know your enemy
By SMYGO4EVA, with Any Unborn Child
Many thoughts ran through Arcee's processor late one night.
They skipped around, retraced themselves, wandered aimlessly into nothing, only to reappear once again in strange and often fatalistic ways.
Whilst everyone else at base was recharging, she was still up. Still thinking. Still dealing with everything that had happened earlier that day.
Strangely enough, one of those thoughts was of how his mind worked.
Starscream's mind.
How did his circuitry come so unwired?
Even before one's lights would go out, it was possible to have certain regrets.
Apparently, not for Starscream.
"Wh-Wh-What is that?"
"The key to your cuffs."
"What for?"
His eyes wide red lights.
Her optics thin slits of blue.
"Cliff would have given you a fighting chance."
Recoiling, Starscream exclaimed, "No, please! I-I don't want to! What's past is past! I'm one of you now!"
Pulling out her twin rifles straight at him, ready to fire amongst the sound of wretched pleas, Arcee yelled,
"Take it!"
Swiftly, Starscream ceased his groveling. He paused for a moment, a helpless look appearing in his optics. He feebly took the key from the ground, only to have it slip between his fingers, giving an audible gasp in response.
Arcee held her ground, refraining from moving even an inch to respond to Starscream's ineffectualness. Icily, she states, "You're pathetic."
Arcee had threatened his life many times that day. His pleas were pathetic and whiny, acidic cries for mercy dripping with every word that came out of his mouth. This has only made her despise him even more, because he looked so damn pathetic. He became a bug that deserved to be squashed. It was not until moments later, when she felt a sharp stab to her midsection, energon spilling as she could see Starscream's optics shining with disturbing delight.
"Something wrong, Arcee? I thought you wanted a fight!"
She thinned her optics at the memory.
It unnerved her how deceitfully high his voice could get, as well as how fast it morphed, slithering into a predatory low tone. His vocal quality still echoed amongst the inner workings of her mind. The strange vibrations contorted to a raspy and menacing sound that wrapped itself around the nuts and bolts of her reasoning, twisting them to their own undoing.
It reverberated to no end, relentlessly, unyielding.
His true colors had revealed themselves, uncontrolled.
"You're tougher to scrap than your partner, at least the one I scrapped. Was Tailgate weak like Cliffjumper?" Starscream had said, a fiendish smile evident in his voice, taking joy in Arcee's current state.
"Just… keep talking, Starscream." Arcee retorted, continuing to fight back with everything she had. At that moment, all of her might was focused on sending Starscream to oblivion, on getting revenge for Cliffjumper.
The damage she had received that day has resounded still. Even though the scratches had long since faded, she could still feel the vibrations and the impact of each blow that Starscream had dealt upon her, his malice knowing no bounds.
"You should have finished me when I was helpless to fight, just like I finished Cliffjumper!" Starscream taunted her as he edged closer, fully aware of Arcee's vulnerable state.
Wincing, aching, struggling, Arcee tried to get back on her feet, not having much success. With her energon supply slowly depleting, she fought the urge to spring onto the lowly Decepticon and take off his head then and there.
She just had to wait until the right moment…
As he spoke, Starscream's voice got dangerously low. "…Now, prepare to reunite with your partners!" He emphasized the last word with a metallic unsheathing of his claw-like fingers.
At last, she spoke, albeit breathlessly. "Th…Thi…"
"What's that? I can't hear your last words!"
Finally, Arcee had enough strength to speak fully, forcefully, deliberately.
"This…is for Cliffjumper!"
What happened afterwards still resounded within her to this day…
At that moment, Arcee was finally able to release the anger that was pent up inside of her system, inside of her very spark. The frustration, the confusion, the guilt, the fury, the bargaining, the sadness…all of it was unleashed in two blows and a resonant yell, as the last strike was more than enough to knock Starscream down, her twin blades at his throat.
Threatened once again, Starscream's eyes no longer had the look of a killer in them. They betrayed him, the mask of weakness and inferiority coming back once more.
"Go on - do it. Megatron will only terminate me for treason if I go back to the Decepticons! You may as well be the one to put me out of my misery."
"As if I needed convincing." Arcee pulled back, her hand curled into a fist, aimed squarely at Starscream, ready to finally finish him.
"Wha-Wait! No!"
In the midst of Starscream's words of fearful retaliation, Arcee's own optics trailed to a sight beyond, to Bumblebee.
His optics were widened with shock, horror, and despondence.
The look in Bumblebee's eyes said more to Arcee than anything else ever did in a long time.
She had let Starscream go after all, leaving him to wander. Wherever he was, she didn't care.
Thinking about the incident that late night, she was reminded of how far she was willing to go to get closure, or whatever closure she could find. She was reminded of who she was, who she was molding into, who she was meant to be.
Autobots…they're not executioners.
If they were….
…they would be no better than them.
No better than the Decepticons.
No better than the enemy that she had come to know.