Untitled -- Transforming Combaticons

[dunmurderin]

Title: Untitled, written for Transforming Combaticons
Fandom: Transformers
Characters: Bruticus
Prompt: Transforming Combaticons for 28 memes
Word Count: 212 words
Rating: G
Summary: Merging from the POV of the gestalt.
Author's Notes: Back when I first took on the 28 Combaticons meme, I said that folks could pick Bruticus as a character if they so chose. Nobody took me up on it but I got to thinking on it and decided "Hey, doofus, you can write about Bruticus if you want to" (yeah, even in the Flower the Skunk voice). So, here it is, a story from Bruticus's POV.
Gratuitous Back Patting Moment: This is the second to last of the outstanding 28 Combaticons' memes I have left to do. From here on out, all I have to do is finish "Caring Combaticons" (to those I asked to beta, I need to do some more work on it before I'm ready to have anybody else look at it. Sorry for the delay).

# # #
"Combaticons! Merge into Bruticus!" Megatron's voice carried over the battlefield. Almost before it finished echoing, the Combaticons sprang into action, their bodies twisting and bending as they changed from their robot modes into Bruticus's component pieces.

As always there was an all-too-brief moment before the individual Combaticons' personalities fully coalesced into Bruticus's larger, slower over-mind. For that brief moment, they were six together instead of five and one separately.

Bruticus liked these moments best. For this brief time, he was awake, aware and not alone. He'd learned from the others just how horrible it was to be alone, learned the lesson well enough that he clung to these moments for when he was stuck back into five-space. These moments were his only real chances to get to know his brothers as their real selves rather than just as parts of his body.

How much they were really aware of him, he wasn't sure but sometimes he could sense them reaching back to him, reassuring him with fragments of themselves, their memories, their histories before the reawakening, drawing him into their team, making him one of the family just as he was drawing them in and making them into himself.

And then, the moment passed and, alone again, Bruticus rose over the battlefield.

Comments

[newsy891.livejournal.com]

You give me something to think about for some future fics of mine. I love this, the thought that the gestalt form is more than just a name given to a combination of five (or six) intelligences... it's a concept I can't recall seeing anywhere before.

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

What's rather ironic about this fic is the fact that generally I don't write about merging because I got so tired of seeing fics about gestalt members where they were little more than a gestalt delivery service. It was frustrating to search for fics about Combaticons, get a bunch of hits and then find out that in the majority of them the Combaticons' appearance was limited to "The Combaticons merged into Bruticus and fought Defensor."

I also don't like the idea for my fics that the members of a gestalt are still awake and aware when merged and that they share memories (though my friend Brian does a great impression of what it must be like to be Motormaster when Menasor is merged). I think that idea comes from TF mushes where individual players are joined in a gestalt object and basically play the gestalt by committee.

Judging by the character bios for the gestalts, they're individuals with their own personalities and own motivations. Check out Wayward's story "But Fear Itself" (http://www.insecticons.com/fic/fic-wr-butfearitself1.html) for a great example of the potential disparity between members of a gestalt (the Monstercons) vs. a gestalt (Monstructor).

Since I've started fic writing, I've come to see Bruticus as more than just the sum of the Combaticons' parts. He's got a personality of sorts, it's just bigger and slower than the rest of the Combaticons (though oddly enough, he's still smarter than Brawl). I have had fun in other fics with him getting a few cameos that aren't centered around him fighting. He's key to Vortex's rescue in "Shambleau" and the unwitting source of the Combaticons' 'reeducation' in "Payback").

Annd...I've rambled enough. This is what happens when you're a former English major, you get the blathers.

[newsy891.livejournal.com]

though oddly enough, he's still smarter than Brawl

I LOL'd. XD

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

He is! Brawl's intelligence is a 2, Bruticus's is a 3! Brawl is an intelligence sink. Swindle and Vortex are 9s, Onslaught and Blast Off are 8s.

'course, in my fics Brawl is the team's XO because what he lacks in intelligence he makes up for in common sense. He is unlikely to ever, say, try and extort money from Galvatron.

[newsy891.livejournal.com]

SWINDLE

Intelligence: 9
Street Smarts, In His Opinion: 364.2
Street Smarts, Actual: 0.5

Swindle: The Mummy Theory

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

I have a theory about Swindle and how he thinks of himself, how others see him and where he probably really is based around the movie "The Mummy" with Brendan Fraiser.

How Swindle Sees Himself: Richard "Rick" O'Connell, the sexy mercenary. Nice hair, good-looking, basically a decent enough guy.

Quote: [Rick is about to be hanged]
Hangman: Any last requests, pig?
Rick: Yeah. Loosen the knot and let me go.

How Others See Swindle: Beni Gabor, the weasley guy who carries all the different holy symbols and who is eventually devoured in the dark by icky bug things because he's too greedy to leave the tomb.

Quote: It is better to be the right hand of the devil than in his path."

What Swindle Is Probably Closest To: (though really he's kind of a mix of all three, with heavier doses of Beni and Johnathan) Johnathan Carnahan, brother of the female lead/Rick's Love Interest. Self-serving, largely ineffectual, bit of a weasel. Clever, but not as clever as he thinks he is.

Quote: Evelyn: You lied to me.
Jonathan: I lie to everybody. What makes you so special?
Evelyn: I am your sister.
Jonathan: Yes, well that just makes you more gullible.

My "Firefly" theory is that Jayne Cobb is Swindle and Brawl's illegitimate human love child.


---
I've got a similar theory about Vampire: The Masquerade Players and the first Blade movie.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

I love this. I mean, the look at Bruticus as a person. (And now I'm wondering how Devvy feels about the individual Constructicons...)

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It'd be interesting to do a story where the different gestalts are interacting. I know Amy and I have talked over the idea of a fic where gestalt *teams* are looking at each other with the whole "We're ok, you guys suck" thing going on, but it would be interesting to see how the actual *gestalts* get along. It's gotta be pretty lonely at times for the big guys.

[dualistic.livejournal.com]

I like this :)

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it 8)