Wreckers: The Valley

Ironfist blinked.

The intense pain that had cascaded through his head seemingly only a moment before had vanished, as if some invisible switch had been pulled.  Even before he took in his surroundings, Ironfist knew something was wrong.  The jolts of searing pain that preceded his blackouts usually left their mark and then overstayed their welcome, leaving his head throbbing for hours afterward.  But this time…he felt nothing at all upon coming back online.

That was the first surprise.  The second was far more befuddling; the reveal of a vast metal plain that stretched in all directions around him and as far as the optic could see.  Ironfist blinked again, to make sure he was indeed processing this.  Yes, he was indeed, quite literally…in the middle of nowhere.

No landmarks, no discernable variations in elevation, and the sky…the sky was simply…empty; a completely inoffensive canopy of white.  A unembellished Void.

Slowly, Ironfist brought a hand to his face, trying to think, trying to remember where he was…where he had been before he found himself here.  He was…on Ultra Magnus' ship!  Yes!  That was it!  He had been speaking to Verity, he had been avidly listening to the girl sound off on a varied assortment of issues.  Ironfist didn't mind; he was frankly happy to have someone to talk to, someone to cling to after the ordeal they had just survived.  Just as the human girl had likened him to some departed friend of hers, an earthquake seemingly erupted in his head, and then…nothing.
  
"Ironfist?"

Ironfist nearly leapt out of his skin and whirled about, finding a familiar, broad-shouldered Transformer lurking behind him.

"Pyro??"

The brawny red Autobot gazed down at Ironfist with a confused expression.  "Where…where are we?"

"You think I know??"  Ironfist paused and shook his head, a little frustrated.  "And how did…?"

"Oh fraggin' THANK you, I thought I was alone out here," a voice suddenly rang out from overhead.  Both Ironfist and Pyro looked up as Rotorstorm descended in copter mode, transformed, and landed before them.  He briefly brushed some imaginary dust off his shoulder and regarded his comrades, both of whom gaped at him with what he took to be awe.

"Guys, please.  I know I'm impressive, but let's all try and be professional, yeah?" Rotorstorm quipped.  Ironfist suddenly quivered noticeably and raised a trembling finger in Rotorstorm's direction.

"N-no.  You're not…something is…"

The knowledge was there, perched right at the tip of Ironfist's consciousness like some meager, innocuous avian.  But every primal instinct within warded him away from it; the thought simply wouldn't complete the circuit.

Pyro turned to Ironfist expectantly.  "You feel it too?  Something happened to us, didn't it?"  Pyro tapped his mouthplate.  "It's right there on the edge, but I…just can't seem to…push it over."

If there was one thing Ironfist hated, it was being denied information.  He strained, optics focusing on his two companions, his mind fixed on the feeling of wrongness that struck him as he beheld them.  And then, in a brutal, unforgiving instant, Ironfist remembered.

"Oh no no no," Ironfist moaned.  "No."

"Okay, I'm getting annoyed.  If you know something, spill it, Goggles," Rotorstorm demanded, moving closer to Ironfist.

Ironfist spoke in a small voice, as if unsure that the words would materialize.

"We're dead."

"Oh my god," Pyro took a step back, shaken.

Rotorstorm simply looked angry.  "Don't be dense, we're right here.  We're…we're right here!"

Ironfist looked right at him and said it again, louder.  "We're dead."

"Quiet," Rotorstorm spat, trying to collect himself.  "That makes no sense."

"We're dead," Ironfist repeated, stuck on a loop.  "We're dead."

"SHUT UP!" Rotorstorm suddenly roared, grabbing Ironfist by the neck and jostling him a bit.  "Stop saying that!"

"But he's right.  I-I can remember now…" Pyro pointed out.  "You died right in front of us.  Overlord put a gun to your head and blew your processor, not to mention everything else, out of there.  And I…"

Pyro hesitated, recalling the feeling of dozens of grubby, sniggering hands pulling, wrenching, tearing free anything they could from his frame.

"-I think I died too," he concluded quietly.

Rotorstorm let go of Ironfist, and put his hands on his head for a moment.  He clenched his teeth and seemed to tremble briefly, then dropped his arms and looked at the ground.

