Minific: Sundering

[stainless]

Title: Sundering
Characters: Rumble
Verse: G1
Wordcount: 520+
Rating: K
Warnings: Nothing, really.
Summary: Minific for the comment fic party over at crimson_optics (come join us! Yes, you!)

The prompt was "Rumble/Frenzy - shenanigans," but it turned into this. Rumble muses on why using his piledrivers to "shake things up a little" on Earth is particularly awesome.

Most of the Decepticon army had long since figured out that he enjoyed using his piledrivers. Sure, he could cover his glee with taunting and threats. That was what you did to your enemies just before you handed them a Big Problem. You mocked them. Scared them, if you could. And it wasn't like he didn't enjoy watching them fall, especially when he was part of the reason why.

But the best part was the simplest: the feel of this alien world, shuddering and splintering under his blows. He was small, small and light. Everyone knew he was useful - instant chasms and sudden avalanches were great ways of slowing foes down. But he never had powerlike this anywhere else. He knew what they all thought of him, allies and enemies alike. To them, he was a loudmouthed runt, good for nothing more than a few pranks and distractions.

Until he made things fall apart.

It was better here than anywhere else. Back home it was nice, metal reverborating with his blows, structures beginning to shake and topple, falling to pieces for him and those he served.

But this planet was made of stranger stuff: rock that gorged and split, cracks erupting from his impacts, the surface itself coming apart, shaking and unwinding in accordance with his will. And when the ground wasn't splitting, rocks fell instead, burying anyone in their way, smashing the metal of those caught beneath them to twisted, dented scrap.

Before coming here, he'd never quite understood his leader, the obsession Lord Megatron had with conquest, his endless thirst for power. Sure, everyone wanted to take over this planet, and everyone had reasons. For some, it was general principle, because that was what they did. Some wanted revenge for being stranded here, stuck on a backward and primitive world. Most wanted the abundant energy sources that seemed to be just about everywhere; there was nothing like centuries of war to teach an army what privation was.

Some just wanted to smash things, to rip and tear and rend anything in their way. And this backward little planet was nothing if not in the way.

He was fine with that. Breaking stuff was great. Breaking stuff was his thing.

But he'd never understood the passion for conquest that animated Lord Megatron. Not until he felt this world crumbling beneath him.

Oh, he'd never be Megatron. He wasn't a conqueror deep down. He liked making trouble, and causing earthquakes was trouble, and that was good enough for him.

But there was something about it all, something that sent tremors through his systems when his keeper ejected him and he leapt to the dusty ground.

Sometimes he hoped that Megatron or Soundwave or Starscream would give the order someday and be so busy fighting that he'd forget to call him off.

Sometimes he hoped he'd never stop shaking the ground of this strange world until it all lay in rubble at his tiny feet.