Maelstrom Chapter 7.5

Marooned: Part A

Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original Maelstrom Comics and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http/ illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.

This chapter takes place between the comic issues #7 and #8.

Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, trauma, and sex. Rated M for adult themes!

Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!

"Cold."

The word froze in the air and fell to the ground a good distance away, carried by the wind and unheard by anyone, even the woman who spoke it. Lancer shivered and glared at the desolation around her. The gale she was standing in so stupidly was only mostly to blame.

Her braid, complete with conductive wire, heavy steel beads, and the occasional hidden blade or lock-pick, swung up and away from her body, a feat which surprised her a bit. She didn't feel the biting air too much against her skin, but her armored body-suit deflected shrapnel quite nicely so she guessed she shouldn't complain about it's stiff weight anymore. Talon would be so pleased she'd finally learned to appreciate it. If she saw him again, she promised to tell him...well...maybe. He would tease her or he'd just gloat. Hard to decide which was worse really.

Where was he now? Where was the Maelstrom? Would they even be looking for Lancer and her...companion? Would they be mourning her (or not) instead and moving on?

"Fuck this place!" she growled. "No mountains, no rivers. Just sand and wind as far as the eye can see! Why are we here? What the hell is wrong with this stupid mech?" She snatched the teleport belt off her waist and drew her arm back as if to throw it into the sea of sand. Her teeth bared, revealing long fangs, and her demonic horns changed the pitch of the wind as it cut past her. Her arm froze, trembling, mid-swing, and she clutched the belt in her fist, knowing she'd never find it again if she threw it. Her eyes flared. Revenge on the only target she had for her fear would have made her feel better, but the belt was probably the only hope she had of Robert tracking her with the ship.

The wind, jealous of her wandering attention, changed directions, blew sand up her nose, and sent her running towards a sand dune of slightly larger dimensions than those around it. The shadow at the base had been her doorway a few minutes ago when she had retreated from the physical safety of her den to gain some emotional space out in the icy wind. Being inside immediately cut off the wind but made her feel desperate and crushed.

When they had arrived it had been in the middle of a sandstorm. They'd gone from the over-bright, over-sterile Jabez facility to a howling, choking cloud of pain. The man she was carrying...she had dropped him. Just dumped him at her feet to throw her body over his. In an instinctive panic she'd blasted back into the wind with her powers. The wind and sand had blown her lance back at her but as she struggled to push back continuously the heat had fused the sand into an irregular glass shield in front of the two of them. Shocked, but not about to argue she'd kept at it until she had a complete artificial cave to cower in and she no longer heard the wind as much. It was almost 3 inches thick by the time she was done. Then she'd lasered an air-hole to the surface on the lee side, and only cutting the door when she needed to get out . It was certainly a use for her powers she had never considered before.

The dome had saved both of their lives but not before both of them were sand-blasted on any exposed skin, which for her friend meant pretty much all of it. He looked like he had a sunburn from head to toe, not to mention all the lovely nooks and crannies the Jabez had left to hide sand in.

A sound escaped her – part growl, part...no...assassins don't sob. Right?

She was not the one to handle this. Nope. Nope. Nope. If they'd been on Maelstrom like they should have been, she would have dropped this mess in Jordan's lap and run for the showers. Whether or not her new friend would have lived would have been long odds even on-board the ship. It had a really snazzy med-bay (or was it a lab?) but they couldn't figure out what most of the gizmos did. Jordan's medical training was mostly self-taught since joining the crew. At least they could have put the guy in the decontamination unit and kept him warm while they found a proper facility to help him.

Desperation made her stare at the teleport belt again. Maybe that CV's laser blast had boosted the jump. Maybe she could recreate it and get them home. ….. Yeah. Sure. The Maelstrom would be exactly at the same co-ordinates, and she would give the mech just the right amount of boost, and it would all be just dandy. Considering the astronomically high odds that her new pal and she had landed ON the surface of a world, which just so happened to have breathable, if uncomfortable air rather than in a star or the big old void she probably ought not to push her luck. She shook her head. Something had gone wrong with the belt, but this was almost certainly an old set of co-ordinates – not luck. Given that the prior owners of the belt were also the prior owners of the Maelstrom, she probably should set up the cloaking field even though her shelter was almost invisible. Ah the joys of needing to be found, but only by the right people.

Then again, even if the wrong people found them she could maybe turn that into a damsel-rescues-self situation.

Right. No cloaking field. Head for the poles or the equator and see if the belt picks up a jump point. No problem. Except for the six foot something piece of raw meat she'd have to carry the whole way. Plus no more than a few days worth of food and water. Plus her handy first aid kit which wouldn't cover half of what it needed to.

