Crossroads

-SS-

Starscream woke up slowly. His processer onlined in stages, like he was waking up from a deep recharge. He basked in the feeling and frowned when he noticed the deep ache infusing the back of his processer—the only discordant note present. He tried to stretch to relieve the gentle ache of stiff components, but he didn't get far. Metal cuffs held his limbs in place.

He onlined very quickly after that.

A truly appalling shade of orange met his optics. Cybertronian design, and not one he recognized

He jerked harder, scratching at the metal with his claws. The cuffs rattled but didn't give. Then strange hands pushed down on his shoulders, pressing him back against the berth. They belonged to a small red Grounder, hidden by a visor and mask. He was talking, trying to be soothing.

"—relax. I know you're confused, but you're safe now. Just calm down, and we can-"

Senseless drivel. Starscream snarled at him. "Let me go!" he tried to shout. Instead, his vocalizer gave a disturbing wheeze as newly integrated parts struggled, and he coughed.

The mech started—was he petting him? Really? Eventually, glaring at the Grounder the entire time, Starscream regained control of his vocalizer. His voice still rasped when he tried speaking again, but it worked.

"Where is he," Starscream growled. His throat ached, but he forced the words through.

The Grounder's hand paused, and he tilted his head. "Where's who?" he asked. "You were alone when we found you."

Starscream bared his teeth. "My partner, slaggit!" Skyfire had been right beside him before the storm had torn them apart. "We crashed together. What did you do with him?"

The Grounder's hands froze then fell to his lap. "Oh," he said quietly. Fiddling with his fingers, "We stumbled upon you in this planet's Arctic Circle. After we found you, I'm afraid we…" He trailed off with a sad little mumble. If Starscream were a kinder mech, he might have felt sorry for the mech. Instead, he was only irritated.

"You what?" he asked. "Spit it out already!"

If anything, the Grounder seemed to shrink even further into his seat. "We scanned the rest of the sector afterwards. There were no other life signals." A pause. "I'm sorry."

Starscream froze. His spark twisted in his chest, and his vocalizer emitted a deep, guttural sound of pain and disbelief. It took two tries before he managed to voice the words. "You're wrong," he said. "You… you messed up the scan. Skyfire has thicker armor than mine. He wouldn't have been offlined by some slagging storm!"

The Grounder's visor dimmed with something disgustingly like pity. Starscream snarled as he reached out to touch his plating again. "I'm sorry," he said, voice absolutely dripping with sorrow. "This must be horribly difficult for-"

"Shut up!" Starscream howled, jerking as far away from the lying slagger as possible. "I don't need your pity!" He could keep his softsparked sympathy. Skyfire wasn't dead. He wasn't. These incompetent slaggers had just screwed everything up. Starscream just… He needed to go back. He'd find the crash site, get Skyfire back, and throttle the Shuttle for daring to do this. Then the world would go back to normal again.

Mind made up, Starscream tore at the cuffs with his claws. The metal bit deep enough to draw energon, but Starscream didn't even feel the pain. Beside him, the Grounder's voice was high with panic as he tried to pin him back against the berth. Starscream retaliated, digging his claws deep into the mech's plating, and he pulled back with a gasp of pain, cradling his arms to his chest.

A new voice cut in, deep and harsher with age. "That's it. I'm putting him back under," he said. Something stung Starscream's neck, there and gone just as quickly. Starscream's processer slowed, and he slipped gratefully back into unconsciousness.

~.*.~

-SF-

Pain exploded through Skyfire's frame, and, gasping, he slammed into consciousness. Jerking upright, he felt cables pull free from his frame, leaving throbbing ports behind. His processer ached fiercely, and his frame felt… strange. For some reason, his sensor net was only half calibrated, leaving his vision blurry and limbs uncoordinated. Something—someone—moved beside him, and Skyfire focused his bleary optics on them, willing his static laden vision to clear.

"State your designation and affiliation," the mech said. The tone, clipped and stern, was the same one used by all harried medics. Skyfire shrank beneath it.

"My designation is Skyfire," he answered. "And… Iacon Academy, I suppose. I'm an Interstellar explorer funded by the organization."

His optics reset, and Skyfire's vision cleared enough to make out a heavyset, lime green mech standing before him. His glare, which was aimed at a datapad in his hand, was quite impressive.

"The Iacon Academy hasn't been functional in a long time."

Skyfire blinked, and disappointment curled in his chest. "I'm… sorry to hear that," he said. "I understand the energon crisis was worsening when we left, but I'd hoped a solution would be found before too much was lost."

