[Narrative/Closed] "Long is the way, and hard..."

[notyourblueangel]

WHO: Thundercracker
WHERE: Unknown?  Kinda? (actually, the Pillar Root cavern, then Haven, and back)
WHEN: From Dec 2nd until sometime before Dec 8th
WHAT: One of those foolish enough to agree to help distract the Pillar is trying to deal with the consequences
WARNINGS: If what amounts to giant robot demons is triggery, then warning.  Otherwise, mostly just Cybertronian cursing
NOTE: I'll put up an accidental audio post dated on Dec 8th for people to find him.  (Also SAERU, I tweaked or added a few details, just for emotional/horror/etc effect, but if they conflict with anything somehow, just let me know and I'll edit.  =3)  Also, I enjoyed writing this Way. Too. Damned. Much. LOL Thanks, Saeru!  >D
NOTE #2: Sorry for triple posts - the HTML keeps going into clusterfucks over various issues.  This is my final attempt.  DX



Being underground was bad enough.  Being underground for an explosion was even worse.

Figuring this was an all-or-nothing thing, Thundercracker had clapped both hands flat against the vile, Unicron-spawned Pillar, shuddering at the energies he could feel coursing through it.  But if this was the best he could do to help in the destruction of this PIT-BE-DAMNED structure that had tortured and terrorized him so horrifically?  Then BY PRIMUS, he'd do everything he could manage!

He should have known that it would do even worse in return.

The explosion set off by Megatron, Bulkhead, and he-didn't-know-who-all-else was deafening, rocking the massive cavern, the shockwaves of sounds and air currents and debris knocking him half-senseless.  He fell back from the Pillar, wrapping his arms over his helm as he scrambled away, his audios ringing and dust clouding his vision.  And then suddenly-

-it was strangely quiet.

Thundercracker dropped his arms and looked around . . . and raised his arms again, straight out in different directions, training his rifles out of pure instinct on threats he couldn't see but could feel.  And then it hit him . . .

He was alone.

T-they left him?  They fragging LEFT HIM!?  No . . . n-no, they wouldn't.  Some of them might have - probably most of them even - but . . . Megatron, Rose, maybe Bulkhead...maybe even Optimus Prime?  They wouldn't have just left him. 

Down here. 

Underground. 

In the dark. 

Alone. 

N-no...

Left only with his overbright optics for illumination, he was dismayed to note that the Pillar was still standing.  T-the frag!?  After everything that everyone had gone through!?  Rage burned through him, hot and roiling, and both arms swung forward.  "YOU PIT-SPAWNED CODE OF A GLITCH!"  Both rifles pelted the Pillar, spewing hundreds of rounds per minute of incendiary bullets across the surface.  The sight of his efforts chewing up the surface of the Pillar was, admittedly, gratifying . . . but ultimately, he knew it was no use.  Snarling, the Seeker fought off rising, claustrophobic panic as he snatched a flashlight from subspace.  It'd been hard enough holding the panic at bay before, but at least he'd had a mission to focus on and people around him.  His friends . . . who had apparently abandoned him NO, THEY FRAGGING HAD NOT!!!  There was . . . some other explanation.  There had to be.  He knew there had to be!  Hadn't there?

Even considering the lack of everyone else's sources of light, leaving him with only his one torch, the cavern was dark.  No, not just dark . . . daaaark, a heavy blanketing, foggy pall.  The dust should have settled by then, but it hadn't.  Or maybe it had, and the shadowy haze in the air was . . . something else.  And then it hit him . . .

He was not alone.

