B.R.T. 12.36 - Monster!
by Autobus Prime
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Abomination
Shapeless, monstrous, ravenous...
The Legion are here.

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Deep in the Seeker's ghastly domain, Tsugaru knifed
through the pestilent sky with a hissing roar of engines.
An icy hurricane roared over her, but she was a furnace.

"Hot!  Warm, all over!" 

Normally she would have liked this. 

Right now, thinking of Sideswipe, it drove her mad! 

"Damn you, glitch! Where is he?"

Tsugaru peered down, scanning the empty land as it
slid past.  He wasn't down there...he could be anywhere...

"Too slow! Needs more speed!"

"THRUSTERS UP!" she screamed, without need.  Her boot-jets
screamed in reply.  Tsugaru shuddered and yawed...

"Gyaah!  Gust!"  A sudden wind set her tumbling. 
She kicked, and straightened out.

That was her.  The Seeker.  She knew it was her.
She wanted Tsugaru to crash, she wanted her to fail,
to keep Sideswipe for herself-

"YOU CAN'T STOP ME, GLITCH! I'M COMING FOR YOU!
"I'M COMING FOR HIM, AND WE'RE COMING FOR YOU-"

Something was warning her.  Too close to the edge.
Almost as Skydive said it, back there in Entropolis;
Skydive, that liar, that little snake...he had told
her that they would fix Sideswipe, and everything
would be fine...

...and it would be.  

She would make it happen. She had the power.

Power...she was getting warmer. A little overload,
but the armor could take it. She knew it could,
because she could feel it.

This Masterforce stuff, it wasn't like normal armor.
It was like a part of you.  You felt everything-
wires tingling with current, lines pulsing with coolant.
You could feel the heat, the wind rushing by...

Sideswipe-

GAH!

"Damn you, glitch! You took him away!
But Schatten told me. Schatten helped me..."

Schatten had told her where to find him.

He was sleeping under a tree...near the...

"The forest..she said...she said...but where?"

Tsu stared at the cracked, desolate plains,
slipping beneath her, at her lonely shadow 
flitting across the fields and fissures...

"Where are the trees...?"

Suddenly she knew.

"She lied! No forest...no demons...no S-side-"

Tsugaru choked. Everybody lied.  They lied when
it was convenient, they lied and they told you
what you wanted to hear. 

"Damn her! Damn her to hell!"

"She lied to me!  Everybody lies to me!"

She did not see the faint, amorphous shadow, 
chasing her own, upon the distant ground.

She could not know that the shadow also lay
upon her back...cast from above...dark, and creeping...

It struck her heavily from above, soft, slimy, and horrible, 
clawed tentacles wrapping...twining...bearing her toward 
the dead earth.

The Legion were here.

Tsugaru screamed.

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