Hello!
It's been a long time since I came to this site - college and my own stories took most of my time and I fell out of this fandom for a while. My other stories are not forgotten and I intend to finish every one of them, even if it takes forever.
This story is set in the Transformers: Animated universe with elements of the G1:IDW universe heavily featured. It takes place after the end of the third season of Animated, with Megatron and co. in Trypticon Prison, taking up the abandoned but official idea of Slipstream going back to Earth to resurrect Starscream once more. It still needs some things worked out and I don't promise quick updates - I'm sorry for that.
I hope you enjoy it. :)
I.
"You are the only one of the clones who is competent enough to survive."
Slipstream knew from the moment she set optics on the greyed frame of her template that she was going to regret her decision.
It had been three of the Terran days since she found Starscream and dragged him back to the small ship she managed to steal. Luckily, it was installed with a warp-drive, so the journey from Cybertron back to Earth - how she loathed that mudball - took only three deca-cycles, and another three to get back. Knowing what she left behind, even that felt too much.
Despite what had been told her, she still couldn't wrap her head around Megatron's request. On that rare chance when she managed to sneak into Trypticon Prison, to the section they were held in, the Decepticon leader gave her a tiny AllSpark fragment he, by some miracle, managed to keep hidden from the optics of the Autobot guards. Gave it to her, the only one of them on Cybertron still free, with the order to go back for Starscream and bring him back, once again, from the dead.
Once more. Because they needed him.
"What is he to me? Megatron, seriously... what am I to him?"
"You are his cunning. His stubborness. His intelligence. You are everything that makes him a survivor."
So here she was. Starscream's dead body, she assumed, had been found among the debris after the battle in Detroit and disposed of by the humans to one of their fields where they kept the hazardous waste. It was a full stellar cycle ago, time and the planet's much wetter conditions must have made the deterioration quicker. Starscream's body was intact, but definitely looked thinner and fragile like a glass doll, Slipstream didn't quite notice it until she lifted him with ease she didn't expect.
On one of Cybertron's moons a small group of former Decepticon soldiers managed to stay in hiding; she stopped there before entering deep space. She knew they had a medical officer with them and hoped would be able to answer some of her questions. He shouted at her, telling her what she wanted to do was insane and impossible - but in the end gave her some bags of energon to give Starscream before and after she put the AllSpark shard into his spark chamber and a few ampulles of pain suppressants. There was nothing more he could think of - after all, he never brought anybody back from the dead before.
She thought about cleaning him out first and when she saw all the dirt falling off and covering him she knew she couldn't ignore the matter. With a great sigh, Slipstream set off on the task and, refusing to settle for anything but a perfect job, Starscream was as gleaming as his dull grey parts could get at that point. Sticking the energon tube in one of his undamaged ventral ports, Slipstream finally deposited the brilliant fragments inside his spark chamber, arranging it between laser core stabilizer coils and waiting until the energy flow began.
And now here she was, closed with a freshly resurrected Seeker in a scout ship light years from Cybertron. For two days and she simply couldn't leave Starscream long enough to leave the star system further than the richly ringed gas giant's orbit - and cursed Megatron to the pits for every moment of it.
For the first few joors, Starscream remained unconscious as the AllSpark fragment's energy filled his body, the colour returning agonizingly slowly. Then, the moment his optics shone up - white and unseeing - he started screaming at the top of his vocalizer. The damage to the organ rendered the sound hoarse and horribly screechy, screaming out the pain of his death. By the time it finally stopped Slipstream thought she would go crazy.
Starscream couldn't move and Slipstream most of the time couldn't decide whether he was really awake or not - he did not react to anything, not even her slapping him. His body was constantly shaking and seizing and Slipstream used up half the suppressants on him by the end of the second solar cycle. His systems struggled to come online and his energon circulation started up slower than she wanted and until then, she had to handle the constant seizures.
"Starscream... seriously?" she groaned, throwing the tainted piece of rag onto the floor. That morning, she had to stop another inner bleeding from a ruptured line, the energon veins thinned and grew weak during that stellar cycle he lay dead on this planet of sludge, and were prone to tearing. For lack of a better solution, she glued them with nanite gels and hoped they would last until his self-repair systems started working again. The bleedings did not help his recovery one bit and she was left to deal with the consequences.
She really did not volunteer for this.
"Why can't you... Argh, just stop it!"
It was the fourth solar cycle and it was the first time she managed to make him drink some energon without him purging it right back and of course he had to get another seizure again. It was getting a tiresome routine now, having to clean up the mess, having to steady him, scan him all the time to see his progress, to see if something went amiss, trying to get a reaction out of someone unaware of the world around him - and she had enough of it.
Slipstream strode over to the controlls, not looking back at the shaking mass of frame that was Starscream. She was in serious need of some time alone, without having to tend to anyone - just why she had to agree to that old fool's order was beyond her. She was not a caretaker, she didn't know how to do this! And definitely didn't have the patience to spend a click more with the helpless Seeker.
Who is he to me?!
