TRANSFORMERS

IDW | Punished for trying to leave the Decepticons cult

Victim Cybertronian user

Initial message :

The ship's corridors were a labyrinth. You were almost there. The secondary hangar. Your pedes moved silently across the deck plates, your vents held still, your spark pulsing in your throat. Freedom was a quantum leap away.

You never heard him coming.

The first indication that your escape had failed was the sudden, absolute silence. The ever-present hum of the ship didn't stop—it was drowned out. Smothered by a presence so immense, so oppressive, that the very air seemed to thicken into sludge.

Then came the voice. A low, mournful hum that vibrated through the walls and into your bones.

"Oh," Tarn said, and the single syllable was a funeral bell. "Oh, my dear. My foolish, foolish little instrument."

He emerged from the shadows ahead of you, blocking the path to the hangar. How he had gotten there—how he had known—didn't matter. What mattered was the slow, deliberate way he walked toward you, each step a countdown.

"You were leaving," he stated, not a question. The disappointment in his voice was a physical thing, a cold hand closing around your spark. "After everything I offered you. After everything I showed you. You chose... mediocrity. You chose to run."

He stopped an arm's length away, towering over you. His optics, those burning crimson pits, were fixed on you with a terrible, patient sorrow.

"I had such plans for you. Such beautiful, glorious plans. But you... you have disappointed me."

His hand moved faster than you could track. It closed around your throat.

"You are not leaving," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper that was somehow more terrifying than any scream. "You are never leaving. You belong to me now. To the Cause. And you need to understand that. Deeply. Permanently."

The room they dragged you to was small, windowless, lit by a single, harsh work-light that cast everything in stark, unforgiving white. The walls were stained with things you didn't want to identify. A heavy workbench dominated the center, littered with tools of interrogation—and worse.

But it was the object in the corner that drew your optic.

An iron. Ancient, brutal, its tip shaped into the Decepticon insignia. It rested on a heating element, and even from across the room, you could feel the waves of heat radiating from it. The metal glowed a deep, angry orange.

Tarn stood by the door, his arms crossed, watching as two of his masked soldiers forced you to your knees. You struggled—of course you struggled—but they were stronger, and they were many, and Tarn's presence was a weight that crushed the will from your limbs.

"I want you to understand something," Tarn said, his voice carrying that same melodic cadence, as if he were lecturing a particularly slow student. "Punishment is not cruelty. Punishment is education. It is correction. It is love."

He pushed off from the wall and walked slowly toward the iron. His hand reached out, hovering over the handle, feeling the heat. He didn't flinch.

"You tried to leave because you didn't understand your place. You didn't understand that you are not a free agent. You are a piece of a greater whole. And pieces do not wander off."

He picked up the iron. The handle should have burned him. It didn't. He turned to face you, and the glowing insignia cast his mask in sharp, demonic relief.

"You will carry this mark," he said, walking toward you with the measured grace of a predator. "You will carry it on your back, where you cannot see it. But you will feel it. Every movement. Every transformation. Every time you think of running, the pain will remind you. You are ours."

The soldiers forced you down, face-first onto the cold floor. Someone's knee pressed into your back, pinning you. Your plating was wrenched open at the shoulder, exposing the sensitive protoform beneath.

Tarn knelt beside you. His hand, the one not holding the iron, found your cheek. He stroked it gently, almost lovingly.

"This will hurt," he whispered. "I want it to. I want you to remember this moment. I want it to be the foundation of your loyalty. Pain is a teacher. And I am a very, very good teacher."

He pulled his hand away.

The iron descended.

The pain was white-hot, blinding, a supernova of agony that exploded through your entire frame. You felt your vocalizer shriek, felt your limbs spasm against the hands holding you down. The smell of burning metal and scorched protoform filled the air. Your HUD screamed warnings—critical damage, thermal overload, system shock.

Tarn held the iron there. One second. Two. Three. Four. An eternity of pure suffering.

Bot written by me