Scream of Solitude

by StoryTimeWithZora

Starscream joins no side during the war for Cybertron, instead staying neutral. He goes rogue on the Seekers, wanting no part of the war anymore. But without Energon, he is forced to follow the Autobots and Decepticons to Earth, struggling to survive on his own. The Autobots try to convince him to join them. The Decepticons want to capture him. But Starscream doesn't trust anyone.

7. Marauder

CHAPTER 7

Marauder

---

The next morning, Starscream woke up, feeling a little better. Not much, but still something of an improvement.

He groaned as he rose to his legs and felt numb in his right arm. Normally when sleeping on his side, Starscream would switch on occasion to avoid this, but to spare the wounds in the left side of his abdomen, he stayed on his right throughout the night. It would go away in a while, but for now he felt pretty sore and worn all over.

Then he remembered what happened the previous day, and his shoulders slumped, along with his wings. He felt empty inside, unsure of what to do now. After a few minutes of staring into the ground, Starscream shook his head, trying to bring himself back to the present.

"Better check if my wounds have healed yet," Starscream muttered to himself.

He started by removing one of the nanite patches on his right upper arm. As the patch was peeled off, he saw that the superficial wound underneath had more or less healed throughout the night, thanks to the metalo-fruits, meshetables, Energon cube and long rest.

Afterwards Starscream began removing all the other nanite patches off his body, making sure every one of the wounds were healed and out of danger, including those on his face, which stung a bit as he removed them, but they felt healed enough. Now he was only covered in bandages on his arms, right leg, torso, wings and throat. They had to be checked too. Even though the blowtorch should have closed the wounds, they could still leak, hence the bandages. And keeping dirty bandages on the wounds wasn't good for healing.

He started unwrapping the bandages on his left arm, which had been badly wounded by the Scraplets. He cringed a bit as the metal bandage peeled off the surface of the wound. It had stopped leaking and was now covered by crusted Energon. It could probably still open easily, however, so he would have to put new bandages on.

He took one of the bandage rolls and wrapped his left arm in clean bandages, then closed it. Afterwards he did the same with his right arm, having been just as badly hurt as his left one.

Once his arms had been wrapped in clean bandages, Starscream sat down and unwrapped the bandages on his right leg, where a Scraplet had bitten onto his thruster and temporarily ceased his bot-mode flight. The damage was a bit harder than on the arms, but luckily not bad enough to prevent him from flying, and the wounds had somewhat healed as well. He threw the dirty bandages away and replaced them with clean ones.

Next Starscream carefully removed the bandages around his torso, sealing the large, gaping wound in the left side of his abdomen, where Tinker had bitten on with his huge Scrapmetal teeth. As he reached the surface, he held his breath as he seperated the bandage from the wound...

Like the others, the abdominal wound had stopped leaking, but it was still deep and practically still open. It still hurt pretty bad. It would take a lot more metal to fill in this wound.

Thinking about nothing but the first aid, Starscream threw the bandage away and carefully applied a new bandage to his torso. It took a few minutes before he had wrapped up the wound again and tied the bandage in a knot.

Next he decided to check the wound on his throat, where one Scraplet had latched on, though not for long before he had managed to pry it off and crush it in his hand. It had still leaked pretty badly, but thankfully the Scraplet had not damaged his voicebox.

Starscream very carefully undid his work with the bandage around his throat and cringed even harder as the bandage was peeled off the crusted Energon on his throat. He reached a hand up and felt on the wound, then looked at his hand. There were only a few crumbs of crusted Energon, but no wet stains. The wound had closed and more or less healed, though it was still about as bad off as his abdomen.

After carefully wrapping his throat in a clean bandage, Starscream at last brought his attention to his wings. They had been the hardest to wrap up, but he had made it work through a lot of effort, despite his fatigue the previous day. It was hard tending to his wings, but not impossible. Just really annoying.

Starscream released his wings from the bandages and saw to his relief that they had healed even more than the other bigger wounds. They weren't completely whole like before the Scraplet attack, but they were good enough that they would bear him in the air. Some more metalo-fruits and meshetables would fill in the metal and eventually they would fully heal. Probably.

Wings healed faster if the wounds they gained weren't major, like getting torn off or partly torn off. With minor wounds like these, they usually recovered faster in a few days with some Energon, and even faster with a supplement of metal, Starscream figured.

After putting a lot of effort into wrapping up his wings in new bandages, Starscream turned his attention to his pile of Energon cubes. He was hungry, but he couldn't fuel yet. He had plenty of Energon, but only a few fresh platinum-pears from yesterday, and no meshetables. He'd rather stay in his camp until he was healed up, especially with as much Energon as he had at the moment, but even with the Energon he didn't have the supplies to stay behind.

Having experienced how fast he healed when eating metal as well, he wanted more of it. Having only six pears to consume wasn't enough to heal him up quickly. He needed more meshetables, as well as more metalo-fruits. And to get that, he had to go out. Even in his current vulnerable condition.

Starscream didn't like the idea of going out in his condition, but the thought of gathering a huge supply of meshetables and metalo-fruits and then staying in his camp until he was fully healed was a nice thought. He just had to put in a little more effort, and then he could take a break. Unwind, recover, until he had to face the world and its cruelty again.

And right now, the day after having been betrayed by those he thought were his friends, he really needed some alone time, to gather his thoughts and not having to go through that sort of stress again anytime soon.

As such, Starscream rose back to his feet and took a deep breath before leaping into the air and activating his leg thrusters, blasting off into the sky and leaving his city ruins.

At first he was heading for the osmium forest, but the memory of the traitors almost reaching the forest affected him. Despite knowing no one else knew about the forest, he didn't feel safe enough to return to that particular forest just yet. He also didn't feel like going to the boron forest, as he remembered having shown Paralax that place as well. He didn't want any more reminders of those traitors for the time being. So instead, he decided to go north and explore a bit.

After avoiding an active city, Starscream eventually found another forest, located just at the foot of the Manganese Mountains. For the first time, Starscream recognized where he was, since first leaving Trypticon Station and fleeing to a random spot on Cybertron.

He was about to just fly over the mountains when something yellow caught his attention.

"Yellow?" Starscream muttered and circled the mountains to get back to the forest. "Could that mean...?"

To confirm his speculation, Starscream decided to touch down into the forest, in a glade some distance away from where he had seen something yellow. He landed on his feet and started walking, whilst looking from side to side, taking in his surroundings. It seemed to be a manganese-maple forest. Not surprising, given it was located at the foot of the Manganese Mountains themselves.

After a minute or two, Starscream came across a blue light. Another river, and it seemed to be leading somewhere. He decided to walk along it, in the direction where he was already going.

"Of all the natural metals in the world, there are only two that are a different color than gray," Starscream said to himself, having an idea what he had found. "Copper, which is red, and yellow being..."

Starscream reached another glade, a bigger one than the one he had landed in. As he got out from among the trees and bushes, he paused and stared ahead of him in wonder.

In front of him was a large Energon lake, which the river he had been following was connected to. In the middle of the lake was a small island on which a large golden tree was situated. Despite the distance, Starscream could clearly spot many round metalo-fruits hanging from the branches in hundreds.

"Gold," Starscream voiced breathlessly. "A golden apple tree... There are so few of them left, this is the first I've seen since leaving the Seekers. And there are so many fruits on it too..."

A small splash snapped Starscream out of his staring at the golden tree, and his gaze went to the lake itself. Whatever had made the splash was gone now, but he could see small ripples in the Energon from where it had been.

"Seems there's something alive down there," Starscream muttered to himself. "It would probably be a bad idea to try swimming across. Not like I'm a good swimmer anyway. Not many bots are."

