Prince Sunstrike stood with Starscream and Strafe, silver eyes bright with stupor behind his orange-tinted visor. Below the three of them lay one of the commercial districts of Vos and more Vosians then Sunstrike even knew existed. He wished that he hadn't spent so much time in the palace because he was not prepared for this.
Sunstrike looked at his friends standing on either side of him, but they appeared to be perfectly at ease. They came here regularly, so this was nothing new to them. For the past month, Sunstrike had been coming to Osprey's and slowly acclimating to life outside the controlled political atmosphere of the palace. For all his time at the café though, he was not as prepared to see life in a truly uncontrolled atmosphere as he thought he was. He suddenly regretted accepting Starscream's offer and coming here.
The sheer amount of activity was unbelievable. Sunstrike had seen Air Warriors, servants, nobles, ambassadors, and other officials within the palace but never had he seen so many Vosians in one place before. There were more Vosians here than he had seen in Emperor Windstar's court on the busiest day. It was hard to believe that there were this many Vosians in the entire city-state let alone one market. This was the largest market in the capital, but it was still unbelievable.
Unlike the grounders in Iacon who loved dressing up as neon-colored rainbows, most Seekers favored darker tones. Instead of five or six random colors, most had one primary and one subcolor. Occasionally you got one like Starscream who had a third color.
Some had full-body stripes while others had smaller designs on parts of their body. Many mimicked the Vosian symbol the Air Warriors wore on their wing with their own personal symbol. The added tattoos were often neon enough to impress an Autobot. When you put all of that together, it accounted for a vastly colorful and mixed crowd.
Starscream tapped him on his winglet, jolting Sunstrike from his daze. Sunstrike glanced at him but Starscream was waiting patiently for the prince to adjust. He might have to wait a long time. Strafe had a more irritated look, obviously impatient to be off.
"Why don't you go ahead Strafe?" Starscream offered him. "You can tell us what stands are open."
Strafe nodded agreement and quickly parted from their company. Sunstrike remained where he was, trying to stabilize his servos from the overload. Here he thought that there were a lot of Vosians at Osprey's. The crowd Osprey drew was nothing compared to this.
Starscream sat down on the roof they were patiently. "Whenever you're ready we'll rejoin Strafe."
Sunstrike didn't respond, gathering his courage to enter the mass of Vosians. There were Vosians in their adult, youngling, and sparkling frames, and a mass on the ground and in all levels of the air.
Starscream watched him for a little bit before smiling and asking wryly, "how do you expect to become Emperor if you can't handle a crowd?"
Sunstrike felt the energon in his veins warm with embarrassment and he raised his head confidently. "I'm ready."
"If you say so," Starscream shrugged.
He seemed amused though Sunstrike did his best to ignore it. Letting Starscream lead, Sunstrike followed him into the crowd, hoping he looked braver then he felt. His sparkbeat was loud in his audios and he walked a little closer to Starscream then he needed to. The amount of Vosians here was stifling and the noise was deafening.
Sunstrike tried to look everywhere at once and was so busy looking around that he bumped into Starscream when he stopped walking. Starscream stumbled forward half a step and glanced over his shoulder at him. Shyly, Sunstrike looked down. His optics flittered upward around Starscream to see him wave at a dark grey seeklet that was weaving through the crowd in their direction.
"Hey ya, Screamer," the seeklet greeted him.
Starscream scowled instantly. "My name is Starscream. Stop calling me that Ghostflight."
Sunstrike stared at the seeklet without meaning to and Ghostflight noticed him. "Who are you and why are you staring?"
"My name's Sunslash," Sunstrike fibbed, knowing it wouldn't be wise for him to admit he was the crown prince in public, "and your optics are blue."
Ghostflight flustered, half raising a hand as if to hide his sky blue optics. Instead, he retorted, "So are Screamer's."
"Starscream," Starscream muttered, "my name is Starscream."
Neither seemed to hear him.
"Yeah," Sunstrike agreed with Ghostflight, "but his are dark blue-gold. Yours are bright blue – like Iacon blue."
Ghostflight's winglets fluttered up as the Seeklet huffed defensively. They reacted with his emotions. Again, Sunstrike was surprised. Moodwings such as his were a rare spark mutation.
"Oh, so what?" Ghostflight snipped.
"His father's a grounder," Starscream explained, "Iacon native."
"Hey!" Ghostflight took a swing at Starscream though the hit was too far away to connect. "Why're you telling him? That's personal."
"It's also obvious," Starscream pointed out, "and nothing to be ashamed of."
