#sentidee

In his chassis, something squirms. It burns. It feels wet, and slimy, with rust and corroded metal slowly eating away at him. Beneath his hastily-set welds, he feels the parasitic larva nestled in his internals. They make it hard to ventilate. His throat burns. He can't swallow.

He can hear them. They're almost ready to hatch, he can tell. Their siblings had been much the same, slithering into his body, taking up root to leech his energon and materials for themselves. They had anchored themselves in his fuel tank and remained for what felt like only a few megacycles before their claws and sharp denta began devouring him from within. It was the worst pain he'd ever endured, every time: feeling D-16's monstrous offspring ripping their way through his internals. They burst to life with a great shattering of metal and a splattering of energon, screeching and hissing as they made their triumphant escape. They were ugly, horrible monsters: long, serpentine bodies almost reminiscent of quintesson tentacles, no optics, and a mouth full of sharp fangs with their only limbs being gangly arms held close to their middles. They would grow and molt exponentially, coming to tower over their incubator mere days or even megacycles after birth.

How long has it been? How many parasites had he been forced to birth? He can't remember. There's no indication of time here. His internal chronometer is broken beyond repair and so deeply subterranean, it's still and silent. There's no auditory indication of Iacon. No scent, either. Sentinel has no idea where they are.

One of the drones approaches him. He looks exactly like D-16, as they all do: identical little clones of himself without sparks or wills of their own, mere extensions of his will. Wearing his face and acting with all of his mannerisms, the drone draws near.

Sentinel lurches, and feels something jerk high up in his chest. He gags, a globule of energon flying from his mouth to splatter on the drone's chassis. He convulses, helpless, howling in agony as it starts again. The cybermorph larva has matured and is ready to emerge. It's a spectacle Dee doubts he will never tire of, watching the evil, miserable traitor tormented so just to bring his children into the world. It's the least he deserves!

“Bring them here.”

The infant drone finally escapes, the blue mech's back bowing as if to thrust them forward. Their helm and one arm emerges first, and when they squirm free of his internals, plop directly into the waiting servos of their older sibling.

Dee takes the little one and cleans them with his glossa, intently staring at Sentinel as he cries and sobs pathetically, rambling incoherently from the pain. Begging for mercy, begging them to just kill him.

Not yet. Dee rubs a thoughtful hand over his belly, round and heavy. The eggs he produces don't come from his cybertronian gestation tank, yet it is swollen and filled with life. Thanks to the quintessons. He has no idea what sort of monster they've put in him, but D-16 has vowed that, once Sentinel has been appropriately punished and paid for his crimes, the quintessons are next. But this grudge is personal, and he'll carry out his revenge with extreme prejudice.

Sentinel made a great incubator for his drones. It made sick satisfaction curl in his belly, everytime he watched the blue mech subdued by one of his helmhuggers. He liked watching the blue mech thrash and scream when they ate their way out of him. He'd been so happy to watch D-16 assaulted by the quints, after all. He'd been so smug about stealing their t-cogs. He'd been so relieved when selling him off to them, clearing so much of his debt.

Dee is only repaying him in kind. It's only fair.

He gives his belly another rub, and makes a contemplative noise. Hmm…

“No,” the drone that had been bringing another egg toward their prisoner stops. “Patch him up, but no more eggs.”

It was almost time. He could tell. Time for what, he wasn't exactly sure, but it was almost time.