Transforming to get across was too risky as well, since he was still pretty battered up and it was such a short distance. Plus, he was uncertain whether he could control his own speed in alternate mode in his current state. Plus his bandages could possibly tear open if he transformed.

"I could try using my leg-thrusters," Starscream speculated. "Although... it would probably be a bad idea too. I could accidentally hit the Energon and cause an explosion."

Starscream hummed, trying to think of an idea. He looked around. "Maybe I can find something to cross with. Like a fallen tree or something."

He decided to go with that idea and started searching the shore for something he could use. As he circled the long, circular shore, he found something else interesting. A bed of metalo-plants with long leaves sticking up from the ground stood out amongst the otherwise flat ground with only a little irongrass here and there.

"Looks like meshetables," Starscream theorized. "But what kind, I wonder?"

He decided to check them out and went over to one set of leaves. He grabbed around the leaves and pulled, first gently, then harder as the metalo-plant didn't give so easily. Without too much effort though, he uprooted the plant, which had a bunch of silvery white, thick yet narrow beet-like things with thin metallic roots at the bottom. Starscream let out a small gasp as he recognized the meshetable.

"Chromium-carrots," Starscream deduced. "One of the strongest natural metals in existence. Its hardness and strength competes with tungsten and titanium. This is quite a good find."

Starscream gazed between the chromium-carrots, the golden apple tree and the rest of the manganese-maple forest. He let out a small chuckle.

"How convenient for me to find a forest with two of the best metals for the frame. Someone must be guiding me, leading me to these wonderful places. Like I'm being controlled by an invisible hand..."

Starscream fell empty of thoughts for a moment while just staring down at the chromium-carrots. His good mood of finding the glade with its treasures was soon replaced by the memory of Paralax and the others from yesterday. The things they said rung in his head.

What an idiot. Buying all our friendship junk and telling us all those dumb things about life and stuff. BORING!

Soon we'll be able to get all the Energon we could ask for.

We didn't have to make you say anything. You just told us everything you knew. You even told us about the Energon river, metalo-fruits and meshetables...

I couldn't believe what a big gullible idiot we had reeled in.

It's your fault Tarn is in ruin!

You're the real traitor in this world. You destroyed Tarn AND Vos! You killed both our peoples!

But sadly, we've had enough of you and your 'circle of life' scrap. Now YOU can join the circle of life and become scrap yourself.

You killed him. You've doomed Cybertron now.

As the memory of the bots' words ran through his head, Starscream felt rage welling up in him again. As well as... sadness.

He didn't know why he felt sad thinking about those traitors. He didn't want to feel sad, yet he did.

He hated those bots. Yet they had been his friends for a week, and he had ended up liking them. Traitors or not, he had been friends with them, and now he had lost his friends and was once again alone. He no longer had anyone to share his knowledge with, nor these findings he had made.

He had no one to share these chromium-carrots or golden apples with. He only had himself.

Soon, his sadness overcame his rage and he felt his mood sinking deeply. He missed Paralax and the others. He missed the company. Despite their treachery, he missed them all and what they had given him.

A gentle breeze blew his way, and the slight coldness brought him back to attention. He shook his head, suppressing these thoughts and memories for the moment. He had more important things to take care of.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Starscream bent down and plucked more chromium carrots. He decided to take enough to last for a week, as chromium didn't oxidate easily. He tucked the carrots in his cockpit, making sure there was enough room for the golden apples.

"Right, I still haven't figured out how to get to the island," Starscream said as he closed his cockpit. "Better keep searching."

Starscream moved on along the shore, searching for anything that could be used. He found nothing, however, and soon he found himself having returned to the chromium-carrot bed. He sighed.

"Looks like there's nothing in this area to help me get across," Starscream muttered. "I could go back into the forest and search... but it's a big forest, and who knows how long it would take? It would almost be faster to just swim or wade across."

Starscream gazed out at the lake. While Cybertronians couldn't naturally swim, due to the lack of liquid seas on Cybertron, some bots did have some basic knowledge of the art of swimming. After all, Energon deposits used to be larger and deeper, and some species would have to develop the ability to swim to survive, such as alloygators and robo-fish. Cybertronians could learn to swim, but rumors said it wasn't easy.

With Energon being a thick substance as it was, however, it was possible for even heavy bots to float on it, whether due to buoyancy or the atomic mass of Energon itself. And Starscream was a quick learner. He could figure this out.

"Had this not been Energon, I could have used my thrusters to propel me forward," Starscream mused as he stood by the edge of the shore, his feet inches away from the Energon. "But since it is, the action would cause the lake to explode. I can't risk that."

Starscream hesitated and thought about his options. He could either go into the forest and search for a fallen tree or something to get him across, use his thrusters to fly himself over the lake but risk setting the Energon ablaze, or jump out and attempt to swim across. Neither option fell well with him.

"Screw it, I'm just going to go for it," Starscream decided and stepped into the Energon.

At first he just waded with Energon to his ankle struts, as the bottom closest to the shore wasn't far from the surface. But after just a few mechanometers, the bottom suddenly seemed to vanish, and Starscream plopped into the Energon with his entire body. He yelped in surprise before falling silent as his systems were flooded with Energon. It wasn't too bad since it was Energon, but the sudden feeling of his internal systems being full startled him, and he couldn't breathe for ventilation.

Luckily Cybertronians didn't need to breathe any specific type of gas to survive, they only needed the air for ventilation and keeping their insides from overheating. Unfortunately, having his internal systems flooded with Energon made him even heavier than he already was, making it hard for him to stay afloat, let alone get back to the surface. Soon, he found himself planting his feet on the bottom of the lake, several mechanometers from the surface.

Finding it uncomfortable and annoying with the substance in his internal systems, Starscream initiated a purging reflex, turning on his inner fans and quickly disposing of most of the Energon with the remaining air trapped in his ventilation system. Afterwards he quickly shut his mouth and other passages to his inner works to prevent more from entering. There was still Energon inside, but it was little enough that he could handle it, plus there wasn't any more trapped air in his systems to purge the rest. He would have to endure it until he reached the shore.

Starscream started walking across the bottom, finding his movements slowed greatly due to the density of the Energon around him, but also felt himself slightly lighter due to his loosened weight. The Energon was only slightly clear, enough that he could see a school of robo-minnow two or three mechanometers away from him, but further than five mechanometers he could see nothing but bright blue. Due to Energon's natural glow, the bottom of rivers and lakes were never dark, but the density alone made it hard to find one's way around in the substance.

After several minutes of slow walking, Starscream hit a wall. Literally. One moment there was nothing but blue, the next moment, a solid wall appeared right in front of him, and he bumped his forehead into it. He would swear if it wasn't for keeping his mouth shut to keep the Energon around him from entering his systems again.

Must be the island, Starscream thought as he felt on the wall. It's a bit steep though. Who designed this lake with such a drop anyway?!

Starscream frowned as he looked up the wall, which faded about five mechanometers up. He didn't think the lake was deeper than six or seven mechanometers though. It wouldn't be a long climb.

Guess I better get going, Starscream thought and latched his stubby claws into the wall. I really need to file these claws.

Despite his own weight, the Energon allowed him some buoyancy, which made it easier for him to lift himself from the bottom and climb upwards. With every stretch and pull, he saw more of the top, and soon he could see what seemed to be the surface, brighter than the Energon below him.

Almost there, Starscream thought to himself in excitement. Just a little more...

He felt the Energon behind him brush against his back, catching his attention. Starscream looked behind but saw nothing.

I know I felt something just now, Starscream thought, then remembered something. Maybe it's the one who made that splash earlier? I hope it's not piranacons...

