Right, first thing I've written so lay it on me if you would be so kind when your done. And thank you to the two people who pointed out it not being found, I believe its fixed...
This was absurd! Not only were the energon stocks near an all-time low but their oh-so-great Leader was planning nothing to fix it!
To say he was angry about the situation would be saying Skywarp wasn't planning some inane prank every moment of his glitched existence. Other cons flattened themselves ageist the purple walls as Starscream swept towards his lab, wings angrily spanning out. The SIC's glare dared any of them to make a crack or stop him.
It wasn't long before he could see it; Starscream could see the doors to his labs. Those dented scorched, scratched, familiar purple doors that he could hide in till his circuits cooled and found a new way to frag off Megatron. Yes, that would put him back into a good mood. Though what passed as a 'good' mood for him was questionable by most.
Picking up the pump of his white legs Starscream quickly entered the lab barely waiting for the soft hiss of the doors before locking it with more force then was necessary. Starscream resisted the urge to simply slide down the panel to just fantasize degrading, foul, and malicious ways to end the source of his ire. Instead the tri colored jet puffed out air through his vents and placed himself at his main table and gave the organized, pristine tools an almost loving look. Picking up a data pad to start in his distraction Starscream settled in.
"Megatron spit in your energon again?" and there went his data pad.
"Thundercracker! What are you doing in here?" Starscream yelped. The data pad landed on the floor with a load clack as Starscream twisted around to stare at a nonplussed Thundercracker.
"I'll take that as a yes, and I am cleaning your storage."
Starscream had to take a second to process that before answering. While the blue seeker waited for it to click. Which it did; in a flurry of violent arms and wings.
"You-I ordered Skywarp to clean that out for that ridiculous prank with the –the-"
"Pudding."
"Pudding! Whatever the slag that foul substance was he leftin my thrusters!"
Oh, that had been a dark day for the tri colored flier and Starscream was completely willing to share his foul mood with his wingmate after that little stunt. Part of that fallout was for the warper to clean out his storage in his lab, the junk storage anyways. Only a complete fool would let Skywarp near the other more …delicate items.
The other seeker gave a great huff of his vents and slumped his shoulders a bit in a form of acceptance.
"It started that way till I—I felt like doing it instead?" the blue seeker drug out the word with a slight roll of his helm as he contemplated a justification.
The cold scowl told him, quite solidly, that his commander knew better.
"In short? He asked me to help him with it in exchange of a prank free Earth month. Though 'helping' to him is more like 'do it for him' it would seem." Thundercracker signed, relenting.
Raising a brow ridge at his wing mate Starscream was at an impasse of whether to smirk at the outcome or wanting to rip into Skywarp for pushing off his punishment to another.
"You should know, in fact, I know you know how that was going to end."
"Well I guess I just keep thinking maybe just once it'll turn out." Thundercracker's voice turned from lost hope to a bit smug. "Besides a whole Earth month clear of 'mishaps' is worth a joor or two of cleaning."
"Bah, he'll forget about it in two cycles."
"You're just angry because now he'll target you twice as much without me on his list."
Starscream made a flippant hand gesture to drop the subject before it became any less desirable.
Thundercracker left it with a small part of him satisfied of the predicted future. Skywarp had a decent since of humor in his pranks sometimes; at least when directed at someone other than himself of course.
Both Seekers settled back into a comfortable silence as they went about either picking up stray objects or finking with tubes and jars of various liquids with rather treacherous, nasty, rebellious thoughts.
What neither of the two seekers noticed till it was quite too late was the purple flash barely seen from behind lab equipment deeper in the room. Though the slight fizzle sound that came from said depths quickly building into the form of a small rocket shooting toward the work bench had the jets turning to look. Starscream let out a screech as the mini rocket speed straight for him. Diving for the side and skidding close to where Thundercracker had dropped his current box of junk and was ducking partly behind the storage closet entrance. The rocket whizzed into the wall where Starscream's helm had been not two astro-seconds before. But instead of exploding there and setting off a catastrophe of reacting chemicals, the sparking object bounced, -bounced off an abandoned beaker and headed like a sign from the Unmaker himself towards the startled seekers.
