A.N. Well, hey, this is another Transformers Animated fic by me. (: I just recently watched all 42 episodes throughout one week (when I wasn't at school, doing work, etc) and I have to admit it's one of my favorite continuations of the series. Not to mention I just love some of the characters! U But yeah; not sure if I'll be able to finish this. It was originally a one shot but it's kinda developed further than that....tell me what you think.
"Warning. Warning. Prisoner escape in progress. All Autobots in Sector 7, report."
"Ugh, zat alarm iz so annoying." Icy stopped and looked to the small security drones hovering above, trying to giving him commands to stay where he was or he was under arrest. The cannons on his shoulders silenced the annoying little machines with a frigid beam. He kicked through the prison door while avoiding the gaze of prisoners behind plexi-glass barriers on either side of him. Most particularly that of Megatron, whose red optics bore into the back of his head from behind four protective barriers designed to keep him confined.
He'd come back for them, he thought. If he didn't, Megatron would surely make him regret it.
"Warning. Prisoner in Hangar 4. Autobots, report."
Hothead growled. "That stupid alarm!" Sentinel Prime and another Autobot in orange-red armor came around the corner with shield and sword ready for battle, but Blitzwing did not find them to be a concern. He dwarfed them in size and power.
"Stop! You're under arrest, Blitzwing!" Sentinel shouted, shield up near his face.
Random came to, laughing maniacally as he took aim and fired again, knocking the annoying Prime through a hole in the wall. The other Autobot turned bright silver, and every shot he took bounced off his iron plating. As Random hooted and hollered, Sentinel emerged from the hole with sword raised. He jumped and plunged the energon blade into the Decepticon's shoulder armor.
Hothead took over, growling like a downgrade, and grabbed the Prime by his shield. "You piece of slag! I'll rip your pistons apart!"
A couple shots went off to his left, and Blitzwing yanked Sentinel's sword and shield away before throwing him into another wall. He ignored the dents and holes he'd sustained; in due time, he'd get repaired. His optics focused on Ironhide, who was holding an upgraded energon cannon.
"Stop right there, Blitzwing. You're outnumbered. Surrender and come real quiet-like, and maybe you won't get stripped for parts." Ironhide said with a thick accent—probably molded at an energon farm or something.
"I didn't break out just to be caught, Autobot." Icy returned disinterestedly. "I must find vhat I'm looking for." He hadn't plotted this escape for the last two hundred stellar cycles just to be stopped by the Elite Guard.
"Decepticreep, I said stop where you are!" Sentinel said as he recovered from being tossed. Sentinel joined Ironhide, blockading the path that the Decepticon intended to take. Blitzwing huffed impatiently, shooting the ceiling down on top of the both of them. He couldn't see any movement from under the rubble, so he hoped they taken care of for the meantime. Random took over and shrugged, "Oh well, I'll have to find another way around." He cackled, and after making sure there was no way to cross over the mess he'd made, took another corridor.
"So much for zat, I suppose." The triple-changer murmured about his planned route, Icy once more. "I vonder where zee topnotch security zat Sentinel alvays bragged about is."
Finally, he came across a large metal door, one with "CONFIDENTIAL QUARANTINE. DO NOT ENTER" on it. He attempted to type in a password on the panel next to the door, but it refused. Then he tried a cartridge containing access codes; again, refused. They must've sabotaged internal security to make sure he couldn't get very far. No matter, he thought. There were other ways to get through a door. Setting his cannons to maximum power, he aimed at the center of the enormous door and fired. The Cybertronian alloy went flying in large sheets, and Blitzwing entered through the dust and smoke.
Inside was a single platform in a vast, dark room. At the end of the platform was a stasis pod containing a lifeless vessel, gray and ashen. If his Spark and the fragment keeping him alive were gone, why go through all the trouble to guard an offline bucket of bolts? Flanking the body on either side were rows and rows of protoforms, in later development stages so that Sparks were forming. If it worked like Blitzwing hoped, then his efforts would not be wasted.
