Title: Jet-Baiting
Author: Koi Lungfish
Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations from The Transformers (c) 1986 Hasbro, Ltd. Used without permission. Text (c) 2007, Koi Lung Fish Mark of Lung. All Rights Reserved.
Subject: Three of the Aerialbots visit the imprisoned Starscream.
Continuity: G1 cartoon.

"Hey, look! Abandonware!"

Slingshot smirked to his two team-mates as Starscream raised his head to glare at them from behind the bars of his cell. Air Raid returned the smirk with a chuckle; Fireflight was goggling at the Seeker.

"Still no rescue mission, I see," Slingshot continued, striding up to the bars to stare the bigger jet in the face. "Is the big bad Decepticon getting lonely?"

Starscream stood up, a mite slowly Slingshot thought, and looked down at him with a glare no doubt intended to be withering. "What do you little runts want?"

"Ooh, "little runts' is it now!" Slingshot mocked, wiggling his fingers at Starscream. "And here was I thinking we were still best friends, 'cept for that part about you helping Megatron send us into the past."

Starscream sniggered, mouth creeping into a smirk of his own that made Slingshot, somewhere deep in his tanks, realise he needed to spend more time in front of the mirror practicing. "You wanted to know more about Decepticons. What're you complaining about?"

"We wanted to talk like civilized mechanisms," Fireflight said.

Starscream laughed, his rasping, raucous voice echoing around the cell and hurting Slingshot's audios. "Civilized? Autobot air-grunts like you wouldn't know a civilization if it conquered you!" He leaned forward, the energy field on his cell-bars sending hectic brightness streaming up and down his face. "You ground-crawlers will never be good enough to even lick the thrusters of a Decepticon, let alone be one!"

"Big talk for a guy locked in a cell," Slingshot said, folding his arms and leaning back. Starscream's total lack of any sign of being intimidated was becoming a little uncomfortable.

"Big talk for a knockoff I could break over my knee one-handed!" Starscream sneered.

"Oh yeah?" There was no way Slingshot could let that one pass.

"Oh, yeah," Starscream smirked, spreading his hands and beckoning come-and-have-a-go style. He couldn't have looked less afraid.

"Uh, Slingshot, he's locked in," Air Raid pointed out.

"That's no obstacle," Starscream said, almost purring, and the change from saw-edged hostility to layered smarm was disorientating.

Slingshot's hostility stalled and he lowered his fists. I'm not afraid! I'm not

"We don't have the codes to the door," Air Raid told the Seeker.

"Yeah. Otherwise I'd teach you a thing or two," Slingshot insisted, not liking the way Starscream was almost smiling at him.

"Don't any of you fools know how to crack a computer code?" the Decepticon asked disdainfully. "Just break into Teletran-1's databases and let me out. Then we'll see who can break who in half."

"Ah, you'd just run, like the cowardly Decepticon you are," Slingshot said, waving a hand dismissively. "I'd get bored shooting at your tailfins."

"You couldn't hit my tailfins if I was nosecone-deep in the ground!" Starscream snickered.

"Oh yeah? Well, even if you were armed, I wouldn't bother fighting you, because you're a wimp."

"You talk an awfully big fight for a little Autobot," Starscream said softly, that smirk still lingering.

"Who're you calling short?" Slingshot yelled.

"Have you killed anyone yet?" Starscream asked abruptly.

"Hey, no, of course not," Fireflight insisted softly, "we're Autobots. Well, Aerialbots."

"Oh, have mercy," Starscream sneered dryly, "I'm being threatened by three little wimps who've never even seen the look of horror on an enemy's face when he realises he's about to die, who've never felt the satisfaction of watching someone explode in a cloud of shrapnel, who've never enjoyed screams of pain, who've never made someone beg for mercy before crushing the life out of their miserable body." He looked down at them, full of contempt and pride. "Come back when you've learned to kill without crying afterwards."

"You - you twisted malfunctioning -" Slingshot sputtered.

Starscream flung himself forward with a scream that made them all jump back, flung himself at the bars, flung himself hard into the energy field that blazed up and engulfed him. The klaxons went berserk, but even those couldn't drown Starscream's shriek of raw malice, couldn't drown the sound of the energy fields crashing, couldn't blot out the sight of his red optics alight with hatred for them, deep and utter hatred. Starscream reached for them with hands that were clawed with arcs of lightning, his wings spread with pinions of fire, crowned with blazing light, screaming death, screaming genocide on their entire race.

They ran.

Starscream's cries of hate and destruction followed them down the corridor, out of the Ark, into the air, into battle and into their dreams.

Author's notes & addenda:

Feedback always welcomed.