Drabble #25: Situational Hazards

By: Ceris Malfoy

Summary: The war never left Cybertron. Optimus Prime is dead, the Decepticons broken, Starscream exiled. Skyfire faces a difficult decision, on that may very well spell the end of the peace that had been very dearly paid for.

Inspiration: Dubstep, if that makes any sense.

Continuity: AU!G1

Disclaimer: Not mine.

"I cannot take the risk! If there is even a chance that another like him will raise to command, I will do everything in my power to prevent it." Zigma Prime paced back and forth gesturing wildly. "Cybertron barely survived the last war: there will not be another." He whirled around and slammed his hands upon Skyfire's desk, leaning in and hissing out: "If that means I must isolate a single half-breed seeker from the whole of society, then I will. Especially considering who, exactly, carried it!"

Skyfire shuttered his optics and counted to ten, which didn't help quell the rising anger in his spark at all. He had done everything he could to keep Shootingstar away from the prejudices left over from the war, tried to give the young mech everything he would never have due to who his parents were. But Shootingstar was made for more than his lowly place as an archivist's assistant, and he had encouraged the seeker's decision to attempt to enter the still-growing academy, provided that Shootingstar only applied for the medical program. Skyfire knew how spooked most of the remaining Autobots were at the similarities between Shootingstar and his carrier, and it wasn't just looks.

Shootingstar was an almost-exact replica of his carrier, including his intelligence. The young mech was too intelligent for his own good really, but Skyfire wouldn't have it any other way. He had hoped that the fact that the seeker would be applying to a field dedicated to helping others would soften the comparisons between carrier and youngling; evidently, he'd been mistaken about that possibility ever even existing.

He looked down at the application that had been slammed down on his desk, remembering with perfect clarity the long breems spent helping Shootingstar fill it out. The applications had come in triplicate, and – if it was even possible – had become twice as difficult and tricky as it had been when he'd filled it out for himself so many ages ago. Something in his spark clenched as he finally realized that regardless of his actions, Shootingstar would never be viewed as anything other than the offspring of Starscream.

Admittedly, the fear most of the surviving populace had of Starscream and anything to do with him was not undeserved; before the end of the war, before the stray team of Autobots who'd found Skyfire buried in the ice and brought him back, Starscream had become the living nightmare of all but the most idiotic of the population. Starscream's tactics and ferocity in battle had been unmatched, and it was with no small amount of fear that most to this day refused to even speak his designation. Megatron may have had the populace's respect and hatred, but Starscream had their fear, and the two combined had swept across Cybertron in a wave of destruction that had seemed almost unstoppable.

Shootingstar wasn't his carrier though, no matter how similar the two of them appeared to be.

He clenched his servos and looked his Prime dead in the optics. "It is only because of outdated, paranoid, pessimistic, racist slaggers like you that he became that mech in the first place." Unlike Zigma Prime, Skyfire did not once raise his voice, no matter how much he wanted to. He did not move around, or pace, or throw things. He kept perfectly still, outwardly calm, disallowing any attempt the Prime might make to dismiss his words as those spoken in anger. He did not want his words dismissed. "Had any of those asinine excuses for intelligent senators and council-mechs even bothered to search for me in the first place, none of this would have ever happened!"

And was it not the truth? Had Starscream been listened to all those years ago, would he not have continued to rebel against his military programing? Would he not have been so grateful to the scientists and civilians who overcame their own prejudice to trust the word of a war-build that he would have done anything for them? Skyfire personally believed that, at the very least, he could have kept Starscream out of the clutches of Megatron, could have prevented Starscream from turning into the monster he eventually became. If only he had been around...

If only, if only.

But it hadn't worked like that, had it?

Zigma Prime simply sneered. "Watch yourself, Skyfire. I am not unsympathetic to your …situation, but I am still Prime and you will not talk to me like that." He leaned back, looking at Skyfire with an ugly expression on his face: one of smug disgust. "I've allowed you full discretion on how to raise his sparkling, but do not think that I will ever allow him to enter our hallowed institutions of learning as a free citizen. And I would thank you to remember that your adoptive creation remains alive under my sufferance alone."

Skyfire stared long and hard at Zigma Prime, realizing that this was it. This was the moment where he would be forced to make the decision he'd been struggling with ever since Shootingstar had first asked him why his carrier or his sire never tried to see him. How could he tell the seeker that his sire was in a deep cryogenic sleep, never to be awoken, because no one had the nerve to kill him when Optimus Prime had failed and died in the attempt? How could he tell the seeker that Starscream had been banished from Cybertron because Starscream had experimented on himself to the point that not even cryogenic sleep worked to keep him at bay? How could he tell Shootingstar that while the seeker could feel dim echoes of his creators in his spark, neither parent were able to feel him because the bond had never had a chance to form on their end?

Starscream thought his mate and sparkling dead. Skyfire had done nothing to fix that belief; he had, in fact, encouraged it. And now look at the state of things. He had thought he could raise Shootingstar in peace and that through Shootingstar perhaps fix the prejudices that had only grown stronger since the start of the Great War. He had thought …

Well. Starscream had always called him an idiot. And staring at the face of his Prime, he could clearly, for once, see why. He had backed the wrong side, apparently.

Zigma Prime took his silence as assent. "Very well. I will show myself out." The Prime made as if to leave before pausing slightly. Quietly he added, "You would do well to keep a leash on your pet; keep him satisfied with his current lot in life. It would be such a pity if he ended up like his sire."

Skyfire watched his Prime leave his tiny office, the anger in his spark roiling. Optimus would have listened to reason, would have comprehended better than anyone else that Shootingstar was completely unlike either of his creators. For years now, Skyfire had tried to hang onto the principles that Optimus had so strongly believed in. But now...

...now, the last of his admittedly nearly-endless patience was finally reached. His gaze left the door Zigma Prime had left though and settled back on Shootingstar's application. Sighing, spark heavy, he reached out and dialed a number he never thought he'd use, a number he wasn't even supposed to know.

Not looking at the screen of his tele-comm unit, he murmured quietly, "Good morning, may I speak with Starscream please?"

*cackles*