Title: Hereafter Now
Author: Red Wasabi
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Notes: OK, so I have no idea where this came from. It grew out of all the trash that I have laying around my brain I suppose. There are some implications in this fic that I really, really, ridiculously hope you catch at the end of it.
This is a Pre-Earth fiction, and it involves my theory of how a sparkling can come about. PM me for a more in depth explanation!
Starscream/Unnamed femme. Before Starscream's crazy, cackling, Megatron hating days.
Rated: PG
The young Cadette re-charged restlessly in the barracks surrounded by his—enemies, potential enemies. In the Decepticon army you never had fellow soldiers, comrades in arms you only had a group of 'cons who hadn't betrayed you—yet.
The newly dubbed 'Starscream' twisted painfully on his berth as the days memory files snapped on and off sporadically. Today had been their first mission. Their first real mission, they had been sent to destroy a large neutral city called Binacon. Not just destroy, they had been sent to annihilate it, to obliterate it from the face of Cybertron, and from the history chips that would be written in the wake of the Decepticon Victory.
They had all been excited about his assignment. What self respecting 'Con wouldn't have been? They had been given the go-ahead to freely destroy everything, and everyone that lived with in the confines of the city. It was a Decepticon solder's dream. Even the nagging voice in the back of his neural net, the one that complained bitterly about the large waste of resources had been temporarily silenced when the destruction had first began.
The pure exhilaration that he had felt as he ripped pleading bot's in half, be they mech-or femme, was like nothing else he had ever experienced. He and a fellow Decepticon had simultaneously ripped a mech in half, and as they had each held a piece of the off-lined mech, their faces had held identical crazed grins of power and something else--something like a kind of secret knowledge. It had been the best moment of his life.
It had been such a long, long time since he had felt like he was part of something. As if he wasn't alone but a piece in something much larger, and much grander then he could ever dream of. That he had decided right then and there, had been what he had been searching for all these dark and lonely vorns.
The scowl on the re-charing 'cons face grew darker as his memory chips continued to fire. It had been exactly what he was searching for—until he had found her. The femme he had been searching for since he was just a nameless youngling abandoned on the streets of Iacon struggling to survive.
'A reassuring face looked down at him, and whispered gentle words of comfort as rough hands tried to piece together the remains of his mangled arm.
"You should have known better then to dig through that junk heap. Those bots are viscous." The voice scolded him. " You owe me one for saving you processor back there you know. How long you been out here anyway Sparky?"
"Long enough," came the pitifully un-intimidating reply form the youngling next to her.
The femme snorted, "Obviously not long enough. OK, here's the deal Sparky, you can stick with me as long as you like, and I'll protect you, but you gotta help out and earn your keep..." '
How had he had remembered those face plates after all these vorns, he didn't know. She'd of course looked older then how he had remembered her, and had been up-graded, but that glaring femme had been without a doubt, his dear friend. He had snarled fiercely at her, why was she here, here of all places! This was clicks away form Iacon, and he had orders to off-line every bot in the entire town.
The way her optics had stared into his, accusingly as he stood in front of her crouching form. He knew that he would continue to feel the weight of those optics on his freshly painted frame for the rest of his life. Then he had seen what she was crouched around—what she had been protecting.
His optics had move fervently between the quivering form of the gray, armor-less youngling in her arms and her's. He had searched them imploringly, as if all the answers in the universe could be found in them. He almost hadn't heard her when she spoke to him for the first time in vorns, "You still owe me Sparky."
Taken aback at her bluntness he had responded harshly, "I can't let you live you know. I've been giving the assignment to off-line every bot in this city, and a fully upgraded femme is just too easy to spot escaping. If I let you go now, one of the others would just kill you while you ran."
She had nodded grimly at him. "I know, I wasn't asking for my life to be spared..." hr voice had trailed off and she looked down at the huddled sparkling in her arms.
Starscream had stared hard at the small bunch of shaking wires in his old friend's arms. He had tried to dismiss how disturbingly familiar the sparklings unfinished frame seemed, "Still picking up strays I see?"
A smile had ghosted across her face, and Starscream's red optics had brightened at the sight. He had forgotten how beautiful she was, even when she was covered in other mech's fluids and had several dents across her frame, she was still the most beautiful femme he had ever known.
"No," she said quietly, "This one is different..." Starscream's mouth plates had opened to ask her why when the sound of the other soldiers approaching reached his audio receptors. "They're coming."
"Hey Starscream, found anything interesting over there?" A raucous voice had called out to him from around the heaps of destroyed and twisted metal that had once been the home of their victims.
She had looked at him hard, "You still owe me Starscream."
