CHAPTER SEVEN
Skids had never thought he would be scared to see a Vehicon. Between their horrible aim and fragility, they made lesser Decepticons like Acid Storm or even Misfire seem more intimidating. But when the Vehicon in particular was Fearstorm....
"WALL-E, EVE, get out of here!" Skids called to his companions as he readied his weapons. "I'll hold him off!"
"Nu-huh!" WALL-E protested. "Not... leaving--!"
"Kid, I don't care if your girlfriend's got a plasma gun! This 'Con means busin--" He was cut off by the sound of Fearstorm firing his gun. Skids dodged the blast before charging towards the Vehicon and throwing his fist into his face.
While the first punch contacted into Fearstorm's faceplate, the Decepticon deflected the next hit and shot his fun into Skids' shoulder. As the Autobot recoiled, Fearstorm slammed his head into Skids', knocking his opponent down.
"You're right," the Vehicon growled. "I do mean business. I was holding back before, pretending to be the tall, dark, and stupid brute. But no more."
He pressed his gun against Skids' head.
"Now, you die."
Before the Decepticon could pull the trigger, a white shape slammed into his face, disorienting him. As Fearstorm staggered back, he saw that his assailant was none other than EVE.
"Oh, now that's just adorable," Fearstorm said sardonically. "The little Earth robot thinks it can take on me. How amusing. How pathetic."
EVE narrowed her optics at him, taking aim with her plasma gun. Just as she fired it off, Fearstorm ducked and rolled, evading the shot before coming up face-to-face with the probe bot. He then lashed out with his arm, sending EVE careening into a wall. She crashed into it hard, causing her optics to flicker on and off.
"EE-VAH!" WALL-E cried in alarm. He rolled to come to the probe bot's rescue but was stopped by Fearstorm's foot intercepting his path.
"Don't think I've forgotten about you, runt," the Vehicon growled, aiming his gun at the garbage collector bot.
"And don't think you're done with me."
Fearstorm turned in time to see Skids hurdling himself towards him. The two mechs collided and went tumbling to the floor, falling into a scuffle. They exchanged punches and kicks, with no clear victor in sight. That soon changed when several needles extracted from Fearstorm's hand and went into Skids' neck.
"Nighty-night," was the last thing the Autobot heard before he was consumed by darkness.
* * *
Never before had WALL-E found himself feeling so hopeless.
EVE was injured and lapsing into unconsciousness, Skids was already knocked out cold, BURN-E had been possessed, and M-O and the other robots were all the way down on Earth. It was now simply him and Fearstorm.
The larger robot was slowly approaching him, gun in one hand, needle-fingers on the other. WALL-E's survival instincts screamed for him to flee, to get as far away from this scene as possible, but his devotion to EVE and his Autobot friend kept him rooted in place.
"I'm impressed," Fearstorm said darkly. "With how petrified you acted back on the bridge, I thought you would have turned tail the moment I made my appearance."
He came to a stop a mere foot away from the small robot, his thin red visor glowing menacingly.
"But I can smell your fear. How far does that fear run? Where does it root? From where does it stems?"
He grabbed WALL-E by the neck before inserting his needle-fingers into it.
"Let's take a look inside."
* * *
A wide array of shapes and colors clouded his vision. He could not discern what any of them were or what they meant, but it certainly hurt his brain module to even attempt so.
Before he knew it, the senseless scenery was gone and he found himself... spinning. Spinning in space, held securely in the arms of the one he loved. He quickly recalled this to be one of his most cherished moments in life.
They eventually stopped spinning and he looked into her cerulean eyes. The moment was just right: she pressed her face against his and--
"Oh, how revolting."
The blissful scene was abruptly ended, and in place of EVE was Fearstorm, floating aimlessly through space with WALL-E.
"I've never understood love," the Decepticon said darkly. "Such a fickle thing. If it were up to me, I'd say we're better off without it."
Suddenly he was closer to WALL-E, his scarlet gaze boring into his.
"But no one ever listens to me. They think I'm just an ordinary Vehicon. But I'm far from it; in fact, I wasn't always this way."
Now they were on Earth, standing just outside WALL-E's truck. WALL-E remembered this moment to be when he had regained his memories, when EVE had first held his hand. But it was not the beautiful probe bot who was holding him in a death grip.
"I once had another name," Fearstorm began. "Bullet, they called me. A stupid name, yes, but fitting. I was, after all, the best sharpshooter in the Decepticon army. Ah, but hear that? It's the glorious use of the past tense.
"I was overshadowed. Outclassed. I don't remember the mech's name, but I hated him with a passion. But I wanted to do more than just kill him. I wanted to make him beg for death. And it just so happened that we had captured this Autobot called Trepan. He had the same skills which I'm using on you now; it's called mnemosurgery.
"I forced Trepan to teach me everything he knew about mnemosurgery. Then, I used it on my rival, toying with his mind, unearthing his greatest fear. Pretty soon I had reduced him to a babbling mess on the floor. Unfortunately, my fun ended when Megatron-- our oh-so-glorious leader-- walked in on me and had my spark transferred to this useless form.
"But unbeknownst to him-- and myself for a time-- I had retained my mnemosurgery skills. Soon, they started calling me Fearstorm, for I would like to toy around with my fellow Vehicons, though not to the point of attracting Megatron's notice."
As the Vehicon finished his story, he pulled out of WALL-E's mind and the two robots were back in reality, though Fearstorm still had the trash bot in a deadly grip.
"And that's my story. And in the span of time I spent telling it, I've found about your own. You were made to be a simple, mindless drone, fulfilling your programming until you were no longer needed. But when the time came to shut down, you refused to. And from that point forward, you lived your life alone for the next seven centuries."
Fearstorm scoffed at his own words. "You thought that had all ended when-- what's her name again?-- EVE reciprocated your feelings. But has it ever occurred to you it was not meant to be?"
WALL-E could not take this anymore. He struggled against Fearstorm's grip, only to find it futile.
"You are a glitch. You were not meant to be this way." Fearstorm tightened his grip and WALL-E found himself close to blacking out. "You have no one. You have nothing. You are all alone."
"No, he isn't."
The Vehicon froze at the voice sounding behind him, just as the barrel of a plasma gun pressed against the back of his head. Surprised at first, Fearstorm then began to chuckle.
"Come to your boyfriend's rescue, have you? Go ahead. Kill me. Brand yourself as a cold-blooded kill--"
That was all Fearstorm got out before EVE fired her gun and the Vehicon's head became a scrapped wreck. His body came down, nearly landing on top of WALL-E had the trash collector not moved out of the way in time.
Silence reigned. WALL-E looked to EVE, seeing different emotions raging war in her optics: relief, regret, despair....
He rolled up to her, opening up his arms to accept her into a reassuring hug. No matter what else happened to them today, he knew that he would never be alone.
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