Cloudy Skies

Chapter 3

//\\

With a sluggish feeling to his fuel pump, Skyfire watched the planet grow larger in the view screen. Somewhere down there, Starscream was waiting under Primus only knew how many tons of ice. Out of all the planets in all the nearby sectors, why for the love of Primus did the Cube have to land on this planet?

The search for the Cube had been trying for the flyer. In the close confines of the Ark, he couldn't escape when Ratchet's concern became too stifling, or when Optimus Prime decided to give another speech on the "nobility of the Autobot cause," or some such slag. The close quarters had even eroded his tolerance for Jazz's formerly amusing antics. And don't get him started on Ironhide. Optimus Prime had to resort to ensuring that the flyer and the weapons-specialist were never assigned to the same shift in order to prevent the two from killing each other.

Frankly, at the moment, the only mech on board that Skyfire could stand was Bumblebee. If Skyfire could be honest with himself, part of the reason was because of the yellow mech's still slagged vocal processor, which stubbornly refused to be fixed, despite all of Ratchet's best efforts. Despite, or perhaps because of, his difficulty communicating verbally, Bumblebee was an excellent listener, listening without judgment as Skyfire poured out his feelings about Starscream, the Autobots, and the war in general during the long watches they shared.

But that period of comradeship was about to end. In about 2 orns, both Skyfire and Bumblebee would be dispatched to the planet, there to split up and search for clues as to the location of the All-Spark. Skyfire could see the logic of it: Bumblebee's scout function made him ideal for teasing out information, while Skyfire's flight capabilities added to his science scanners, made him the logical choice to track down the Cube's energy signature. To say nothing of the fact that they were the only members of the team not a part of Autobot High command.

Skyfire didn't mind the assignment. To be honest, it gave him an opportunity to surreptitiously search for Starscream, as he'd been doing from the Ark's less-than-ideal scanners, at least when Jazz hadn't wandered out onto the bridge to relieve Skyfire's non-existent boredom.

'Soon,' he mentally sent to his trapped love, still entombed beneath frozen depts. 'I'll find you again soon.'

//\\

Parked on the runway of a human military base, Skyfire reviewed the events that had happened so far since landing on the planet. If his memory banks hadn't told him he'd been to the planet before, he honestly wouldn't have recognized it. The last time he'd been there, there had only been the slightest hints of the possibility of organic life, now it swarmed across its surface, teeming in great masses around him.

Upon atmospheric entry, he'd made sure to run a sweep over both planetary poles, and failed to find anything metallic in large enough quantities that would account for the mass of a mech Starscream's size, not to mention Megatron's mammoth bulk. So if odds were, they had been discovered and being kept somewhere hopefully where they wouldn't cause problems. At least they didn't have to worry about if Megatron had managed to find the Cube and leave the planet with it. The fact that the dominant species was still alive and flourishing was proof enough that Megatron hadn't achieved yet achieved his goal; the Decepticon warlord would have destroyed them to the last as an afterthought in his victory celebrations. In between acquiring alternate modes (Bumblebee had made questioning sound when he'd seen the obviously military plane Skyfire had chosen) both he and the scout had been sifting through the local information networks for any trace of Megatron or the All-Spark. Careful research had tagged an E-bay page featuring an odd construction of wire and glass that featured cybertronian co-ordinate characters, co-ordinates that Skyfire guessed to be in the format used solely by the larger battle cruisers, such as Megatron's alt form. An additional search identified the owner of the webpage as one Samuel James Witwicky, a human of about 17 solar cycles of age. Yet another search had revealed the presence of a Captain Archibald Witwicky, who ended up in a human enclosure for the insane, speaking about "Ice men." That meant a human had found either Megatron or Starscream, possibly both. The fact that the Decepticon leader was literally on ice didn't mean the Autobots didn't have to move fast to locate the Cube. Who knew when the Decepticons would follow them and land directly on their afts?

Right now, he was blending into the background of a human military airbase, just one of many transports sitting on the runway. Bumblebee was undercover as well, though the scout had a more complicated assignment to complete. Once Sam Witwicky connection to the Cube and Megatron had been established, Bumblebee had been ordered to scan the most inconspicuous alt form he could find, and to insert himself into the Witwicky family unit, to look after them from there and Sam in particular. Once he was in place, Primus would shake hands with Unmaker in friendship before a single hair on one of Bumblebee's charges was harmed, even if Megatron himself threatened.