There were sources of light over there . . . and over there . . . and there.  He remembered there being patches of Badlands in roughly those spots.  Dread of a kind he'd never felt before - not ever in having to force himself into any kind of enclosed space, not ever in facing any incarnation or mood of Megatron, not ever in the memories of the enslaved and broken mech he'd been forced to experience for those two very recent weeks of hell - overcame him at the sights of those collections of light sources flickering like flames.  Whatever they were, the structures were HUGE.  Shuttle-class size if not more.  Sure as the Pit bigger than he was, in any case.  With a hand that trembled despite his best efforts, he shifted the flashlight over to one of the structures he could barely make out from the deeper darkness.  His hand shook harder - and he stopped even trying to still it - as the flashlight traveled up the . . . up the body and to a face out of any Cybertronian's deepest nightmares.  Shivering, he dared to move his flashlight from that one to the next, and to the next, confirming what he desperately wish would prove to be merely a trick of imagination.  But with each, the true horror of his situation, of the pure and irredeemable evil around him, sunk deeper and deeper into his rebelling mind.

D-...d-...d-demons . . .

Optics of flames, mouths full of flames, every seam and crevice of armor betrayed the infernal fires that filled and powered the thick, black armor of the enormous, mechanical beings.  Spikes at every major joint, feet like heavy hooves, great curving horns...

Primus . . . h-help . . .

And there was no mistaking - the creatures were staring right at him.  He'd never felt so tiny and insignificant in his life.  Everything passed in astro-seconds, though for him it was like slow-motion - sensing their presences, being spotted, spotting them and realizing what they were - and then . . . they were shouting to one another.  About him.  Their speech shrieked like feedback, vile and grating - it hurt to hear it - and he could barely make out what they were saying, but it was enough.

Capture him!

The words broke Thundercracker from his horrified stupor, and he backpedaled, nearly dropping the flashlight, as the nearest Demon closed the distance to him.  The monster reached out and caught him, wrapping a great hand around his left arm and wing in a single grip.  A shriek of agony tore from the Seeker - the infernal touch burned like molten lava, threatening to melt his limbs.  But Thundercracker was a soldier, and as terrified as he was, training and survival instinct kicked in to do their jobs.  Despite the pain and any thought of consequence, he brought his other arm up, leveling his rifle at the Demon's head.  Rifle fire splattered all over the giant face, startling the Demon just enough for the Seeker to successfully turn his rifle to the elbow of the entrapping arm and force the hand to loosen.  He pulled free and ducked, throwing himself to the ground and rolling as best as his wings would allow to escape capture by the second Demon.  He forced half-melted panels and slightly warping seams to cooperate and grind past one another into place as he transformed to jet mode and took off through the caverns, darting and twisting as he fought to avoid more and more Demons.

He had to find a way out of here!  He . . . he had to!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Time had lost all meaning.  He was beginning to think it never would have any again.

He'd made it back up to the surface.  He wasn't even sure how he'd managed.  But . . . everyone was gone.  Haven was empty, a hazy, darkness-laden, lifeless wasteland of abandoned structures.  Everything was here, but it was . . . wrong, and dark.  Prima's light had gone out.  The only illumination came from the stars and the Lambda, which had grown considerably in size, as if triumphant at the Refugees' failure to destroy the Pillar that still pierced up into its depths from the Core.

Where was everyone?  Had they been taken by Demons?  Even if that were true down in the caverns, what had happened to everyone up here?  And the more he thought about it, the more that didn't make sense for his fellows down in the caverns either.  There'd been no screams, no fighting, no reactions at all.  It had been as if they had all just . . . vanished.  All at once.  Or . . . or . . .

. . . or he had.

Was that it?  Was he the one displaced?

He didn't know.  Maybe he was just too fatigued to think straight.  He'd not recharged - or fueled - since . . . s-since . . . since before the group had assembled and headed down into the Core.  He couldn't find energon anywhere, and he'd been too afraid to let himself sleep, feeling too vulnerable.  There was too much of a wrongness in the air, and he was alone.

H-he was . . . alone . . .

The Seeker hugged his arms around himself, shivering with an aching dread that was already getting old and wearing on him, wearing him thin.

Was this what the Pit was truly like?  Was it not really a "Pit" but whatever place or situation of horror best "suited" a mech?  Like how "Hell" was a different place or experience depending on the human being asked?

W-was he . . . was he . . . being punished?

