#THCH would probably try to escape on his own or kill the other two mechs on board

[soundcrusher]

The one who never came back

Today, there won't be a next chapter of my little serier featuring my Phoenix and the sentient SG/Lost light from @cuppajj (at least I haven't planned one), but you'll get get the second side story.

I hope you'll enjoy it.

Trigger Warning: Mentions of death and manipulation

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Many of his friends, if he could even call them that, knew that Thrillchaser was, well, a thrill chaser. It’s why he often roamed around the galaxy in search for adventure and, sometimes, a cute femme he could spend a re-charge cycle with. 

Although, he only settles for one type of femme. Strong, tall and built like a tank. Maybe that’s why he liked Tankcrusher as much as he did. She was a wonderful femme. Everything he wanted. Thrillchaser could see him staying with her, maybe even raise a sparkling together. However when he saw him, the sparkling who’s supposed to be his, little Phoenix didn’t look like him. He looked like that cursed Autobot Rodimus Prime. Rodimus Prime who killed without mercy and burned mechs and femmes alike while laughing. 

Thrillchaser had the ‘pleasure’ of meeting Rodimus Prime once during a battle. There were twenty Decepticons tasked in taking him down, only two came back. Him and a mech who, sadly, died afterwards in the medibay. He could still remember that day. Thrillchaser lost many good friends back then, his only friends. Since then, he swore two things: he will kill that mech, should he ever cross paths with him and he would never make friends like he did before.

Sometimes though, he thinks about the femme and sparkling he left behind. If Phoenix wasn’t cursed, he could have been a sire. He would have been a good sire, he knew it, but why should he raise a child, who’s looks mocked him. Whose looks were a constant reminder of his losses, of the losses of everyone. 

Thrillchaser let out a long sigh, before downing his drink. It was time to go. He still had a job to do and a thrill to chase. After all, an apparently empty ship, a ghost ship, was a thrill Thrillchaser couldn’t say no to. Especially when the reward of boarding it and finding clues to what happened on it was more than what he got from the last job.

 

Maybe he should have read the job assignment more thoroughly, otherwise, he would have declined to search a ship so eerily normal. The halls were too clean, the lights too bright, and there were no mechs or femmes running around. Or, well, at least the ghosts of those who came before. But then again, Thrillchaser didn’t know if Cybertronians could become ghosts like in the human stories Tankcrusher told him about. 

But despite the eerie feeling and urge to go back to his little ship and call off the assignment, he kept on going. Opening and searching the rooms he could, while taking mental notes on the corpses propped up. Especially Swerve’s Bar, it seemed like someone still visited this place, only to prop up dead mechs. 

"Disgusting. Who in their right mind would do something like this? Probably an Autobot. They were known to do things like this…” Muttered Thrillchaser, as he turned around to leave the room, but the door wouldn’t open. No matter how much he tried. “What the… but the door opened just minutes ago!”

“Maybe you didn’t ask nicely for it to open.”

Thrillchaser was quick to pull out his blaster and turn around. Pointing it in the direction he heard the voice come from. “As if asking nicely would or could open doors. Now, who are you!”

The voice only chuckled and watched the mech. It took them a while to find him. To find this mech specifically and set up this whole plan of luring him onboard. At first, they planned to do something similar to Runningway. Have the ship be dark the whole time and then, slowly, lead him to the captain’s room. But then, they decided otherwise. It would be better if they disposed of this mech in secret. Maybe take some specific organs as spare parts, or better, lock this mech up and slowly pick apart his processor. Making sure that he knew why he had been lured here. Why Lost Light specifically singled him out. 

Yes, he would make sure that the mech before him knew why this was happening, before meeting his demise.

Lost Light moved fast. Trapping Thrillchaser in a web of cables, before pulling him down the hall into the room Red Alert used to spy on everyone. There, the unfortunate mech was bound to the chair and forced to watch two mechs interacting with each other. One, he could make out, was Rodimus Prime, although he didn’t resemble the Prime in his memories. And the other… he couldn’t recognize the other. He was young, that was obvious in the way he held himself… but that paint job. Thrillchaser knows that paint job….

“Phoenix…”

The voice laughed again. But this time, Thrillchaser could feel it resonate through his whole body and mind. As if this stranger was everywhere at once. 

“He’s a wonderful youngling.” This time, the voice came from behind. “Did you know that he’s hated among his crew? One even tried to kill him. Phoenix managed to end him before that brute could even scratch his plating though.” Thrillchaser didn’t like this. He never wanted to see the sparkling he left behind ever again. And yet? Here he was, forced to watch a security feet of his kid holding hands with Rodimus Prime while laughing. THE Rodimus Prime who’s responsible for so much death and destruction. If Thrillchaser wasn’t tied down, he would have marched to that room and shot the Prime right then and there. Maybe take out Phoenix too, because anyone who collaborates with an Autobot doesn’t deserve to return to Cybertron. 

“And what has that to do with me? I haven’t seen him since he was a new spark.” Growled the bound mech. “And what happened to his wings?”

“Oh, I fear this has to do everything with you, Thrillchaser.” Said Lost Light, as they appeared in their holo-avatar right next to the flier. One servo on their hip, while raising the other in a gesture a carrier would use to reprimand their sparkling. “Phoenix told me about what you did. Leaving behind a first time carrier to raise a sparkling alone, while also having to face scrutiny from those they called friends, just because their sparkling looks like my captain. You should be ashamed of yourself, Thrillchaser. What happened to the mech who boasted about letting Autobots on his team to give them a second chance? Oh, that’s right. My captain killed your silly little friends.”

A cable wrapped around Thrillchaser’s helm and forced him to look at a monitor to his right. Depicting the deaths of every mech he called a friend, but that wasn’t all. After the last of his friends died, Thrillchaser was forced to watch himself kill mechs and femmes. Some were retreating Autobots, others were civilians. A few were even younglings. “I didn’t know they weren’t Autobots!” He yelled. “Where did you even get this!?”

“But that didn’t stop you from killing them, now did it?” Asked Lightlost with a smile. Something that didn’t feel right to Thrillchaser. How could a mech smile like that, when they were talking about the deaths of others? How? “You murdered them. Every last one of them, and yet you call my captain, Rodimus Prime, a monster. And before you say, ‘But that was war’, I have to ask: Was it really? Did you really not know, or were you simply doing what you could do best. Destroying innocent lives.” 

Thrillchaser had no answer. For the first time in his life, the flier did not know what to say. Not only that, watching the mech in front of him look like he was moments before snapping his head off, it scared him. It scared him, and Thrillchaser wasn’t sure if he would be able to get out of this situation unscaved. 

Lightlost shook his helm at the mech before him. “Honestly, watching these recordings, it makes me wonder how Phoenix is even related to you. Little bird is a kind, loveable and innocent youngling. How could someone like you, a killer, lier and monster, be related to him?” 

Thrillchaser didn’t answer that. How could he? He hasn’t seen Phoenix since he was a sparkling. “You still didn’t answer me. What happened to his wings?”

At that, Lightlost simply looked at the monitor next to the one with Thrillchasers sins. Smiling at the recording of the day he got to catch his little bird and break his wings. “I did it. First, it was to make him look even more like my captain, but now, I like to think it was to make sure he could never fly away from me again.” Said Lightlost, before deciding to show Thrillchaser everything that has been happening on the Lost Light. 

And, in that moment, Thrillchaser realized, he had chased the wrong thrill.