She spent a few minutes practicing all the curses she had learned from Pagan and Jordan. Pagan's curses were gutteral and nasty. They required phlegm. Jordan's people used few words and fewer curses, but made up for that with ear-shattering quality. Not enough. Turning her fury into something moderately useful, she clutched a series of large stones in her hands and heated them with her surging powers until they glowed. It made a sort of makeshift campfire she used to surround her hamburger man. If nothing else, the cold was not going to kill him.

Feeling obligated to look at him, she gingerly pulled her cloak off his body. Well. Still breathing. Joy. She brushed futilely at some of the sand on his body, and grimly tried picking some out of his cuts with her talons. She had to dig a bit sometimes and soon had an impressive pile of bloody gravel next to her heated stones. The tips of her fingers glowed now and then as she attempted to keep her nails sterile at least.

Hamburger Man never stirred, and she lost track of time digging at his skin.

When she finally finished she confronted her next dilemma. Resources. She had water in her sub-space pack. Quite a bit actually, courtesy of the link to subspace which rendered its contents weightless, but it wasn't an infinite supply. The same went for her first aid kit. Very well stocked, but not the hospital this guy needed. Should she use the water to wash his wounds or save it for drinking? Which wounds should she stitch? Which should stay open? Maybe she should just cauterize the lot of them and call it done. Her first aid training covered stitches and simple splints. This guy surely needed a team of specialists.

Probably he'd die without waking up. Probably it was better that way.

Lancer's eyes flared and she growled again. When she found him she'd considered killing him herself (still an option she supposed.) One quick, painless jolt to his nervous system would have ended his suffering forever. She was so sick of that move though...used on countless CVs again and again...and this guy wasn't a Convert. His head had been hanging down with his hair over his eyes. She wanted to see his face. Who was he? Who would the Jabez feel the need to torment this way when usually they just killed you or cored out your brains to use you? She'd brushed his bloody bangs up to give some kind of identity to this Jabez experiment. It was a light touch – the kind you give to a corpse you find on the street – but his head had snapped up and his eyes flared open. The look he threw her would have blistered concrete and she'd smiled a cat's grin full of fangs. Still fighting. It might have been token resistance, but he was still fighting.

She got that. Just like she viewed every day she went on as a chance to spit in the face of the forces which had shredded her soul and condemned her to darkness.

"To futility!" she proclaimed, and boiled some of the water. Screw it. She began washing his wounds one after another, deciding on their future as she went. Stitches for the narrow cuts on his leg. Bandages for the electrical burns. Bandages for the acid burns. Bandages for the straight up burned burns. Skin glue for cuts that could handle it. Nothing but salve for the countless needle marks and their attending bruises. Some were so large she assumed they were taking marrow samples. Really...what were they hoping to learn from this guy? Was that a surgical incision on his thigh? It went deep into the muscle and looked like the skin had been peeled back. There were plenty of older scars that were nearly healed, but the implied agony they spoke of made her hiss. One seemed to go all the way around his scalp, as if it had been removed and replaced. Good times no doubt.

Her absolute favorite was the perfect four inch square on his right biceps. So much fun to clean that out. The skinless section of exposed flesh was dissected into quarter inch squares. The first small section was almost healed because only one layer of skin had been peeled away. The next section had two, the one after that had three, and so on until the last which was so deep it probably went almost to the bone. She could just imagine his screams as those cold, spidery hands had taken one neat piece of him at a time. What had they done with those perfect little cubes of Hamburger Man's meat?

Even if it healed he was going to have one interesting set of scars. She flushed the deepest parts with a reckless amount of water. They were in a desert, but if infection set in he wasn't going to live long enough for drinking water to matter. They could die of thirst together for all she cared.

On and on she worked, using her bandages, her water, and her limited energy as if those limits didn't exist. All or nothing. What the hell. By the time she was done she'd used up most of her bandages and salve, very nearly all of her suture material, and the small glass den smelled like burned flesh from all the wounds she'd decided to fry. Lucky for her she was at it long enough to get used to the odor.

"You're cooked hamburger now, Hamburger Man," she said. "Sorry about that. By the way if you have any internal injuries you are way screwed. I could rip you open and all, but I couldn't put you back together after that!"

Finally she sat up and stretched her cramping back. She inspected her work and then shifted her focus to her patient as a whole. She guessed he was a bit over six feet tall. He had a very solid, muscular build that spoke of lots of gym time and maybe even steroids. She arched an eyebrow. He was probably vain as fuck. Deep red hair that she'd butchered get to get the blood out, absolutely perfect skin between the wounds, nearly no body hair, no navel and no nipples. What sort of narcissist is so into himself that he has that kind of plastic surgery? Could the Jabez have done that? Lancer shook her head. She didn't pretend to fathom the Jabez in any way, but there wasn't a single thing she could think of that made removing a man's navel seem like a good idea. Her Jabez scanner thingy didn't indicate any mutancy, which sort of surprised her, but the readings seemed weird anyway...if she understood what she was looking at. Hmm...that was unlikely.

