A crazy bunny passed by...
Continuity: G1
Genre: It looks serious but it is all just ridiculous crack-y Crack!
Pairing: Implied TC/warp, Thundercracker/Astrotrain, Megatron/Starscream.
Warning: Ridicule ending, drug abuse, Firecrackers, mention of gore-y stuff and sexual stuff but nothing graphic.
Two days ( and the Party of the Vorn!) later.
Megatron had gone to Cybertron with the constructions so Shockwave could check the gestalt team, then see if he could improve their transformation and merging process.
This was a simple, two-days trip off planet, and Megatron had deemed it safe to put his second-in-command in charge while he was gone.
What could possibly happen in so short a time?
If only he had known...
To say he was surprised upon his return, two days later, was an understatement.
He had expected his second-in-command, to whom he had given the responsibility of the base in his absence, to be waiting for him as the lift came down.
" Starscream" He called. "I'm back! I hope for you that you have kept the base clean and in working order while I..."
But there was no annoyed-looking seeker there to greet him. Instead, the warlord found himself stumbling over the numerous piles of energon cubes that littered the halls of his ship.
" What in the pits of kaon is that?" he roared, feeling anger rise as Hook helped him up.
The constructicons looked at each other then back at Megatron and shrugged.
" Let's move on!" Megatron spat, stomping down the halls.
" Energon cubes!" Longhaul stated in awe. " Energon cubes everywhere!" Indeed, as far as they went, they found piles of those, all over the place and seemingly too much for the ship to hold.
Mixmaster tilted his head up and sniffed the air. " It smells strange..." He commented.
" Onward!" Megatron repeated, urging them on. The amount of energon he found eased his anger, but he was still wary of what else he would discover. Ready for almost anything, he stomped to the command center.
...And stopped dead in his track upon entering said-room.
The floor was littered with full, half-full and empty energon cubes, dried energon, spare-parts..., Or was it...No, it better not be, Megatron picked something up and immediately let go of it with a grimace of disgust. "What the hell happened here?" He wondered aloud.
No scenario he made up in his mind could fully explain this, but there was at least one thing he was certain of: this looked a lot like a party gone terribly wrong.
And then he saw it.
With a wordless roar, he walked further inside of the command center and stopped to stand over a pile of rubbles marking the spot where his throne used to be.
That pile of rubbles had a distinctively tri-colored seeker spread over it. Half of his chassis was tarnished by black burn marks, and he looked so much like slag Hook couldn't tell whether or not he was still alive. He was holding something in his arms, with a vice-like grip, but none of the mechs present could tell exactly what it was.
" STARSCREAM!" Megatron grabbed the seeker by a wing, pulled him up, then shook him a few times and shouted in his audios. " EXPLAIN!"
This had the much-desired effect ( at least, for Megatron's part) to wake Starscream up from his high-grade-induced stasis.
" Ack!" He trashed in Megatron's grip, dropping whatever he had been holding and to which the warlord paid no attention for the moment. The seeker eventually looked up at who he was dealing with and froze abruptly. " Megatron..." He breathed, fear creeping up across his face like a dark cloud would over a landscape. " I can explain."
He smelled like cold high grade and burnt metal, which mixed together made for an awful aroma. Disgusted by the stench emanating from his second-in-command, Megatron let go of him. " Really? Can you?" he asked, his tone dangerous. He sounded so pissed that the constructicons, who still stood behind him, took a step back.
Starscream stared at his leader from his undignified position on the dirty floor, optics filled with dread and terror. " I...I..." But Megatron could already tell: The idiotic seeker must have drunk so much the last night, that he didn't remember what happened afterward.
He must have been in pain, too, if the state he was in was anything to go by. That was still nothing compared to what Megatron would do to him, after he'd have made the light on the previous night's events .
" I don't remember..." Starscream confessed, his burnt wings slumping down.
" Very well, then! We'll pull the surveillance tapes and we'll watch them together!" Megatron said, reaching for the console. " I think this will be quite enlightening!"
Maybe even entertaining..He added for himself.
