CHAPTER 6
Starscream's log
Entry #19
Never before have I been so happy in my seven million-year long life.
An energon farm. A decent, but cozy cave for a home. The sound of water splashing onto my crystals at the bottom of the lake. Hidden by a huge forest and unclaimed by anyone, even Megatron! It's almost too good to be true!
I've been living here for a week now. Other than that annoying pain in my chest which comes and goes from time to time, I'm doing pretty good. The only thing missing here is company…
The only company I have here is an eagle that comes here now and then, brown with a white head, his eyes golden like his beak. I think he has a nest somewhere nearby.
His beak is strong enough to break off small shards of energon, so I have decided to keep him as a pet. Quite useful, while I was in the state of recovery. I named him Metalhawk.
Metalhawk is a quick learner. It didn't take long for him to know when I wanted a snack, and he fetches the small shards whenever I tell him to. I think I'm growing attached to him.
There's still plenty of energon left in the lake, but I don't know for how much longer this place will go unnoticed by Megatron, or worse yet, the Autobots.
I'll make sure they won't have much to pillage from here, once they get here.
Metalhawk screeched, as he flew into Starscream's cave with another energon shard, just big enough to be in his palm.
"Thank you, Metalhawk," the Seeker said and let the bird rest on the back of his servo. "You birds are actually not too bad…for fleshlings."
Metalhawk nipped his thumb, not really hard, just in a friendly gesture. The Seeker calmly chuckled.
"You're a good boy. Now, off you go!"
The eagle left the cave and flew off with a screech. Something about that majestic bird's flight among the stars and its dominant scream appealed to the Seeker. He began speculating why he was even called Starscream. Did he choose that name himself, or had somebody else named him…?
"This place is beginning to get a little too peaceful," he mumbled while eating his crystal. With the energon field below him, he certainly didn't starve any longer. He'd join Metalhawk in his flight if it wasn't for that tiny fact that he couldn't transform.
"I can't just sit here, wallowing in self-pity," he said and stood up. "I should go out and stretch my legs."
He left the cave and jumped down by the lakeside. He would sometimes patrol the area to make sure no Vehicons or Autobots – or Airachnid for that matter – had found his current home. So far, all he had encountered were a group of wolves and a flock of birds. Well, them and Metalhawk.
But this day, it was going to be different. Starscream walked among the trees, when he suddenly heard faint voices. Low, meekly and without frequency. Humans.
Even if they were merely passersby, he couldn't risk them finding the energon cove, in case they were going to report to the Autobots' human allies. He had to take care of them.
He found the group of wolves he met the other day, pretty close to where he heard the voices. He got an idea.
"Come with me, little ones," he chuckled, picking up the wolves one by one.
He ignored the fact that they were biting his fingers, and put them down where the sound of human voices were loudest. He then kicked rocks and earth after them, herding them towards the humans. He eyed them, just as the wolves chased them off. A male, female and two children. That's the end of their picnic, the Seeker thought amused to himself.
After taking care of the human problem, he returned to the cove. He stiffened as he saw a group of airborne Vehicons fly over the cove. He ducked under the cover of the trees, hoping they would continue their path.
Luck was not with him this time. The Vehicons turned around and transformed, landing by the lakeside. Starscream was still hiding behind the trees. They hadn't seen him. It was the energon they had seen. They were looking down at the many crystals illuminating the water.
"Would you look at that, Steve," one of the Vehicons said to another. "How the Pit did we miss this?"
"I don't know, Kevin," the other Vehicon said to the first. "But Lord Megatron will definitely want to know about this. There might be more underground."
Starscream snarled lowly for himself. They were going to dig up the cove! His home!
Shriiiiii!
Starscream looked up in fright. Metalhawk was circling the cove and did not take note of – or maybe didn't care about – the Vehicons below him.
They looked up and saw the bird. Starscream shook his head and mimed Get out of there, you idiot!, but of course Metalhawk couldn't see him.
"What's that bird doing here?" one of the Vehicons said.
Metalhawk dived. He went into the water and broke a shard off one of the crystals. As he ascended into the air, the Vehicons got surprised by his action.
"Take this, you little thief!"
NO!
The shot was fired. The shard in Metalhawk's beak exploded, and the bird fell to the ground in front of Starscream, dead.
The Seeker stared at the dead Metalhawk in disbelief, his once pure white and brown feathers now smeared with red and black from the explosion. He felt this unbearable feeling of sadness and rage inside his chest, and it didn't only hurt from the occasional cramp, his very spark was hurting badly in sorrow.
"Starscream!?" one of the Vehicons exclaimed.