Lancer decided to take stock of her stocks. Maybe looking over what she had would somehow inspire an intelligent course of action. She emptied her pack to look over her possessions.

One Jabez-hexagon scanner thingy. She knew how to use it as well as any of the Maelstrom crew, which meant she knew how to turn it on and aim it at someone. Robert had managed a rough translation of the Jabez symbols which showed up in lovely English. Anything he hadn't figured out yet came up in Jabez. There was more of their spindly bullshit on her screen than English at all times, but it was enough for the crew to do basic body scans. That way they knew roughly what they were dealing with in terms of mutancy or not, what power category and what strength. It also told them what level of Conversion the person had gone through, if any. The scanner would also act like a compass and distance meter, and give her a rough idea of the general environment. Robert added new symbols to their lexicon all the time but she was not fool enough to think she understood even half of what it was trying to tell her.

One busted fucking piece of shit mechanical teleporter and one useless com-link. She tried to reach the ship again. When static hissed at her she hissed right back.

One set of headphones and her music on a memory crystal...because music sometimes kept her from fanging out and killing people. Sometimes. She loved that Robert rigged that thing up for her. Every song, ever. No worries about running out of memory either, not with the crystals the Maelstrom used.

Medical kit: Gauze...nearly gone. Maybe she should save the used stuff and sterilize it as best she could. Suture thread. Practically down to the spindle. Antibiotic coagulant ointment. If she rolled the tube around one of her needle-knives maybe she could get a bit more out of that. Skin glue about the same. The alcohol was more than half gone. Plus there were a few syringes and things she had no real clue what to do with.

Two and a half gallons of water. A few protein drinks. Five days rations for one. How does one feed and hydrate an unconscious person without an IV? Should you even feed someone like that? What if he threw it up? Even if she stuck to the protein drinks he'd almost certainly inhale it rather than swallow it.

Lancer arched an eyebrow at her fingers and made them glow. Her foes often suffered muscle spasms when she attacked them. Could she refine that down to just his throat and make him swallow? What a scary prospect! But...if it came down to him dying of thirst or her powers...

"Why'd you have to be in my section Hamburger Man? I kill people! Understand? I'm a mutant and a demon and I kill people. I take whole bodies and make them into dead bits and pieces. I do not know how to fix you!" The mutant waved her taloned hands in front of her companion, but he remained unconscious and unimpressed. She clenched her fists and noted with some faint interest that punching through her palm again with her claws barely hurt anymore. The scars must be pretty good. She pressed her hands together and added the scent of her own burning flesh to his. Not wasting sutures on that.

What else was on hand? Lots of good stuff for taking people apart. Assassin's goodies. Knives and needles, garrote-wires, poisons, climbing rope, and so on. Her cloak, her armor, a change of civilian clothes, and a naked dude. He was NOT going to fit in her spare shirt.

That was all she had. Talon could have probably survived off that for years. Robert could have probably built a shuttle. Lancer could... wish she had someone to hurt. Someone with too many thumbs perhaps. Someone she could make creative cube shaped bits out of in progressively deeper designs.

She'd used a blade on mystery dude's bloody hair to save energy and save herself from yet another fine odor. Why didn't they sell singed hair as an air freshener anyway? Kain seemed into it. Could the telepath find her here if he was forced to search for her? What good was being a Class 1 if you couldn't find someone you knew, even if you didn't like them? Maybe she should think about him. …. Maybe not. Everything she could think of ended with an opinion such as "rude," "snob," and "asshole." While he made it no secret that he felt the same about her, she was afraid if he did somehow reach her mind that he'd leave her to die anyway out of spite.

Then she thought about his mean, reptilian mind brushing up against hers and decided she would rather not be found. She remembered the creeping, early stages of her possession... how the entity burrowed into her mind slowly at first, like the roots of an old tree into soil. She had felt wrong, but couldn't place the problem. Not until those roots had burrowed deep enough to shatter into her mind and soul.

Lancer drew her knees up to her chest and buried her head between them for a while. How long she sat there with her arms wrapped protectively around her head was unclear, but it took extremely urgent pokes from her bladder to bring her back to now. She scurried out into the cold to handle matters and realized perhaps she should have collected her own urine a bit late. She decided not to worry too much about it since she didn't have a container free anyway. Maybe when the first fresh gallon was gone she'd be desperate enough to consider it. The puddle she made froze before it could soak into the sand and she ran back into her warm little dome.

As tired as she was she was too nervous to sleep, so she decided to sharpen the knife. She picked it off the top of the heap where her precious weapons were shoved rudely to the side. It was disrespectful treatment for her friends, but her cloak was the only blanket she had and she couldn't have Hamburger Man rolling over on a dagger in his sleep.

