When Megatron needed something, he had this habit of getting it. And he had a favorite method of getting what he wanted: Seekers.
Seeker trines were deadly, fast, and merciless when they were separated from their trines. Starscream was a favorite punching bag, but he did some good on the field when it wasn't stepping on Megatron's shoulders. If he could only find the other two princes, Megatron growled to himself, he would have less and less reasons to pound Starscream into scrap. He had another trine, but they were Seekerlings yet, and he enjoyed watching them writhe through their heat cycles, unable to dominate each other because Starscream kept them apart.
Deadshot was his favorite, merciless because he double-dipped when in the Attitude department and perfect for nearly all missions. He was black armored with purple smudges around his optics, the only give away that Nightshade carried them. All of Starscream's traits were lost in him, and Megatron was thankful.
Firefall was completely...pathetic. He was small, weak, and was barely able to raise his helm when he was born, He was red and silver, like his sire, with claws to match, but all similarities ended, thankfully, there. He wasn't Deadshot, but he was still able to be molded into a fierce fighter. He had the capacity for it, Megatron thought as he remembered the way Firefall shredded a drone's servo when the Vehicon foolishly picked him up by his wings.
Sonicsound was silent, said few words, and could sneak up on anyone. He was playful, but still eager to please Megatron, his "carrier" now that Nightshade was laying on her belly in a lake of self-pity and tears. He remembered when he gave the little mechling a camera and told him to run wild with it, to take pictures to keep him out of his heated mate's wings and processor. Sonicsound came back with evidence of how disloyal his crew was. Megatron had patted his helm with a sticky servo, smirking when the sparkling backed out of the room with wide optics.
And of course, there was the sickly Nightshade. She was sky-starved. She hadn't been off the Nemesis since she had sparklings, and that was years ago now. She needed to get out, fly around the world a couple times, but Seekers flew with their trines. She had no trine to fly with, no siblings to play with. A flight around the world would be...spark-breaking.
So Megatron commed Starscream and Nightshade to his quarters. He had sent his mate out earlier to get some air, so he wasn't far. Yet he beat Nightshade to his quarters.
The purple femme trudged in, perking up briefly when she saw her sons, but they either acted like they didn't know her or really had forgotten it was she who raised them in secret for a month before Starscream fell in l o v e.
"Nightshade! Your timing is terrible." Megatron looked her up and down and he smirked. "You yourself are terrible."
She looked up in a weary way, nodded once, and then she walked to stand beside Starscream. "I know, my lord."
"You should really do something about that. I remember when you had the optics of a Prince!"
That made them both wince, and Megatron enjoyed making anyone feel pain. What he really wanted was to see her tears, see her break down and give up. That would be an amazing sight. Starscream bared his denta in a warning and he shuffled away from the femme as if she had some disease.
"You must feel awful right now..." Megatron struck her cheek. "Wake up to the real world." Her helm stayed turned where it had went following the slap. She closed her optics and her lower lip was brought between her denta. He could almost see the tears lining up behind her lids.
"Is there a point to this, my lord?" Starscream narrowed his own optics and crossed his arms.
Megatron gave up on his quest and he looked at them both. "Yes. I need you to bring me Tarn of the DJD."
Starscream and Nightshade's helms snapped up at the same time and their wings bristled. "Do you want us to come back alive or in pieces?"
"I'll go make my casket now."
"You can't be serious, Megatron!"
"Have you lost your mind?" Nightshade finished, her optics wide and bright with fear. About time something perked her up, Megatron grumbled.
"Bring me Tarn, and I won't kill your precious sparklings for living without my permission." Megatron turned his back to them, lifting the pillow with Firefall sleeping on it. He turned around and watched their reactions. Nightshade tracked the movement of the cushion with her optics. Starscream's claws twitched. "Such a fragile little runt of a Seeker...so tiny, so precious. Imagine what a simple flick of the wrist could do..." He took the Seekerling's helm into his servo and he smirked at them, keeping Firefall out of reach of Nightshade and giving Starscream a kick to his belly when they charged him.
Firefall remained asleep through all of it, twitching once and mewing. Megatron dropped him back onto the berth and turned to his creators. "You are now in the same boat. I suggest you get moving. I want Tarn at my pedes by the time this week is up. You have six days."
Nightshade turned and marched off, probably to refuel and get checked out for duty. Starscream snarled and ran after her. He finally caught up to her half-way to the MedBay.
"He's bluffing," he growled as he grabbed her wrist. She slowly turned to look at him, and he saw pain in her optics. "He's kidding about Firefall. He won't kill him. Firefall and the others, they think Megatron carried them."