"It makes no sense," Rotorstorm finally mumbled to no one in particular.

Realizing he was taking apparently being dead far better than the other two, Pyro looked to Ironfist, who stared off into the nothingness blankly.

"Ironfist, what happened after…I died?  Did we complete the mission?  Did we beat Overlord?"

Ironfist sluggishly regarded Pyro, as if wading through a dream.

"Yeah…yeah, we did, we…HE beat Overlord."

"He?  Springer?"

"Impactor."

Pyro felt a brief rush, a welcoming blend of excitement and satisfaction, then nodded approvingly.  "I wish I could have seen it."

Ironfist merely looked away.  "Me too."

"Me three!" a voice behind them suddenly rang out.  Rotorstorm, Pyro, and Ironfist quickly spun and found Twin Twist and Topspin standing behind them.  Topspin looked relatively calm, arms folded and expression neutral.  However, Twin Twist was all gritted teeth and mounted tension.

"I'm glad to hear we managed to axe that rust-suckin' scrapbox in the end, but would someone mind telling me what the FRAG, is all of THIS??"  Twin Twist shouted.

Rotorstorm was instantly back on, lazy smirk effortlessly restored.  

"Not much to look at, is it?"

"Literally," Topspin said with a frown.

"Where did you guys just come from?" Ironfist inquired.

"Um…that way, I think?" Topspin tossed a thumb over his shoulder.  He took a quick look around at the group and frowned again.  "So I'm guessing you guys died too, huh?"

Realizing that the question had been directed at Pyro and him, Ironfist spastically nodded and stuttered.

"I-I think so, yes."

"Well, I suppose it was worth it.  You said Overlord was dead?"

Ironfist shook his head.  

"No."

Twin Twist abruptly wheeled upon him.  

"Whaddaya mean "NO"?" Twin Twist demanded.

"Impactor beat him, but took him in alive," Ironfist responded.

Pyro and Rotorstorm exchanged looks.  Topspin arched an eyebrow.  And Twin Twist's jaw dropped several inches.

Topspin broke the silence before it became noticeable.  "Huh."

"Guy went soft," Twin Twist muttered.

"Wait, if you saw that, if Overlord was taken down…how did YOU die, Ironfist?"  Rotorstorm asked.  Ironfist looked at the ground and idly ran a hand over the top of his head, expecting to encounter a familiar blemish.  His optics widened when he felt nothing but smooth metal skin.

"It…" he began lamely, only to start over.  "My days were numbered as it was.  I had…a condition.  It must have finally caught up with me."

"Was that the deal with the blackouts, then?" Rotorstorm asked, motioning at Ironfist's head.  

"Yeah," Ironfist nodded, hand purposefully sliding over his helm again.

"Hole's gone," Topspin vocalized it before Ironfist could.

"Yeah."

Rotorstorm pressed further.  "So wait, I'm confused.  From what you told us, you pretty much spent the last few vorns in a lab, right?"

Ironfist knew where he was going with this, and decided to preempt Rotorstorm's incoming stream of follow-up questions.  He reached up to where the hole in his skull had been and tapped the area with a finger.

"Lab accident.  One of the cerebro-bullets hit me in the head.  It had been slowly pushing its way towards my brain module for the past year or so.  Must have finally reached its target."

"One…of your own bullets tagged you in the skull?" Rotorstorm asked, now incredulous.

Like lightning, a brief thought of Skyfall flashed in Ironfist's mind, but he ignored it and nodded.  "Yes.  Humorous, isn't it?" Ironfist responded with absolutely no humor at all.

Sensing that he had perhaps touched a nerve, Rotorstorm merely put hands to hips and shook his head.

"Ironic maybe.  But I guess I can't really talk about grievous head injuries anymore, right?"

Ironfist raised an eyebrow, but didn't respond.  Rotorstorm released a frustrated noise and threw his hands up.

"Look, that's the closest I get to "sympathetic", so shove off."

"So, what?  Joining the Wreckers was like your last request or something?" Topspin said, directing his pointed question at Ironfist.

"Well…" Ironfist began, unsure of where to begin his explanation and also where to end it.  Topspin didn't give him a chance to do either.

"And you had a death sentence on you that whole time and you still froze up on us after Blades there," Topspin motioned to Rotorstorm, "-got his head popped?"

