Episode One - Sealed with a Kiss I
When it came to Kiss Players, jealousy didn't even cover it. Starscream was by nature an envious creature - he was not greedy, he simply coveted what others had precisely because they had it. Materialistic possessions, wealth, influence, power... Starscream wanted it all. In his eyes if another bot could obtain it, by dint of his sheer superiority Starscream deserved it. Megatron's control over the Decepticons had been Starscream's ultimate goal for more than four million extensive stellar cycles - but now Megatron was in the Autobot stockade, the fool; Starscream was only sorry that it was that insignificant Autobot Optimus Prime and not him that had had the chance to sustain the fatal blow. The Decepticons were all but defeated and while Starscream had proposed to do them a favour by rousing the stragglers into an organised offence on the Autobot scum, he had been spurned. Those moronic imbeciles could not see past their own thick skulls to recognise the potential of the Decepticons under Starscream's rule.
But as much as Starscream had fumed, insulted and downright sulked, they would not yield. Better to skulk in shadows than go offline in a short-lived fuse of glory, they said. Strutless cowards, all of them. Starscream did not admit to himself that he sympathised.
But Kiss Players - otherwise useless organic creatures, crawling and insignificant, who had been infused with the power of the AllSpark itself - were something different. A Kiss Player could merge with a Cybertronian body and triple its strength, speed and firepower. If Starscream had a Kiss Player, the Decepticons would have no choice but to follow him. None would stand a chance in combat against him. But of course, they all belonged to the Autobots, self proclaimed protectors of the planet Earth and all its inhabitants, deserving or no. That and Starscream had no ship, no Space Bridge access, no co-ordinates - essentially, no means to travel to Earth, capture a Kiss Player, and complete his triumphant conquest of the Decepticons.
So Starscream was stuck in a state of useless craving and desire, basic obnoxious need for everything and no manner in which to obtain any of it. Jealousy did not even begin to span the ugly turmoil in Starscream's never satisfied spark.
When it came to the flawless success of Marluxia's dirty, underhanded tactics, smug was too small a word to satisfy his ego. Oh, but for the beautiful idiocy of his fellow organics, so easy to swindle and deceive!
Long legs easily dominating the mundane concrete slabs of downtown Detroit, Marluxia did not flee so much as make a timely, laughably easy exit. Humans, they were so truly pathetic, their minds blinded by carnal cravings, regrettably short sighted and now considerably worse off than they had been twenty minutes ago. Kiss Players were big business these days; unfortunately, certain shady individuals seemed to think that by dint of having incredible power locked within one made one an easy target for extortion - Marluxia had been quick to prove them wrong.
Gracing a corner, he heard the furious screech of tyres behind him and swore, ducking into the awning of the nearest building and pressing his sleek body to the shadows as a muscle car flew past him. A few seconds later two more followed, then silence. Marluxia doubled back the way he had come, gripping a convenient handhold as he vaulted up in three easy manoeuvres onto the corrugated cardboard roof of the nearest factory warehouse. Detroit was littered with them, large and small, relics to the old car industry that had once thrived here. Now it was the automaton capital of the world... curious indeed that it was also home to the world's only sentient robots. Marluxia did not waste a second pondering that startling coincidence as a fourth equally suspicious car screamed vengeance along the road, blind to his position in the drawing darkness of the evening. Marluxia laughed, stood, and walked to the edge of the roof, plopping neatly to the ground. Smug did not cover it: vainglorious was a far prettier four-syllable word that Marluxia was more than egotistical enough to apply to himself. The walk home was a breeze.
Until he idly stepped onto the striped paint of a crossroads and four fuming cars barely missed his body as they roared to a stop.
Oh, slag.
When Megatron escaped from the stockades it brought nothing more than a wry, humourless smirk to Starscream's mouth. Typical of the Autobots: they could neither kill nor keep the Decepticon's (undeserving) leader. Starscream had had the worthless warlord on the verge of falling offline for four million stellar cycles and the Autobots couldn't even keep him in stasis for ten. All they merited was a derisive sneer and a sarcastic wish of luck from Megatron's former Second in Command.
When it was that same Second in Command that the Autobots turned to for help, Starscream's reaction was decidedly disparate. Surprise, shock, grim conceit - and a devilish plan already forming inside his processor. Where was Megatron? He had returned to Earth, no doubt having caught wind of the rumours and after a coveted Kiss Player. What Starscream saw in the Elite Guard's pleas and offers was a free ticket to Earth and power. For Starscream's practised artistic talent it was a cinch to secure their trust and a place - albeit bound in stasis cuffs - on the next ship to Earth.