Skyfire snarled to himself, audios silenced so as not to alert the humans to his presence. Slag it, but sitting silently on the runway was so slagging boring!! Right now, he could even go for taking a load of stinky, smelly, humans somewhere to stink up his interior while, of all aggravations, he had to let a human think he was controlling him. He'd been sitting here with nothing to do for 3 fragging orns.

Oh what the slag. Nothing was happening, no Decepticons were anywhere in the system. He was overdue for a good long recharge; his systems were beginning to feel the strain. Besides, Jazz would give him a heads up the instant a Decepticon signal so much as bleeped on the Ark's scanners. Just a little nap….

//\\

Skyfire woke to explosions, to the white-hot glare of EMP shells. Hurriedly snapping his sensors on, he was horrified to discover a Decepticon methodically ripping the base he was sheltering at, to rubble. As he threw himself into the transformation process, Skyfire spared a thought that somemech on the Ark was going to get a null ray in a sensitive spot for not warning him before a Decepticon landed right slagging on his aft. That looked to be Blackout. Good. He'd been meaning to pay him back for nearly shooting Air Raid out of the sky a while back, the result of which had made even Silverbolt and Skydive snappish and irritable with worry over their gestalt-mate, and it was Skyfire had had to deal with the brunt of the normally steady Air Commander's temper over something as trivial as a report only slightly delayed by his research on the space-bridge. And it looked like the slagger fancied himself a flyer with that alt mode design; guess he'd have to teach a small lesson in manners….

Null rays powered up, he blasted Blackout in what he hoped was a vulnerable spot, though he kept an optic out for Scorponick. The pit-slagging drone Blackout liked to cart around had made things dicey on more than one mission. Not that the drone's weaponry was that advanced, but the slagger was so pit-dammed slippery that it was hard to land a decisive hit- don't turn away from me you piece of Slag!!!

Taking Blackout's momentary distraction as the opening it was, Skyfire landed a solid double hit that toppled the Decepticon over, hopefully stunning him. Ripping his enemy over, Skyfire fired point-blank into his foe's spark.

As his enemy stilled in death, Skyfire finally took a good look around him, finding himself alone in the wreckage of what had been a thriving air base. Blackout was dead, good. Scorponick had escaped, bad. Not to mention, there were some human survivors who had for some reason or another had attracted Blackout's attention, Skyfire had to find out why exactly it was, and if it was something that might alert the human governments that representatives from another planet had crashed their war in their world, possibly do something about it. Who knew? Maybe this could be the break he was looking for, maybe the humans he had saved could at least lead him to the All-Spark.

//\\

By the time he had determined exactly which life-signs were the humans he wanted, they had already made it to a small human settlement just under a tera-klick from the base (he still hadn't fully converted his scanners to the local distance measurements yet). Not wanting to reveal himself to the humans, he found a hiding spot that, while out of human visual range, was still close enough for his scanners to eavesdrop on their commentary. Checking to be sure he had the correct language downloaded, Skyfire earnestly listened in. Apparently, two of them were having a mild disagreement about something, something that was revealed after a minute or so of conversation, to be him.

" –man, I'd say the white robot was on our side, you get me?" Score one for the human. He'd figured out something obvious.

"What makes you say that, Fig?"

"Look, who knows how long it sat there parked on our runway, and never made a move? Then when the Big Black Killer robot comes and start blowing us to Kingdom Come, it saves our Asses. Did a sight of a lot more damage to that thing than we could." Again, the obvious. Were all the humans so dense?

"Like you said, no telling how long it was on our doorstep. Why would it hide if its intentions were friendly? And why did it wait to start beating on its friend, rather than going after it from the start. There's no telling exactly what it wants." Well, well, well. It appeared that at least one of the humans had a functioning processor, and was capable of seeing past the obvious. Nowhere in the universe was free help truly free; there was always at least some reason or price behind it. Good to see that a human was aware of that.

"But you got to admit that the White guy saved our sixes." Sixes? A quick search of the online dictionary located the word, located under the category of 'slang'. 'Sixes', a reference to the muscled appearance of a male's abdominal wall, used as a euphemism for 'lives'. Jazz would love the saying.

"Who's to say we wouldn't have got away from the Black one without your White Savior."

