JMJ
TWENTY-FIVE: AUTOBOT VS. DECEPTICON
"Starscream," said Optimus Prime, "you now have a chance to lead the Decepticons to peace."
High above a harsh wind sung shrilly across the vent opening on Starscream's motionless body as he sat upon his throne. It stood atop a mighty, dagger-sharp tower, however drab and gloomy it also was, and he overlooked Optimus with a slow smile. His wings twitched, and he blinked with amusement. He rose to his feet and leaned leisurely on his scepter. His black and red cloak; though ragged, blew majestically behind him now released from the seat.
"Oh, yes," said Starscream, tipping his crown like a fedora. "We'll have peace, as soon as you fall at my feet and bow before me in uncompromising homage."
Optimus looked at Starscream wearily, sadly even, and Starscream felt satisfied. Truly he did. There was nothing he liked better than knowing that he could make a Prime suffer.
Optimus turned, and Starscream's smile fell as he watched him begin to leave. Suddenly the wind began to feel very cold. Earth-like snowflakes began to blow into his face. A fear fell upon him that he was all alone, and his kingdom was nothing more than that empty tower in which he stood. No subjects. No servants. It was only him and the wrath of those who called him their enemy. He could feel them waiting for the moment when Optimus would no longer be on the scene.
Starscream almost felt guilt and a shiver went through him straight to the spark.
He dropped his scepter and raced down the steps of the tower as that looming fear like an invisible enemy of great size swooped behind him. Optimus' pace was slow though steady, and Starscream could easily catch up. He tripped and fell just paces behind Optimus, and Optimus stopped and turned to look upon the groveling heap of metal before him.
Starscream looked up at Optimus with the sun shining blindingly behind him so that he was nearly a silhouette except for the gleam from his blue optics. Starscream bowed his head and did not pick himself up, as he closed his optics and cringed.
"Please, Optimus Prime, have mercy," said Starscream throwing his crown before his feet. He threw his cloak off beside it. "Have mercy. I know now my place and never again will I try to set myself up as ruler over anyone. I have nothing left. I'm broken and fallen. Please, if you have any mercy left in your spark I…"
Slowly he lifted his head, but it was not Optimus who was looking down at him but Megatron, his pride and magnificence at its zenith. He almost looked amused. This frightened Starscream more than his wrath.
"How fickle you are," said Megatron, kicking the crown off to the side like a tin can. "Decepticon king, is it? Or Optimus' crony now?"
"Agh!" cried Starscream and still on hand and knees he scuttled back from him. "Lord Megatron! Master! You survived!"
"Know this, dear Starscream," said Megatron, "Our positions shall never again be reversed."
He lifted his blaster arm and fired. Starscream could not so much as squeak as he was blinded by the flash. Every cell of his body melted away with one last painful cry. He was no more, and Megatron stood as before. Majestic. Proud. Cruel. He turned without once looking back…
"Oh, Starscream…!" said a voice almost sing-songy.
He recognized it instantly as Knock Out's.
Starscream's optics shot open and he shot upward himself into almost a seated position. He was in a cut off corner of a medical wing. The lighting was comfortably dim, but not dark and drab as the medical bay in the Nemesis. It was rather reminiscent, in fact, of the soft glow of the hatchery. The translucent skylight filtering in just the right amount of sun was probably responsible for it.
"Careful," said Knock Out promptly adjusting something on a computer screen. "You're in no condition for stress or sudden movements."
Starscream allowed himself to fall back against the table with a clank, and he squeezed his optics shut.
"And am I ever not in such a condition," he groaned bitterly.
The full extent of his pain and weakness crashed upon him like a wave after the vibration of his body with the table had settled. He saw that energon intake was all being done by machine. His fuel system was mangled to a grotesque degree he could only imagine, and the rest of his body would have been wracked aside from having been electrocuted from the inside.
"Oh, Starscream, don't talk like that. You're recovering well," said Knock Out. "If anything you should be grateful for the strength of your spark. I'll admit I've never run across one stronger in my profession as a doctor; though I haven't exactly been a doctor for very long, and you've been one of my main patients."