OOOOOOOO
Three days earlier...
Starscream beamed so much he looked like a lighthouse.
Standing tall and superb in the cargo hold of the 'Victory', his fists on his hips and his wings held high in a display of superiority and pride, he chuckled quietly to himself and his optics were just as bright as the fire in his spark.
I am so brilliant, he praised himself inwardly
" Starscream!" Onslaught called, " We don't have enough space in here to store the energon cubes!"
That made the seeker beam even more, if that was possible. He shivered in delight.
" Just store the extra ones in the command center." He replied.
" We've already done that!" Onslaught explained. " But it's full there too!"
This time, Starscream laughed out loud, this was just too awesome! He was just too awesome!
" Then put the cubes wherever you can! Store them in the private quarters if you have too!" He said, offering his brightest, by far, smile to the combaticon.
" Yes, sir!" Onslaught responded with a bow before he went out of the cargo area, his arms trembling under the weight of the cubes he was carrying.
Starscream felt so happy-proud-self-admirative-awesome-clever-brillant, that he thought his spark could burst out of his chest at any moment.
The mere sight of the cargo hold, filled from floor to ceiling with shiny energon cubes, almost made him overload on the spot in pure joy and self-adoration. And to know there were still far more, hurriedly stored in every parts of the sunken ship that could contain them, this was just too wonderful!
Starscream had just needed for Megatron to leave for a few orns- talking slag with Shockwave- so he could achieve what his glorious leader had never managed to.
Remain at base during my short absence, the old fool had ordered him, and do nothing- and I mean nothing!-while I am away.
Starscream had bowed to his leader and promised on his own spark that he would be good and obedient. Pit if he would do just that! Megatron hadn't stepped into the space bridge, Starscream was already drafting a plan.
He had finished said-plan within mere breems, then had immediately shoved it at the troops' faces, along with orders and strict instructions for the planetary-wide raid he had thought up and carefully planned for that very night.
At first, and to a few exceptions, no one accepted to obey him. The spineless cowards! They had been too afraid of what Megatron would do to them if they ever followed Starscream. And to say the seeker was not only their superior, but Megatron's second-in-command, their Air commander and on-base top scientist! How could he have no authority? This was outrageous!
This was beyond logic!
But he had remained calm, reminding himself that killing those wretches would be highly detrimental to the outcome of his plan.
He had, in yet another superb show of intelligence and self-control, presented the soldiers with a deal they couldn't refuse. If the mission went wrong, he promised, he would allow all the troops to take it on him. If the mission went as expected, he would let them throw the party of the vorn.
Of course, he had never meant to follow through on his promise, certainly not on the ' you'll be allowed to beat me to slag' part of it. But at the end, it went remarkably well!
And even better than that!
He had decided, for this- 'I'll prove you all, bunch of rusted-alloy-made sycophants, how deserving I am to be your leader'-raid, to bid on stealth, speed and, most importantly, cunning.
A few Earth-hours after the sun had set, Starscream had dispatched small groups of two-or three- Decepticon soldiers to several energy sources, such as power plants, wind-driven generators and dams, until a total of fifteen energy sources were covered. What he called the 'On-scene groups' had to sneak inside the human facilities, while being as stealthy as they could, then start fill-up cubes quickly but quietly, to make sure the night-vigil wouldn't spot them.
Meanwhile, all the Decepticons that turned into flying machines and had cargo capacity ( Starscream called them 'the collectors') had to, as their code-designation for this particular mission precised, fly from one 'on-scene group' to the other and collect the energon cubes they had filled.
Of course, the 'collectors' had to fly around with no navigation lights on and their engines had been coated, for the occasion, with a special sound-proofing foam, which made them as silent as the night around them. Starscream himself had thought up and created the sound-proofing foam in his own lab; it allowed the heat to pass through so the fliers could still cool their engines, but it efficiently muttered the noise.
At the end, and as expected, the mission was a complete and total success! All went smoothly, they brought everyone back with no casualties- they were not detected and they didn't even spot the bumper of an Autobot.