The Seeker lifted his gaze, set on the Vehicon who had shot Metalhawk. All sorrow was now replaced with fury, and he didn't even care to make a comment. He just got up and stormed towards them, claws out and letting out a scream for all to hear.
The Vehicons flinched and fired their lasers at the attacking Seeker. They were lousy shots, and Starscream quickly reached them and clawed each one of them through their spark chambers, killing them instantly. All except for one.
He kept the Vehicon that had shot Metalhawk alive for a little longer. He had been knocked over and pointed his gun at Starscream, but this one simply grabbed and pulled off his arm. The Vehicon screamed in pain.
"Y-you won't get away with this, S-Starscream!" he stuttered.
"I won't get away with this?" Starscream said, dangerously serious. "You will pay for what you have done. Your buddies got off easy. I'm not going to give you the luxury of a quick death. You must suffer." He neared the Vehicon's face with a stretched claw.
"No, please! Don't do this! SPARE ME!"
"That's not what you did with Metalhawk," Starscream said eerily.
At evening, Starscream had buried the corpse of Metalhawk by the lakeside. This was the only fleshling he had ever come to like, consider as a friend, an equal. The eagle had been the only one to ever truly care about Starscream. And now he was gone forever.
He could feel a couple of oily tears trickle down from his optics. Had he even cried before in his life? He didn't think so. Let alone cry for an organic.
This time he didn't even feel like scolding himself for the usual sentimental nonsense, he just wanted to grief over the loss of his friend.
He had continually carved into the Vehicon's body, both face, torso, arm, legs, everywhere. In the end, he had completely severed the mech's legs and remaining arm and carried the rest of him out of the forest by the head, still alive and suffering. His screams of pain had been music to his audio receptors.
He had then found a spiky rock outside the forest, in which he impaled the Vehicon's chest, causing the poor mech to scream even more in pain. The last thing Starscream did was getting the Vehicon to open a frequency for Megatron to hear, with the message "Come to the cove alone, if you dare," after which Starscream left the Vehicon to leak out and die a slow and miserable death.
He had spent the rest of the day up until now harvesting as much energon as he could bring with him, burying it in a mound near the cove to dig out later.
He wasn't much for blowing up his former home, nor for desecrating Metalhawk's grave by the lakeside, but he simply didn't have time to get the bird someplace else. Besides, he loved that place. Surely he would want to go down with it.
Starscream was now waiting behind the cover of some trees, a good distance from the cove, with a clear shot at the bottom of the lake, at the energon. As soon as Megatron would show up, he would blast the lake and hopefully, this would take out the warlord for good…
The Seeker cringed when Megatron himself arrived, switched to robot mode and landed by the pile of dead Vehicons by the lakeside. He looked down at the pile and then at the energon lake.
This is my chance, Starscream thought anxiously. This is for Metalhawk, glitch!
"Something's not right here…" the warlord said to himself and looked to the side, opposite of where Starscream was.
The Seeker took his chance and fired the missile. Megatron looked the other way but was too slow to stop the missile.
BOOM!
Starscream quickly retreated, found the mound from earlier, dug out the remaining crystals and made off with them. Behind him, he could hear Megatron's angry roar.
Well, what had he expected, anyway? That Megatron would let himself succumb to a mere energon explosion? But at least Starscream had rid him off a large energon mine, because the explosion continued for various minutes. It seemed the Vehicons were right; there had been more crystals underground. Such a waste of good energon…
"Seems I'll have to start over again," Starscream said bitterly, as he felt he was far away enough from the cove and Megatron to take a rest. "Goodbye peace, hello hunger."
Starscream's log
Entry #20
Metalhawk is dead.
The cove has been destroyed.
I am now once again homeless, alone and on the move.
I feel even worse now than I did before I discovered that place. I'll never forget it. And I'll never forget you, Metalhawk. Rest in peace, my friend.
I attempted to kill Megatron by blowing up the cove, after one of his Vehicons brutally murdered my only friend. But, alas, Lord Megatron is still alive, the persistent glitch.
I managed to make off with a few large crystals, but they won't last longer than a couple of days.
I'm sure Megs knows it was me who tried to terminate him. After all, it's my specialty. Which is why I have to find a hideout as quickly as possible…
Starscream's notes
I walk along in the wasteland, far from the forest and the cove. I've used up the last of the crystals I had brought along with me, and I am really tired right now.
I know I'm vulnerable out here, but I won't find more energon by staying in the forest…and I don't want to be reminded of the events that took place in there...
Wait, what's that? I see something, up ahead. It looks like a ship…
By Primus! I thought it was destroyed, gone forever!
I've found it!
The Harbinger!