Starscream opened his optics again quite irritably. He let out a sickening growl, and he wheezed slightly from the strain on his partly-burned voice capacitator.
"No thanks to you," he hissed. "What's the idea of bringing me to the brink of termination and then bringing me here to cure me just to mock me?"
"I have no intention of mocking you," Knock Out replied. "I have full intention of bringing you back to health with my sincerest apologies for the misunderstanding between us in the hatchery. I may have went too far, but you weren't about to be allowed to mind control people and brainwash hatchlings that may or may not survive your lifestyle before they reach maturity."
"Oh, is that it?" muttered Starscream; he paused darkly glancing up at the translucent window above him and hating it.
Yes, hating it. He hated the cheeriness of the room. It mocked him. It mocked his pain much in the same way Knock Out's chipper manner was doing.
"I just thought," said Knock Out, "that it was high time to release you from stasis for a while, before your burns have healed enough for me to replace a couple of the parts for your fuel system."
"Oh, I understand, Knock Out," Starscream retorted; though weakly. "You would have been under scrutiny had you actually managed to rip open my skull and counted out my brain modules. They certainly would not have trusted you then. You're not fooling me. You're only here to save your own casing, and you know it!"
Knock Out appeared to be ignoring him, but having been under his medical care long enough, Starscream did not think that what Knock Out was doing was necessary that absolute second and that he was purposely avoiding him despite how chipper he sounded.
Starscream snorted and relaxed. It took too much power to tense his body in any way forcing him to remain calmer than he felt.
"You only joined the Autobots," he muttered, "because it was easier and no other reason, just as you only remained with the Decepticon Cause because it was easier. Loyalty to a side means more than just when it's convenient."
"And you're talking to me about loyalty, Starscream?" remarked Knock Out.
"I may not have always been loyal to superiors or plans," groaned Starscream, "but no one can ever say that I have ever been disloyal to the Cause. No one."
"And that 'cause' would be?" asked Knock Out turning to him now rather lightly; though at least he was not smiling anymore.
"Don't play stupid, Knock Out!" flustered Starscream almost forgetting his pain until he tried to lift himself up again. He dropped in the same manner as he had the first time and closed his optics with an irritated and mournful moan. When he opened his optics again he said, "Have you no pity on those in agony?"
"You don't," Knock Out pointed out candidly. "If I was in your position, you probably would have already terminated me, and as far as me not being loyal to the Autobots, you are entirely at my mercy. If you died here, and I allowed it on purpose, no one would know that I did it, you understand."
"If Lord Megatron came to you and brought you back to him you would be his servant yet again," said Starscream after an uneasy pause.
Knock Out had to think about that one. At last Starscream felt he had got him and made him feel uneasy. At last Starscream had the satisfaction of disturbing Knock Out's confidence, and he deserved it after what had happened.
"I don't think so," said Knock Out then rather more confident sounding than if he had spoken bolder and more forceful.
Starscream made a small cry of disappointment.
"You're just hurt and grumpy," said Knock Out, "and that's no conduct for a person who's supposed to be having healing thoughts. Besides, I don't even think you remember what the Decepticon Cause is. The Decepticons throw the phrase about like it means something, but all I've ever heard it used for is an excuse to get away with whatever they want and to prove some sort of a camaraderie that they don't really have. And what Cause? As far as I can see the only one left of the Cause is you. Not even Megatron seems to have a Cause anymore that means anything if he's crazy."
"The Cause, Knock Out," said Starscream, "in case you forgot, is about every Cybertronian proving their own mettle to a united whole in one goal in which no one (except those in charge) is better than anyone else. No castes or games of chance on lives. Just the masters strong enough to reach that position and everyone else."
"I see," said Knock Out innocently. "I thought it was about equality for everyone."
"I have nothing to prove to an alien obsessed traitor," Starscream growled. "I will fight for my Cause until the last flicker of my spark—something you wouldn't understand! You're the one with the problem, not me. You don't even know what you are."