Something inside his spark casing had froze at her tone of voice, she had never talked to him so coldly before. 'But things have changed haven't they?' he thought
"The youngling, hide him." with a curt nod she had placed the painfully small bot on the debris covered ground and whispered in his audio receptors. With surprising swiftness for a bot so small the sparkling immediately teetered off abet awkwardly, and buried itself in a nearby heap of scrap metal.
The heavy pede-steps of the other solders had sounded closer as they stared at each other For the first time since joining up Starscream had felt something akin to guilt stir up inside his chassis. "I'm sorry..." He offered weakly as he had raised his laser and pointed it towards the area where he knew her spark casing lay.
Her optics had closed resolutely, "We both chose our fates." Then he pulled the trigger, and she had been reduced to nothing more than a pile of metaled scrap and fluids.
"Anything interesting over here?" The now grinding voice of fellow Cadette Barricade had asked him.
Slowly without sparing a glance towards the pile where he knew a now-orphaned sparkling lay trembling he had calmly responded, "Nothing just tying up some loose ends."
The Cadette jolted awake in his berth, he looked around the quiet barrack with hateful optics. He hated how they were able to re-charge peacefully without their sins of the day bothering them. The knowledge of the sparkling that he left in the scrap heaps weighed heavily down on him. It was hers, he was sure of it. That sparkling had been created from her spark, and he had doomed it to wander and most likely die just like he had been countless vorns ago.
His processors whirred silently as he played scenarios of what might happen to the sparkling now that it was alone. With a frustrated sigh he rolled over in his berth, none of them were good. It might have been kinder to kill the thing once he had killed her. Just to spare it from the horrors of their harsh world.
Suddenly his optics blazed on in realization, 'It looked like me!' Dimly he tried to remember how long ago their last spark-lock had been, and calculate how old the sparkling in her arms might have been. A small voice in his neural net whispered, 'She left right after your last spark-lock together...'
Starscream's optics widened as he finished his calculations. It fit, the sparkling's determinate age and their last lock together coincided with each other. She had left him because they had formed a spark together, but why hadn't she said anything?
A distant memory file opened up, ' "Have you ever thought about have a sparkling of you own?" She looked at him hopefully.
His optics opened wide in panic he had been warned by the other street mechs about this, whenever a femme started asking those questions some how a mech always ended up getting tied down for life.
"Nope, not at all," He said quickly, ignoring the way her optics dimmed as he spoke, "I don't think I'd ever want one either."'
She must have been trying to tell him then, Starscream sat up he had to go get the sparkling from the city. He couldn't just leave him there to rust! With a determined step he moved to the doors of his barracks, to his surprise they sprung open before he had reached them
The surly face of his commander, Shockwave looked in on him and said gruffly, "It's good to see a solider up and prepared before being commanded to be. What's your name solider?"
Starscream straightened up and responded, "Starscream, Sir!"
Shockwave nodded approvingly, "Well, then since you're already to go Starscream I'll show you what these lazy pit slaggers will be doing tomorrow."
Starscream silently followed after his commander thoughts of his abandoned sparkling plaguing his every step. Shockwave led him to the main monitor room and what Starscream saw on the consoles image inducer made him want to scream. The burning, melting remains of Binacon played on a unending loop across the screen.
There was no way that the sparkling could have survived that. Shockwave looked at Starscream's face plates and mistook his look of abject horror for one of awe. "Isn't it wonderful solider? I've been watching it all night. Tomorrow your unit is going to go and salvage what we can from it. What do you think?"
Starscream choked down the immense feelings of sorrow in his chassis. "I think it's wonderful Sir, that'll teach those neutrals to refuse to help our Army."
Shockwave nodded, "Yep, Starscream right? I want you to understand though that you're not going to be going out with them to salvage."
Even through his pain Starscream's insatiable curiosity got the better of him, "What will I be doing Sir?"
Shcokwave's optics went back to focused on the carnage playing on the screens in front of him. "Lord Megatron has noticed your dedication as of late. He wants to talk to you about your future as an officer tomorrow."
Starscream nodded but said nothing as he pretended to be fascinated with the images on the screen. He would become an officer for off-lining the one femme he had ever felt enough of a connection with to create a spark, and for dooming his one sparkling that he ever—would ever have.
As the melted massed of metal and half formed shells floated like a grotesque molten river across the screen, Starscream's optics flickered briefly. He should have off-lined it after he had off-lined her. He could have spared his only sparkling the terror and pain of being slowly melted to death in their—his 'con made smelting furnace. A new and firm resolution began to develop in his neural net, he would never show that kind of mercy ever again.
AN: OK, I totally made-up the name of the neutral city. Does it sound vaguely transformer-y? Also...didja catch what I was trying to imply? Huh-huh?pokes reader