Once the first blade was done she went on to the next...and the next. Malice sometimes asked why she bothered with all the hardware when she obviously had her powers and her talons at all times. Sometimes though a knife served her better. It seemed less of a calling card when she had a job that required stealth. Somebody killed so and so rather than Lancer killed so and so. Let the bad guys wonder if her powers were more limited than they were. Let them wonder if they had more enemies than they did. Besides, learning to use knives and throwing stars with accuracy had given her something to work on. Dealing with the frustration of missing her targets or getting the weapons to penetrate had helped her learn to manage her temper after her possession whereas her lances almost never missed.

Controlling herself would always be the thing to work on after all. She shivered, and fought not to dwell on her possession, or worry if another entity like the one who had taken her was here...right now...

In the quiet of her glass shelter, Lancer heard her heart beat revving up. No. She closed her eyes and tried to meditate. That failing she focused on slowing her heart down at least. No panic. No flashbacks. Not here in this tiny space. She'd shred herself to ribbons if she had an episode in here, and Hamburger Man really would be ground beef.

She missed Claudia's soothing presence. She missed Malice's stalwart, if confused friendship. She missed knowing Malice could put her in lock-down at a moment's notice too.

Really Lancer? You haven't even been on your own a day.

Hamburger Man shifted slightly and she waited to see if he would wake. She wondered again who he was. The Maelstrom crew had gone in looking for Autobots, having pretty solid information that the Jabez had at least one. As Talon had rudely put it, none of them wanted to face Converts "as big as a fucking house." Plain old fleshy CVs were enough trouble. She'd heard Jordan radio in to Robert that the Jabez had been holding "something big" but there's been no sign of anything like that on her circuit. Maybe the computer records Robert snagged would tell them something.

She'd likely never know though. She knew she was the last of her team on the base, so at least she knew her friends all made it back. It saddened her to know that they'd worry but at least her com-eye would have told the others she wasn't captured. They wouldn't go tearing into any more Jabez strongholds just to find her. It was a good system she was grateful for. The eyes tracked their progress, teamwork, and mistakes they could learn from. Most importantly they insured not one moment was unaccounted for during a fight. Never again would they bring home a Converted team member...not after Silva.

Lancer blinked rapidly a few times.

In any case, the rest of her team would probably assume she and her charge were dead. Given her meager stock of supplies and options they were probably right on the money there.

What little light was filtering through the sand and the dark glass of her dome started to fade. Well, she had to keep those stones warm anyway and she could already feel the cold temperatures dropping fast. She put a foot up against the nearest rocks and started pumping energy slowly into them – supplying her own light source as she did. Being a mutant sucked mostly, but it had its perks.

She put her headphones on and hummed along on and off while her stock of perfectly sharp weapons got resharpened. Maybe if the Maelstrom was close they'd pick up her energy signature. Maybe if someone else did she could turn the tables and steal their ship. Either way, she hoped the dome glowed prettily from the outside.

Rodimus drifted.

Far away from pain and fear, his mind showed him impartial reruns of his life. Memories rose and fell in no particular order. His terms as commander, his ridiculous youth, his recent torture, various battles, various parties, various arguments and quiet discussions with Optimus. Everything he'd every done or felt – without the feeling. None of it brought him pain or joy. It simply was. Good.

He was warm, resting, and at peace. Certainly that meant he was dead.

Also good. He'd failed enough. He was ready to sleep.

Dimly he heard someone singing and focused on that, reasoning it would lead him away from his life and whatever the Jabez had planned next. He opened his eyes and was confused and delighted by what he saw. A human woman was sitting near him and humming to herself. She was even glowing. Elated, he concluded he was certainly dead and that all those silly human stories of the afterlife were somehow true.

"Hey, look! An angel!" he exclaimed.

The entirely un-angelic curse the woman yelped in surprise was his first hint he was wrong. He jerked. The pain was his second hint.

Lancer dropped her knife and swore when her charge spoke to her, and she saw his bemused smile turn into terror from one heartbeat to the next. He scrambled, crablike, away from her as far as he could. In their tiny dome shelter this got him about a foot away from her.

" I'm not going to hurt you!" she told him. His eyes darted wildly, one side to the other. She didn't have to ask what he was looking for. "They aren't here! We're lost Mister. We're in real trouble, but they aren't here." Reaching out to him to pat his hand earned her a wild punch which she mindlessly avoided.

He blinked and stared at his hand.

"See? No shackles! I'm not your enemy! You're free. My name is Lancer. Who are you?"

"This is a trick," he growled.