They'd only been gone from Cybertron for a decavorn. The Academy had seemed too big to fall so quickly but, well… Many things had changed with the crisis. The fall of a single Academy, no matter how large or prestigious, was not unheard of.

The mech—medic, Skyfire revised, as he saw the mech's extensively upgraded hands—snorted. It was an unpleasant sound, haughty and darkly amused. Skyfire immediately disliked it.

"Sorry, but where am I?" Skyfire asked, glancing around. "According to my memory banks, my last location was in a small ice planet vorns away from the nearest Cybertronian outpost. How did I get here?"

He remembered the storm. There were the winds and the crash, when ice had immobilized his limbs and freezing liquid leaked into past his plating and into his internals, moving towards his processer and he couldn't—

Skyfire shied away from the memory. He was alive now. Safe. He just needed to find Starscream, and everything would be fine.

"We dug you up," the medic said. "You were in the way, and then I got charged with the unpleasant task of preparing your damaged frame for reactivation. As if I don't already have enough problems to take care of!"

The mech kept grumbling under his breath, angrily enough that Skyfire didn't want to interrupt him. He waited a moment then, when the medic showed no signs of stopping, hesitantly asked, "Was there anyone else found with me?"

"Of course not, thank Primus," the mech sniped. "One unexpected 'guest' was more than enough."

Skyfire relaxed back onto the berth, smiling despite the medic's general unpleasantness. Starscream had made it out then. Thank Primus. He shouldn't have been worried—Starscream was a far better flyer than him; of course a small storm wouldn't have stopped him. He didn't seem to be here though, wherever 'here' was.

"And our location?" Skyfire prompted.

The medic grimaced. "We're still on the pathetic excuse for a planet that you crashed in. Despite it's absolutely repulsive landscape, the available energy sources are too valuable to ignore."

"But how did you-" Skyfire started, but he was cut off.

"I'm far too busy to answer all your inane questions," he snapped. "Unless your repairs start malfunctioning—which they won't-sit there quietly until you find someone else to pester."

Meekly, Skyfire nodded. He was in an unfamiliar place, with a strange, grumpy mech, and he'd rather not annoy the medic who'd repaired him. Shifting awkwardly, Skyfire glanced around the room. He'd been, apparently, placed in a secluded corner of a busy med-bay. Mecha wove in and out of the room, barely sparing him a glance. It… felt military. Important, too.

"This the new guy?" someone asked right beside him.

Skyfire jumped and looked around, wondering how someone had snuck up on him, but didn't see anyone. Then he looked down. Two tiny mecha stared up at him, one red and one blue. Smaller than minibots, their helms barely reached the edge of the berth. Cassetticons, perhaps? He wondered where their Host was.

"I'm Skyfire," he said. "Who are you?"

"Rumble," the blue one said. "An' this is Frenzy." Then, swinging up to a chair, he hoped onto the berth. He whistled. "Wow. You really are a big guy, huh. You any good at fightin'?

Skyfire frowned but scooted over, giving the Cassetticons more room. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked.

Rumble snorted. "Fighting. Ya heard of it?," he asked dryly.

"Sorry, I think there's been some mistake," Skyfire said. "I'm an Interstellar explorer. A scientist, not a soldier."

The two exchanged glances. "Have you even held a gun before?" Frenzy asked.

Skyfire cringed at the thought. "Of course not!" he said. Why were they so fixated on that? Just what was this place?

Both Cassetticons burst into laughter. "Ah, man, we picked up a Civvie! Buckethead is gonna freak." He patted Skyfire's side, as high up as he could reach. Skyfire barely felt the touch. "I hope you've got some useful skill at least, or you're not gonna last long."

Skyfire frowned, and trepidation built in his spark. He was about to ask the Cassetticons to elaborate, but they were interrupted when the medic from before stalked over.

"You! Scraplets!" he shouted, pointing at the tiny mecha. "You're in charge of our newest recruit. Try not to get him deactivated right away."

Both mecha groaned in unison. "Aw, C'mon!" Rumble whined. "What are we supposed ta do with him, huh? We got better things to waste our time with."

The medic was already turning away. "Slag if I care. Fob him off on someone else." Then he was gone, retreating back to the mysterious depths of the med-bay.

The two Cassetticons stared at him. Skyfire stared back. "C'mon. Let's blow this joint."

Skyfire had nothing better to do. He followed.

~.*.~