"I'm Rotorstorm, Blades is a different guy," Rotorstorm interjected, annoyed.  Topspin ignored him, focusing his laser-beam stare on Ironfist.

"I-I didn't-" Ironfist sputtered.

"You selfish little runt, you jeopardized the mission and put us all in danger!  And for what?" Topspin's voice remained level, but the words seemed like thunder in Ironfist's audio receptors.  Still, he managed to find his composure and met Topspin's demanding optics with his own.

"You don't know anything about me."

"Let me guess, you were hoping you'd survive so you could write all about "The Wreckers' Last Stand" in your little fanfic series that all those idiots gobble up, right?"

Twin Twist narrowed an optic at his spark-brother, indignantly.  "Hey, I read his Wreckers series!"

Topspin maintained his sole attention on Ironfist.  "So, you must have been secretly squealing with glee when I fed my spark to that computer, eh, fanboy?  That's the real stuff of drama, right?"

"You shut the hell up right now," Ironfist warned.

"Leave him alone," Pyro sternly added, taking a step toward Topspin.  The Jumpstarter looked to the tall, red interloper with a cutting smirk.

"Standing up for him?  I seem to recall you were quite insistent on him being the burnt offering back there in the Aequitas chamber."

Pyro faltered.  "That wasn't…that was…"

"Uh…guys," Rotorstorm spoke up, distantly.

"Of course, for that to happen," Topspin returned to glaring at Ironfist, "-he would've had to have the bearings to speak up in the first place."

"You don't know, you don't even know!  None of you do!" Ironfist snarled, fists shuddering at his sides.

"Guys," Rotorstorm sounded off again in the background.

"Why don't you enlighten us then, fanboy?  I think we'd all like an explanation of why a dingy little lab jockey like you deserved to be on the Wreckers," Topspin challenged.

"GUYS!" Rotorstorm shouted.  The other four Wreckers finally turned to him as Rotorstorm pointed in a direction that none of them were looking.  "What the HELL."

A seemingly origin-less blob of energy began shifting and congealing into a solid shape a short distance away from them.  The quintet of Autobots paused, unsure of what was occurring.  

"Where did that come from?" Twin Twist asked of Rotorstorm.

"It just…appeared there a few seconds ago," Rotorstorm responded, a hint of worry etched on his face.

The blob suddenly seemed to rapidly define the shape of its solid frame and Ironfist's optics lit with recognition as it finalized its quadrupedal form.

"You?"

The pair of short, green robots, joined at the shoulders, peered directly at Ironfist.

"Hello," Rack'N'Ruin responded.

Silence reigned.  Finally, Twin Twist spoke.

"Rack…and Ruin?"

"Rack'N' -Ruin," Ironfist corrected.

"That's what I said!" Twin Twist replied, confused.  "In whatever case, what're they doing here?  They're dead!"

"We're dead, remember?" Pyro pointed out.  The largely-identical, conjoined Autobots before them looked in Pyro's direction and nodded.

"You very much are," one of them intoned.

"And you're here to…what, greet us?" Topspin asked.  One of the green robots cocked its head in an odd manner and regarded Topspin.

"Yes, in a manner of speaking.  And to guide you."

"I'm sorry, I don't wanna be rude here, but…which of you is Rack and which is Ruin?  I'd like to know who we're addressing," Rotorstorm inquired.

"The one on our left is Rack and the one on our right is Ruin," Ironfist offered.

"Unless of course we switched to mess with you," Rack (or was it Ruin?) added, with a mischievous tone.

"Well, no, that'd be impossible, the injury…you couldn't…" Ironfist started, stopped, and then started again.  "Your bodies and your sparks are bonded at a molecular level, you couldn't just…switch places.  I, I read that-"

"Do you really think the standard rules apply here?  I mean, you guys ARE dead," Ruin (or was it Rack?) chimed in.

"Gotcha there, Goggles," Rotorstorm nudged Ironfist.  Ironfist just folded his arms, looking irritated.

"Look, it doesn't matter!" Ironfist huffed.  "Just tell us what this place is and why we're here!"

