to strain yourself, you know? Yeah, you get it. Oh, my Primus, I haven’t even given you the tour! Slag it! My bad, my bad!” the little mech blabbers before scrambling to his feet.
His yellow arms stretch wide as he flourishes an extravagant twirl then winks a bright blue optic, proudly announcing, “Welcome to good old Sub-Level 50!” The smaller cogless then leans in real close to the dumbstruck silver mech. “You’re gonna love it down here.”
D-16 blinks as unease slithers up his spinal-strut.
The yellow mech then snaps his fingers. “Right, introductions!” he grins before his voice grows stilted, as if he is reading from a cue card on his HUD, “Hi, nice to meet you. How are you, Mister… er…?”
The pause between them drags awkwardly before the silver mech sighs and stammers out an answer.
“D… 16…”
“Oh! Still stuck with your serial number, huh?” the yellow cogless says, perking up, “Me too. I’m B-127.” He seizes D-16’s limp remaining hand and shakes it vigorously. “Hey, maybe we can help each other out. Every bot’s gotta earn a name eventually, or so I’m told. Wanna toss around some nickname ideas? I’ve got tons to share.”
D-16 hesitates before giving a small shrug.
Things are starting to feel surreal.
“Great, I’ll go first. Top choice is… Ahem, drum roll please,” the yellow mech grins before puttering his engine and waggling his index fingers before loudly exclaiming, “Badassatron!”
D-16 instinctively recoils in confusion.
“You pronounce it like BADASSATRON,” the yellow cogless smiles as he looms closer, fluctuating his vocalizer so his voice deepens to a comical degree before snapping back to normal. “Okay, your turn. Hit me with your best shot, D.”
Everything suddenly seems to grind to a halt as the silver mech’s processor lags.
“Wha… what…?” D-16 says slowly, utterly unnerved.
B-127 suddenly snaps out of his overenthusiasm and backtracks with a nervous chuckle. “A-Actually, just B is fine, I guess. Don’t want to strain your vocalizer, after all.”
He groans as he harshly slaps a hand to his faceplates, hiding the hint of a blush of embarrassment. “Frag it, B. Focus. Get it together, mech,” B-127 says to himself as he reaches up and tugs harshly at one of his antennas. He yanks until his optics grow misty but he quickly blinks them clear as a confident smile slips into place.
The yellow cogless plants his hands on his lithe little hips and beams down at the broken and bandaged silver mech. “Right, now that we’ve got you completely soldered and stabilized, I’m gonna need to go scavenge for a bit in the abandoned upper Sub-Levels. We need to restock… basically everything.”
B-127 clicks his glossia in thought before rummaging around in his subspaces. He eventually pulls out two tiny cubes of energon. “Here. Since you were finally able to keep something down, I’m gonna give you my emergency-emergency rations. Just pop ‘em in your intake if you get really hungry,” he says as he places them in D-16’s hand, “Hopefully, I’ll hit another jackpot and we’ll have a feast when I get back.”
D-16 stares at the precious cubes dumbly. They feel oddly heavy in his weakened state. His tanks churn uncomfortably at the thought of refueling. So, he just pockets them into his chassis subspace, wincing as even the slightest movement brings pain coursing through his weary circuits.
Just as B-127 begins to head towards the garbage chute, he pauses and grabs a nearby long and sturdy metal pipe. “Can’t forget this,” he tuts before handing the pipe to D-16, “If the belt overflows or gets jammed while I’m gone, just give the clog a few whacks until it breaks up, if you can reach it.”
B-127 guides D-16’s hand to give it a few experimental smacks against the conveyor belt.
“Yeah, just like that,” B-127 smiles as he pets D-16’s helm encouragingly, “It’ll also be useful to keep any glitch-mice away.” His expression suddenly hardens and he gets up right into D-16’s personal space. “Make sure you aim for the head if you spot one,” the yellow cogless advises, deadly serious.
D-16’s spark fills with dread at that tonal shift. He instinctually grips the pipe close and nervously nods.
In an instant, B-127 is back to his cheery self, bouncing on his heels. “Good. I shouldn’t be gone too long, but don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of backup in the meantime,” he says before stepping over to the forgotten alcove.
There, under a string of salvaged lights, sit three lumps circled around a large table.
For a moment, D-16 has no idea what he is looking at, until he recognizes each pile of scrap is arranged in vaguely bot-like shapes.
Merciful Primus…!
What has he gotten himself into?!
“EP-508, you’ll take point as usual, I presume?” B-127 says, addressing the tallest shape then points a stern finger at the shortest one.
“A-A-Tron, I trust you not to slack off this time. We’ll play a round of cards when I get back,”
B-127 then loops a friendly arm around the last one, like someone embracing their closest friend and grins down at the increasingly dismayed D-16.
“D, you remember Steve, right? He’ll be your look-out buddy until I get back. Try not to let him drag you into his shenanigans, alright?”
D-16 is frozen as something raw crawls up his spinal-strut as the yellow mech turns to the stack of garbage.
The gutted projector that is its head blips momentarily with blue light.
“Ha! Good one, Steve!” B-127 laughs. He nudges the trash playfully, making it flash and spit something from its garbled speaker, before sauntering back to D-16. “Watch out for this guy, D. He’s always the jokester,” he giggles and gives the petrified silver mech a parting pat to his helm.
“Now, you four have fun! I’ll be right back!” B-127 announces before suddenly jumping up the garbage chute as soon as there is a lull in the flow.
He disappears in the blink of an optic.
D-16 is left alone again.
The pain remains, keeping his weak body splayed on the grimy floor, as if magnetized, with only a tarp and a stained pillow for cushioning.
He grips the sturdy pipe close as it is the only thing he can do.
For a long, long time D-16 lays on the floor in a horrible silence that is occasionally broken by endless waves of trash dumping from above.
Primus, his little savior is utterly insane.
D-16 chokes on a weak and shattered sob.
He is going to die down here.