The mutant laughed. "You might be better off if it was. I'm sorry. We went in looking for Autobots but we found you instead. My teleport belt malfunctioned and we are marooned. Here, look..." She reached out and cut a window out of the wall, catching the piece as it fell. There was just enough light outside for him to see the wind swept dunes outside but he barely glanced at it. "We are as far from that lab as you could ever hope." Her voice caught a little. " I think we may both die anyway, but at least it won't be there."

"Where's Goldbug?!"

"Who?"

"My friend. They turned him. They turned him human too," he hissed.

" I don't know. Malice found someone...wait. What do you mean "turned him human too?'"

He just glared at her with acid green eyes.

"Who ARE you?!" she demanded.

Rodimus, seeing no harm in giving this Jabez plant information she already knew, told her.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The night that followed would go down in Lancer's memory as one of the worst of her life...right after her possession. She was trapped in a confined space with a very strong, very frightened individual who was determined that at least one of them would not survive until dawn. She didn't know why she believed his story about being an Autobot, but she did. Maybe it just comforted her to know his lack of a navel was due to not having been born, rather than some overwhelming narcissism.

She brushed his skin just shifting her weight and he flew into wild flailing – kicking and punching erratically like a man being attacked by bees. Avoiding the blows wasn't so much hard as exhausting. He'd gone after one of her knives and tried stabbing her. She snatched it right out of his fingers before he got in a second strike. This was good because next he was aiming to stab his own heart. She snatched up all her pointy friends and dumped them in her pack. Inspired by her shelter and needing an instant way to keep them away from him, she blew a small crater into the floor of sand and buried her pack. Then she sealed the top with glass.

The minute she turned her back on him he tried punching her in the back of the head. She ducked without even looking at him, grateful his attacks were so obvious. Once she was satisfied her glass lid was at least enough to slow him down, she pulled the heat back out of it. She heard him moving again behind her and sighed.

"Really?" she asked. He had one of the rocks she had been using to keep him warm in each hand.

"Where's Goldbug?"

This time she declined to argue with him. Clearly someone had lost a few circuits recently. He made to hammer her head between his rocks so she eeled around his back and wrestled to get his arms and legs under control.

He was damned strong and her desire not to rip all the hard work she'd done stitching him back together put her at a disadvantage. For the first time since her possession, she was sort of glad for her tail. He bit her forearm. She was so tired at that point she just let him clamp on it while she locked down his arms and legs. With her armor on she didn't even feel it.

"Well this is cozy," she remarked snidely while he tried futilely to break her basket hold. She just sighed and waited while he gnawed on her arm. She could only imagine what a picture they made – a demonic mutant all wrapped up around a humanized naked Autobot with torture wounds from head to toe. She was pretty sure Talon would have something inappropriate to say about that. After a while her wrestling buddy seemed to exhaust himself and sagged in her arms.

"You done yet Rodimus? I feel like we're on a first name basis now that we're so close."

He bit her arm again.

Thus the night went. He attacked her. She restrained him until he quit. He attacked her again...ad nauseam. What remarkable endurance and dedication to a goal! Lancer got that. She respected that. The fact he was trying to kill her showed a spirit she admired. She just wished he'd save it for the Jabez and let her sleep.

Over and over he demanded to see his friend.

Over and over she reminded him they were alone.

Finally against all prudence for his injuries and his lack of attire, she'd grabbed his arms from behind and hauled him outside. The cold sucked the air from her lungs so she imagined it made some impression on her naked companion.

"We Are MAROONED, Rodimus!" It took every ounce of strength and leverage she had to pull him around in a circle to get a good look. " I don't know where we are! I don't know where Goldbug is!" She spun him and kept spinning him until he sagged in her grasp. She took that as comprehension and shoved him back inside. "Are you done trying to kill me? I don't want to knock you out but it is beginning to look like a good idea."

Rodimus had scuttled to his corner again, shivering and staring at her. It was almost like she could read his mind. His expression of searing hate slowly softened into confusion and pain as she watched him finally realize that even the Jabez were unlikely to design an entire wasteland for his benefit. The intense green eyes lost their focus. He was no longer staring at her, but at something only he could see. Her face seemed frozen and tight, as if the muscles in it were at war with each other.

It gave her a chance to study him.

She'd heard of him of course. Every child on Earth got their Transformer education early. You were taught to recognize the individuals involved on both sides of the conflict in any mode. Fire drills, tornado drills, Transformer drills... You were supposed to learn who to run from and who to run to, but most parents prudently just told their kids to run from all of them and get out of the way. It wasn't like there were all that many of them anyway, and a new Prime was big news. His face was bruised and swollen, but she could sort of see it – the angular lines of the face she'd seen on TV softened slightly into her Hamburger Man.

What in the hell? WHY? Why would the Jabez do this to him? Just to say they could? Bullshit. They always had a plan. Now that he was awake and feeling his pain she could "see" into his nervous system to a degree. His body practically glowed. Lots of nerve activity, but none of it seemed to be deeply internal – at least along his torso. Hopefully that meant he didn't have any internal bleeding or organ damage.