"I agree with the fanboy, shockingly enough," Topspin muttered.  He deliberately looked Rack'N'Ruin over again and his frown deepened.  "Every time I used to think that Twin Twist and I got screwed, I'd look at you guys and think at least we didn't get THAT screwed."

The conjoined robots tilted their heads to the side simultaneously, then peered down at their own form, as if to assess Topspin's observation.

"Hm, yes.  I can see how this physical form might be seen as a handicap.  But I'm told they made it work to their advantage."

Ironfist picked up on the implication behind their words and pointed at Rack'N'Ruin, inquisitively.  "So…you're not really them, are you?"

"No, this dual form was simply chosen for me to receive you," Rack'N'Ruin replied together, a smile apparent in their tone.  "Familiarity breeds comfort."

"Yeah, and what does deception breed?" Topspin asked, his tone now laced with venom.  "What the hell are you?"

"Just a humble guide.  A signpost to direct you on your way."

"That is NOT.  What I meant," Topspin warned through clenched teeth, no longer willing to be patient.  "Rack'N'Ruin" regarded the angered Jumpstarter intently for another moment, then tilted their heads again.

"It's all quite irrelevant, really.  But I guess we might as well move on then, if you're so eager."

"Can you at least tell us where we ARE?" Rotorstorm urged.  "The dull ambience around here is killing me!  No irony intended!"

"If you must know, this is null-space.  The metal plain is simply here to ground newcomers and provide a sort of sense of continuity with their previous existence before the transition," it who would be Rack'N'Ruin replied.

"Well, I'm glad we cleared that up," Rotorstorm scoffed.  Behind him, Pyro let out a very-audible gasp.

"Great Matrix, is this The Void?" Pyro murmured, optics downcast.  

"The Void would entail absolutely nothing, wouldn't it?" Ironfist pointed out.  "We exist, we comprehend here.  Even if this is some kind of limbo, we're still experiencing it on a sensory level, or a convincing facsimile of that."

"So…what?  This is some kind of…purgatory?  Don't make me laugh," Rotorstorm derided.

"Purgatory, limbo, Void…whatever you wish to call it, you're here," Rack (or was it Ruin?)  intoned calmly.  

"No, wait a cyc, wait a hatcher-slaggin' CYC!" Twin Twist suddenly barked.  "Why the frag would we be here??  Why aren't we…aren't we in…"

"Yes?" Ruin (or was it Rack?) responded impishly, waiting for Twin Twist's outraged sentiment to fully form.

"Y'know!  In Silicon Valhalla or…or J'wann, or being swaddled in the sparkwarmin' arms of Primus and all that nonsense!" Twin Twist demanded.  "We fought the good fight, we did our part and we deserve a rest, not…not…" Twin Twist waved his arms around in a frustrated manner.  "Not THIS."

"What you deserve will be determined after you are judged," the faux-Rack'N'Ruin remarked, rather serenely.

"Judged??  Who judges us?  Why?" Twin Twist snapped.  Pyro quickly laid a hand on his shoulder.

"We-we might be presented before the Dynasty of Primes!" Pyro spoke frantically, now gripped by religious fear.  "It is written in the Covenant, that-"

Twin Twist wrenched his shoulder out of the larger Autobot's grip, still centralized on "Rack'N'Ruin".

"We're the good guys!  Big damn heroes!  Doesn't that mean anything??"

"Your deeds, good and ill, will be taken into account.  If you are so confident that you've embodied desirable ideals in word and action throughout your life, you should have nothing to fear," Rack (Perhaps Ruin?) clarified.

Twin Twist seemed to deflate a bit at this, looking away, unsure of how to continue his protestations.  Topspin stepped into the gap, laser-focused.

"I'm sick of this runaround.  Just do it.  Send us on our way and we'll take whatever you have to throw at us."

"Rack'N'Ruin" nodded and swept his gaze across the others.  "Are you all prepared to be judged, then?"

Pyro and Ironfist exchanged nervous glances, but Rotorstorm shrugged and spoke up.

"Eh, let's go for it.  What have we got to lose at this point?  At least it'll probably mean a change of scenery."

"I'll drill through the slaggin' heavens themselves if it means getting outta here," muttered Twin Twist, looking at the ground.