Ghostflight hesitated, scuffing a foot idly. He wasn't ashamed of his father.
"Was he a member of the Autobot faction?" Sunstrike asked.
That was more sensitive, but Ghostflight nodded after a brief hesitation. "He used to be before my mother showed him how idiotic they were. By the way, who did you say you were? I don't recall seeing you around here before."
"He just moved here from the 3rd Ward," Starscream answered smoothly.
"Huh," Ghostflight said dubiously. "Well, welcome to the 1st Ward."
Vos, unlike some of the more unorganized city-states, was broken into 19 Wards. The 1st Ward, also called the Core, was at the center of Vos where the palace was. Surrounding the 1st Ward like the petals of a flower were six more wards, called the Inner Ring. Encircling them were the remaining 12 Wards, called the Outer Ring, and each of them bordered another city-state.
"Thanks," Sunstrike replied in a similarly dubious tone.
Starscream looked at him seriously, his optics thoughtfully dark. "Where are you Ghostflight?"
Sunstrike glanced blankly at Starscream and Ghostflight scowled at him. "Screamer, how can you tell?"
"It's Starscream and I'm not sure how," Starscream admitted. "I can just tell you're not here."
"Huh?" Sunstrike said blankly. "What are you two talking about?"
"I'm up on the roof over there," Ghostflight jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
Starscream and Sunstrike looked in the direction he pointed and indeed saw a dark grey seeklet sitting on the edge of the roof. His wings were drooped and his helm lowered, optics offlined. It was identical to the seeklet standing in front of them.
"You're getting better," Starscream offered.
"The adults can't even tell me apart from one of my holograms," Ghostflight pouted, wings stiff. "How can you?"
"He can create holograms," Starscream explained for Sunstrike's benefit. "His mad scientist father made a power rectifier chip for him."
"I thought most with abilities got their chip when they got their youngling frame," Sunstrike stared.
"Not where my father's involved," Ghostflight chuckled, wingtips wiggling in amusement. "Speaking of, he's around here somewhere. I better find him. See ya."
Then his image pixelated and dissolved into tiny, prismatic fragments. The fragments vanished. Optics bright and wide, Sunstrike turned towards the other Ghostflight on the rooftop and saw the other Ghostflight raise his helm. His bright blue optics had come online. Ghostflight waved at them and then stood and started to walk along the parapet to look for his father.
Starscream shook his helm and motioned for Sunstrike to follow him as they attempted to find Strafe.
"If you ever want to know something just ask Ghostflight," Starscream tossed over his wing at Sunstrike. "He's almost like a resident spymaster. Be warned, he enjoys using his holograms way too much. I swear he can see through their optics."
"He was convincing," Sunstrike agreed.
A group of younglings walked by them and one of them bumped into Sunstrike. He stumbled against Starscream, and the younglings, chatting, kept walking without looking back. Sunstrike made a face and took a step forward towards him. Starscream grabbed the edge of his wing before he could.
"Hey!" Sunstrike whined. "What are you doing? They nearly knocked me over."
"They're younglings," Starscream shrugged, "some of them are like that."
"But I'm their prince," Sunstrike hissed softly.
Starscream looked around, and then quickly herded Sunstrike out of the plaza into a side alley. The shock of being in such a large crowd and then the wonder of Ghostflight's ability were rapidly wearing off. It was a little quieter there, giving them some degree of privacy.
"Not here you're not Sunslash," Starscream emphasized Sunstrike's alias. "They don't know any better. Besides, they don't mean any harm. We're smaller than them. It's likely they didn't really even notice us."
Sunstrike's retort was cut off when Starscream suddenly straightened and looked down the alley. He stepped back, obviously seeing something, and Sunstrike glanced into the shadows as well. There was a Vosian standing there with a blaster in one hand, and he raised a finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence.
Sunstrike was stupidly surprised, wondering when that Vosian had arrived. He hadn't heard a sound. How did Starscream know about him?
"Easy you two," the mech told them. "I have no wish to hurt you."
"Then why is your blaster out?" Starscream asked tartly.
He tried to judge how far it was back to the market grounds and how quickly someone could come if they heard him scream. Probably not faster than a blaster shot.
The mech looked at the blaster as if surprised to see he held it. "Oh? This old thing? Well you see, I am a little short of credits. I was thinking about selling it… unless you two have some you want to give me. I certainly don't want to hurt seeklets."
