The Strike (TFP)

Kill

The sky above was dark in the late joors of the Orn, the stars flickering tiny like tiny little lamps, thousands and thousands of miles away. The lights did not seem to reach the ground of the planet below, nor did the dim and flickering natural glow seem to make it any brighter. The landing site that lay under that sky barely looked like a landing site anymore. The once magnificent control towers, once a pride of this world, were now a sign of war, just like everything else. The metals that once shone now was dull and rusted, and the towers no longer stood high in the sky. In a battle, the name hidden in the thousands of names for famous or not so famous battles, the towers had been shot down, offlining hundreds in its wake. Now, ancient rubble of what was once a sign of their significance laid like an ugly, broken doll across the ground, taking its place in the graveyard that was Cybertron. Some of the structures had melted from the heat when they had been struck down, and were molded into the ground or bent terribly, sticking up like spears in the air. Several rusted and broken frames, pierced by those broken pieces, could be seen from miles around. One could not miss them, nor could one miss seeing the destruction that had laid here for eons.

A lone Decepticon stood in the mess of a site, helm tilted up. He was not looking at the old horrors below, but rather gazing up at the barely lit sky above him. His large frame stood alert and erect, but his fire colored optics were half-closed as he looked up at the stars blinking light years away. One arm hung loosely at his side, the other bent at the elbow as his servo rested over the blaster hooked to his hip. His thick talon like digits occasionally curled upwards and then back down upon the handle of his gun, the tips of his claws tapping against the handle, a tiny ticking noise lifting softly into the toxic and clouded atmosphere around him. His dark blue and purple color scheme seemed to meld into the late Orn sky, masking him to the lazy naked optic.

He stared up at those stars, a frown upon his derma. His expression was neutral, and he said not a word, but his quiet thoughts droned in his processor, like a dull noise he could not escape. Looking up at those little lights, he remembered hearing from several hopeful bots that they were like little flickers of hope. He knew he had seen a few young Cybertronians, on both sides, stargazing when they had the time. Personally, he never saw the hope in it, nor the point. What hope could they find in those balls of fire, so far away from anything. In all honesty, all it did was remind him of how small they really were, how insignificant. Looking up at those stars now, all he could see was a cold light, a high and mighty light that thought little of them. That laughed down at them and their foolishness.

And what foolish beings they were.

The Decepticon let out a small sigh, closing his optics so he would no longer look at them. Though around him there was silence, there sounds in his helm that he could hear. Sounds he had to hear, no matter how much he hated it, if only to keep him devoted to his cause. The sound of death falling, and the sounds of those meeting it. With his optics closed, he could red. He allowed those things to surround him, although in reality, he really did not have that choice. He hoped they did not take him for too long. He had a job to do, and he would need to begin any breem now.

The whistle of red and the wails of the innocent made him grow even more still. Inside, however, everything was stirring as he listened and watched. He had lost track of how many times he had been subject to this eons ago. His past, revisited over and over again, was part of him now. Something he could not escape. Something he did not want to escape. He could never forget.

There was a sound. A different kind, one that snapped him back into real time. His optics flew open suddenly and his body moved in a blur. His plating spiked as he thrust himself into a battle ready position, both servos flying to his blaster, though he did not unhook it just yet. He scanned the area in a matter of klicks. His optics locked onto a small movement he caught in the distance. He narrowed them, the red pupil contracting in and out to give it more focus on the target. Up ahead, many yards away, he caught the frame of an average sized Cybertronian moving about, slinking around the malformed remains of the fallen towers. As it continued to lurk around slowly, he realized that it had not seen him yet.