"After it focused on us, you in particular, after you took that picture? The way that thing wanted us down after that? I don't think so." A picture? Visual evidence, which would confirm a Cybertronian presence on the planet? Not good. No wonder Blackout had given Skyfire his opening. No doubt whoever was commanding the Decepticon forces on earth had stressed secrecy if at all possible. But why send Blackout out for information? He wasn't even an infiltrator, but a frontline warrior. Skyfire doubted that busting up a military base counted as subtle in the least. But the Decepticons did have very few mechs suited to recon missions, no doubt influenced by Megatron's preference for single-minded brutality to accomplish any given task. While that strategy did work from time to time, often it caused more problems than it solved.

And one such problem was before him now. Due to Blackout's attack, he'd violated his cover, and revealed himself to humans. At least Scorponick hadn't interfered….

Just as the name crossed his processor, the drone burst from beneath the sands and began to raise a panic among the humans, most of who appeared to be civilians. The only soldiers looked to be the base survivors, though a few others apparently knew how to use the primitive weapons most commonly used on the planet. Skyfire began to power up his null rays, only to power them down again when he realized he couldn't interfere. Unlike the last time, there were humans all around the battle site, and he couldn't take the chance that a null ray could hit one of them. A precise hit could kill a mech in one hit, who knew what even a glancing blow could do to the more fragile natives. Facing Scorponick, arguably the slipperiest drone Shockwave had designed, there would be no way for him to avoid native casualties.

Not to mention, this was a good opportunity to evaluate exactly how the humans could defend themselves against others of his kind. And they were proving themselves admirably. While the drone had taken a few down from sheer surprise, now that they knew what the danger was, were putting up an effective defense despite the pitiful quality of their weapons. More humans were being hurt by falling debris than by the drone's direct attacks. Still, the standoff couldn't continue. Sooner or later, the humans wouldn't be able to maintain their defense.

Though it was possible that they were using the communication link that had been left open throughout the battle to summon reinforcements. Skyfire rather doubted it. The link was almost painfully unsecured; the youngest sparkling wouldn't have the least bit of trouble cracking it. Why trust important information to a line so open that public broadcast signals back on Cybertron, which any youngling could crack with ease, were more tightly encoded?

A blip on his radar warned him of an approaching aircraft, likely an unmanned drone from the only other base in the area, the one that Blackout had left alone. Thankfully, Skyfire was able to trace its flight path and move out of range of its sensors before he could be detected. Shortly after the drone passed the battle overhead, two planes followed. Not multipurpose transport planes such as Skyfire, but true military jets. Just the sight of them brought a lump to Skyfire's fuel pump as he could very easily picture he beloved seeker choosing something like them when the seeker chose a new alt form.

Even Skyfire from his position well back from the battle could tell that the first efforts of the planes were a complete waste of time, fuel, and firepower. They had used the exact same weaponry as the troops on the ground, only changing the elevation of the attack. Even Wheeljack knew better than to try the same thing twice if he was looking for different results, or different explosions in the glitch-head's excuse for a lab.

A new salvo opened up, using an entirely different type of shells. The heat of the casings burned right through Scorponick's armor, detonating inside the protective coating. When the bombardment let up, Skyfire caught the faintest signal that was the drone retreating under the sands, tail severed. It was dead either way. If it kept movement to a minimum, it could last for orn, perhaps two or three depending on how much energy it had expended in combat, and if it kept movement to a minimum before it went permanently offline without a 'parent' energy supply. And with Blackout dead… well it would be a kinder end than the drone really deserved, pit-slagging piece of scrap metal.

There was nothing more he could do here. Right now, he had to report in to Ark, and make sure that those onboard knew that the Decepticons had arrived. Likely they would know, but given the way Blackout had gotten the drop on him, Skyfire couldn't count on it. He had to report in to the Ark, as well as check in with Bumblebee, who knew what was happening in the young Autobot's area of the world. Firing his alt form's engines, Skyfire flew off.

//\\

In flight, Skyfire beamed a message up to the Ark and gave Ratchet (who was on duty) a brief summery of what events had occurred on earth to his knowledge. When he had to admit that he'd fought and taken out Blackout, the medic's outraged harangue made Skyfire glad that he was giving his repot over a comlink. Without a doubt, he'd be ducking Ratchet's favorite wrench about now if he were faceplate to faceplate with the medic. The distance, coupled with the same idiocy that had inspired him to actually request an antisocial seeker as his principal exploration partner, and the suicidal stubbornness that had allowed the same seeker to actually provoke bullies at the Academy, was what allowed Skyfire to actually retort back to Ratchet that if those on the Ark had warned him about the Decepticon presence in the solar system, he wouldn't have been awoken right out of recharge by Blackout's attack. He'd had no choice but to fight by that point.

