-1The Novafire Chronicles.
Disclaimer: Transformers belong to Hasbro and the film to DreamWorks/Paramount, I make no money from it.
Summary: A spy is sent into the Autobot base to capture their first femme, and it brings up all sorts of complications and old feelings for both the Decepticons and the Autobots.
Warnings: Starscream eventually gets a leadership node here, but starts off his usual incompetent self. If you want it can be AU.
This story contains slash. It contains het as well, but it won't work without the slash, so if you don't like slash don't read it.
Acknowledgements: The idea of Megatron hating femmes comes from P.A.W.O7, so I give her credit for it. This story contains ideas thought of by LittleMewLugia and I, which we worked on together.
Part 1. Rian and Razorwing.
"Go and get me the Autobot femme, Razorwing! That is your mission, for the future of the Decepticon Forces, and you are given
12 hours to complete it. Be back here at this time tomorrow, or it will be worse for you!"
"Y-yes, Lord Starscream!" said Razorwing. He knew that last bit was only a flourish for those looking on. Starscream was his friend - he had always told him that. He, Razorwing, polished their feet and got their energon, and did anything a young friendly flier might do, in their particular Seeker quarters, away from the groundlings, which Starscream said he shouldn't be friends with as a flier, even though he himself found nothing against them.
His alt. form was a VTOL Harrier, 42 ft as a plane and 24 ft hig as a robot. His wings were narrow although they had large engines, thus giving him his name.
Starscream even gave him friendly pat on the wing as he left, noticing some damage on him, saying "You'll have to get that checked over when you get back, it shouldn't stop you flying."
What Starscream did not know, unfortunately, was that Razorwing had had to undertake Skywarp's shift as well as his own, just previous to this, and one of the loads had fallen on him, damaging his back, fuselage and one of his wings. The circumstances of this were as follows:
Skywarp had invited him to his own personal quarters. Such a thing was not impossible but slightly unusual. Razorwing had polished him, unkinked his wires and got him some energon, and Skywarp
had suggested they enjoy it in his quarters.
Skywarp's' quarters were surprisingly light for such a dour black and purple mech. They were near the top of their warehouse type HQ. Besides the normal accoutrements of rest pallet/recharging chamber and weapons stand, they were equipped like a studio flat would be for humans. There was a bay for lubrication or refuelling and cleaning as well as several easels and painting equipment set up.
On the easels and around on the walls were several paintings of a beautiful Decepticon femme - in fact some pictures must have been before the war because she had no badge on her. Her colours were red, yellow and orange, and she had gold and copper lights in her bronze hair. She was a groundling but he could see she was a dancer, she looked lithe and fast. She was pictured in various exotic and unusual positions, but in one picture she was thinking - problem solving, the legend said - with a computer screen in the background. There was a line drawing sketch by someone else of her with Skywarp who was carrying something. The final painting on the nearest easel was of her with a large (30 ft or so) silvery steel spiky Mech: unmistakeably Megatron.
"Who was she, Skywarp?" Razorwing asked in an awed voice, coming in with his energon, and stroking Skywarp's wings, as he lay on his rest pallet. The seeker's optics widened with emotion and took on a faraway look, as he took the cube.
"Her name was Novafire," said Skywarp, after taking a sip of his Energon. "She was a dancer. She could dance at 306 revolutions per minute."
"Every mech who saw her, wanted her and she went with them - but gave herself to none. She was an intelligent femme who worked for us at the academy, although she was a groundling. The only one she trusted to carry her P.A.D.S and dancing equipment was me. "Good old reliable Skywarp," she called me - he chuckled sourly - "to her friends, after I'd been with her for several Earth years. And then she laughed at me."
He paused, sneered and took another sip of Energon.
"I loved her, Razorwing. I don't know if I ever got any further with her than I have with you, the stroking and friendship level, even the kissing and appreciating thing. It's hard to remember. But that night after she laughed at me with her friends, I felt she just perceived me as a ridiculous fool after I'd loved her and helped her for years, so I left. I heard of her going with others."
"When I saw her again it was when I was helping Megatron in his lab. She had chosen to come to him and dance for him and lay herself at his feet. "What do you want of me, Lord Megatron?" she asked. "I am happy to give myself to you in any way." She batted her green optics at him."
"I want your life!" said Megatron, and started, beginning at her feet and legs up, to tear her apart. He twisted her body, so that when she was split…in two, her spark still survived in her top half. He then tore off her arms, one by one. Underneath his desk, I noticed, there was a small mech sparkling looking on."
"He tore her head off her body and…crushed it. The last thing I saw of her, her optics were looking at me, and I saw her lips form my name. I know now, because I managed to collect some of her memory chips after she died, that she was thinking of me in the last moments of her life and wishing she had given me more of a chance. Realizing she'd had a good reliable friend and possible Spark-mate in me, but it was too late." He sighed out air through his vents.
"That was… about the last I saw of Megatron. After that there were battles, we fought for him, but the All Spark launched off and Megatron went after it, and we eventually followed him here to Earth - you know, the battle was over, when we got here, he was destroyed, and so was the Cube. But Novafire, my beautiful Nova- fire, was gone, killed in a horrible way."
"I live now for the freedom of the air, the piquancy of the tricks I can play on friends, the fun of warping - and my friendship with you, other fliers and my brother Seekers. She loved me, I loved her: she is gone and I will not meet her like again." He had the faraway look in his optics again.
"Don't you think you will ever love a femme again, Skywarp?" Razorwing had asked, stroking his wings. "If not, I guess there's always mechsex."
"I'll never meet another like her." he said, sadness clouding his optics. "But who cares: she was just an evil, treacherous femme!"
He thumped the ground with a fist. His voice had changed to one Razorwing did not know, but it sounded a bit like Megatron's.
"And Swindle is always threatening me with his torso cannon, and Astrotrain says one day he'll get me for that missile I fired at him once. All your friends could be your enemies one day." He shuttered his optics and his derma plates flattened into a hard line, and he cycled air fast through his vents.
Razorwing could see he was really upset. "Skywarp, I'm sorry to have made you remember such terrible things," he said, stroking his wings. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"My shift," said Skywarp in a forced snarl that reminded him of his last remark, and did not sound very like him. Yet when talking about Novafire he had not sounded like himself, his voice had been light and sometimes joyful, not surly, vicious, evilly mischievous or don't care-ish at all.
"Your - shift?" Said Razorwing.
Skywarp's shift included guarding the base for an hour, then flying and shifting loads for another hour, and as Skywarp was a much bigger plane or robot than him, who could warp, the loads were consequently bigger. But it was do-able.
"Yes, Skywarp." Razorwing had said, raising his head from his chest and going off with his empty energon cube.
And thus, when Starscream had given his command he was tired instead of recharged as he would have been after his shift was completed, and damaged instead of in tip-top condition. But he still had energy left, he hoped the damage would self-repair, he was eager to please his Commander and undertake his first solo mission to the Autobot base.