The jets scrabbled for the safety of the storage areas deeper parts but it seemed too late. There was an auto crackling pop and a bright flash of color with the feel of tiny pieces of shrapnel hitting their limbs not yet pulled in. Thundercracker was the first to check using his optics on the damage. What had felt like little bits of deadly debris turned out to be colorful pieces of paper spread over the immediate area and covering the crouched second in command.
"Ppppfffffff-HAHAHAHAHA!" Came an almost childish laugh from near the storage entrance. Only the laugh was more like a cackle making for a unique sound of demented naive joy that only their third member could possibly make.
"SKYWARP!" Starscream screeched from his position on the floor who took the impish sound as a sign that he did not just get shredded in his own lab.
"Haha-wh-what? Hah-your-hehe-face!" The prankster answered; barely keeping up right and out of the way from angry swipes of white thrusters. Bight flakes of paper flying in the enraged seekers fuss.
"You slow-witted-slag-headed-screw-loose-frag-colored-worthless-exhaust-sniffing-tinfoil-covered-!"
"Whoa now there Starscream, you might bust a line like that." Thundercracker said breaking into the Air commanders strung together offense.
"I'm going rip out that fools lines!"
"Hey! That was funny. You just can't take a joke!"
"I might be able to take your 'jokes' better if they were actually funny!"
"Like I said funny, TC even cracked a smile."
"You're both worthless idiots then."
"Don't bring me into this."
"Oh? But it was your act of weakness that allowed him to pull this newest form of stupidity."
"It wasn't stupid."
"Hey, I was just cleaning your storage and it was a good deal."
"Bah, whatever! You both are going to clean up this mess and then finish the storage-BOTH of you." Starscream commanded with a jab of his blue finger at the black jet. Who then proceeded to pout for all he was worth.
"Awwww come on Screamer I-"
"No I will not hear it, you already pawned your work off on to Thundercracker once, you should feel lucky this is all you're getting after adding that stunt in as well….Don't call me that"
"But I-"
"Come on Warp', let it go, he has got data pads to glare at."
"Wha-oh, oooooooh, HA, must have been a good-."
"It is none of your business!"
"Well it couldn't have been that good, he looks in one piece."
"Oh true TC! Maybe-"
A disgruntled 'Shut up' and a loud clash of metal thruster stomping on metal rung out in the small space.
The hush that fell over the three seekers couldn't last long though.
"Ya not goin' to let me get a senten-"
"NO!"
"Well if that's ho-"
"Warp…." Thundercracker poked in with his reasoning self.
Giving a puff of air through his vents Skywarp moved out of the way of the entrance bending over in a mock bow, one purple servo out to lead his air commander out.
Starscream gave his own huff of air before lifting himself up and stomping out of the space. Resisting all urges to pummel the younger seeker as he passed.
Not to be left out Thundercracker cycled air through his vents as he again accepted his role as unwilling side-kick/ sparkling sitter.
Starscream took an astro-second to find his discarded data pad and moved his stool to the furthest end of the work space. Never knew when stupid would start catching. And catching stupid might not have been then but it certainly had an active case in the form of a black seeker igniting his thrusters on low and catching the paper bits on fire.
That was fine though…he could stand that….the mess was being cleaned, sort of….Thundercracker would watch him….
Starscream finally started to read the data pad in front of him instead of just staring at it and settled down again. The soft hum of a thruster and the sounds of boxes moving filling the lab. But that peace too could not last.