All in all, after a total of twenty voyages from on-scene groups to base, the 'collectors' brought back 3456 energon cubes...And counting. This was, by far, the most beneficial raid the Decepticons ever made.
And Starscream- alone- was responsible for this.
Oooh Megatron would be so pissed...And so proud at the same time! The seeker was thrilled and excited at he thought of all the funny- and humiliating- faces Megatron would pull at the sight of Starscream's triumph.
If he hadn't been second-in-command already, he'd have asked for a promotion. Well, maybe the Decepticons wouldn't want the old bucket-headed brute back now that they had witnessed what a GENIUS Starscream was and what he was capable of.
Yes!, the seeker told himself, they will all adulate me for now on! And if they don't, they certainly should!
He hadn't finished thinking that thought that a loud clamor suddenly raised behind him.
" Party! Party! Party!"
Oh right, he had promised them a party if the mission went well. Ah..well, they were very lucky, because he felt generous!
It wouldn't hurt to spare a few cubes for a small party, anyway. After all, His Decepticons had done well and they sure deserved it- not as much as Starscream himself deserved praise, admiration and someone to put a crown on his head- but they still deserved it.
He turned toward them, chest puffed out, wings and chin held as high as they went, and declared with a theatrical sweep of the hand: " My fellow Decepticons! Have this party you so desire! Me, Starscream, your generous, brilliant, and fair leader, allows it!"
They cheered him, and, in truth, they only cared about the party. That satisfied Starscream's ego...since he thought that the only purpose of all those cheers was to celebrate his magnificence.
He marched like a conqueror- a very vain and arrogant one too- toward the command center where, upon arrival, he saluted his troops much like a king would. He, then, picked a cube for himself, stuttered slowly to Megatron's throne, on which he made a show of placing his important aft. He sat there, cube in one hand, wings straight, one leg hooked over the armrest, and looking smug and utterly in love with himself.
One breem later, Soundwave approached him. " Megatron: Must be informed of recent events." He droned out, always the loyal pet.
Starscream regarded him with disdain and dimmed optics, he simply said: "no".
As Soundwave insisted, The Air commander shot him with his null-ray. Then, taking advantage of the telepath's temporary paralysis, he disconnected his neural net. " There, fusion-cannon sucker! you won't further spoil my fun!" He declared to the now-unresponsive mech lying next to the throne.
Starscream kicked him once for good measure then casually propped his feet up on him.
Rumble looked at his 'boss' concernedly but Starscream waved at Soundwave's prone form and beckoned the cassette to him so he could pat his head. " Don't worry! Your daddy will be fine, I'll re-connect him...Eventually."
" Does it mean I get to take care of the music myself?" Rumble asked, smiling mischievously at the seeker.
" Of course!" Starscream said, giving the cassette a last pat on the head and a light shove.
A few kliks later, a loud, audio-shattering sound rattled the base.
OoO
One Earth-hour later...
" Hey Starscream" Thundercracker stopped in front of the throne where Starscream still sat, lazily slumped down on it, his wings hanging from the armrests. The blue seeker could tell he was already over-energized. " Have you seen Skywarp around?"
" Nope." Starscream said, smirking up at the other seeker almost seductively. " but why do you care?"
The blue seeker shrugged. " I have to keep him in sight, to make sure he's not doing something stupid."
Starscream chuckled. " Even if he was setting a trap right under your nose plate, you wouldn't notice it, TC!" He lifted his leg straight in front of him. " Now stop bothering me about Skywarp and show your beloved trine-leader some appreciation!"
Thundercracker looked down at the lifted leg, raised a brow, then looked back at Starscream confusedly. " What?"
" Kiss my foot!" Starscream ordered with a purr.
" Well, kiss my aft!" Thundercracker retorted, swatting Starscream's leg away before stomping out of the control center in search for his other stupid wing mate.
Starscream watched him leave. " Next time, I'll burn your face off, you ungrateful, tasteless cyber-duck!" he muttered.