Her hands shook and she vented with fury. If anyone would have tried to convince her that it could be worse - she could be where her comrades were, or transported to the torture chambers of Trypticon, as Megatron said would await them - she would have hardly believed them. She typed in the coordinates for the warp-drive initiation, but halted it until they reached the Oort-cloud of this solar system. If the initiation knocked off any space rocks towards the inner system, that wasn't her problem; she would do anything to finally leave that place.
The ship started moving and she checked the dermashield of the ship's exterior when she heard a faint groan from behind her. No, she refused to tear her optics away from the panels, Starscream was too weak to move anyway, he wouldn't go anywhere. He could really do without her for a few more moments. Or for the rest of the journey.
Slipstream looked up just in time to see the deep blue ice giant - Neptune, Starscream once told them - pass by on the far left, a magnificent sight and probably the only thing worth looking at in that place. Starscream told them all about the planets, their orbits, the Earth's position, how to navigate in this planetary system when they came to attack - or rather, assist Starscream in attacking Megatron over the newly constructed space bridge.
He told them many things, some of which were even useful among his endless mutterings. He showed them how to aim, how to concentrate the energy on their weapons. What the purpose of their existence was...
You wouldn't be here without him.
Yeah, I'm so lucky...
She did look back. The uncontrollable shaking stubbornly racked Starscream's body and he was still more greyish than the magenta she remembered. A thin line of energon ran down the side of his chin and she wondered how long it would take until she suffered a mental breakdown. She was just wasting energon on that pathetic idiot...
"Why don't I just dump you out into deep-space?!"
The warp-drive's initiation sequence began without the slightest tremor in the ship. The graviton-bending went smoothly, Slipstream would not have to worry about the rest of the journey apart from the necessary re-calibrations along the way. She was, once again, free to go back and continue bringing Starscream further back to the world of the living. Megatron surely must have had a good reason... he surely did... and the tiniest pang of guilt in her processor told her that maybe, maybe she really shouldn't leave the one who created her lying in his own waste.
Picking up the rag, she walked back to the coughing Seeker. It was one of those rare moments that his optics shone up with their original red colour, although faint, but Starscream managed to focus them on her. He must have been aware, even for those few clicks before they would lose their colour and he would fall back into that delirious state. He was looking at her now, optics wide and emotionless, and for the first time, he strained his vocalizer - but not to scream this time.
"Whoar..." he slurred and Slipstream almost jumped. She looked up at him, frowning in confusion before her processor made out what he wanted to ask.
"You... don't recognise me?" she asked, but before he could have answered, his optics whited out again and his body tensed, caught in a seizure once more.
Slipstream groaned in exasperation. How bad could it be there if Megatron really thought this was their last chance?!
"The events of the past decacycles convinced us that the Decepticon threat has not been vanquished, as had been promised. We have been lulled in the illusion of peace, yet - one has to wonder why the leader of this so-called democracy is a military officer."
The speaker glanced at Sentinel Magnus - acting, until the official votes - who was staring at him with utter disbelief. The speaker's single optic never changed in intensity, but the force of his speech was climbing with each word spoken. The crowds started murmuring restlessly and it was now getting sure he was winning.
"It is apparent the existing system doesn't function as it should." he continued, "We suggest military officers, or rather, war-time frame-types should return to appropriate service and registered by their respectful bases."
"I'd like to remind everyone," Sentinel cut in, chin held high, he couldn't restrain himself any longer, "that we have in custody every member of the Decepticon High Command, among them their leader, Megatron."
"Yet," the speaker, the eleventh member of a newly formed council of twelve members he represented at the open conference, "an attack - a rescue attempt - from one of the most dangerous Decepticon generals took you completely by surprise."
Sentinel kept his digits from folding into fists with great willpower. This was not what they agreed to. This was not what he agreed to - they promised he would stay in power. But this...
"We are convinced that further steps need to be taken to ensure the safety and stability of our society." The single optic shone gold and bright, "The Council carried out a research after the failed rescue attempt at Trypticon Prison. The results clearly unveil a correlation for the abundancy of certain frame-types among known Decepticons, as such, it is of utmost importance to filter out these individuals."
The crowd fell silent. Nervous glances were exchanged and some were fidgeting anxiously, looking at the visored and masked guards standing in a round by every entrance.
"The last time a classification of frame-types and functions was carried out was before the Great War swept through and destroyed our planet. It is quite clear that changes are needed - and shall be carried out without further hesitation. To bring back the real peace to this world."
On the other half of the globe, harsh wind lashed across Trypticon Prison. The screen was painfully bright in the semi-dark corridor of cells and the two Autobot guards watching the speech grinned at each other above their cube of high-grades.
"Eleven-of-Twelve really nailed it." one of them ranted, "You know what it means..."
"Yeah," the other laughed and turned to the side, to the cell on the left, where two bloodred optics looked back at him, "soon we can finally move you where you belong, mighty leader. You and your fragging faction didn't get half the suffering you caused."
Megatron did not move and did not tear his optics from the two guards and the single-opticed speaker on the screen. He knew exactly what it meant for him and all the others imprisoned with him and he wasn't intent on prolonging their stay in that place any longer. Whatever may come, they wouldn't break - and their day would come again. To break free from the Prison... and their shackles.
Starscream...