For once Starscream had only kind words for the Autobots - at least, their sheer naivety. Had they really expected that he, a Decepticon down to every devious microchip, would so willingly work with them? Their idiocy was practically cute, and thanks to it Starscream was soon running blessed riot through the evening streets of Detroit. Of course it was only a matter of cycles before the Autobots were hot on his tailpipes... Starscream would rather have liked it if they'd just let him grab a Kiss Player and go, but he was willing to wait a few solar cycles more.
Dancing with simple grace through the towering skyscrapers then sprawling warehouses of the city, Starscream laughed at the ease of his escape. Soon, the Decepticons would be his. That bucket of bolts Megatron wouldn't stand a chance. He grinned to himself as sirens approached, running a little further just to tease the groundlings when suddenly the came upon a crossroads and something small, fast and warm sprang onto his chassis and pressed with a sense of urgency against his faceplates. There flashed a feverish rush of heat, and pure, electric power overwhelmed him.
It was just Marluxia's miraculous luck that as he retreated against the unyielding glare of headlights and silhouetted figures climbed from the cars, a towering robotic body crashed its foot down on a convertible, firing pink beams of destruction in an apparently nonchalantly aberrant manner. He took no chances, flinging his body against the cool alien metalwork and reaching its head to kiss and combine.
Marluxia had never Kiss Played a sentient robot before: in his training, now complete, he had frequently powered up artificial electrical bodies with his AllSpark-saturated kiss but a real, living Cybertronian, Marluxia quickly learned, was horrendously different. Two souls battling for dominion, a phenomenal influx in raw power, not to mention mass confusion on the part of this particular robot. But Marluxia had the advantage: he knew what he was doing and his new body hadn't got a clue.
He fired a smoking hole in his previous cage of cars, sending his adversaries scattering, then destroyed their vehicles, too, just for good measure. That would teach them to cross a Kiss Player-
"Get out of my processor!"
The sudden screeching demand that Marluxia felt the robot vocalise snapped him from his victory as the shared body stumbled drunkenly backwards and crashed into the side of a building. He rolled his proverbial eyes, and righted himself with an easy kick of one stabilising servo.
"Calm your circuits! I just Kiss Played you!"
There was a pause and freeze in the mechanical body that not even Marluxia could override.
"You're a Kiss Player?"
"Duh."
The wail of sirens, a common noise in Detroit, approached ever faster and from the street corner burst a familiar face to both Kiss Player and bot - that of Optimus Prime, the leader of the Earth-bound Autobots. Hard on his heels came others, weapons readied. By some natural instinct, Marluxia and his borrowed body stepped backwards enough to be successful.
"Why are they pointing their weapons at you?" Marluxia began to ask, momentarily confused - but reaching out to probe the metallic chassis, he soon realised. "Oh. You're a Decepticon, aren't you?"
The bot - with the physique of a jet, and a sleek one at that - laughed sardonically.
"Look who just arrived at the party."
He chuckled at what Marluxia assumed was some in joke he didn't catch, and raised his arm to fire a smoking hole in any pesky Autobots that dared stand in his way. Marluxia couldn't fight the innate control - but at least he could throw the Decepticon's aim off enough so that none of the Autobots were too badly harmed. Didn't Optimus Prime have his own Kiss Player, the Sumdac girl? He must have considered one stray Decepticon too little a threat to warrant her involvement - but Prime hadn't anticipated said Decepticon to have been Kiss Played.
Oops.
Starscream had never anticipated battling for control over his own body. Kiss Players were supposed to be nothing more than tools, helpless alone and obsequious to their master's whims. This one appeared to have Kiss Played him with the full intention of simply using his body for his own means. Him, the mighty Starscream, as though he was simply the inanimate object! But Starscream's usual self-righteous fury was somewhat dampened and that was by the sheer power coursing through his circuitry. It burned within him like a flushing, orgasmic heat. Physical boundaries in his processor melted away, its abrupt vastness giddying him with buzzing energy.
Two well placed shots pulverised windows and disintegrated walls before Starscream fired his thrusters, hard, and burst into the sky. It didn't matter. He could blackmail this pathetic human into submission; then he'd have more than enough limitless power to take down Megatron and those worthless Autobots.
"He was Kiss Played!"
He ought to have been dubbed Sentinel Obvious, Optimus Prime thought as he knelt down and plucked up the charred remains of a full set of clothes, sighing.
"I told you those humans weren't worthy to hold the power of the AllSpark," Sentinel was ranting on in the background as Optimus straightened and transformed to return to base. Ultra Magnus, apparently the only bot with the power to keep Sentinel in line, quieted him with a few deadpanned words.
"Optimus. Who was the Kiss Player he captured?"
"It was Marluxia."
"Ah."
Optimus Prime, for all his flaws, always tried to trust in his colleagues, Cybertronian and organics alike - but he'd never been able to extend the same honour to the Kiss Player Marluxia. Now it seemed his hunch was correct: he'd Kiss Played a Decepticon. One as treacherous and unpredictable as Starscream, at that. It was almost fitting, the morally dubious Marluxia with the equally grey-area former Decepticon Second in Command.