Technically, piranacons did not exist on Cybertron, though since the Quintessons' invasion of the planet - and to the extent, their departure - sights and attacks of piranacons in certain Energon deposits and other liquid bodies had been rumored to have taken place. There wasn't much aquatic life on Cybertron, however, and piranacons originally came from the planet Aquatron, from which the Quintessons had probably brought the beasts.

Despite the very low possibility of piranacons existing on Cybertron, Starscream was still worried, as he was alone, wounded and vulnerable in this lake.

He did not get to speculate for much longer, however, as the owner of the previous movement soon revealed itself.

Suddenly, something clamped around Starscream's torso, and something sharp pierced into the wound on the left side of his abdomen. Starscream stopped himself from screaming by the pain, instead twisting and turning, trying to see what had caught onto him.

What had caught hold of him was nothing less but a huge alloygator, black on the top and green on the underside, along with a pair of mean-looking red eyes. Its jaws was one of the strongest of all mechanimals on Cybertron, with the ability to break a bot like Starscream in half with little effort.

Realizing he was in deep trouble, Starscream reacted quickly and folded his hands together, striking the alloygator on the head before it could initiate its famous 'death roll'. The alloygator was taken aback by the strike and released Starscream from its jaws.

Rather than trying to get away, Starscream quickly grabbed either side of the alloygator's head and pulled himself back, until his legs were clamped around the beast's thick body. Now the alloygator couldn't snap its jaws at him again, however it was far from harmless.

As the alloygator regained its senses and realized Starscream was on its back, it started twisting from side to side in rapid movements, trying to shake him off. Starscream wrapped both arms around the alloygator's head for better grip as it started rolling. At first it was slow, but then it got faster and stronger, and it became harder to hold on. Starscream put all his effort into just holding on, not even being able to draw one of his swords to fight back.

After several minutes of rapid, dizzying rolling, the alloygator seemed to realize Starscream wouldn't go down so easily. It abruptly stopped the rolling, almost throwing Starscream off if he wasn't clinging on to it with all his strength. Afterwards it shot forward in incredible speed through the Energon, like a torpedo, and again Starscream had to hold on with everything he had to not be thrown off.

Suddenly, the alloygator broke through the surface of the lake and leapt through the air, at which point gravity took its hold on both of them. The alloygator plumped down onto the shore of the island, and the hard impact caused Starscream to lose his grip around its head. He fell off the beast and landed on his back.

Still pumped by adrenaline, Starscream quickly lifted himself back on his feet before the alloygator started moving its stubby legs forward. Before the beast could get to him, Starscream ran straight for the golden tree, leapt onto the trunk and quickly climbed up, just in time to avoid getting one of his feet chomped off by the alloygator.

Starscream reached the crown and hauled himself all the way up. He gazed down at the angry alloygator glaring up at him with its tiny red eyes, hissing loudly. Starscream hissed back, and the two stared the other in the eyes. After about a minute of staring, the alloygator gave up and retreated back into the lake, not finding Starscream worth it. Starscream sighed as the alloygator disappeared from his sight.

Starscream settled into the crown and looked around. It was first now that he noticed how large the tree really was. It was just big enough that the crown could support his size and weight, perhaps a second bot as well. Everything around him was glistering yellow and sparkling from the reflections of the sunlight. Everything was bright, almost glowing. Between some of the cracks and crevices, Starscream could faintly spot glowing cyan, the Energon flowing through the metalo-tree's veins... if trees had veins, that was. Starscream didn't remember if he knew or not. It had been a long time since his scientific days, and much of it was hidden away in the back of his head.

Starscream's attention abandoned the Energon veins, instead focusing on the fruits hanging from some of the branches. Golden apples. Supposedly the best source of precious metal, the king of precious metals, even.

"Suppose I will have to see if you are as good as I read about you," Starscream said to the nearest fruit and plucked it from its branch. It popped off rather easily, unlike the chromium-carrots.

Starscream stared at the smooth, golden surface of the apple for a long minute, just admiring the beauty of it. Gold was such a unique metal. It was the only metal with a yellow color, one of only two metals having different colors than grey. It was the king of precious metals, immune to oxidation and thus never rusted. Unlike any other metalo-fruit or meshetable, this golden apple could last forever, never expiring, much like Energon itself.

But was it any good? It had many good properties, and certainly it contained a lot of antioxidants and boosted the immune system better than any other precious or weak metal. But Starscream wasn't sure how committed he would be to this fruit if it didn't taste good.

Starscream took a deep breath before sinking his teeth into the golden skin. And took a bite. And chewed. With his eyes closed.

And immediately opened them again. And then slowly closed them again.

Starscream hummed. It was delicious. Sweet, sour and juicy. The skin was hard and the mesh was firm, but it crunched nicely, and the Energon inside was cool and refreshing.

Starscream swallowed the mesh and sighed. "I am definitely coming here again," he said to himself and gazed down at the apple. "Maybe even replace the platinum-pears with this. I wonder what the chromium-carrots taste like..."

Starscream brought out a carrot from his cockpit and gazed at its details for a moment before taking a bite of the tip. It wasn't as juicy as the apple, but it was also sweet, with a slight bitterness at the end. It crunched louder than the apple, which was oddly satisfying, so he took another bite. Then another, and another, until he had eaten the entire carrot. He looked down at the leafy tip and smiled.

"Yes, I will definitely return to this place from now on," Starscream decided and tossed the leaves into the lake, making a small splash.

Starscream leaned back against one of the thicker branches as he continued munching on the golden apple, making sure to eat around the core like he did with the platinum-pears and titanimatoes. In the end he didn't consume much of the whole apple, but he had eaten about half of its entire mass, it seemed.

As he finished with the apple, he threw the core into the lake as well, making another splash. Now that he looked down again, he noticed there was no longer just one, but three alloygators in the lake. The sight made him gulp and widen his eyes in concern. Had the other two reached him when the first one had caught him, he probably would not have made it out of the lake alive.

"I better be careful around here," Starscream mused to himself. "Once my flying skills return to normal, perhaps it will be easier getting to this tree and out again. For now though, I should probably stock up on these things while I'm here."

As such, Starscream began climbing around the crown and plucked several golden apples, mostly those he could easily reach from the trunk. He ended up plucking and storing ten golden apples in his cockpit, along with his now six chromium carrots, enough to last him well over a week.

He gazed around for any more apples, when suddenly his attention fell on a particularly large apple, dangling from a thin branch outside of the crown. Starscream stared at the apple in wonder. It was probably two or even three times larger than the one he had just eaten, as well as most of the others he had plucked. He still felt hungry, and that apple looked very inviting and appetizing...

A sound brought him out of his trance, and he looked down into the lake. The three alloygators were slowly swimming around at the surface, staring up at him, almost as if they were waiting for him to jump in. He looked back at the branch. It was pretty thin, probably not strong enough to hold his weight. But that golden apple... it was the apple of his eye.

"This is a really bad idea," Starscream said to himself. "But... but I must have that apple!"

Starscream shook his head and made his decision. He reached for the branch with the large apple on it, carefully lifting his leg out and around the branch to strap himself fast. Both legs clamped around the round branch, both hands holding firmly on the golden bark ahead.

Starscream's gaze went down involuntarily. He didn't have a fear of heights or falling, but being on such a thin round branch with an alloygator-infested lake underneath him was perhaps a slight bit outside of his comfortzone. He had to be very careful here. He couldn't turn back now either, as that would likely result in him falling. Suddenly he wondered how he was supposed to get back to safety once he got that perfect apple.

"Stupid," Starscream hissed at himself. "Should have thought this through. Well, nothing to lose now. Better move forward."

Slowly, carefully, Starscream pulled himself forward, one arm at a time, while his legs held tightly around the branch. As he got closer to the apple, the branch got thinner and thinner, and his legs were soon loose around the branch. As he was a mere mechanometer from the apple, the branch creaked eerily, as if giving him a warning. Starscream gulped.