Meanwhile, in Mixmaster's lab,
'VOOP'
Skywarp chuckled to himself as he looked around the spot he had just teleported on. He was yet to determine exactly where he was. " Huhu!" He snorted. " This looks like Mix's 'cave'..." he remarked. " I wonder if there's something I could use..."
He was just over-energized enough to be inspired for a prank. There was a slight problem, though: he didn't know what he would do to whom yet.
The purple seeker went down on all fours and crawled around the lab, snickering as he passed a seemingly off-line surveillance camera. " Now, what is this?" he poked at a small crate carefully then quickly leaned away and protected himself just in case. He didn't want the thing, whatever it was, to explode in his face.
When there was no explosion and nothing else that could have spelled danger, Skywarp took the crate in his hand and carefully lifted the wooden lid.
Inside, he saw a lot of tiny and shiny purple spheres.
" Oooooh! Energon goodies!" He squealed, promptly subspacing the crate and its delicious content.
OOO
" Skywarp, come to see your awesome Air commander for a nano-klik, will you?!" Starscream grabbed the purple seeker as he stumbled by, munching on something that looked tasty.
The warper giggled as he fell aft-first on his wing-leader's lap. " Hay thar Screamy!" He greeted him and giggled again.
" You are over-energized!" Starscream stated. But he didn't shove his wing mate off his lap. " Anyway, what are you eating?"
" 'Am so not!" Skywarp retorted, not making much sense. His optics had taken a strange shade of orange, to which Starscream didn't pay much heed. " And I found energon Goooooodies!" He giggled again, rolling slightly on Starscream's lap to nuzzle the red seeker's chest.
" You did? Where?" Starscream asked, content to finally get the appreciation he deserved. His soldiers were a bunch of graceless ingrates! When he becomes their new leader, he'll fire them all! He decided.
" I don't remember...Huuu" Skywarp subspaced a candy and pushed it against Starscream's mouth. " For youuuu!" He sing-sang while still chuckling.
Starscream opened his mouth and let the candy roll on his tongue. " Hmmm" He moaned lightly. " These are good."
" Yisssss!" Skywarp giggled and raised his legs until he was comfortably cradled on the Second-in-command's lap.
" Hey! What do you have there?" Astrotrain and Blitzwing inquired. "Energon goodies? Give some to us too!"
A giggling Skywarp shoved the whole crate in the tallest triple-changer's hand. " Thar! Have it! distribute 'em around!" He declared. It was a good thing that the constructicons were currently off-base!
OOO
Thundercracker pushed mechs aside roughly in his attempt to reach the center of the dance floor. He needed to dance, he needed to do it now!
" Step aside!" He snarled, punching Astrotrain in the chest plate, " And give me another of those energon candies!"
" Only because you ask nicely, pretty aft!" The triple-changer said. He took a candy from the crate- there wasn't many left- and, holding it in his hand, he grabbed the blue seeker with the other and smeared the candy all over his lips. " there you have!"
Thundercracker screamed in outrage, his usually deep voice reaching a pitch that would have made his Air commander jealous. In his rage, he shoved at the other mech abruptly.
Astrotrain, who had been giggling stupidly at the seeker's angry face, stumbled backward, thrown of balance by the sudden- and more forceful that it should have been – impact of the seeker's hands on his shoulders.
Thundercracker followed him down, his roar feral and his optics wild with rage. He reminded the triple-changer of these Terran creatures he had once observed while flying close over land. He had no idea what they were called, but their claws had looked a lot like Thundercracker's did right now.
" Someone! Help!" He called as the seeker snarled and started to disfigure him with his sharp claws- pit! He didn't even know seekers had these- " Take him off me!"
" Give me another candy!" Thundercracker growled low and dangerous, " Or I will rip your optics out one after the other!"
Astrotrain gaped at him and extended a hand to reach for the discarded crate. " Ok ok...Just stop okay!" He finally managed to pick two goodies from the crate. With a trembling hand, he gave one to the blue seeker and gulped one down himself. Immediately, the seeker calmed down and slumped down over the triple-changer's frame.
" Alright" He said, " Now come to my room."