"I-I'm prepared," Pyro added, unable to keep his voice from quavering.  There was a noticeable pause as one voice went unheard.  Topspin turned and looked to Ironfist, who remained unresponsive for several moments.  Finally, he locked optics with the Jumpstarter and nodded.

"Okay."

It who would be Rack'N'Ruin seemed to smile, then raised its arms.  A light of celestial brilliance began to engulf and consume the landscape.  It rapidly encompassed the five Autobots and their guide, until all that remained…was Void.

-

Rotorstorm found himself alone, in a dark place.  Aside from a single shaft of light that illuminated him, there seemed to be nothing around him but blackness.  Suddenly, the faux-Rack'N'Ruin appeared several feet away in a similar shaft of light.  Rotorstorm smirked and waved.

"Oh hey, fancy seeing you here."

"Your flippancy has always been an effective shield for your true feelings, hasn't it?"

"It gets me by," Rotorstorm admitted.  Rack'N'Ruin tilted their/its head and continued.

"Are you prepared for judgment?"

"One thing," Rotorstorm asked.  "How do I know I'm gonna get a fair hearing?"

"Because…"

Rack'N'Ruin's conjoined frame became fluid and began to shift shape again.  Rotorstorm watched, optics suddenly widening when their new form became apparent.

"Your judge will be…"

The transformation completed itself, and a tall, blue robot wearing an all-too familiar-looking smirk stood before Rotorstorm.

"Yourself," the robot spoke, sounding completely self-assured.  Rotorstorm beheld an exact duplicate of himself, straight down to the relaxed posture and facial expression.   

"Oh smelt," Rotorstorm groaned.

"Oh smelt indeed, buddy," the faux-Rotorstorm replied, smiling.

-

Pyro rather anxiously took in his surroundings.  Aside from the shaft of light that illuminated him, there was nothing but darkness all around.  The thought of leaving the imagined protection of his luminous pillar filled Pyro with a deep, primal fear.  No, he'd just stay right where he was until something happened.  Until someone came to judge him.  

Pyro did not have to wait very long.  A second ray of light shone down from above, revealing another tall, broad-shouldered, predominantly-red robot standing across from him.  Pyro's fear instantly evaporated.

"Uh- Optimus?  Optimus Prime?"

Optimus Prime, resplendent in his red and blue armor, wordlessly advanced toward Pyro, the light tracking him as he walked.  Pyro staggered forward as well, awestruck, seeking to meet Prime in the middle.

"Is, is it really you?  Are you here to see me on my way?"

When he was only a few paces away, it finally occurred to Pyro that this could be another facsimile or illusion, like "Rack'N'Ruin" was.  But the steady, confident gait, the unwavering gaze, and most of all- the radiant spark signature emanating from the Autobot before him removed all doubts in Pyro's mind.  This was Optimus Prime.

"I've waited a long time to meet you, Optimus," Pyro began.  "You have no idea what an honor this is to-"

A large, blue fist shot up at Pyro's face before he could finish his sentence or comprehend what was happening.  The impact against his chin lifted him clean off the ground and suspended Pyro in mid-air for a full two seconds.  Gravity then took over and deposited him on his back in a pool of light.  Pyro blinked a few times, staring directly into the brightness above him, trying to figure out what had just happened.  He leaned back up, looking to Optimus as the Autobot commander-in-chief retracted his outstretched arm.

Pyro reached up and touched his dented mouthplate, unable to grasp the events of the past few moments.  Then it finally dawned on him.

Optimus Prime had just sucker-punched him.

-

"I don't like this."

Topspin rolled his optics, arms folded.  "That's the third time you've said that in the past two minutes."

Twin Twist peered over from within his pillar of light, separated from Topspin by a few feet.  "Well, I don't.  I don't like this."

"Fourth time."

"Shut up.  Shut up, man!  Aren't you nervous?  Aren't you scared?  Why aren't you scared?? " Twin Twist demanded, the drills on his back involuntarily rotating out of sync.

"Why do YOU get so worked up over a situation we clearly have no control over?  Best to just wait and see what happens," Topspin answered with a shrug.

"What if nothing happens?  What if THIS is our purgatory and we have to stay here alone forever??"

"Define "alone".  We're here together.  Probably has to do with the branch-spark.  If the others are by themselves, I'd say we've got the advantage," Topspin responded, staring straight up into the light.