"No turning back," he whispered to himself. "Almost there..."

As he was half a mechanometer from the golden apple, he reached forward with his right arm. His fingetips brushed the golden fruit.

The movement made him lose balance for a second, and he immediately pulled his arm back to regain balance. He stayed on the branch, but the movement caused him to slide underneath the branch, now hanging upside-down. Starscream let out a squeak of surprise and concern at his new position. Out of the corner of his optic, he could spot the alloygators gathering around underneath him, the rattling hisses reaching his audio receptors.

"To go this far for one apple," Starscream chuckled nervously, forcing his gaze back on the golden apple in front of him, upside-down in his sight.

Starscream wormed a little forward, earning another alarming creaking from the branch, but Starscream ignored it. Despite gold being a weak metal, this tree was made of living metal, gold reinforced with Energon, which made it stronger than raw, natural gold. It would hold.

Or, he believed it would hold. Until he reached up and grabbed hold of the huge golden apple and pulled. It popped off easily, like the others, though needing a bit more force because of its size.

As the apple popped off, Starscream smiled in triumph.

The branch creaked loudly, followed by a snap. Starscream's smile vanished.

A loud crack and crunch sounded, and suddenly Starscream was pulled down by gravity as the branch broke off the trunk. He yelped as he fell into the lake, the golden apple falling from his hand.

A loud splash lured in the alloygators.

Starscream sprung to the surface and struggled to keep himself afloat, now with his cockpit full of heavy golden apples and chromium-carrots. He leapt to the side, reaching out for the shore of the island.

One of the alloygators bit onto his left leg as he pulled himself to the shore. He screamed in pain but threw himself onto the shore, pulling the alloygator with him. This one was smaller than the other two, a young one, probably, but its jaws were still strong enough to break off Starscream's leg at any moment.

The two larger alloygators remained in the lake as Starscream pulled the smaller one onto land. He crawled forward and whined as the alloygator started rolling around, leg still in its jaws, trying to twist it off his frame.

Panicking, Starscream reached back and pulled out one of his swords. He rolled onto his back in the same direction as the alloygator was rolling. He sat up quickly.

In a swift movement, Starscream struck the sword down through the alloygator's head, just as it exposed its underside to him. The blade cut through its lower jaw and pierced through its skull, instantly killing it.

As the alloygator went stiff, the grip on Starscream's leg loosened, though he still had to pry the teeth off stuck in his armor, which was a painful process. As his leg was freed, Starscream pulled the sword out of the alloygator's head, and he rose to his legs, the left one in a limp. It had received a pretty bad wound, but it still hung onto the rest of his leg and would heal in time. With lots of Energon and metal, that was.

Starscream gasped and stared at the alloygator lying with its head upside-down, while the rest of its body was partly on the side and on the front, in the middle of a roll.

After a moment of staring at the dead alloygator, Starscream's gaze fell on the two larger ones out in the lake. Their expressions were unreadable, though they seemed to stare intently at the dead youngster. He heard a low rattle coming from the beasts.

Starscream took in a deep breath and spread his wings out widely, straightening his back to make himself look bigger. He hissed back at the alloygators as he brought forth his two swords, pointing at them. The message was clear. The alloygators turned tail and swam towards the river leading away from the lake, soon disappearing under the surface. Starscream was definitely not worth it.

Starscream let out another sigh of relief. He gazed back down at the dead alloygator. The sight reminded him of the gridwolf he killed about a week ago, as well as the turbofox with a kit missing. Had this small alloygator perhaps been related to the two larger ones? Their offspring, maybe? Or were they all strangers?

"Such a waste," Starscream said and flipped the body onto its back, exposing its underside. "The big one was strong. You could have turned out just as powerful as him."

Starscream didn't put the swords away just yet, nor did he try to leave immediately. His gaze remained on the dead alloygator for a long time. Memories of the turbofox leaping out and catching a petro-rabbit, followed by its consumption, raced through his mind. Turbofoxes were so small yet so agile and strong, able to kill Cybertronians larger than himself. Alloygators about the same size as himself could probably down even Megatron with little trouble.

"Mechanimals are powerful," Starscream whispered in thought. "Especially the predators, it seems. But why? Could it be... because they are predators?"

The thought of consuming mechanimals had crossed his mind earlier, but back then he had cast it aside out of disgust. But now, seeing how powerful these predators were compared to the herbivores and Cybertronians themselves...

Starscream knelt down and put one sword on the ground, then shifted the other sword so it was pointing down from his fist. He held a hand on the alloygator's neck and brought the blade to its green belly just below the left leg. With a bit of pressure, the blade cut through the softer green metal, and Starscream carved out a small piece of mesh, dripping with blue Energon as he held it between his digits.

Starscream hesitated for a while, just staring at the small piece of green mesh stained with Energon. He sighed and just went for it, taking a small bite of the chunk.

The mesh broke from the rest of the chunk with ease, and it crunched and squished a bit as he chewed it with his teeth. At first he cringed at the feel and thought of the tough mesh, but after having it in his mouth for a while, his flavory sensors were met by an unexpected sweetness, laced with slight spiciness and savory. It was also a bit juicy thanks to the Energon, and all in all, it tasted amazing.

Starscream hummed and swallowed the mesh. "I've never tasted anything like this before," he said quietly and kept his eyes closed to savor the taste. "It's so delicious... No wonder some mechanimals hunt instead of gathering."

Starscream opened his eyes again and immediately ate through the rest of the chunk, as he was still hungry. While eating, he suddenly remembered how he got into this position in the first place, and looked around. He couldn't spot the large golden apple he had tried to get to.

"Must have fallen into the lake," Starscream assumed bitterly. "Such a waste of a good golden apple. Well, at least I got something out of this."

As he finished eating, he put both his swords on his back but stayed kneeling for a bit. He grabbed hold around the small alloygator's body, then rose to his feet, huffing a bit by the weight of the beast. It was a good thing this was a small one; had it been the big one that first attacked him, he might not have been able to lift it up, let alone fly away with it.

Despite still being close to the Energon, Starscream decided to take a risk and activated his thrusters, feeling his left leg strained and a burning sensation coursed through it. Despite the pain, Starscream put enough power in to lift himself from the ground with his heavy load of gold, chromium and alloygator. He managed to avoid hitting the lake, and he ascended into the sky above the forest, then took off and left the forest, making sure to note its location in his processor for future reference.

Flying via bot mode was slower than flying via jet mode, but it was even slower when you had your cockpit filled with heavy gold and your arms full of a heavy albeit small alloygator. As such, it took about half an hour for Starscream to return to his camp, all while his left leg and wounded torso burned with pain. As soon as he landed, he tossed the alloygator on the ground and sat down to rest for a while.

Before doing anything else, Starscream first got the medical supplies to take care of the new wound on his leg, as well as the opened wound on his torso, closing them with the blowtorch and then wrapping them up in bandages. He sighed at his mangled body.

"At least now I've got enough supplies to stay and heal up," Starscream said, looking around at the alloygator, deposited golden apples and chromium-carrots, as well as the remaining six platinum-pears and fourteen Energon cubes already in his camp. He leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes. "Perhaps a stasis-nap would be a good idea. I'll take care of things later."

---

A few hours later in the early evening, Starscream decided he had rested enough and woke from his stasis-nap, still hungry as all he had eaten in the late morning was a single golden apple, a chromium-carrot and a small chunk of alloygator mesh. Now that he had stocked up on supplies, it was time for a real feast.

Before he got started on the metalo-fruits, meshetables and Energon, he decided to try more of the alloygator, seeing as it was strangely delicious. He wondered if every part of the alloygator tasted just as good or if they tasted different depending on the area. Having already tried the belly, he decided to carve a piece of the front left leg.