Spiffy. That only left dehydration, starvation, and infection to worry about. There was nothing she could do about any of it hiding in this bubble.

Reaching out, she put her hand on his forehead to see if he was as hot as he seemed to her mutant sight. She expected him to jerk away. Instead he just turned those eyes on her and glared. Lancer pursed her lips and felt the fangs go a bit. Not catatonic – just sulking.

She took a deep breath and tried to act like a patient normal person would. She even did a soothing voice.

" I didn't mean to scare you, I just wanted to see if you had a fever. I'll remember to warn you next time OK?" No response. Moving on. "Look, I really am trying to help you, but we can't stay here. There's no water. There's no food and if we don't find some soon we've had it. I'd like to move when the sun's up and it's just cold instead of freezing."

This earned her a blink and a squint.

" If we don't get moving we'll die," she explained again.

His eyes narrowed further and he turned his back on her. Apparently that suited him just fine. The mutant's eyes flared white and she took one, deep calming breath before jumping him again.

Thus the war of wills began. Rodimus found himself wrapped in her cloak before he knew what was happening. She bundled as much of him up as she could with the heavy, armor-laced material, and she sashed it to his waist by cutting off a precious length of her climbing rope. It was the best she could do to protect his non-existent modesty and his skin from the cold and wind. She cut the top off her pack with her powers and cut that into ovals roughly the size of his feet. The only way to tie them on was to knock him on his ass and sit on his legs. More climbing rope turned her pack into a drawstring pouch.

Being dressed like a helpless doll made Rodimus realize fighting this bitch was no more effective than fighting the Jabez. She wrapped another length around his chest and shoulders like a harness. He wasn't sure what that was about until she grabbed him by it and hauled him outside again.

"Now," she proclaimed, "we are going south because I say so and because all the wind is coming from the north! This is going to be perfect! March you!"

Rodimus shook his head and backed up. She grabbed him by the front of his drapery and got right in his face.

"Hey Mr. Hamburger Man. I do NOT have a whole lot of patience left. I am stuck here because I tried to save your sorry ass. You are NOT going to make this harder and I am NOT leaving you to die. So walk! I do not want to tie you up but I will!"

He walked, but even once they got moving Rodimus was a decidedly unhelpful rescuee. He simply stopped frequently, forcing her to push or pull him. Some of it was pain from his wounds...some pain from the cold. Most of it was the mess in his head.

Lancer decided by the end of the first day that she had two Rodimi on her hands. She designated them Rodimus One and Two, in the order she met them. Rodimus One was a raving lunatic. This was the green-eyed guy who lashed out at anything that moved, which pretty much meant Lancer. She was pretty sure One didn't even see her really. One was in the clutches of the Jabez and trying to kill them to save his friend. Goldbug's name was her signal to duck.

Rodimus Two knew where he was and who she was. His eyes were a dull blue that looked only inward. He didn't fight her except by dragging his feet and being generally uncooperative. Two would even do cool things like speak to her from time to time, although his vocabulary was pretty much limited to "No," and "I don't care." Two was somewhat easier to handle but he was sneaky. Two didn't want to kill her, he wanted to kill himself. He was all kinds of creative about it too.

The first hour away from their dome his listless feet slid out from under him and he tumbled back down the dune they were trying to climb. He landed face down and just lay there. Lancer swore and surfed her way down the sand to flip him before he smothered. The second hour he actively threw himself off the top of a steep hill. Lancer wasn't sure the fall would kill him, but she was pretty sure if her temper got any worse she would. She managed to grab his harness and pull him back by leaning her full weight the opposite direction. Furious, she pulled out still more of her ever dwindling climbing rope and tied his hands so she could steer him.

This led to an immediate launch of a nuclear strike by Rodimus One. His bound hands went for her throat and he snarled he was going to "give her the drill." They grappled and rolled down the dune, and to Lancer's amazement he actually snapped her metal laced rope and landed a blow or two before she could find her balance. Once on her feet she knocked him on his ass with a pull on his ankles with her tail and a hard shove.

She spat blood and failed to enjoy the way her lovely new fat lip interacted with her fangs. "You don't have a drill you idiot," was the best she could come up with. Rodi One glared greenly at her and flipped to his feet. The assassin used his shoulders to handspring off and pulled him to the ground in front of her. Grimly, she held on to him again until he was so exhausted he was sweating in spite of the cold wind on his skin. His head dropped and he suddenly went slack against her grip. He looked around.

"You done?" Lancer asked.

He turned and looked at her over his shoulder. She noticed his eyes lingered ever so briefly on her bruised face.

"You throw quite a punch, but could you save it till we find a place to camp?"