Thundercracker was not a religious mech by any means.  He'd long ago given up on any idea of some divine being looking out over him or anyone.  But . . . he couldn't deny the experiences of others.  Especially Cliffjumper - the memories the Autobot had shared once over the Network.  He couldn't deny the Lambda, or the Pillar and its powerful effects.  If those were all solid evidence of Unicron, did that not mean there was also a Prima?  And if Prima existed, was he all that people claimed him to be?  Was he benevolent and protective?  Was he judgmental?  Did he send mechs to the Pit like the humans' God - one of them, or one aspect, whatever - sent people to Hell?  Had he been cursed?  He . . . he must have been...?  He'd certainly done any number of things he wasn't proud of, or just stood by and didn't stop things that turned his tanks to think about.

He shuddered harder, hugging tighter.  What did he do?

What did he do!?

Thundercracker rolled his shoulders, wings flicking, then forced himself to uncurl.  What was the right thing to do?  What was the only thing to do, if he didn't want to just roll over and accept what had happened?

He went back and tried to do something about it.

The thought made his engine stall, his servos locking up and his cydraulic fluid run warm, too warm, with stress.  He didn't want to go back.  The place would be crawling with Demons!  All waiting to capture him!  He'd escaped capture and so had been existing in some sort of . . . of what?  Tailored Purgatory?  Were his choices to remain in this lonely state of half-existence, nervous and alone, or throw himself at the mercy of the demons to "get it over with"?  There would be no "get it over with" - it was eternal!

Wasn't it?

Was he falling too much for human religious dogma?  What was Cybertronian thinking on the matter?  He didn't know.  He'd never cared before now.

Time to start caring, Thundercracker.

He shuddered, then snarled at himself at his own terror, perfectly founded though it may have been. So . . . s-so he was being punished, so what, right?  Not like he'd never been before.  Plenty of times.  Plus he now had the experiences of that other him.  There was an advantage in that - he knew exactly what he was capable of withstanding without breaking, and he had learned coping mechanisms to survive psychologically no matter what was done to his body or the tricks on his mind.  He could use those now...right?  And nothing was truly eternal.  No such thing.  Even the universe itself went through cycles and had beginnings and endings.  Even Demons couldn't keep him forever.

Right?

Only one way to find out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He'd found his way back into the caverns, passing through the weird mix of seeding tech and encroaching earth.  Both curiosity and dread had warred with him to want to linger there - curiosity to decipher the myriad of panels, learn what they were for, and dread to put off facing what lay ahead for him, laid in wait in the close, heavy darkness . . . with the walls so near sometimes that they scraped and caught at his wings, and the ceiling barely holding up hundred, thousands of megatons of rock-

The Seeker had been forced to offline his optics, feeling his way forward and imagining the din of companions around him, remembering the way led by trusted (enough) company and forcing himself onward by willpower alone.  And then...

The walls opened back up again.  He was in the Pillar chamber once more.  Evil filled the cavern - it hung thick in the air like the heaviest smog, choking his intakes.  The reek of it overloaded his olfactory senses and made his head swim.  It weighted his limbs, dragging on his wings.  It was like shackles, unbreakable and terrible.

He never heard them coming.

He'd hoped that once he got back down here, he'd manage to somehow avoid notice by the Demons and find some clue - anything - of how to break the curse or open a portal or...or something...something to free himself from whatever had befallen him.  But now that he was here, the vileness and the wrongness and the hate and weight and ageless endlessness overwhelmed him.

It was the shouts that broke him from his stupor, just like before.  But this time, he couldn't move fast enough.  His movements were sluggish, and the horrors, the embodiments of evil, of Unicron, closed on him.  Hands grabbed him, searing him with unimaginable heat.  He'd been dropped into a magma river once, and that had been terrible, but this?  A thousand times worse.  He could feel their evil and their hate and their determination to destroy him and every living thing.

Before the blackness took him at last, all he knew . . . was that he was screaming . . .