The leg was tougher than the belly, but less flaky and juicier. Afterwards he tried a piece from the throat, which was about as soft and juicy as the belly, though like the leg it was also less flaky. He tried a piece of the right hind leg, which was about the same as the front leg, though a little flakier.

He also decided to try a piece of the tail and cut the tip off. It was tough on the outside and crunchy, but not flaky, and under the armor the mesh was tender and juicy, and packed with even more flavor than the other body parts he had tried so far. It was incredibly delicious and satisfying to chew.

"I think I just found my favorite body part," Starscream said with a smile as he ate through the rest of the tail tip. "I wonder what other mechanimals taste like..."

He hadn't eaten much of the alloygator yet, just taken a few bits and pieces of several areas to test how the mesh tastes in different parts of the body on the outside. Now though, he was starting to wonder, what did it taste like on the inside?

Curious, Starscream cut into the alloygator's underside until he could open up its belly and look inside it, gazing at all the different organs. The fuel tank, the ventilation chambers, the voicebox, the transformation cog, the metal converter, the gestation chamber, and the Spark chamber, with a black extinguished Spark inside. All mechanimals had a transformation cog, but only some were able to transform, usually into vehicles or strange objects, such as petro-rabbits turning into spheres and singlehorns turning into rockets. Starscream was unsure if alloygators could transform or into what.

Looking at all these bio-mechanisms, Starscream was unsure which one to try out first. He decided for the Spark, as it seemed like an obvious first choice. He wasn't sure if eating the organs was actually a good idea or if it was bad, but he at least wanted to find out.

He plucked the small black Spark from the chamber and held it in his right hand. It was cold, just like the rest of the alloygator now was, hours after its death. It was firm but would probably break easily if he squeezed a bit harder.

Starscream sighed and brought the Spark to his mouth, sinking his teeth into it. The Spark was softer than he expected, and no cracks were made as he took a bite from it, much like sodium soil. He closed his eyes to focus on the taste and the consistence of the Spark.

The taste was... indescribable. There were no words for it.

He hadn't thought he would experience anything more delicious than an alloygator tail. Yet this Spark...

"How can this be..." Starscream said in confusion as he swallowed the piece and opened his eyes. "...so delicious? A Spark. The thing that keeps us alive. The culmination of our being. The thing that pumps Energon through our bodies. It's... I didn't know... I never expected..."

It was too delicious for mere words. It was so energizing, so refreshing, so strengthening. It was all sorts of flavors, some strong, some faint, it was firm yet soft, tough yet tender, dry yet juicy, flaky and crunchy yet smooth. It was nothing like he thought would possibly exist. The deliciousness and consistency of this Spark almost broke the laws of physics, that's how incredible it was.

Starscream immediately dug his teeth into the rest of the Spark and started munching, trying to savor the incredible taste and feel of it. It was gone within barely a minute. The Spark alone made him feel as if he could go several days without anything else, including Energon. Despite this, he did not feel completely full yet, and he had enough space left in his tank for a few metalo-fruits and meshetables, probably an Energon cube, along with testing out the other organs.

Since the Spark was so delicious, Starscream decided to try the fuel tank next, as it was likely also filled with Energon and various metals from the alloygator's last meal. He plucked the tank and studied its odd oval shape and smooth, solid surface.

Without hesitation this time, he took a bite from the tank. And cringed.

Barely had the mesh been in his mouth for more than a few seconds before he spat it out. It was the complete opposite of what the Spark had tasted like: sour, extremely bitter and with a bit of acid slightly corroding his mouth. The acid normally helped with the processing of Energon in the tank, before it was sent to the Spark chamber to be pumped out into the various organs and body parts for energy. The fuel tank itself was definitely not consumable.

With a bad taste in his mouth, Starscream threw the rest of the fuel tank away into the ruins. "Ugh, I'll never get that taste out of my flavory sensors. Maybe this was a mistake."

In attempt to drown the taste from the fuel tank, Starscream simply took a couple of the platinum-pears, golden apples and chromium-carrots and ate them right away, as well as a cube of Energon. He did not want to risk purging his own tank and lose all he had just consumed, simply because of his own curiosity.

After stuffing himself with metal and Energon, Starscream decided to close up the alloygator and wait with testing the rest of the organs later. He didn't know how long a mechanimal carcass would last before rusting, so he decided he would test the rest of the organs the next day, and afterwards just focus on eating the mesh.

After a long night's sleep, Starscream woke up and changed his bandages and removed the rest of the nanite patches before getting on to testing the organs first.

He opened the wound on the alloygator's belly again and decided to try out the gestation chamber next, which was just as disgusting as the fuel tank. He threw it away and plucked one of the two ventilation chambers beside the now empty Spark chamber. It didn't taste as bad as the other two organs, but it was still too bitter to eat, so he threw both ventilation chambers away. Next he tried the metal converter, which normally stored consumed metal processed from the fuel tank, to later be used for healing or growing. It was way too sour to be considered edible, so it was discarded into the ruins as well.

Afterwards he tried the T-Cog, which was way too flaky and bland in taste to be worth it, so it too was thrown away. Afterwards he decided to move further up and try the voicebox, but it was no good either. He had tried almost every organ in the alloygator's body, and so far only the Spark had been any good. There was still one organ left he hadn't tried yet though. The brain.

The torso empty of organs, Starscream simply flipped the alloygator onto its underside, thus being able to access the thick black armor on the top. He found the crevice between the head and the torso to allow the beast movement, and he stuck one of his swords into it, in attempt to seperate the armor from the mesh. As he had carved the armor on the head away, exposing its skull, he cut open its cranial chamber to expose the brain module.

With a heavy sigh, Starscream plucked the brain from the skull and held it in one hand. Having experienced all the other organs, he wasn't too confident with this one either. After some hesitation, he brought the curly, edgy brain to his mouth and took a bite.

He cringed very hard at the flaky, dry, tasteless metal. After mere five seconds, he spat it out and tossed the brain away and hissed in annoyance.

"I can't believe I just wasted my time on such stupid, disgusting things," he snarled to himself. "It would seem only the Spark is worth consuming. I suppose it makes sense, since it is the organ that keeps a bot alive and functional. But why the Pit did the others have to be so nauseating?!"

Starscream let out a heavy sigh. At least now he had tried all the organs and concluded only the Spark was worth eating. Now he could once again focus on the mesh of the alloygator. He did not feel particularly hungry now though, having experienced all these disgusting flavors, so he decided to wait a bit before eating.

While he waited, he read some of the datapads he had. He had already read all of them once, and some of them even twice, but nonetheless he read them again because he had nothing else to do at the moment.

After a few hours of reading, he finally felt hunger lurking in his tank and put down the biology datapad he was reading. He turned to the alloygator and ended up eating an entire leg, relieved to finally get a good taste in his mouth. He supplemented with a golden apple, a platinum-pear and a chromium-carrot, as well as an Energon cube. Once having finished eating, he returned to his reading.

Later in the evening, he still felt a bit hungry and decided to eat another alloygator leg before going to sleep. The following morning, he changed his bandages again, happy to see the older wounds from the Scraplets had now healed, though the wounds on his torso and left leg still needed some time to heal. As such, he only applied new bandages to those two areas.

After taking care of the wounds, Starscream went back to eating parts of the alloygator, as well as one of each of the metalo-fruits and meshetables he had, eating the last platinum-pears available at the moment. He ended up eating two legs right away, though didn't consume any cube yet. Even though he was injured, he felt hungry much faster than normal. Before leaving Trypticon Station, he would only refuel on a single Energon cube about twice or thrice a week, sometimes once a week if Energon supplies were getting low. During peacetime it was normal to consume Energon every day, in slightly smaller doses than bots did nowadays. During wartime, it was more beneficial to faste for a week or longer, to make the Energon last longer.