Not to mention the fact that Marluxia was one of the most powerful Kiss Players Optimus and his own Player, Sari, had ever trained. This was going to be a problem.
Starscream's timely exit was interrupted somewhere on the forested outskirts of Detroit when he suddenly crashed into an involuntary nosedive and landed in a crumpled heap in the middle of a clearing. Night had drawn in, cold and dank - but even this uncomfortable environment was nothing compared to the engine-tank curling sensation of a small, fleshy body falling out of this plating and solidifying next to him on the floor.
He rolled over onto his hands and knees, and inspected it closely. After a moment's examination, he realised that it was laughing. Disgruntled to his spark, Starscream opened his mouth for a bitter and irritable demand, but the worthless human flapped it away with its hand.
"That was fun."
"It's not supposed to be fun," Starscream huffed indignantly as the organic stood and brushed itself off. It even had the audacity to laugh at him as he dumped his aft on the floor and petulantly crossed his arms over his cockpit.
"Sulky, aren't you?"
"Sulky?" Starscream fumed. "Sulky! Do you realise who you're talking to?"
The man stood with identically crossed arms, posture confident and expression smug.
"As a matter of fact, no. Why don't you enlighten me?"
This human oozed egotism and Starscream immediately loathed it.
"Fool!" He began, to build a little momentum into his introduction, "The name is Starscream, exalted leader of all Decepticons!"
Starscream was perfectly used to people - human and Autobot - interrupting him there with some vexatious comment about Decepticon leaders and Megatron, but the human simply listened to him with false pensiveness, and silently urged him to continue after the first sentence was done. Starscream, never having received this reaction before, had no more.
"Yes." He finished lamely. The human smirked (and how dearly Starscream wished to wipe that smirk from his elegant face) and extended a hand as though Starscream actually wanted to touch it.
"I'm Marluxia."
When Starscream stalled and did not react, Marluxia shrugged to himself and turned to walk away.
"Thanks for the ride."
Realising that his craved quarry was escaping, Starscream stood abruptly and skidded through the mud to stop Marluxia.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Home," Marluxia said flatly, and walked carelessly around Starscream's leg. Furious, Starscream grabbed the human and raised him close to his face.
"You listen to me," He began, thrown when Marluxia didn't even try to struggle, "You're mine now, and you do what I say. Or else I'll-" He struggled momentarily for a fittingly devilish threat- "I'll kill you."
Marluxia considered this with a quirky smile to his lips. Then he looked down and traced a pattern in the dust and dirt that had settled on Starscream's claws.
"You look like you could do with a wash."
"You're supposed to scream!" Starscream exclaimed indignantly, not liking where this conversation was going one bit. "You're supposed to be scared of me, why aren't you scared?"
"I have no reason to fear that which I can control," Marluxia replied smoothly. Starscream ground his teeth. Nobody spoke to him in such a manner! Well... a lot of people did, but Starscream wouldn't admit that.
"You can't control me!"
"Oh, so your aim is naturally that terrible?"
If he'd had hair, Starscream would have torn it out in exasperation. This organic had no right to brush aside Starscream's prowess so nonchalantly! His pride boiled beneath his plating, trapped between admitting weakness in one area or another. So he ignored the question and retorted with a snappish insult.
"Shut your mouth, foul organic."
Marluxia actually complied, much to Starscream's surprise, and took to watching him with an amused expression.
"And stop looking at me like that."
Marluxia chuckled lightly.
"I apologise. I was just waiting for you to do something."
Outraged, Starscream roughly threw the human to the floor. He bounced harmlessly across the dirt and plucked himself up, grinning most horribly.
"I have had enough!" Starscream announced furiously, raising his his null ray guns to target the man's pretty face. "You think that your insolence will not slip by me unpunished, human? I'll make you regret the day you were-!"
He stalled, knowing that humans weren't protoformed but painfully ignorant of the techniques used to create new organics.
"Born." Marluxia helpfully supplied. Starscream's shoulders slumped, weapon dropping to his side.
"Born," He uselessly completed. Marluxia strode over and patted his metal framework, offering him an amused grin that made Starscream's circuits boil.
"I like you."
Starscream opened his mouth for a vicious reply, some vague screech about how dare he be so insolent and sarcastic, but Marluxia was already taking his leave.
"You need me," He challenged fruitlessly instead. Marluxia outright laughed.
"There are other bots for me to Kiss Play."
"Don't you have a partner?" Starscream asked, desperate for at least some sort of small victory against the human for him to celebrate. At last, Marluxia stopped, hanging naked at the edge of the clearing.
"They don't trust me with one."
He was gone.