Series: The Ghost Unit
Title: Salvo - Truth (7)
Setting: IDW Transformers, inspired by the "What's Wrong with a Little Destruction" 'verse by ajremix
Note: Many thanks to rexlapinii and ajremix for beta-ing!

Building the Team: Salvo - Truth
"The greatest truths are the simplest."
~ Hosea Ballou

"War is an ugly thing."

He remembered those words now, spoken to him by an old, raggedy bot he'd dug out from under a pile of refuse in an alley and dragged back to a temporary shelter.

"War turns us all into such ugly things..."

He'd dragged that damn thing all the way to his unit's assigned medical outpost when the shelter had refused him for lack of space and when the medics at triage had tried to refuse him, he'd dumped his own repair ticket on top of the pile of wheezing, rusting metal and had told them to do their damn job, or else he'd do his. Intimidated, they'd scurried about and set to repairing the old bot, right up until the head medic had arrived. Their complaints had been squashed even faster by that one, faster even than they'd been with him. In the face of such whiplashing efficiency he'd left, knowing things would be done right and proper.

His combat unit would have harassed him for that kind of stuff if they'd dared. But he'd long ago proven he was bigger and meaner than they were. And when he wasn't bigger, he was still meaner and never afraid to make that amply clear to anyone who might think otherwise.

That was what they had all said, after he'd killed his unit commander.

"He's a mean one, that mech. Wrong in the processors. Always knew he'd end up doing something like that."

The security detail that came to get him thought so too, but they just didn't know any better. He didn't have the spark in him to fight them for real, and he wouldn’t have really wanted to anyway. They were just doing their jobs. He'd done nothing much more than bend them a little, or toss them around here and there, before finally letting them take him in. He'd have been indignant, protested his cause if he'd thought they cared, but no one had listened to him before, right up until he took matter into his own hands. No one had cared. Some, he was certain, had even approved. So why would they listen to him now? He'd known what would happen after his commander died at his hands. He'd thought about it long and hard and decided it was something he had to do anyway.

Because that old bot in the alley had been wrong.

The shackles around his wrists and the spikes driven through his treads should have been heavy, should have hurt. But he felt no pain as he lifted up his head defiantly to look at the mech standing tall in front of him. He glared at him through the light streaming down by the small window, falling into the airless cell like fire.

"Why did you do it?" The question which had drawn him out of his daze was repeated and he realized that it was the first time anyone had asked him since he'd been first taken in. Why.

"Because it was right thing to do." The answer should have earned him another beating. Only as he kept looking, he realized that there was no one else in the cell. Only the mech standing there and himself.

"Why was it the right thing to do?"

"...because he killed them."

"The Decepticons?" The tone of voice was non-judgmental. Neutral. He'd heard mechs speaking like that before, cold-sparked slaggers who poked and prodded at you to try and see what made your processors tick. The light streaming down on him was warm and nice though and he figured if he answered he'd get to keep that for a little while longer.

"Yeah. Them. That's why I killed my commander. I killed him because it needed doing and because no one else would have done it before he went off and killed himself some more innocent civilians. I killed him because those Decepticons were just that. Innocent civilians." He paused for a short, bitter laugh. "Innocents that protected me when I was lost in enemy territory because they could, even after they found out which faction I belonged to. I killed him because when my unit finally found me, he had them kill off the poor slaggers even after I told him how I'd survived. And then bragged about having done the same thing before. I killed him because no one else wanted to do a damn thing about it when we got back and because no one wanted to listen to me when I tried tellin' command what he'd done. I killed him because others like him doing the same thing needed to know there might be someone like me willing to stop 'em."

The rattling of the chains was heavy in his audios and he realized his hands were shaking, fists clenched tightly in anger and frustration. He didn't care about what might happen to him. He just wanted for some sense to get through to someone. Anyone. That and for the patch of light to stay on his armor, warm and comforting. Dust motes danced in the tiny sunrays, landing on dried flecks of energon and he suddenly felt tired, moreso than ever before.

"Sure, war is an ugly thing. But that don't mean we ought to let it turn us into something just as ugly too."

Current Mood: calm