While Skyfire knew that Ratchet would find a way to make him pay for his lip, he honestly couldn't give a slag. He simply wanted the Cube found, so he could locate Starscream. The seeker was so close; Skyfire could feel it in his spark.

Before Ratchet signed off, the medic made sure to inform Skyfire that the rest of the strike team planned to make planet fall shortly, spurred by obviously –belated readings of Decepticon activity on the surface, coupled with Bumblebee's report that he had made contact with the Witwicky boy. Skyfire was to rendezvous with the others at Bumblebee's location; the Ark to be placed on autopilot while its remaining crew journeyed to the planet's surface, ETA, half an orn. Quickly calculating his flight path he found, taking into account the speeds available to his alt form, wind directions and speeds, and the distance he had still to travel, that his own ETA roughly matched, give or take a few breems. Right before the single closed, he sent a brief acknowledgement, and cut the channel from his end.

Calm. He had to be calm, or he'd rip Ironhide's CPU apart circuit by circuit when, not if, the fragger let his cannons override his processor. 'No killing fellow Autobots in front of the humans'. The Autobots needed human assistance to locate the Cube. A hint of weakness in the wrong place could spell disaster for them all. The humans did possess weaponry capable of penetrating cybertronian armor, if they wanted to, they could wipe the Autobots out, not that the Autobots wouldn't put up a fight if it came to that, Prime's standing orders be slagged. He would watch, and be sure the humans were not a threat to them all.

//\\

When Skyfire arrived at the rendezvous point, barely two breems after the rest of the Autobots had landed (did they have to indulge in that oh-so-subtle light show?). Introductions were being given to two humans, both adolescents by their size and the hormone levels literally wafting off their forms. Preferring to observe and to not get involved at the moment, Skyfire set down on a rooftop conveniently just above the ally Bumblebee had apparently thought was a good meeting place, (though if the yellow bot thought Skyfire was going to risk his wings down there, he had another thing coming. Ground crawlers never understood just what it meant to fly). He listened with half an audio to the introductions, (though he did smirk at Ratchet's obvious gaffe at calling attention to the pheromones the humans were emitting) and only started paying real attention when Prime started to give Sam Witwicky and his friend a summation of the war, complete with holographic show and tell. Skyfire couldn't restrain his disgust.

"Do you actually expect them to believe that simplistic piece of slag? I lived through it, and I hardly recognized your slagging story." His voice carried easily over the lip of the tall building to the ally below. When he moved closer to the edge of the roof, Skyfire enjoyed the varying reactions to his presence; from resigned silence (Prime), to annoyed grumbling (Ironhide and Ratchet), to excited greetings (Jazz and Bumblebee), and startled and scared cries (the two humans). The embarrassing (to the boy) shriek of surprise was a nice touch.

"And this is Skyfire, one of our best flyers." 'And you better believe it, Prime, Starscream wouldn't have tolerated a substandard flyer on his wing.' Skyfire thought, almost spitefully. If it had been anyone other than Prime giving the sparse introduction, Skyfire would have approved. The humans might still be immature for their species, but that didn't mean that they had to know everything. All the Autobots had received similar glossing over their backgrounds. The humans didn't need to know that Ratchet not only ran Medical, but kept the Scientists on track as well, (truly a monumental task, given how flighty Preceptor could be at times), or that Jazz headed up special operations in addition to his command responsibilities.

"Skyfire, come down here if you please." asked Prime, no doubt thinking that it would be awkward for the humans to have to continually crane their necks up at him. Truthfully, Skyfire couldn't give a slag about what might be better for the humans. Primus himself couldn't get Skyfire to crowd his wings down there. The ally was barely able to contain all 5 of the other Autobots as it was.

"Hey 'Fire!" Jazz was his usual self. "How long have you been up there?"

"Just before the Hatchet's remark on mating pheromones. Did he pass on my report?" the flyer asked his friend with a smirk.

