CHAPTER 12
Amica Endura
"Amica?!" was the sound heard throughout the command center by at least half the Autobots present, including the newcomers. The humans looked confused at the bots.
"Uh, Prime," Leon said, "what's an Amica?"
Optimus didn't seem to hear the human's question, apparently just as surprised as the rest of the Autobots.
"Amica Endura," Starscream explained instead, taking everyone by surprise, "is the term for bots who consider themselves best friends. On Cybertron, bots must become Amica before they can become Conjunx. Right?"
"That's... unfortunately true," Skyfire replied, gazing down at Starscream, barely half his height. "I guess you're not the only one who's been forgetting things lately. I heard about your situation. I didn't think we'd ever see you again."
"Yes, I've heard something like that," Starscream replied, his smile faltering. "I heard I've been gone for a long time. How... how long was I gone?"
"We don't remember the exact date," Ironhide replied instead. "But it's been at least six months since we last saw you. Maybe even a year."
Starscream looked back at Ironhide with wide optics. "That long? I've lost almost a whole year and remember nothing as a result of it? What could have happened to me...?"
Starscream felt something on his shoulder and looked up. Skyfire had placed a servo on the small Seeker's shoulder.
"Maybe we'll find out in time," Skyfire said calmly. "Maybe not today or in a few days, but perhaps in weeks or even months. We'll take you to our base in Siberia, and you'll be taken care of there. You can fly, you can train, you can probably eventually even fight. Now, do you have anything you need to pack before we take off?"
Starscream regained his smile as Skyfire talked. His wings fluttered behind him.
"Yes, I'll go get it," Starscream replied and stepped away, turning to Ironhide. "Is it alright if I go grab those swords now?"
"Sure," Ironhide said. "Off you go."
With a smile on his face, Starscream walked off into the hallway alone, to prepare for take-off. Nobody followed him.
Ironhide turned back to Skyfire and crossed his arms. "Amica, huh?" he said skeptically. "Never told us you were Amica."
"It was a long time ago," Skyfire defended. "Before the war even started. Yes, we were friends back then, yes, we became Amica Endura. But we had a fallout not long before the war started. We went on an expedition here to Earth, I got trapped in ice, and Starscream left me behind, first returning four million years later as a Decepticon to defrost me. During that time, I had forgotten about our fallout and, like he does right now, only thought of him as my Amica. But then I remembered. And then I left him for good, to join you Autobots."
"And you were right to do that, big guy," Cliffjumper commented and crossed his arms with a smirk. "Taught the 'Cons a lesson not to mess with us."
"But I never stopped thinking about him," Skyfire admitted. "At least, my Spark doesn't. From what I know, Amica Endura isn't much different from Conjunx Endura. There's still a Spark-bond, there's still a connection between the two bots, and like Starscream said, bots cannot become Conjunx before they've been Amica before. Well, they can, but it's generally looked down on. On Cybertron, at least. I've heard it's different on other planets, like one called Caminus..."
"Okay, we get it, he's your soulmate," Leon interrupted. "Just make sure it doesn't get in the way of the fact that he's you-know-what."
Skyfire made a small frown at the human's interruption but kept his cool.
"To be honest, I didn't think something like this would ever happen," Skyfire said. "Not the amnesia thing, of course, well, that too, but I mean he and I getting back together, after all these years. I'm not sure if I can keep up such a facade, considering our past."
"Well, in this situation, he does not remember the past," Prowl said, having kept silent for a while. "We have decided to transfer him to your base because we knew you were once friends. Granted, the Amica part was new to us, but it still doesn't change the fact that Starscream will do best in your care, no matter what you decide to do with him."
"I know, but..."
"Skyfire, do you hate Starscream?" Optimus suddenly asked.
Skyfire looked at his leadee with a confused look. "Uh, what?"
"Do you hate Starscream?" Optimus repeated. "Does the thought of him having to live with you in the same base drive you mad? Is this arrangement too much for you to handle?"
Skyfire looked offended at the Prime. "What? No, I-"
"Then give him a chance," Optimus replied. "He is not the bot you used to know."
Skyfire looked away with a frown. "You don't know him like I do. Like I did. You don't know what happened between us."
"There's something you have to know," Ratchet decided to inform. "At the moment, Starscream's mindset is closer to that of a young Protoform than that of a fully developed bot. Having all his memories wiped form his processor, this behavior is of little surprise to any of us, I hope."
"What's your point?" Cliffjumper asked, unimpressed.
"He may be naive, but he's not gullible," Ratchet explained further. "At the same time, he's skeptical but not paranoid. He's curious, he's confused, he's mesmerized by things that come so easy to the rest of us. As time goes and he remembers more about himself, his mindset may mature more as well, but until then you have to be patient with him."
"What's your point?" Cliffjumper repeated, now impatient.