" W-what?" Astrotrain spluttered as he tried to push the mech off of him.
" I want my fun and Skywarp is busy." Thundercracker growled, flexing his energon-covered claws in front of the other's face again. " My. Room. Now! I won't repeat myself!"
He stood up, grabbed Astrotrain, then dragged the struggling and screaming mech to his room.
" And stop screaming or it is your spark I'll rip out!" He warned as he calmly made his way through the halls and toward his quarters, a now-very quiet Astrotrain in tow.
OOO
Three Earth-hours later...
" THIS THING" * Bham!* " IS UGLY!" A litany of curses fell from Starscream's mouth without coherency as the seeker crashed the hammer down on Megatron's throne again.
It had started all naturally-like: At some point, Starscream had decided he didn't want to sit on that throne anymore. It was too plain and boring, in no way up to his standards; he was too important to satisfy himself with this crude-looking ' atrocity' and he needed to have another throne built for himself.
But first, he wanted this one out of his sight.
He stomped out and went to fetch a hammer that was as tall as he was. Then, and as he found out that he was suddenly as strong as ten kaonian gladiators put together, he brought the heavy tool down on the throne.
No one tried to stop him as he brought the hammer down repeatedly. The Decepticons gathered around the Air commander to watch the show and laughed their aft off, obviously greatly amused by the scene.
Starscream threw the hammer down one last time, then straightened himself up, stepped down from the crumbled piece of furniture, and finally joined the general hilarity.
He laughed and his high-pitched laughter sounded so horrible that Skywarp started to cry. " Noooo!" He whined. " Creator! Do not kill my petro-rabbit!"
" Aww don't cry, warpy!" Starscream pulled him in his arms and hugged him. " I have just what you need to be happy!"
The purple seeker in his arm sniffled loudly. " What is it?"
"Firecracker!" The second-in-command declared.
" Hu? We have firecrackers?" Thrust asked. Everybody looked at Swindle but he shock his head at them sadly- the effect was spoiled by his broad, stupid grin-. He shrugged. " I should have thought about that..." He said, ashamed of this oversight.
" Don't worry!" Starscream threw his arms in the air." We'll use rockets and missiles! That'll make it even more pretty!"
" Oh yes!" Skywarp said, his previous psychological state seemingly forgotten. " Let's bring them outside! We'll make a beautiful fire-work on the beach."
" No no no!" Starscream said, waving is finger in front of Skywarp's face. " Let's do this near the Autobot's base, so they can enjoy the show too!"
They stared at him. Aggravation clear in their now orange-colored optics, but they all wore mismatched idiotic grins, which made non-verbal conversations quite nonsensical and uncared for.
" I was kidding." Starscream said, giggling. Oooh he was so hilarious! They could only love him! "I want to bring their base down!"
And then, he climbed back on the scraps of Megatron's destroyed throne and spread his arms wide. "I FEEL INDESTRUCTABLEEE!" He suddenly declared and the Decepticons roared around him.
Astrotrain- who had finally escaped Tc's room with a few additional scratches and a sore aft - lifted the seeker up and sat him on his shoulders. They all walked toward the munitions store, shouting Starscream's name along with nonsensical praises, statements of how pretty the ceiling was and protests about how ugly the floor appeared to be, with all those snakes gliding around and between their feet.
OOO
Starscream pushed another of those delicious candies in his mouth. " Hhehe!" He chuckled. " I can't believe we've done it!" He stated, looking over to the others, who laid sprawled on the beach next to him.
" We've done what?" Thundercracker asked from his position, half-laying on him.
Starscream stared at him and blinked a few times. " I can't remember..."
" But that was great alright!" Skywarp declared, peeling weird-looking stuff from his legs and thrusters.
" What was?" Thundercracker poked him.
" I don't know...I just know it was great!"
Somewhere in the distance, a fire still burned tall and wide and beautifully bright.
OOO
"... And in all truth...This is all I can remember..." Starscream told Megatron two days later. "I still have no idea what we did then..." Starscream said, his head held down in shame.