The Special Opts leader flashed a replying smirk. In the background, almost ignored in all the byplay surrounding Skyfire's arrival, the two humans looked at each other in confusion, and then followed everyone's focus up to Skyfire. Impassive optics stared back at them. Unlike Bumblebee, he had no intention of forming a bond with the humans. All he cared about was locating the Cube, and finding Starscream. At least with the Cube, there was a clue that the Autobots could use as a lead to the All-Spark's location, the glasses once owned by Captain Witwicky.

Less than a breem later, they were at the boy's dwelling. Skyfire flew in nervous circles above the house, too keyed up to land. He could see that the other Autobots were also edgy, and for the same reasons. They were so close to finding the All-Spark; all they needed was the glasses. But behind that hope, there was also a screaming note of caution: the operation to retrieve the Cube was going much too smoothly. Something was bound to happen to mess things up, Primus and Unmaker liked chaos far too much to let things go right too often. The only question remained: when were the Decepticons going to spring their trap?

The trap wasn't sprung by the Decepticons, but by the humans. Watching from the air, Skyfire radioed reports on the human convoy's progress as the strike team trailed them to a location remote enough to ambush and retrieve their only clue to the location of the All-Spark. When everything was in position, he signaled the other Autobots by sending a null ray into the engine of the vehicle containing the two children with the glasses. After disabling the other vehicles in a similar manner, he landed in front of the startled humans, null rays powered up. He kept a null ray pointed at them as the other Autobots relieved the humans of their meager weapons. He deadened his audios to the babbling complaints as the humans poured out of their now-useless transportation; it didn't matter if the natives were not authorized to communicate with them? As Leader of the Autobots and Commander of this particular mission, worrying about legalities was Prime's job, not his.

Wait. There was another of those wireless communication links, similar to the one he had noticed and ignored back when he had watched the humans facing Scorponick. Thanks to some research he had managed to accomplish in flight, he didn't take the weak nature of the signal so lightly. Where was it coming from…there! Turning to where the femme was working to restrain the men who had briefly taken them captive on the side of the road. Using all the precision Bluestreak had drilled into him, Skyfire shot the thinnest, most focused null ray of his life at the communications device in one of the human's hands. The human yelped, dropping the device as soon as the weapon hit, too late to prevent the total destruction of the device, but also far too late to mitigate the damage its presence had caused. There was no way to tell who had been on the other end of the link, or what they might be planning. It was enough to know that due to the link, humans had a general location of the Autobot presence on earth. Slag Prime for insisting they gather in one spot, if they were spread out, they wouldn't have this situation.

From the air, Skyfire watched it all play out. From above the low-lying clouds hw watched Prime pick up the two children in one massive hand, saw how helicopter downwash ripped them from safety and how Prime was just too slow to catch them. He watched as Bumblebee broke cover to catch them, and was taken down by the humans for it. Watching the boy futilely attempting to free his guardian tore at Skyfire's spark, along with the sounds coming from Bumblebee's ruined vocalizer. The young bot was undoubtedly reliving memories of his time under Megatron's tender mercies, in addition to the anguish caused by the rough treatment he was receiving from the humans. There was nothing any of the remaining members of the strike team could do: the instant they tried to help, they'd find themselves in Bumblebee's situation themselves. They could only watch, as one of their number was taken away.

//\\

For once, Skyfire was not the only one who wanted dismember Optimus Prime on the spot after one of his speeches. Jazz looked ready to kill, and even Ratchet and Ironhide uneasy with their commander's words.

"What do you mean, we're not going to try and rescue Bumblebee?" Jazz's voice was deadly soft, almost like Sunstreaker's at his most silky-dangerous.

"Our first priority is the All-Spark. If Bumblebee must sacrifice himself to keep it out of Decepticon hands, than that is what he would want." Came the reply, but with an added note of caution. Jazz was never calm, his voice was never soft, not unless something was so deadly serious that it leaked through to his voice. Special Opts was a tightly knit section, not due to its commander's good humor, but out of necessity. Every mech in the Autobot army knew that if it were at all possible to rescue a trapped operative, he would, even if the risks outweighed the gain. He'd actually done it on more than one occasion, going into Decepticon HQ with only Hound for backup to Mirage when the invisible Autobot had been caught once or twice. Not only was Bumblebee Jazz's subordinate, but also Jazz had a soft spot for the young mech, regarding him as almost a little brother.