Sunstrike's eyes fluttered to the blaster. It looked strange for a blaster, like there was something odd about the shape. He realized that the bar on the side that revealed its charge was half-full – enough of a charge to shoot. He didn't seem to realize what was going on so Starscream stepped in front of him and spoke to the mech politely.
"I'm afraid we don't," Starscream said in an almost apologetic tone. "We've already spent the credits our parents gave us."
Sunstrike glanced at Starscream blankly. The mech looked impressed by Starscream's calm demeanor and gave him and Sunstrike a quick once over. His eyes hesitated on Sunstrike and there was a moment where the sparklings feared he would recognize him as the prince.
"Your visor," the mech addressed Sunstrike. "That's high-class. I bet it's got targeting scanners and displays on it. That must have cost some credits to have it made for a seeklet's frame. Can I see it?"
"No," Sunstrike replied quickly.
If he took off his visor, he'd be exposing his silver optics.
"Oh come on," the mech smiled. "I just want to look at it."
He waved a hand dismissively, but it was the hand that held his blaster. Sunstrike took a step back when the barrel of it glided in front of him. Deltastorm had let the prince come to the shooting range and watch him practice, and Sunstrike was always surprised by how much damage even a hand-held blaster could do. He suddenly got the feeling he and Starscream might be in trouble.
"My friend already said no," Starscream addressed the mech. "If you will excuse us, our parents will be wondering where we are."
He made a move to take a step back, and the mech frowned. Suddenly, he was not holding the blaster casually. Although the barrel was still pointed at the ground, he wrapped fingers around the grip, one finger on the trigger.
"I said let me see his visor," he repeated in a harsher voice. "I imagine it will be worth a few credits on the market."
"More like the black market," Starscream muttered under his breath.
That made the mech's scowl dissolve into a frown and he raised his blaster so it was pointing at Starscream. "Don't you know children should listen to their elders?"
Sunstrike gave a start when the blaster came up, suddenly realizing that this Vosian was trying to mug them. The mech's finger was near the trigger, and Sunstrike now realized that there was a silencer on the end of the gun. That was why it was shaped oddly.
The seeklets heard something pass over their head and suddenly the mech wasn't holding the blaster anymore. Blankly, the mech looked at his now empty palm. Someone cleared their throat behind them, and the seeklets half-turned around as the mech looked up. Three younglings were standing at the mouth of the alleyway. The one in the lead was holding the mech's blaster.
"Is this yours?" He asked, casting a respectful look over the blaster. "I happen to love blasters. This is a model 2G, right? It's not exactly a concealed civilian blaster, more like military grade. How did you get it? You're obviously no Air Warrior."
"Hey!" The mech shouted, "Give me that back you brat."
"All right," the youngling shrugged and opened the palm of his hand.
He looked at the blaster and after a moment, it rose off his palm so it levitated in the air above it. Sunstrike could almost feel his optics growing huge. Telekinesis? Oh Primus, was he a psychic?
Then the blaster shattered. That was the best way Sunstrike could describe it. It just shattered into all of its component pieces. The disassembled pieces swirled around his hand and the youngling tilted his head as he looked at them. Its powerpack hovered in the center of the pieces, giving off a faint pink luminescence.
"W-what did you do?" The mech asked, taking half a step back in surprise.
The youngling offered it to the mech. "I said I would give it back to you, but I didn't say in one piece. You can take it and leave if you want."
"Or Flightmist can do to you what he did to the blaster," one of the youngling's friends added.
Sunstrike suddenly realized that the other youngling was holding a blaster. The third had a knife in her hand, holding it between her fingers by the tip, ready to throw it. Flightmist raised the hand that was not suspending the pieces of the blaster towards the mech behind the sparklings.
"You're quite a coward for targeting sparklings," Flightmist pointed out. "Are you too afraid to try to rob full-grown fliers? How about I put you out of your misery and dissect you to."
The mech took a full step back this time at Flightmist's dark look with thinly veiled excitement at the prospect.
"No-no," the mech stuttered. "You can keep the blaster. I'm going."
Then he turned and ran down the alleyway. Once there was bit of distance between him and the group, he transformed and took to the sky. Sunstrike looked at Flightmist and his friends with huge optics, amazed and terrified.
"Hello Flightmist," Starscream greeted the psychic with the shattered blaster.
Flightmist flashed a smile at Starscream, revealing his teeth had been modified so the canines were fangs. Like most younglings with the mod, he had probably gotten it done without his parents' permission. His fingers moved and the stray pieces of the blaster came together back as a whole. Once reassembled, the blaster, now able to shoot again, dropped into Flightmist's palm.