Starscream, like most other bots during the war, was used to fasting and could normally live without Energon for a week or longer. But since changing his life style a few weeks ago, it had become harder to faste, especially with how often he got himself injured and thus needed more fuel to heal. Even so, he felt unnaturally hungry every day. He wondered if it had anything to do with his new diet of metal as well, if getting used to consume a number of metal per day had become integrated into his body's routines. Was metal consumption addicting? Or was he simply losing his ability to faste?

After eating, he started reading once again, but by late afternoon, he got tired of reading. He was tired of sitting still all the time and not getting out and moving his body. He missed flying, but he would be able to do that safely again the next day, probably. But he couldn't wait until then to move. So instead, he put down the datapad, got up and left his camp, deciding to patrol the city on foot.

As he walked among the ruins, he took another look around. The city was in complete devastation, as if some great disaster had hit it, and not just a result of war. It wasn't the same as some of the warfaring cities like Kaon or Iacon, with plenty of tall buildings still standing. This city was almost flat, as if almost everything had been vaporized by something. It looked worse off than even Tarn, which had also only a few tall buildings left standing, due to bombing. Had this city also been bombed, perhaps?

"I wish I knew which city this is," Starscream said quietly as he gazed at his surroundings. "But I suppose it doesn't matter. As long as it can provide cover for me, I don't care what it used to be. There's no one else here anyway."

Starscream ended up watching the sunset at early evening, thanks to the flatness of the ruins. It was beautiful, but at the same time it brought a sense of sadness in Starscream. He wasn't sure why. He ended up thinking about Paralax and the others again. Why did he feel so guilty about killing them, about losing them? It was all their fault, not his. They were the traitors, not him.

"Did they have to die?" he asked quietly into the falling darkness. "Did I really have to kill them? Would they really have killed the mechanimals of the forest if I had not? Did I kill a bunch of bots for no reason?"

Starscream stopped for a moment to think further about his actions and how he felt about everything. He snorted and shook his head.

"No, I did the right thing," he protested against himself. "They said it themselves. They only used me, they were going to eliminate the forest's residents. They were murderers, bandits, Marauders. I did what was necessary. I protected the forest, and I protected myself. If I kept them alive, the forest would only die and others would be terminated by them as well."

Starscream's gaze rose from the ground to the sky, where the last light of Hadeen disappeared below the horizon, and where the first stars began twinkling.

"I do not live in society anymore," he reminded himself. "I am an outcast. I make my own rules now to survive. I can do whatever I want or need. Ethics don't matter. Morale doesn't matter. I will do what I have to. What happens to anyone else doesn't matter. All that matters is that I survive. Everyone else can go to the Pits."

Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Starscream felt himself filled with determination. As night began replacing dusk, he decided he had walked enough and turned back to return to his camp.

When he returned, he decided to take some of the alloygator's tail and an Energon cube to eat before settling down for the night. His wounds on the left leg and torso were almost fully healed, probably thanks to all the metal he had eaten lately, as well as the Energon. Tomorrow, if the wounds were healed well enough, he could loose the bandages altogether and go for a fly again.

With that exciting thought in mind, Starscream laid on his side, closed his eyes and went into another night of peaceful recharge.

That is... until a few minutes past midnight.

Starscream slept sound as always when suddenly a strange sound woke him up.

"Hey look, there's a lot of Energon here."

He opened his eyes into slits. He felt his Spark leap and a rush in his tanks as he spotted three bots approaching him in his camp.

"Wha-" he gasped.

Barely had Starscream registered what was happening before he rose to his legs. The bots yelled, and one of them punched him in the face, then the abdomen, bringing him back onto the ground. He tried getting up, but one of the bot kicked him hard in the back of his head. He hacked and went stiff, feeling his consciousness fading as his vision began blurring.

"So what do we do with this guy?"

"I say we kill 'em."

Starscream's hearing began failing, and his blurry vision became darker, despite fighting to stay conscious.

After several long seconds, his consciousness slipped and he fell into the darkness.

---

After an uncertain amount of time, Starscream felt his consciousness slowly returning. He felt very tired and had a hard time opening his optics. He tried, but his energy level was low and his consciousness was still heavily impaired from the attack. As time passed, however, he became more aware of the fact that he was not dead, and as he gradually became more aware, his senses began returning to him as well.

He heard muffled voices talking together. He had a bad taste in his mouth from spilled Energon. He felt something hard binding his wrists together on his back. He felt himself sitting up with his legs spread out, leaning his back against a wall. He caught a faint scent of charred metal.

Starscream opened his eyes into slits and watched his blurry vision become clearer and sharper as he blinked a few times. As his vision became clear enough, he could make out six... maybe seven bots, sitting around a fire, above which was the alloygator he had killed, getting charred by the flames. He noticed the surrounding bots were chewing on some metal, and that the alloygator was missing more metal than last he checked.

They were eating his alloygator. They were cooking it. The whole scene seemed strange to Starscream. Then he remembered what happened and looked from side to side. He was bound, captured, but still alive.

His gaze went back to the bots at the fire. There did seem to be seven of them, two Fliers, four Grounders, two of them big and two of them sleek, and one Mini-Con. As he focused on the Mini-Con, he recognized it as a Cyclone, a black one with purple detailing, seemingly with pink eyes. It had the generic Cyclone model, with the semi-sphere on its head, four legs and a pink sphere on its lavender torso.

One of the two Fliers seemed to sport feathery wings, as if he turned into a beast rather than a jet and was white and red, while the other seemed to be a copter-bot in blue and green. One of the two heavy bots was gray and black and seemed to turn into a tank, while the other was red and gray, seemingly a truck-bot. One of the sleek Grounders was dark and light blue, while the other was pink and black, both seeming to turn into generic cars. The beasty Flier had yellow eyes while the copter-bot had blue eyes, both heavy bots had red eyes, while the sleek blue Grounder seemed to have green eyes and the pink one white eyes.

Starscream couldn't make out much about these bots other than their color-schemes and builds. He was now more focused on their resources; behind them, he saw a pile consisting of golden apples and chromium-carrots, as well as a pile of medical supplies, weapons, datapads, devices and other miscellaneous. Their atmosphere was calm yet joyous as they feasted on the alloygator Starscream had caught and killed.

They were Marauders. Starscream realized it as the facts and signs went through his head and he remembered what Paralax had told him. They had raided his camp at night, knocked him unconscious and captured him.

But why? he thought confused. Why did they keep me alive? Why didn't they kill me? What do they want with me?

He was about to get his answer soon, for as he studied the bots in front of him, the Cyclone took notice of his awakening and blurted out some illegible noises accompanied by a claw pointing at the Seeker wildly. The bots gazed from the Cyclone to Starscream and now too saw that he was watching them. The sleek pink and black one with white optics rose up and walked over to Starscream with a smile on his face.

"Seems you're right, Haze," the bot said, apparently directed to the Cyclone. "The prisoner is awake."

Starscream gazed confused between the pink bot and the Cyclone. Did the bot understand the Cyclone's language? Or did he merely decipher it by the hand gestures? Cyclonian wasn't exactly Cybertronian and couldn't be translated by the universal translator. Rumors said that Cyclones, in order to strengthen the bond among their own people, had made up their own secret language that only Cyclones could understand, and usually refused to speak in any other language, otherwise staying silent. Some bots believed the Cyclones had entirely forgotten how to speak Cybertronian themselves, but could still understand the normal language spoken by other bots.

Before Starscream could think much about the Cyclone named Haze, the pink bot knelt down to be at optic-level with Starscream. Starscream stared defiantly into his eyes.

"Hey there," the bot said and smiled sweetly. "What's your name, little guy?"