"My point is that someone or something out there caused so much damage to him that his entire memory was erased, practically reducing him to a Sparkling. Whoever did this is dangerous, not just to Starscream, but to us. And not just his processor, there was a lot of scarring inside and outside of his frame, both old and fresh. Whoever had Starscream in their possession seemed to have dropped him off at our doorstep just after... whatever it was they did."
"Wasn't it just Megatron?" Bumblebee asked. "I mean, he punishes Starscream all the time-"
"Somehow, I don't think this is the work of Megatron this time," Ratchet continued and looked back at the hallway, just in case Starscream had returned and listened in. He didn't seem to be present at the moment. "I have three guesses as to who could have done this to him. Decepticons, aliens, or humans."
"Humans?" Goldbug asked confused. "How would humans be able to do damage like that to him?"
"You'd be surprised at what some people can do," Leon replied. "Not all humans out there are as bot-friendly as we are. In fact, there's one organization in particular which is highly dangerous and wanted by the government. Few surveillance drones have managed to collect data from their bases, and half of the data received revealed they abduct bots no matter faction, and they experiment on them. Change them. Use them for spare parts, research, or simple torture. I think you know which organization I'm talking about."
"You mean MECH," Optimus replied darkly. "We know of them. The Decepticons of the human world."
"You have no idea," Leon replied with a sigh.
Skyfire let out a sigh. "Alright, I get it," he said. "I'll give him a chance, but only because he has amnesia. And because we still don't know what did this to him. But if he remembers again, I can't promise I'll let him stay."
"I would not ask you to either," Optimus replied. "Now, he should be back at any moment. Get the GroundBridge ready."
Starscream walked giddily down the hallway, bouncing a bit in his steps as he made his way to the training room. Just then he turned around and realized he was all alone. He hummed and looked around, at the ring, the ranged weapons, the melee weapons, and the shooting range.
Then he looked down at his arms. An idea sprung to mind. A very bold, probably dangerous idea.
"Well, no one's watching," he said quietly to himself and smirked. "May as well see what you can do."
Walking past the weapons racks, he made his way to the shooting range. He lifted his arms to activate his null-rays, but they didn't come out. He hummed. Perhaps he had to lift them in a specific way to access them?
Starscream lowered and raised his arms in various ways, in different positions and in different angles. The arms remained unarmed.
Starscream snarled, getting frustrated and glanced briefly behind him. "Grrr, come on, you useless pieces of junk! The one time where I want you to come out, you decide to stay in?! Useless..."
A thought appeared in his head. He chuckled.
"Of course, those two times, I was being cornered and threatened. I'm alone and safe right now, so why come out now? This certainly is troublesome. Did I really have this kind of gimmick all the time?"
Starscream closed his optics, took a deep vent, then exhaled. He focused on his arms, just as he focused on his wings when he learned to fly and transform. This was the same thing, just with his arms only.
"Focus on the arms," he whispered to himself. "The arms... the arms..."
Starscream felt a strange movement on his arms and opened his optics, looking down. The silver null-ray guns had appeared on his arms like they had the other two times, but this time by his own willpower, and they didn't disappear right away like the other two times.
"Nice," Starscream said triumphantly and gazed at the still target at the end of the shooting range. "Time to have some real target practice."
He raised his arms and pointed both guns at the target ten meters away. Though there was no visible trigger to pull, Starscream could somehow feel something in his servos.
He clenched his fists and watched as a pair of pink lasers shot out of the nozzles. They hit the target, and completely destroyed it. The surrounding area was virtually unharmed though.
Starscream looked on, surprised at the initial power of the blast. He looked behind him in nervousness. It had been pretty loud, despite the minimal damage. He hoped none of the Autobots had heard the commotion. At least now he knew how to handle his null-rays.
Deciding he knew enough, Starscream lowered his arms and in some natural way retracted his guns back into his arms. He walked over to the melee weapons rack and searched until he found what he was looking for. The two beautiful red shortswords that he had used the previous day. He definitely would not leave without those.
They were his. He knew this now. They belonged to him. They had belonged to him before he lost his memories. He must have lost them some way before mysteriously disappearing for six months, and the Autobots had then found them and picked them up, adding them to their weapons list.
But now, he had found them again, and he was never going to part with them again. They were among the last weapons crafted in Vos before the war started. He knew that much.
He was from Vos. He had been created in Vos. The city of Fliers. He remembered it now.
These blades were of the finest quality among Vos weaponry. They had to stay with him, one of the last Vosians. He was uncertain if anyone else from Vos was still alive, but even if so, it wouldn't be many.
Having retrieved his swords, Starscream placed them on some kind of sub-sheaths on his back, invisible to the human eye but very much there and able to keep hold of a weapon.