By then, the rest of the soldiers had re-joined the command center and were looking at least as ashamed as Starscream in the face of their leader. Most of them, if not all of them, sported burn marks. But, for the most part, they were intact, except for Blast-off and Dirge, who were lightly damaged. Of course, no one remembered a thing from the previous night.
" Obviously, you attacked the Autobot base." Megatron stated casually. " Which explains why there are parts of Optimus Prime's body lying around."
Starscream looked downright shocked by that and most Decepticons present gasped.
" What?" Starscream said. " What parts?"
Megatron said nothing. He turned lightly in his seat and extended a hand to point at something that looked a lot like a truck's grill.
" But...It could be any truck's grill..." Starscream supplied with a shrug and a nervous laugh.
Megatron's face remained blank as he pointed at the item Starscream had been holding so possessively when his leader had found him earlier.
This time, everybody in the room gasped, including Starscream.
" Well...that looks a lot like the Prime's head..." He stated and giggled nervously, rendered half-insane as the realization of what they had done slowly crept into his processor. " Then...This must be one of his finger..."
They followed his stare, gasped again, and stepped back from where the finger was.
" I re-connected Soundwave's neural net and sent Lazerbeak to investigate our enemy's base." Megatron interjected, beckoning his third-in-command over. " Soundwave, if you will..."
The gathered Decepticons watched as the communication officer silently walked over to the console and pushed a key, displaying Lazerbeak's feedback for every mech to see.
The image elicited another serie of gasps from the dumbfounded Decepticons.
" Starscream." Megatron started calmly. " Do you realize what you have done? I was gone for only two days, and you, in the mean time, you filled my ship worth of energon cubes, killed my arch-enemy, then burned his base down to ashes, along with most of its crew."
"Yes, I d...did..." Starscream stammered, not quite realizing the extend of his actions yet.
" And you managed all that with only but a few burn marks and no casualties."
" Y..yes.." Starscream repeated again.
" And you did so while being over-energized and under the influence of a strong toxin Mixmaster designed, in the first place, so we could feed it to the Autobots and confuse them..."
" Y..yes.." This was getting annoying, really. " Are you going to punish me for that?"
Megatron chuckled loudly " He wins the war in two days and then he asks me if I will punish him for it?!"
The others laughed unconvincingly, they were still too intoxicated and confused by the events to fully grasp their meaning.
Megatron turned back to Starscream. " I will not punish you, Starscream, no." he told him with a fond smile. Then, very seriously, he declared: "I will marry you!"
Starscream just stared at him, as terrified as if the warlord had just sentenced him to termination.
Megatron grabbed the dumbstruck seeker unceremoniously, flung him over his shoulder and marched toward the exit.
" Someone, call Shockwave!" He commanded. " He has a bonding ceremony to attend!"
He was gone the next instant but the decepticons didn't move. They just stood there, gaping at the screen, not understanding what had just happened. Soundwave was the only one who eventually walked to the communicator to do as told.
END
Thank you for reading! I hope this wasn't too lame.
And now for the after-credits thing...
( pardon the lack of credits though)
Everyone attended Starscream's and Megatron's bonding ceremony. Some shed a few tears, some other looked bored all day long.
Thundercracker was part the second group. After the ceremony, he tried to distance himself from the crowd and be as invisible as possible. As the party started to warm up, he placed himself as far from the dance floor as he possibly could, and went to stand near the buffet with an half-empty cube of super-high grade and a decidedly bored look.
After a long moment of hesitation, Astrotrain finally found the courage to approach him.
" Er..Hello..Do I disturb you?" He asked the blue seeker carefully.
" Yes." Thundercracker replied coldly, not sparing the mech a glance.
" Oh...okay.." The triple-changer said, dejected.
He made to leave but Thundercracker caught him back and squeezed his arm painfully.
" Meet me in my room in two breems!" He whispered in his audio. " And bring your candies."
Astrotrain beamed.
" Don't be late or I'll rip your cable off!" Thundercracker warned before letting him go.
END
( and this time I mean it)