He muttered something that almost sounded like "Sorry," but she didn't quite catch it. She wasn't going to make him repeat it. Hauling him to his feet was becoming a painful process. This time she tied the rope to the back of his harness.

Hour four rolled around and Lancer needed a break. She poured some water right into her mouth from the jug and offered it to him. He shook his head.

"Oh. Were you thinking I was giving you the choice? You are a silly, silly person Mr. Ham...Mr. Prime Sir. You need some water, so you can drink it like a big boy or we can do that sexy rolling in the sand thing you like so much first and still have some, because I will win."

One eyebrow arched at her while she waved the jug at him and grinned a mouth full of fangs. Finally he answered her. " I don't want to...and I don't know how."

"You drank energon," Lancer reasoned.

He shrugged and looked away. The mutant looked at the water in her hand and said, "You'll figure it out." She gave him the jug and to his credit he didn't try to throw it away or waste it. He did choke though before he finally got a few swallows down.

"You really are an Autobot aren't you?" she muttered.

"Why would I lie?"

"Well, it is sort of hard to trust a guy who tries to kill you every hour or two," Lancer mused.

" I'm sorry...I don't...I don't always know...where...who..." Rodimus began.

"You don't need to apologize. I know what the Jabez do to people – you're traumatized. You do need to turn around though," Lancer told him.

"Why?"

"Because I need to pee and I am not going where I can't see you," Lancer said.

" I don't care. Daniel used to do that all the time when we were out in the woods," Rodimus said.

"Daniel? As in the Ambassador's son?" Lancer asked. Ooo...she knew someone who knew famous people now.

Rodimus nodded. These names...they seemed so far away from him. From anything that mattered.

"Great," Lancer went on. "Turn around anyway."

"Why?"

"Because Daniel's a boy and I'm not and you are not watching and I said so!" Lancer snapped in a rush. She felt the fangs and horns start up.

Rodimus shrugged and complied. If he noticed her lapse in temper and it's associated accessories he didn't say anything. He did wait patiently for a minute or two while she worked out of her armor and then he simply started walking away. A sharp tug on his leash reminded him she was watching. Rustling behind him told him she was done.

"Don't you have to go?" Lancer asked.

" I tried to go and you stopped me," Rodimus pointed out.

Lancer dropped her head and groaned. "No. I mean don't you need to...ermm...go?"

Rodimus just blinked at her. The Jabez had their own methods of dealing with biological functions and he was too new to organics to understand what his body was trying to tell him.

"Doesn't it hurt?" Lancer asked. "You haven't...I'm sorry, I didn't think to keep track...but you haven't once gone this whole time!"

"Hurt? Everything hurts. I don't know how any human copes with any of this. I can feel everything and it all hurts," Rodimus explained. His voice remained dead flat.

Lancer tilted her head at him. " I'm sorry. You have to try...you'll feel better I promise...and you'll get sick if you don't." This earned her the faintest shrug. "You are a pain in the ass, you know that?" she growled. Before he could move (or she could lose her nerve thinking about it) she pounced on him, grabbed him from behind, aimed with one hand and gave his bladder a small jolt with the other. It worked quite well actually. She was embarrassed and he was horrified. Leaking fluids of any kind were no part of an Autobot's normal metabolism. Once he was finished she sprang away from him as if burned.

"Next time take care of it yourself!" she snarled. He refused to look at her or answer her, but found to his amazement that there really was a slight drop in the discomfort he was in. That alone was eventually enough to get him to take care of this particular point of business on his own...eventually. She still had to force it on him a few more times before he got the hang of it...and sick enough of being over-powered by her. Lancer got used to keeping track of it all for him – his preoccupation with other things made it a non-priority.

On they walked. Up one shifty dune after another, unable to trust their footing or each other. By sunset they'd found neither food nor water, but Lancer in particular was too tired to go on past dark. This time there was no handy sand storm to blast into, so she used her powers to tunnel a cave directly into the side of a sand dune. She pushed Rodimus in once it was cool enough and then struggled a bit to bring more sand down over the opening to give her something to seal it with.

" I'm so tired," she said with a sigh. She dug into her pack and found some of the rations. She handed one to Rodimus who took it and frowned slightly more than usual.

"No," he said.

"Oh you were thinking you had a say in it again were you?"

"You shouldn't waste your food on me," he said flatly.

Lancer hissed, "Oh fuck you. Put it in your mouth and fucking chew. After that it's like the water, which you will also be having more of." He drank without arguing so she relaxed a bit and had her protein bar. Going on about 36 hours with no sleep, little food, and lots of fighting as she was, relaxing a bit led right into falling asleep before she made sure Rodimus ate anything.