"Warning. Starscream chamber opened. Report, report! All Autobots to the Starscream chamber! This is not a drill! Repeat: This is not a drill!"
Blitzwing barricaded the entrance with pieces of the door he'd torn asunder to avoid further distractions that might delay him. He fiddled with a small panel by the pod, pressing in lines of code he'd managed to snatch here and there while in prison. The glass case hissed open and icy fog fell around his feet as he looked toward the Sparkless body inside.
"I don't know how kindly Megatron will take to zis…" Blitzwing considered. There was a pounding on the barricade; he couldn't afford to dawdle. Gingerly he picked up Starscream's corpse and laid him down on his back on the floor, gray optics staring emptily. Retrieving a protoform body from one of the capsules, he set it at Starscream's side and opened both their chests to reveal their chambers.
There was the pounding again. He didn't feel like dealing with insignificant Autobots. Icy maintained control, restricting both Random and Hothead from taking over.
"Blitzwing, we know you're in there!" That was a different voice this time. It must be that little Autobot Jazz.
Grabbing both sides of the Spark from the protoform (still much too young to have programmed a personality or any other particular processor method), Blitzwing meticulously picked it up and set it into Starscream's empty, cracked chamber and shut the glass of his cockpit with finality. The protoform went ashen, the humming of its lifelines silencing forever. Blitzwing watched it go offline, optics intensely cold and mechanical, and then returned to the whirring of Starscream's engine intake.
Still, Starscream did not stir. Perhaps Spark transplants did not work on Cybertronians as they did on organics. He recalled the fleshy insects of Earth to have the same basic procedure; a "heart" transplant? Icy tapped a small recess on the side of Starscream's head and paneling opened his internal circuitry. Although there was life in his body, his programming was not intact. Perhaps it was better to start over with a completely new Starscream. AllSpark knows Megatron would be more likely to approve that way…
No. He wouldn't be able to make it out of here without the Starscream he knew. There were more than ten Autobots awaiting him outside the chamber. As much as he didn't doubt his own strength, there was no way he'd be able to take them all on if he was beaten by three before. His fingers carefully pressed three indentations in Starscream's circuits in a specific order, and then clicked the recess to return the paneling to its original state.
The engines started up louder this time, and the Harrier Jet's optics became bright crimson. He jumped up in alarm, arms outward to fire at something. "Foolish Autobots! If you think you can take my fragment, then you are—"
Blitzwing rested a hand on his shoulder firmly. "Starscream, you are not on Earth anymore. Your fragment was taken from you very long ago."
"Where am I?" His vocal processor growled in annoyance. "Where's that scrapheap, Megatron?"
"You're in an Autobot prison." Blitzwing replied. He had to speak loudly in order to be heard over the Autobots trying to bust their way through. "I brought you back online. Ve need to find zee AllSpark. I know Sentinel haz a fragment of it for himself. If you vant to stay online vhen we reunite with Lord Megatron, you will certainly need it."
"I don't care! I can take him on now!" Starscream screeched defiantly.
Hothead came to and spoke in his angry Austrian accent, "You think you can fight Megatron? I should not have even brought you back online! I'll put you back right now if you're going to waste my time!"
Starscream's mouth turned into a hard line as Blitzwing stared relentlessly. He spoke, his optics downcast, "...What about the Decepticons?"
"All imprisoned, as I was." Icy was back. "Now, come wizz me. I've located zee AllSpark shard."
Starscream stopped to hear the commanding Autobots outside the barricade. He extended his particle cannons toward the entrance, blowing back the steel plate Blitzwing had used to seal them inside. They heard shouts and cries of pain through the thick smog and rubble, and Blitzwing motioned for Starscream to follow him. His cannons were lowered on his shoulders, ready to fire at anything that moved.