Again Knock Out tried to ignore him. Starscream assumed it was because he had got him again, but really it was Knock Out trying to hold his tongue, a difficult task to be sure when it was so easy to beat Starscream in word games and get him tongue-tied. He had already riled him up more than he had meant to.
"And as for camaraderie," Starscream added darkly, "it's not like you understand that either seeing that you abandoned everything Breakdown fought for after you tortured what was left of his body in the name of revenge."
#
Knock Out stiffened. He could not help it.
Oh, did Starscream know how to get under someone's casing!
A rage flickered in his optics as he leered at the broken creature lying there, as he had just said himself, at his mercy. Starscream was so helpless and so contradicting in his smugness as he smiled faintly with the satisfaction that he had touched a sore spot. He wondered if it was not better to put the worm out of its misery. But the thought of killing Starscream was fleeting this time. He had already learned his mistake and he certainly was not going to fall for it a second time.
Starscream would just be locked up once he was well anyway, and after all, he could have easily told Starscream right then and there that being a Decepticon had gotten him nowhere but pain and agony, and now he was all alone and probably the most despised Cybertronian to date apart from Lockdown and he was dead now. He could have said that all the things he accused Knock Out of being, he was just that much more so. He had no loyalties, no home, not a friend to his name. He was only describing himself, and as for what Knock Out did to Silas in Breakdown's body in the name of revenge…
Knock Out digressed. He shook his head.
He found himself wishing that Breakdown could be on his side now and that he had made that decision to go with Autobots when he had felt more undecided than Knock Out could have imagined at the time.
After that moment of thought, which had passed quite quickly through his mind, he then said to Starscream simply, "Breakdown had been at odds with himself because after being deathly loyal to Megatron for over a thousand years, he had begun to doubt the Cause, Starscream. He waited and waited on Earth for Megatron to pick us up only to find a ship of fools and enemies that tried to save him, and he took too long to decide which side he wanted to be on until he drove himself nuts."
Starscream's face contorted. "See!?" he said, "You don't care! You're avoiding my actual statement. And many Autobots have died too, you know. Look at the fate of Cliffjumper!"
Knock Out rolled his optics angrily and found himself wishing Breakdown was there to give him a good conk on the head. He was already facing a computer screen.
"I was wondering when you were going to bring that up," he muttered.
"I'm in the right! You were just too weak to kill me!" Starscream cracked. "It was right that I should live! Look at the fate of Optimus Prime! He died. He was in the wrong, and Megatron outlived him."
For the last time Knock Out turned to Starscream who was panting and trying to fight his illness with childish stubbornness, and Knock Out shook his head.
"Starscream, relax," Knock Out grumbled. "You're going to hurt yourself."
"Why do you care!?" snarled Starscream with such dramatic flair one might have thought him stage-acting.
Knock Out shrugged carelessly. "I don't know, because Optimus' goody-two-shoes ways rubbed off on me?"
Starscream closed his optics too exhausted to think of a comeback. After a moment or so Knock Out too calmed down.
"Who knows," Knock Out teased. "Maybe if you lived with his team the way I have, Optimus' ways might rub off on—"
"DON'T!" snarled Starscream holding up a hand violently, and for some time he panted to try to cool himself down. "I'm relaxed now. You're still a maniac who tried to torture me just like you did to that disturbing human for weeks on end."
Knock Out shrugged. "Okay. Suit yourself. I did apologize."
"Hmph!"
With a smile, Knock Out went back to the computers.
"I'll put you back into stasis soon so you can get your fuel system back in order. You'll feel in a better mood after that."
Now was probably not a good time to tell him that once he was feeling a little better Bumblebee was going to have a word with him about Megatron and the Decepticons. He thought about saying it just to spite him, but it was good for Starscream to be quiet for a while for both his own sake and Knock Out's.
Besides, Knock Out thought, I already won. There's no need to spoil it.
All that drama and all he had to do to beat Starscream at his game was to gross him out with the thought of him becoming an Autobot. Unless he was at a sort of impasse of indecision himself.
Knock Out shrugged. Maybe, but he doubted it.