Starscream frowned at the way this bot spoke to him. "Starscream," he hissed. "And I'm bigger than you."

"Sure you are, but still small for a Flier, not like my friends Sharpshot and Turbine," the bot said and gestured the beast-bot and copter-bot. "My name is Coilspring, and your face has already met Shocker." Coilspring gestured the blue Grounder around the same build as himself. "And the big guys are Drivetrain and Roadwheel." He gestured the truck-bot and the tank-bot.

"That's nice," Starscream spat, not really interested in names anymore. "What do you want with me?"

Coilspring frowned a bit at Starscream's lack of interest, but soon his smile returned. "Well, we saw you walking around the city here yesterday, and we decided to follow you back to your hiding place."

Starscream's frown fell, instead shock was painted on his face. He had been noticed? He had been seen and he had not noticed the intruders themselves? He had been followed by enemies this whole time?

"But don't worry, we're not going to kill you," Coilspring added. "We would actually like to ask you to join us. We could use a bot like you."

Starscream's skeptical face returned and frowned his face. "Why so?" he simply asked.

"Well, you seem to have an awful lot of Energon for a lone bot," Coilspring replied and gestured the many Energon cubes stacked, though most of them were empty now, apparently having been consumed by the Marauders while he was asleep. "Not to mention a whole alloygator. Well, minus a few limbs, but still a good amount of mesh left. You must be a pretty good hunter to have downed an alloygator all by yourself, little Seeker."

"How do you know I'm a Seeker?"

"I don't know how many Starscreams there are on Cybertron, but the only one I know of is a Seeker. Are you not him?"

Starscream was silent for a moment before answering. "I am, but what does that have to do with the alloygator? And why are you eating it?"

The bots chuckled at his response, except for the Cyclone. "Same reason as you are eating it, I presume," Coilspring replied. "For the metal and Energon, of course!"

Starscream gazed surprised at the bots. "You... you know about consuming metal?"

"Uh, yeah?" Shocker said, the first bot other than Coilspring to speak. "We've been hunting mechanimals for several hundred years now. Don't everybot do that?"

"If the last bots I was with are anything to go for, no," Starscream replied. "Even I've only known about it for the last couple of weeks. How have you known for centuries?"

The bots looked at each other for a moment, just like Paralax' group used to.

"It's something we have to do to survive, you dumbaft," the copter-bot named Turbine said. "Not like you living in luxury in all your life."

"Though we haven't seen these things before," the beast-bot named Sharpshot said and held up a golden apple. "They're pretty good too. Where'd you get 'em?"

Starscream opened his mouth to answer, but then immediately shut it. The movement was too slow to not be noticed, however. Coilspring smirked at the Seeker.

"That's right, where did you get all this Energon, not to mention the alloygator and these... things?" he asked with a sickingly sweet voice.

"Don't you hunt?" Starscream answered.

"We've only found a few dead alloygators in the desert, but yours seems to be fresh. Where did you find the Energon?"

"I thought you Marauders had Energon coming easily to you, what with your two Fliers and everything," Starscream replied.

The bots once again exchanged looks before turning their attention back to Starscream.

"Where did you get this information?" Coilspring asked curiously.

"From a bot named Paralax," Starscream replied. "He told me all about you Marauders."

"And where is this Paralax you speak of?"

"He's dead now," Starscream replied and smirked widely. "I killed him. I killed his entire group, all five of them. And I'll do the same to you, once I get out of this thing."

The bots looked around at each other again, before turning back and laughing loudly. Starscream's smirk disappeared and was replaced by a frown.

"I'm serious," Starscream snarled offended. "I'll kill every single one of you!"

"Sure, sure, that's what they all say," Coilspring replied, still giggling and wiping away some oil from his eyes. "You're really cute, you know that, Screamy?"

Starscream hissed at the insult. "Don't call me that!" he snarled.

"What, cute?"

"Screamy. Don't ever call me that!"

The bots smiled as they shared another gaze with each other, mentally communicating with each other.

"Oh, you have a problem with that, Screamy?" Shocker asked in a similarly silky voice and giggled.

"Shut up," Starscream hissed at the blue bot.

"Aw, isn't he cute when he's angry?" the truck-bot called Drivetrain said and nudged Roadwheel the tank-bot in the side.

"Yeah, we should keep him as a pet instead," Roadwheel replied with a chuckle. "And put a little collar on him. Like a cybercat."

"Sssssshhhhut uuuuuup..." Starscream hissed even louder.

"Aw, he even hisses like one," Turbine remarked and giggled. "Can I pet him?"

"Don't touch me," Starscream snarled. "Don't you dare touch me."

Coilspring smirked widely and leaned forward... and pat Starscream on the head like a cyberdog.

"Will you be a good pet and tell me where you got all this Energon from?" he asked sweetly while stroking the blue helm.

"Get your dirty hand off me," Starscream hissed and shook his head to remove the hand, but it simply moved down his jawline, making him stiffen.

"We can do this the easy way," Coilspring said quietly and stroke his fingers down Starscream's jawline to right under his chin. "Or we can do it the uneasy way. You will talk. Eventually. I just have to see what makes you tick."

As Coilspring's finger was at the tip of Starscream's chin, he replied by snapping out at the finger. Coilspring retreated his finger just in time to keep it. Everyone winced back, but instead of shock, grins presented themselves on their faces, except for the Cyclone, which seemed more nervous than entertained by the scene.

"Ooh, a fiesty one, you are," Coilspring chuckled as he looked at his unharmed finger. "That was a close one, huh. Struck a nerve, maybe? Or maybe there's another place that will make you talk?"

Coilspring's hand returned and began stroking Starscream down the neck and shoulder. Starscream was irked by the light touches and felt very uncomfortable being touched by another bot, especially while restrained and unable to stop them. Starscream had never felt comfortable being touched by anyone anywhere, not even by his colleagues or anyone he had been raised by or with. Only his one friend Jetfire had been trustworthy enough to touch him, as he knew Starscream and his idiosyncracies, including his issue with touch.

This bot was violating him. After stroking his arm, he went up Starscream's wing, making it twitch and slap out for the hand.

"Stop," Starscream hissed and tried to lean away, almost falling over. "Stop it."

"Will you tell me where you got the Energon?" Coilspring asked and grabbed his arm to prevent him from falling over.

"Never."

"Well then, I will just have to continue then, won't I?"

Starscream tried to move away from Coilspring, but this one held a firm grip on the other's arm while stroking along the wing which kept slapping against the hand and the wall behind it, trying to get away. Starscream desperately tried to kick the bot away, but Coilspring simply planted his knees on Starscream's thighs to prevent them from moving. Starscream wanted to swipe at the bot, but couldn't with his wrists bound.

Then, as he wrangled with his wrists, he suddenly felt the bond loosening a little. It wasn't much, but he could definitely feel it being weaker than before. Maybe even weak enough that he could break out of them by force. An idea popped into his mind as Coilspring's fingers reached the tip of his wing.

"Please, no more," Starscream whined quietly, faking a meltdown. "I'll tell you... just stop, please..."

Coilspring's face seemed to light up by Starscream's breakdown. "Go on," he said and removed his hand, though kept the other on the arm.

"Come closer... please," Starscream whispered. "I will only tell you... I don't trust the others..."

Coilspring naively leaned his head in closer, uncomfortably close to Starscream's own face. "Yes?"

Starscream's defeated expression turned into a smirk as with one swift movement, he seperated his wrists from each other, breaking the bond and causing Coilspring's hand to let go of his arm in surprise. In the next moment, Starscream wrapped his arms around Coilspring's neck.

"You're dead."