Not that Starscream could hear it over his own thoughts but there was a scraping noise that replaced the thrusters hum along with a whispered 'warp don't' plea. He did sense the presence close behind all of sudden though. Whipping about the tri-colored jet met with a black wall of metal and then nothing as something equally dark fell over his head covering him. He didn't immediately react, no the air commander knew exactly who had been in front of him before his optics were clouded. He therefore knew it was nothing to fear but something instead to make his circuits buzz.
Taking a cleaning cloth from his subspace Starscream brought it up to his face plates and wiped his optics. Frist thing he saw was Skywarp's own clean pale face plates grinning at him and then a retreating form of seeker as Starscream tried to punch those facial plates.
"Aww come on, black looks good on ya."
Starscream could almost feel his optics sparking. Looking to the cloth clenched in his servo he could see the smears of black. "What is this!" not that it wasn't painfully obvious.
"Ash." Came once again Thundercracker's helpful voice. Though from within the storage closet and muffled. The blue seeker seemed to be continuing to work through the soon to be fight. Can't stop them all.
What happened next could be described as a perfect example of action reaction.
Starscream upon hearing the answer sputtered his vents in a fuss causing small plums of black ash to puff out around him. The sight of his trine leader surrounded in his own self-made gloom cloud caused the naturally black jet to fall into a fit of laughter. That in turn had the once mostly white jet leaping from his stool in a stunning tackle of the laughing jet, both clashing to the metal floor skidding a few yards. Black streaks marked their path whether from paint or ash they couldn't be sure, not that either were interested in the floors cleanliness right then. No, they were both more interested in clawing at each other and shouting insults at one another.
Thundercracker finally came out of the storage closet when the scuffle started to roll past the entrance and the call of "you toaster headed slag licking gas machine" rang out. The blue jet decided that they had gotten whatever it was out of their systems if that was the best they could shout. Grabbing his only cleaning bucket, Thundercracker flung the cleaning fluid on the two seekers as they neared again.
There was a duel panicked squawk and then a flash of purple light leaving only a dripping SIC on the floor with rivets of ash running down to the floor.
"You didn't have to do that." Growled Starscream as he again picked himself up. Splashing ashy liquid about.
The blue jet just gave a hum of his engine before tossing the forgotten cleaning cloth to Starscream.
Taking the cloth back Starscream set to soaking up what mess he could off himself.
"You're not going to find him for at least a couple of joors."
"Mmm He'll have to report for flight practice in the new cycle….don't break anything, I'll be in my quarters. "The mellowing air commander ordered before exiting his once refuge.
Starscream left his lab before the other jet could give any kind of reply and huffed his way back down the hall ways to the officer quarters. An almost musical 'drip-drip' conducting his march.
His stomping ended once inside his one and only other safe room besides his labs. Locking the door and stepping into his private wash rack the agitated flyer finally started to relax.
He also could feel the full force of his fluttering spark.
They had been so close.
He could never admit it, at least not aloud.
He had truly meant to maim the dark jet, but a small part of him, an unrelenting-wish-he-knew-how-to-kill-part, wanted to do more…pleasurable things to the metal that was in his grasp.
Finished with ridding his frame of his trines lovely redecorating , Starscream used another cloth to dry off and then proceeded to flop onto his berth. Wings fanned out and limbs stretched. He let the quite of the room take him. But the more he let his thoughts roam the more his expression darkened.
He was the second in command of the Decepticons, leader of the deadliest trine. The fastest flyer in generations, made his way into the Iacon academy only to rise to the top and explored worlds.
He was the top of the top, elite among the elite practically untouchable!
But did that matter to that dim witted black and purple colored fool?
NO!
Starscream was convinced Skywarp knew what he was doing to him. He wasn't sure when but the younger jet somehow started to worm his way with every childish prank, foolish line of banter and ridiculous action. Now the dark waste of metal had an undesirable effect on his spark. It would flutter when close and produce and almost repulsive warm buzz of feelings just talking, yelling, or even insulting the idiot.
No, Starscream didn't know how or when Skywarp had gotten him like this but he was going to be the one to end it one way or another…