Rodimus stared at her a few minutes and stuck his ration back into her pack. With nothing to do or even really look at he fell asleep in a few minutes too. They both got a few hours of rest in before nightmares woke up One and he tried using his tether to strangle Lancer in her sleep.

All the young mutant knew was one moment she was sleeping the dreamless sleep of the deeply exhausted, and the next she was fighting for her life. With no time to register where she was or who was attacking her she went into full demonic berserk mode instantly. He was much stronger than she, but she snapped the cord with her powers and sank her claws into his arms. She kneed him in the groin and twisted like a snake out from under him.

He was in no position to come after her – finally learning first-hand why human males complained at length about this particular vulnerability. Not as painful as having cubes of your arm-meat carved out, but still, quite something. The demon crouched as if to spring at his throat, her teeth bared, her eyes glowing and lighting their small room. From his fetal position on the floor, Rodimus smiled at his own pain and smiled at her murderous stare. Finally he had a way to end it at hand!

Maybe it was the smile...maybe it was the fact he stopped fighting her. Lancer blinked once, twice, and then roared her frustration. Snarling, she clenched her taloned fists into her palms, letting the nails penetrate flesh like they wanted to, but not his. The sight of her blood sent him tumbling back to the torture chamber, while she fought her own memories as well. When she finally roped herself in he was still laying on his side, but he was staring into the past again and the pain he felt was there.

Fury gripped her, but not demonic fury. Indignant fury.

She kicked him in the arm. Not hard, but considering he had stitches and trauma and all that she should probably have kept her hands and feet to herself like a good girl. Fuck that. She kicked him again for good measure.

"You fucking suck!" she explained when his eyes focused on her abuse rather than his previous abuse. "You selfish, stupid dickhead! You will NOT use me to commit suicide! All I want is to do more good than evil before I die and you will NOT use me like that! The Slavers wanted to use me to hurt people, the Jabez wanted to use me to hurt people, and the fucking demon DID use me to hurt people! People I love!" She kicked him again. "Now I've got a fucking Autobot PRIME who I am trying to fucking help trying to use me to hurt himself! FUCK YOU!"

He sat up slowly and rubbed his arm. His eyes were quite green again, but this wasn't Rodimus One or Two. This guy was sort of a blend. Pissed like One but present like Two.

" I just want you to leave me alone," Rodimus Three snarled.

"Yeah? Tough. I'm not giving up on being rescued," Lancer stated.

" I don't want to be rescued. I don't deserve it," Rodimus' voice broke into a harsh, hateful whisper. It wasn't confession – it was judgment. Death sentence passed.

Lancer frowned at him and knew she should have some deep psychological advise for this traumatized soul. What she had instead was, "So fucking what? Looky here pal. What does what you deserve have to do with anything? I have to kill Converts all the time...you know what those are? The ex-people the Jabez have lobotomized with their fucking chips? Do they 'deserve' to have their head cored out? Do my friends and I 'deserve' to have to slaughter their Walking Dead imitations? It gets kinda old you know...even for a fabulous killer like myself. Those people don't deserve to die, and you know I'm pretty sure I don't deserve to live either. I'm a mutant by birth, a demon by possession, and an assassin by training...I don't see 'lives happily ever after' anywhere in that do you? No? Well, tough crap there too. I am probably a walking example of 'more trouble than worth' but I was forced to see that I need to try. So. I'm using you. I am saving you. I am. You are one of the good guys and I am getting you home. Maybe your people can help you. Don't...don't you at least want to warn them? If the Jabez were looking into Converting you it's only a matter of time before they take more of you."

She saw that concept crawl its way into his brain. He threw her a sullen glare. She took that to mean she'd scored some guilt/duty points at least. He hated her for that, but that was OK. Hate was something she understood and could work with. As long as he behaved better she was all good with that.

"Gonna quit trying to make me kill you at least? I don't think you can really help it when you try to kill me although I'd appreciate the effort," Lancer sneered.

Rodimus, still sullen, nodded.

"Great. Now as I don't see an empty ration wrapper, let's do lunch!"

Rodimus' cooperative spirit vanished like mist, so Lancer retrieved the abandoned protein bar, crushed it in its wrapper, and jumped him. She bound him up with tail and legs, bent his head back towards her shoulder and forced crumbs into his mouth as far back as she could. He had no choice but to swallow, but he gagged and retched on it as he did.

"Just like giving a cat a pill," Lancer proclaimed. " I learned that move when I was an ignorant civy flat-liner and I had a sick pet. When ARE you going to learn to behave Hamburger Man?"

Rodimus coughed and glared at her. "That hurt."

"That's because you're supposed to chew. I will be happy to teach you when you decide not to do everything the hard way. Coincidentally, the 'Hard Way' is named that 'cause it's harder. So let's learn our lesson shall we? Obstinance equals pain."

Continued in Marooned: Part B