"You looked like you needed some help," the femme smiled at Starscream.
"We did," Starscream nodded. "How did you know we needed help?"
"I told them," the third wingmate said, returning his blaster to subspace. "I sensed it."
"Did not," the femme said.
"Did to," he replied.
"Are you two psychics?" Sunstrike asked them cautiously.
Flightmist smiled and shook his head while the other mech nodded. The femme whacked the mech's wing.
"You are not a psychic Mindwipe, try as you might to convince everyone else," she chided her friend.
"My abilities come from my power rectifier chip," Flightmist interrupted, ignoring his friends, "not directly from my spark like a psychic. I can create an electromagnet field to control metallic objects near me. Magnetic objects are easier and no, I can't actually "dissect a Transformer". The alloy in our frames is too complex."
Which meant he had bluffed the would-be mugger. Hmm. He'd done a really good job of it.
"Mindwipe claims to be a psychic," the femme added. "He says he can hear ghosts."
"If I can't then how did I know those two were in danger?" Mindwipe challenged. "I'm the one that told you two to follow me. You weren't aware of anything."
"ESP and the ability to speak to the dead are two very different things," the femme put a hand on her hip and waved her other hand, still holding the knife, at him. "The least you could do is tell the truth. You don't even have a power rectifier chip."
"I don't need one," Mindwipe threw his hands into the air. "Psychics get their power straight from their spark. It can't be removed or disabled."
Sunstrike gave a small start when he realized that these three younglings that had just saved them were the same three that had bumped into him and Starscream. Flightmist was the one that had almost knocked him over. He looked at the three of them thoughtfully.
"We'll need to report this," Starscream spoke up finally.
"I'll do it," the femme said, her yellow optics only a few shades brighter than the gold-ice blue color of her form. "One of the advantages of having an Air General for a father."
Sunstrike was surprised again, but this time on a darker note. The femme, he suddenly realized, was Stormfrost, the daughter of Air General Deltastorm. He didn't know her too well because she had a youngling frame and he was still a sparkling, but she had seen him around the palace. She might be able to recognize him as the prince.
"Unless Mindwarp wants to try to ah, psychically track our ne'er do well, we can't do much," Stormfrost continued.
Mindwarp gave her a scything look and Flightmist shrugged. There wasn't much he could do to stop her, especially when she had a point. It wasn't like Mindwarp could "sense" things on cue. Stormfrost didn't seem to recognize Sunstrike as she tucked her knife back into subspace.
"You two with someone?" Flightmist asked the pair instead.
"A friend," Starscream answered.
"You better catch up to him then," the unofficial leader of the wing nodded back towards the market. "I don't think our wannabe mugger is going to try anything like that again for a while."
He looked at the new blaster he had become the guardian of with a knowing smirk, and Starscream and Sunstrike said goodbye to the wings as they left the alley. Sunstrike was relieved he got away unnoticed.
"Starscream," Sunstrike asked, feeling a bit stupid. "Why did that mech try to attack us?"
Starscream gave him a curious look. "He wanted credits, and an easy way to make credits without working is by stealing them."
"Why would anyone hurt someone for money?" Sunstrike asked. "It's just money. There's plenty of it."
Starscream's expression darkened and Sunstrike had a feeling he'd said something extra stupid.
"There might be plenty of money for you," Starscream explained, "but it's a little harder for the rest of us to get the credits we need to eat and pay tax. Depending on how rich you are, doing something like that for credits isn't strange at all."
Sunstrike didn't understand, and had a feeling he wouldn't, so he dropped the subject. It seemed to be a touchy one with Starscream. Within a few seconds of them walking the two of them found Strafe… and Ghostflight.
"I told you I could lead you to them," Ghostflight said triumphantly with a wave at them. "I gotta go."
Starscream returned it, apparently having forgotten Sunstrike's questions. The hologram of him vanished from the air. Sunstrike knew that the 1st Ward had the most powered Vosians but he had no idea there were so many in one marketplace.
"Come on," Strafe told them by way of greeting, not suspecting that something very bad had almost happened. "I found a place selling energon suckers."
"Naturally," Starscream tipped his helm at him, "they're your favorite."
"Ever had an energon sucker Sunslash?" Strafe asked, using his alias.
Sunstrike shook his head and Strafe grinned. He grabbed one of the prince's arms and started dragging him towards the stall. The young prince let himself be dragged, turning over recent events in his mind. There was a lot to think about.
No, I don't expect you to remember the names of everyone being mentioned.