He blew it. Nightshade twisted out of his grip and sat down on a medberth, Knock Out lazily walking over.
"Why can't you see that he's bluffing about killing Firefall? Do you think he'd really do it?"
Nightshade rounded on him, snapping at his servo that meant to touch her shoulder, to shake her back to reality. "What makes you think that he won't? What's keeping him from killing my baby?"
Starscream snarled and wished he could wrap his claws around her throat, but when Megatron put bots together for a mission, they all had to come back in functioning order. "They're not yours anymore. Can't you see that? They don't know who you are."
She watched him as her helm and wings lowered. Her talons picked at her thighs, and Knock Out swatted her servos away with an irritated grumble. He lifted her helm, peered into her optics, and patted her cheek once. They lit up vaguely with pain, and then she sunk into his arms.
Knock Out had secretly delivered her and checked in on the orphaned Seekerling regularily when Starscream was unable. He grounded her to the Nemesis when a carrier could not, when she'd rather hang her veins onto a sharp piece of metal, when she felt alone. He held her now, petting her wings awkwardly until he stood her up and gave her simple instructions: flutter, flick, fan, and spread her wings.
He turned to Starscream, who at one point had been worried for her health. Now he watched coldly. "She's sky-starved. Before you take off on your trip, take a few loops around the Nemesis. Maybe even a Death Spiral."
Knock Out was not a Seeker, but he still enjoyed watching them. He envied them. His sire might have had wings, but Track's coding didn't make it all the way through to Knock Out.
Starscream, at one point, would have jumped at the chance to do a Death Spiral with a Seeker, but since that Seeker was his former mate, he was less thrilled. She certainly perked up and she blinked expectantly at him, waiting for him to nod in enthusiasm. Instead he grumbled, "I'll see what I can do."
On the landing pad, Starscream stood beside Nightshade, Knock Out behind them with his talons laced expectantly, a flight-capable Eradicon holding a camcorder waiting for the signal. Starscream looked at Nightshade, and his spark jumped to his throat.
Her optics were closed and she was leaning forward, just enough so the wind could buffet her armor and play with her wings. She, like all Seekers, enjoyed the wind's touch. She looked...beautiful again, out in the sunshine with the wind in her wings and stroking her face into a smile...and then the sun was tucked behind a cloud, she leaned back, and her smile was gone. She sighed, and Starscream's spark went back into his chest.
Starscream looked down at her limp, formerly dangerous claws. He took them into his servo, and he watched her jump and look at him in shock. He flashed a grin and tugged her off the Nemesis.
Nightshade certainly had not been out for years. She was dazed at first, unfeeling, and then the wind caressed her wings open and she was about to take her alt-mode when Starscream's claws laced completely with hers. He tugged her close, adjusted his wings, and looked at her quizzically.
Through her chamber, he could feel her spark hammering, and he thought he could hear it, but he realised with a start, he was listening to his own. He watched her adjust her own wings and they were spiralling toward the ground, getting closer and closer until they both could pick out distinct trees, abandoned buildings, the road cutting through the hot, hot sand below as it reached up to grab them...
Starscream took his alt mode, and so did she. They angled out just in time; the sand brushed Nightshade's belly and she arched towards the sky, mirroring Starscream.
The Eradicon filmed the Death Spiral to its end, where both Seekers landed. He was about to stop the film when Starscream walked closer to Nightshade.
They were both panting, and it was each of their first Death Spirals. It usually meant they were bonding, but this stunt merely gave Nightshade her cure: she was one with the wind again for the first time in years, and she was trembling in delight and in exhaustion. Her optics widened and dimmed when Starscream came closer.
If the Eradicon was expecting something romantic, or a kiss, or servo-holding, he was about to be disappointed. Starscream grabbed her audio and tugged her face into his.
"This changes nothing," he growled and he marched off. It was clear she was supposed to follow, and she did. Cautiously, she reached out to take his servo again (click, went the camcorder on a happy note, thought the Eradicon), but he shied away from her touch.
"He won't kill Firefall," he repeated. He looked back up at the Nemesis. "He has no reason to."
Nightshade jogged to keep up, her optics searching his face. He shot a glare at her and he ran ahead. She slowed down.
Thump. Starscream turned around. Unbelievably, she sat down and was staring at him expectantly. He walked over and opened his servos in the universal speak your mind motion.
"He will."
"Really? That's what I came all the way back for to hear?" He crossed his arms. "Don't you get it? I don't like you. At all. In fact, I don't know what I even saw in you."
She didn't flinch. "If Megatron loves you so much, why isn't he with you to face the DJD?"