"Congratulations, Prime" Skyfire's sarcasm cut into the rising tension between the saboteur and the Autobot commander. "You've ascended to new heights of hypocrisy today. I thought you said just recently, is that one of the things that separate us from the Decepticons was that we never leave one of our own behind." The flyer's faceplate twisted wryly. "And abandoning Bumblebee isn't even necessary. If you've spent half a joor tracing Bumblebee's signal, you'd have realized that it's heading right for the Cube's co-ordinates. We can retrieve the Cube, at the same time we rescue-"

He cut himself off abruptly as a dark shape swooped overhead. Skyfire identified the aircraft as a B-2 stealth bomber from the database of various aircraft he'd downloaded upon arrival. But why was one flying over the heart of American airspace? Unless…

"I think that was Soundwave…" Skyfire's voice was soft, almost dazed. Realization quickly set in, blazing from the optics of every mech present. If the B-2 was in fact Soundwave, then the Decepticons already knew everything the Autobots did about the location of the All-Spark. Optimus Prime wasted no time before rapping out orders.

"Skyfire, go after Soundwave. Try to keep him from deploying his cassettes and away from the Cube of at all possible. The rest of us will travel toward the Cube's location at top speed and back you up as soon as possible. Roll out!"

//\\

By the time Skyfire had caught up with Soundwave, the communication specialist had already knocked out the power supporting the human installation that contained both the Cube and Bumblebee. Seeing the bomber's doors beginning to open, no doubt preparing to drop a rain of cassetticons on the defenseless facility. Skyfire had seen what remained of an abandon base after Frenzy, Buzzsaw, Rumble, Ravage, and Lazerbeak had finished with it. It hadn't been a pretty sight. A lucky null ray managed to seal the doors, thankfully locking Soundwave's creations within him, leaving the Decepticon 2IC to face Skyfire alone.

Skyfire knew that on paper, the odds favored him. Soundwave might have the more maneuverable alt form, but as he was not a flyer by nature the virtue of experience was Skyfire's, as the other mech had no practice fighting in the air, or even on the ground as he usually had his cassettes fight for him. Not only that, but his null rays beat whatever weapons Soundwave carried by a large margin. Despite all that, Skyfire knew better than to relax his guard. On the rare occasions Soundwave was forced to fight on his own, he'd come out on top every time, not because he was better than his opponents but because of his skill in picking an opponent's plan of attack right out of his CPU via his innate telepathy.

So. While he both out powered and out skilled Soundwave, the Decepticon could pick all of his weaknesses, fighting style, and all his strategies right out of his CPU. This might actually be fun….

He dove and dodged around Soundwave, taking potshots with his null rays, all the while trying not to think, letting his instincts and experience direct him when to dodge and where to fire. He was so involved in the aerial battle, that he almost didn't notice a convoy of military vehicles, lead by a flashy yellow Camaro speed out of the access tunnel. A few instances later, two flying shapes followed the out-of-sight convoy. Skyfire had barely any time to recognize the Olympic-class battle curser as Megatron, before the achingly familiar lines of a tetrahedron jet filled his optics and caused his spark to stutter in its chamber.

"Starscream…"

Owari

Till chapter 4

Cliffhanger!!!! Sorry that you all had to wait so long for me to get this out. I'd swear that it didn't want to be typed and was actively resisting my efforts. Consider this my Christmas gift to you all.

As an aside, I'm sorry if I seem to be bashing Optimus in this chapter. I guess the reason I have Skyfire so bitter is that at heart (or should that be at spark) Skyfire is an idealist, one who's seen his ideals betrayed. I believe that Starscream was one too, and the reason he kept going after Megatron was that he couldn't forgive Megatron for forgetting what the Decepticons originally stood for. The only reason that Skyfire isn't pointing null rays at Prime every chance he gets, is that Skyfire is too low in the Autobot chain of command to expect his opinions to carry much weight, unlike Screamer who if any of plots succeeded he'd have command of the Decepticons. All Skyfire can do, is remind Optimus that he is not a god, that not all the Autobots follow him blindly. I believe that Optimus is a good leader, but power goes to the head of everyone, and blind obedience is a heady thing. By his constant dissatisfaction and sarcasm, Skyfire is exhibiting a restraining influence on Prime, of only to remind him that by himself, he is nothing special.

Yes, Skyfire did meet up with Starscream. Next chapter the two of them will have a long talk over exactly how Skyfire has changed over the war, and if they still have a future together. Till next time!!! Now, on to working on my other project…