"Are you sure about that?  I mean, how can you be sure of anything right now?" Twin Twist asked, managing to steady his voice and his drills.

Topspin looked back down at Twin Twist, dropping his arms to his side.  "I'm not, but it seems like we've got nothing to do but speculate right now.  Just calm down."

"I AM calm!  You're just getting on my nerves!" Twin Twist snapped.  "Bad enough you got us both-"

Twin Twist abruptly went silent, one of his drills twitched and spun a full revolution.  Topspin narrowed his optics and leaned forward a bit.

"What?" Topspin questioned.

"Nothing."

"Bad enough I got us both WHAT?" Topspin questioned again, an edge becoming apparent in his voice.

"Nothing."

"Got something you wanna say to me, Twin Twist??" Topspin challenged, glaring.  "I dare you.  I dare you to say what I thought you were gonna say."

Twin Twist met his brother's glare evenly.  Two sets of fists clenched.

-

Ironfist stared at a reflection of himself.  It was the first new thing that had appeared since he found himself alone in the blackened chamber.

A perfect reflection, some feet away, tilting its head in the exact same manner as Ironfist did.  Scrutinizing him in the exact same manner.

But the reflection was NOT perfect.  Ironfist ran his hand over his head, encountered no abnormalities, then pointed.  The reflection pointed back at him with the same quizzical expression.

"The hole.  It's there.  But it's not here."

It was true.  He couldn't feel it on his own head any longer, but the reflection still clearly sported the cerebro-bullet entry wound.  It hung there, above the mirror-image's left optic (his right optic), as deep and conspicuous as ever.  It was a sight that Ironfist had grown accustomed to seeing every day for the past year.  A black hole that rendered the rest of his face a mere event horizon.  

The few aboard Kimia who had known what the blemish actually represented usually didn't draw undue attention to it.  Except of course for Skyfall (tri-curse and primusdamn him!), who kept "accidentally" bringing it up, usually in the Exit Rooms and in front of a large group of their friends and peers.  Those not "in the circle" simply dismissed it as some kind of minor negligence on Ironfist's part and left it alone.  After all, it was not at all uncommon for some on the space station to unintentionally injure themselves in the pursuit of advancing Autobot weapons research and testing.

Brainstorm had once dissolved his right leg from foot to calf when he accidentally stepped on and ruptured an acid pellet he'd left lying on the floor of his workshop.  He refused all CR Chamber treatment for a week, on the basis that one of his then-active experiments required constant monitoring by him and him alone.  Brainstorm had simply placed the arrested stump of his acid-eaten leg on a flat dolly and dragged/wheeled himself around his workshop until such time as he had judged the experiment could be safely halted.  

Ironfist spontaneously smiled under his faceplate at the memory.  That had been a good week, especially after-hours in the Exit Rooms.  Chromedome's "Leg Quest" joke had kept them in hysterics for two straight days.  Even Swerve's frequent bombs met with uproarious approval.  And as a retroactive "best of all" in Ironfist's book; it was before he managed to get Skyfall reassigned to Kimia.

Ironfist halted his fond reverie and frowned.  He had zoned-out for a moment, but he could have sworn that his "reflection" had moved independently of itself.  Just a slight twitch of the head, a finger or two briefly tensing.  Ironfist leaned forward, optics straining, mirrored by the image before him.  Did he imagine it?  Ironfist pulled back once again, slowly and deliberately folding his arms across his chest and tapping one foot rhythmically.  The reflection did the same, capturing him perfectly.

"I may be dead, but I'm not crazy.  You moved differently for an instant there."

The reflection froze, then slowly stood up straight, as Ironfist maintained his own stance.  Ironfist raised a hand and waved it, but the reflection remained stock-still this time.

"Eerie.  So, what the hell are you then?" Ironfist asked, more annoyed than anything else.  The reflection cocked its head and its optics seemed to smile.  It finally spoke.

"I am your reflection.  I am your life story.  And I am your judge," it said, in a voice that was not Ironfist's own.  

Ironfist felt his limbs go numb at the sound of the reflection's voice.  No, it didn't sound like him at all, it…it sounded more like…like…

"Sk-Skyfall?!"

-

TO BE CONTINUED...