Title: Wake for the Unseen Faithful
Summary: Starscream survives. Blind and helpless, he lives through the very last moments marking the end of Cybertron.
Notes: see at the end
Warnings: Spoilers for Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Disclaimer: -laughs uncontrollably- uh yeah, I did get to see it in 3D
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Starscream lives.
He reboots, blind, deaf, dumb and silent in all ways that don't matter as he crawls on fours, creeping away from the turbulent vibrations of an ongoing battle and the fleshlings while they're too busy gazing up at the sun.
And suddenly, he feels the irresistible pull of the space bridge as it opens up like a gaping maw, hurdling Cybertron millions of light years into space, into the very solar system he now occupies. Thousands of living transformers rattle in their frames as they're pulled forth through the bridge. The Decepticon warriors, expectant, jubilant, roar in triumph.
He shivers with a quiet sort of joy having Skywarp and his lieutenant Thundercracker near after so long. Through their optics, through the extensions of them, he can see Earth clearly seen from his planet's atmosphere, blue, green, and alive in a way that Cybertron isn't, ripe and ready to be torn apart for their revival.
Then he sees it, hears it, feels it—a small ripple on the honeycombed surface like a stone thrown in a tar pit or a hatchling coming too soon. The space bridge fails; the Autobots make sure of it. Cybertron is thrown backwards but there is no stabilizing force back from which it came.
The entire planet shudders and groans as it is ripped apart.
Unheard, Starscream begins to scream.
Skywarp, timid, thoughtful and quiet, stands up to inspect his lab, the readings on his computer and scanning device telling him all is too late. Slowly, the black and violet Seeker turns to stare at the window and the blackened skyline turned towards the face of the Earth.
Fool—
Outside, Thundercracker knows something is very wrong. His optics flicker uncertainly as the image of Earth becomes distorted and stretched as Cybertron itself is distorted and stretched. Surrounded by his drones, the lieutenant commander rises into the air.
Run!
The planet collapses in a single instant.
No one has the time to cry out.
Perhaps the luckiest of all are the Autobots who were never aware that their salvation had come. From space, from Cybertron, from the four moons that orbit the planet before they too are destroyed, Starscream reads the horror in his fellow mechs as they are sucked into the void. Those who fell on the moon, still charged with the residual energy of jumping to earth, are too pulled backwards into the wormhole.
And as the last of the Thundercracker drones fall around the wreckage of the Nemesis, Starscream howls. For Skywarp, who lays trapped under several hundred tons of metal, for Thundercracker, whose body is crushed by gravity. Thousands more are offlined, probably their entire race in that single split-second.
Prime does not care.
When Starscream wakes, he is in Namibia, a rudimentary head in place of his helm, burn marks like scars stretching down his left wing. He looks at Megatron's empty throne, a smear of bright-blue energon touching the arms.
He stands alone.
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A.N.: Saw the movie. Loved it. Hated the ending. Had I been more ambitious, I might have spun another AU about how Sentinel Prime's plan succeeded (and it was a good plan, the only reason it didn't work is because dun, dun, dun—he is a bad guy). But I felt sorry for Starscream who suffered perhaps the most humiliating death in the live-action film franchise.
So Starscream survives having his head blown off. And this was his take on the destruction of Cybertron.
Factions aside, I wonder if Optimus Prime thought about the transformers on Cybertron. Admittedly, since the planet is supposedly dead there wouldn't be many but still. The Earth-bound Autobots just destroyed their entire race.
Umm the title... I just threw a bunch of words together until I had five reasonably unrelated words?