The Decepticon Justice Devision was a Pro-Megatron organization. Everything they did was to support Megatron, and Tarn was obsessed to say it in nice words. If you weren't Megatron or related to the great warlord, you weren't allowed near the gates. No one but Megatron got to speak or see the DJD leader.
Starscream shook himself. "Tarn knows I'm with Megatron. He probably commed ahead and told him to expect-"
"But he gave us a time limit. If he could comm Tarn, why didn't he just schedule a meeting like he did in the past?"
Starscream stared at her. He was very smart, he liked to think, but what she said...it made him question. What was Megatron really doing? Getting Nightshade and Starscream back together? Eww, no. Playing a game of Kill the Seekers With the DJD? Correct. "He's playing games again. He's bored."
"So bored he'd sacrafice his own mate for his entertainment?"
"What do you know? You never had a mate. You don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what it is to be loved. I wouldn't expect you to, either. You are an orphan, after all."
She blinked steadily at him. "I had you."
He flinched and snarled at her. "Shut up and get up! We have a mission to do. We have to get back to Cybertron!"
"Is that why we're walking?"
"We're going to your bloody starship," he snarled.
Starscream had fueled her passion for starships. He gave her supplies, datapads, and technology to build her own, and she did. She called it fondly Nightscream, but after they split, he could only mutter The Starship when referring to it.
It was stored in a cave in the desert Soundwave helped form, no questions asked, but has a fix on its location, not like Starscream had a bomb or anything in there, just a piece-of-scrap starship.
Nightshade climbed into it, not bothering to hold the door open for him, which he bitterly thought fine to, even though his spark pulsed sadness for a brief moment. She turned the starship on and sighed as she stroked the controls, finding the heart she had carved into the metal on the dash next to the first picture of their family. She reached for it, but Starscream was faster. He plucked the picture off and slashed through the heart with his claws. He stared straight ahead the whole time, ignoring her sad stare as the picture was crumpled and tossed behind him.
"Out-dated piece of scrap, fly, fraggit!"
She urged the starship into the air, and before Starscream could insult her beloved ship again, Earth was behind them and the coordinates to Cybertron were entered.
"How many days?"
"Two to get there, two to come back."
"With time to kill," Starscream sighed as he laid down to sleep.
She growled and turned it on auto-pilot. "As if you expect Tarn to come out of hiding, waving a white flag?"
He looked at her then, and his claws reached out to pinch her cheek. "You're so cute when you're stupid."
Nightshade flinched and got up, "accidentally" knocking the controls so the ship momentarily flew sideways. Starscream clutched the seat and stared at her, but she was already walking to the rear, probably to refuel. "What did I do to you?"
"Do you want the list in alphabetical order or in descending order of pain?" She threw something at him, and Starscream caught it.
"A fork? Where on Earth did you get a for-" He stared at her, snapping his mouth shut. He dropped the Earth-born fork. "Listen. It's not my fault you turn me off."
She grinned at him, a pained, twisted grin that made her optics narrow into thin lines of purple, most likely to conceal any tears. "You're not exactly the pleasurebot I was expecting, either."
He pressed her into the wall, pinning her wings down with rough servos. She went limp in his grip, blinking sadly up at him. He realised just how sad and pained she had to be, but anger consumed any pity. "I could kill you, say it was an accident. Say Tarn got to you and skinned you for a coat, but I won't. I have self-control, and I will not rip your spark out. Yet."
She leaned close and Starscream caught a whiff of her scent, bringing him happier memories clean of rape and beatings, but he growled and started mentally chanting Megatron is good, Megatron loves me.
Her lips brushed his audio. "You already did."
So, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and writing about Tarn! Honestly, the couple rps I had with him, I roleplayed him most of the time, and it was hysterical. It quickly turned into a horror, and I chased the little OCs down aisle after aisle of Pro-Megatron fliers, posters, and (twist of humor) snowglobes until I killed each and every one of them. I was an evil little con, and my closest friend said she didn't reply after her character died because she thought if she did any more, she'd have nightmares XD
And then in another twist of humor, I shoved two Seekers who hated each other into a tiny tin can set on course to Cybertron for two days.
The Death Spiral is a nod to how eagles act: lacing their talons and spiralling to the earth. If the male or female break away before it's time, the deal's off. I figured Seekers would have relatively the same thing when (traditionally) choosing mates. Obviously tradition was lost on those two.
And Megatron being an aft was pretty fun. I don't think Megatron would comm Tarn even if he wanted to. I bet the whole Nemesis is betting on when Nightshade/Starscream kills Starscream/Nightshade. "Before they reach Cybertron?" "After?" or, my personal favorite, "ON THE TRIP BACK TO THE BLOODY EARTH!"