Afterwards, he left the training room, swords on his back, and headed to his room in the hallway. Though it had really just been a one-night-stand-room, since he had only slept in it for one night. Still, he liked the puzzles Wheeljack had given him, and he wanted to bring them with him.
So he picked up each metal puzzle and found the so-called 'sub-space' Wheeljack had talked about, and tucked the small puzzles in it. Afterwards he did the same with the jigsaw puzzles, the dented rectangles, the holed planks and the strange cylinder which he hadn't looked at yet, and finally the color cube, still not fixed yet. He supposed he would get time to look at it further when he arrived in the new base.
Having nothing else of personal worth or interest in the room, Starscream turned around and was about to leave the room.
When suddenly he found himself strapped to a table.
The surrounding area was covered in darkness. He couldn't move even an inch on the table. He had a massive headache and pain in his chest.
Just ahead, several pairs of glowing eyes appeared in the darkness, and a malicious chuckle sounded from seemingly everywhere around him.
"That was fun! What should we do next?"
"His eyes! Take out his eyes!"
Starscream stiffened by the notion, especially as a large drill appeared from above the table.
"No, stop it," Starscream shrieked. "Not my eyes, please! Leave me alone!"
The drill was activated and started closing in, aiming at Starscream's right optic.
"Eyes! Eyes! Eyes! Eyes! Pop! Pop! Pop! Eyes! Pop! Crack!"
"No, no, no, no," Starscream begged and closed his optics. Something pulled his optical lids apart, forcing the optics to stay open. The drill was a mere inch from his optic.
"NOOOOO!" Starscream screamed.
The drill made contact with the optic. It shattered. Inexplicable pain shot through his head, barely deafening his screams of agony.
"Starscream!" someone's voice called.
Starscream was shaken awake. He gasped and jumped back, able to move again, claws at the ready. What he saw in front of him was not darkness.
"Wheeljack?" Starscream said uncertain and felt on his right optic. It was still there, whole, but thumping with pain. "What happened?"
"You took a pretty long time to arrive," Wheeljack replied. "I decided to go see what was taking ya so long. Then I heard ya screamin' from yer room. You were just standin' here, shouting and shuddering. Did you have a wake nightmare?"
Starscream cocked a ridge as he was beginning to calm down. "A wake nightmare?"
"Yeah, like a nightmare, but while you're awake, during the day."
Starscream thought for a moment. "Wouldn't that be called a daymare?" he asked.
Wheeljack lifted a digit as if to say something, but then paused and hummed. "That's actually not a bad term for it," he said and nodded to himself in agreement. "Makes sense, actually. Yeah, alright, you had a daymare?"
"I guess," Starscream replied. "It was so sudden. I had just finished packing and was about to leave, and then... I wasn't here anymore. I... I don't want to talk about it."
"No need to," Wheeljack said and laid a servo on the Seeker's shoulder, in an attempt to comfort. "Are you ready to leave? Or do ya need a minute?"
"I think... I need a minute," Starscream replied, and just stood there.
"Alright," Wheeljack said and was about to leave, so Starscream could be alone for a bit. Starscream stopped him before he could, though.
"Wheeljack?" Starscream said.
"Yeah?" Wheeljack replied.
Starscream started rubbing his servos while looking at the floor, avoiding optic contact with Wheeljack.
"Do you... Would you..." Starscream reset his vocalizer. "Will you be... my friend?"
Wheeljack's headlights flashed at the question. "Uh, what?"
Starscream forced himself to look at Wheeljack. "Will you be my friend?" he repeated quietly, still rubbing his servos together in nervousness.
Wheeljack blinked and cocked his head. "Uh, why?"
Starscream swallowed a lump in his throat. "Well, I don't think I have any friends other than Skyfire," he said quietly, again pulling his gaze away from Wheeljack. "And from what I can see with you bots, it doesn't seem to be normal not to have any friends, or to only have one friend."
Wheeljack let his arms fall to his sides and looked attentive at Starscream. "Okay, but why me?"
"It's just..." Starscream hesitated for a bit before continuing. "...you've been so nice to me these last two days, even though I basically just dropped on your doorstep two days ago. I don't really feel very welcome here, most of the bots seem to be afraid of me or making fun of me. I don't know what kind of bot I was before, but it hurts knowing I don't have anyone I can trust here. But you are different. You, Ironhide and Ratchet. You don't make fun of me. You don't mock me. You're not afraid of me. You helped me, you allowed me to fly, you let me remember how to fight, and you made those puzzles for me. And you came to check on me when I were having bad dreams. I feel bad for not returning the favor. So... will you be my friend?"
Wheeljack smiled under his mask. "Sure, why not?"
Starscream's optics practically glittered as he put on a smile in response to Wheeljack's answer. Wheeljack pat Starscream on the shoulder and gestured to the hallway.
"Come on now, let's get you back out there. It's time for you to go home now."