"Well, you certainly don't waste time, do you?" Random said, followed with a fit of laughter as always. Starscream bit back his impatience with Blitzwing's multiple personalities, since he owed him his Spark.
"Let's find that fragment already." As he turned to follow his unlikely partner, he failed to notice Sentinel Prime barreling in from another corridor. He jumped onto one of Starscream's wing struts and struck with his recovered sword. The Decepticon snarled and threw himself against a wall, hoping to crush the Autobot insect in the process. Unfortunately, the Prime was still very much online when Starscream brought himself to full stance again. Jazz and Ironhide and Wheeljack were gaining on them, and it wouldn't be long before the other Autobots were on their servos from the blast earlier.
"Come on." Blitzwing said. Starscream did the same technique—he aimed for the ceiling and fired, and a crumbling pile of wires and metal blocked them off from the Autobot scourge. The triple-changer led him down an empty hallway, ignoring the alarm or flashing red lights that never stopped. On several occasions, they ran into lesser Autobots reporting to the alarm but were easily disposed of.
The Decepticon pushed through more remnants of a wall that opened up to the extravagant living quarters of Sentinel Prime. He stopped, checking his scanners again as he scoped the room with Starscream right behind him.
"Did Megatron put you up to this?" Starscream asked suspiciously.
"No." Blitzwing replied simply. His optics focused on a large, obvious safe by the Autobot's stasis platform. "Starscream, I require your help."
"Stand aside!" He said smugly, his fingertip chiseled to a sharp point. Without so much as a command, the Decepticon pierced the thick surfacing of the safe and carved a hole wide enough to reach in with one hand. As they rid themselves of the carved out pieces, they spotted the glow of an AllSpark fragment.
With an eager chuckle, Starscream reached in hastily and pulled out a shard a bit smaller than his thumb. He turned to Blitzwing with a satisfied grin, "Now I'll be immortal again."
"Now, put zat somewhere safe. There aren't shards anymore, so zat's zee only one you get." Starscream turned on the triple-changer, held his laser at gunpoint and Blitzwing froze. Beyond the black emptiness inside the barrel, he spotted the sly look all over Starscream's face.
"With Megatron imprisoned, I can take over as leader of the Decepticons! You will obey me." He said as the particle beam in the barrel began to charge.
Icy remained practical as always and the sound of Autobot reinforcements en route was making itself known in his audio receptors. "Haven't you realized zere is no one for you to lead?"
"Silence!" He pushed the barrel closer. Blitzwing didn't flinch. "I will be a greater ruler than that of Megatron! I will bring down the Autobots once and for all! We will be in control here, and we can't do that with our so-called leader in captivity." Starscream smirked again. "Thanks again for the fragment. I'm sure as much as Megatron would like to take me offline himself, I won't give him or his dog that satisfaction."
Coldly, Blitzwing stared at Starscream's weapon. "My actions vere mine alone. If it vere Megatron's vill, he'd have your frame melted down for new protoforms."
Starscream hesitated and watched his fellow Decepticon dubiously.
"Then why bring me back?"
"Because, as much of a blunder as you are, you're a great asset to our forces." Random switched over and, with red mouth agape, laughed, "Given, you have your body and your head in the right place!"
"And what of the Autobots we fought on that organic planet?"
"They returned with prisoners of war—Megatron, Lugnut, and Shockwave—along with fallen comrades. I do not know if zey returned to Earth." Blitzwing's optics shifted to the laser cannon, and then back to the perpetrator. "Are ve going to continue like zis or shall ve get a move on? Autobots will show up any minute; more than either of us can handle even together."
Starscream dropped his weapon, and the triple-changer relaxed his servos slightly but didn't take his gaze from the traitor. Blitzwing watched as the Jet took the fragment of the AllSpark and opened the same compartment in his forehead as last time. He put it where the old one once was and shut some small plating to conceal it. "Fine. It reeks of Autobots here anyway."