"Wait-"

In another swift movement, Starscream suppressed Coilspring's head until it popped off the neck and rolled down along the ground towards the others, leaving a blue trail of Energon in its path. Everybot stopped smiling and laughing, now all staring at the head and Starscream in disbelief.

"No... you monster!" Sharpshot exclaimed and pulled out a gun. "You'll pay for that!"

As Sharpshot shot, Starscream pulled Coilspring's dead body in front of himself, using the corpse as a shield as he got back onto his feet. He tossed the body in front of him and hit Sharpshot, causing the beast-bot to fall over. The other bots pulled their own guns and started shooting after Starscream.

Starscream did his best to avoid the shots while he reached behind his back to grab his swords... only to find that his back was empty, only his two pairs of wings being back there. Starscream cringed at the realization. They had taken his swords too! He could spot them with their yellow blades at the top of the pile of weapons. But they were behind the six still living bots, all shooting at him except for the Mini-Con, who instead was hiding behind some boxes, apparently unwilling to fight.

Not being able to dodge the shots forever, Starscream decided to instead deploy his null-ray cannons and started firing after the bots. They too tried their best to dodge, but Drivetrain failed to avoid one shot and fell down, stiff and stunned. But it wouldn't last for long.

I'll have better chances if I attack from the air, Starscream thought and leapt into the air, followed by his initiating jet mode.

As he ascended to the sky, the Marauders apparently had the same idea, for soon he found himself being shot upon by Turbine in helicopter mode and Sharpshot in beast mode, which appeared to be a large technohawk. While Sharpshot wasn't exactly firing lasers at Starscream, he did dart swiftly around the Seeker and tried to land a hit with his long, sharp talons. Luckily, Starscream was very good at dodging, even in jet mode. He wasn't the top Seeker for nothing, after all.

But he couldn't fly around forever, and he couldn't leave without his swords, as they were his best means of defense at close range. He really needed to improve his own claws. So he boosted up in speed and did half a loop while spinning, so he was facing the two other Fliers. Going head on against them whilst easily avoiding their lasers, Starscream aimed at Turbine's rotor blades and fired his blasters. The lasers hit, and the entire rotor was shot off the helicopter, causing Turbine to crash.

While Sharpshot got distracted by his comrade's fall, Starscream closed in on the beast-bot, reverted to bot mode and landed on top of him. Sharpshot sunk greatly in altitude by being boarded, but he tried desperately to stay in the air and struggled to shake the Seeker off at the same time. Starscream held on, however, and raised his right hand before punching a hole in the technohawk's back, grabbing hold of several wires and cables and pulling them out. Sparks flew and Energon sprayed from the action. Sharpshot fell silent and started to fall, at which Starscream activated his thrusters to stay in the air before reverting back to jet mode.

As Sharpshot fell dead to the ground, Turbine got back onto his feet, heavily injured but still alive. He turned around as Starscream descended and reverted back to bot mode, aiming for the copter-bot. Barely a second after transforming, Starscream raised his right leg and swept it downward, the large blue talons on his foot slashing across Turbine's chest, throat and abdominal plates. Energon leaked everywhere, Starscream likely having hit a major vein, and soon Turbine fell to the ground, leaking, groaning and seizing, dying a slow and painful death.

"Get him, Shocker!" Roadwheel exclaimed as he entered tank mode.

Starscream looked up from the mess of Turbine and Sharpshot, instead focusing on the blue Shocker who charged in with daggers forward, trying to stab Starscream. Starscream avoided the attacks, but struggled keeping up with Shocker's surprising speed. It had been this bot who had knocked Starscream unconscious back in his own camp, who had caught him off guard and got him captured. He and the other Marauders had underestimated Starscream, and now they were paying for their grave mistake. They had caught the wrong Seeker.

Instead of using his blunt claws unsuitable for battle or reaching for his swords, Starscream opted simply for launching his fists at Shocker. Shocker was also not bad at dodging, meaning neither combatant really hit the other. But at the same time, Shocker did not seem as though he was really taking the fight seriously. Something was off...

"Now!" Roadwheel shouted from a distance.

Shocker jumped out of the way while Starscream looked in direction of Roadwheel and cringed. The tank had his cannon aimed at the Seeker, and a light was charging up in there. The next second, the cannon fired its purple energy blast.

Starscream barely managed to jump out of the way to avoid being blasted to bits. That tank had a lot of firepower. But so did Starscream.

Starscream deployed his null-ray cannons again and aimed them at the tank. It seemed the tank had to recharge before it could launch another of those high-powered blasts. Starscream had to take him down before that.

"Oh no, you don't!"

Before Starscream could charge his own cannons, Shocker appeared from the left and stabbed Starscream in the left upper arm. Starscream shrieked in pain and launched a fist into Shocker's face. This, however, exposed his abdomen, which Shocker proceeded to stab into the right side of with his other dagger.

Starscream screamed in pain and grabbed hold of both arms, pulling them away from his new wounds. It was now a test of strength.

"Don't think I'm gonna let you stun Roadwheel, you dirty Seeker," Shocker snarled as he tried to move the daggers back toward Starscream.

Starscream huffed in pain and weariness. "Who said I was going to stun him?" he hissed. "My null-rays have two modes. Stun, and kill everything."

Shocker seemed a bit taken aback by the response. "Now you're just giving me more reason to keep you at bay."

While Starscream was leaking and trying to keep Shocker at bay, a charging sound reached his audio receptors, causing him to look to the right. Roadwheel was readying another blast!

Scrap, Starscream thought in panic. I'm wounded, outnumbered and about to be hit with a blast that could easily blow me in half.

An idea suddenly popped into his adrenaline-induced mind, and he looked from the tank to Shocker. A very sinister idea, but there was no room for ethics here.

In a swift movement, Starscream bit onto the right dagger, pulled it out of Shocker's grasp, then the other dagger in the same way, and threw them both aside.

"What the..." Shocker said, looking surprised at the action, not having expected the Seeker to disarm him with his mouth.

Starscream then headbutted Shocker, dazing him for a moment so the Seeker could grab hold around the Grounder's arms and torso.

Slightly dizzy himself, Starscream ran towards Roadwheel as he was almost finished charging his cannon, with Shocker in his arms. By the time Shocker finally regained his senses, it was too late.

"Wait, sto-"

Starscream lifted Shocker above his head and shoved him into the large nozzle of Roadwheel's cannon, head first.

Starscream ran off with his hands covering the wounds on his arm and abdomen, before anyone could comprehend what had just happened.

Roadwheel tried to stop his cannon, but there was already too much energy built up in there, and as he reached cover, Starscream watched the cannon inflate and glow with heat and energy.

In the next moment, the cannon exploded, Shocker having been blown to bits, and Roadwheel reverted back to bot mode, though was already seriously injured from the point-blank explosion and could barely move. He just lay on the ground, leaking heavily.

Starscream got out of his cover and sighed of relief. The relief was soon to be over, however, as Drivetrain had finally gotten out of his paralysis and rose to his feet.

"You will not get away with this, you beast," Drivetrain growled, though he stumbled a bit, still feeling the effects of the stun.

Despite his injuries and exhaustion, Starscream pulled his arms away from his wounds, letting the Energon leak from them. He transformed his left arm into a null-ray and pointed the cannon at Drivetrain. He began charging up his cannon in its characteristic pink light, settting it to high power, with the intention of shooting off a blast that would destroy its target, rather than just stunning it.

But Drivetrain was clear enough in the head to know what Starscream was trying to do. Just as Starscream was about to fire the cannon, Drivetrain jumped out of the way. The pink laser was fired from the cannon, brighter than usual, and missed the truck-bot, instead continuing until it hit a tall ruin. The ruin was decimated in a bright, white light with a pinkish tint.

Drivetrain looked in direction of the laser and was probably relieved he got out of the way in time. At least, that's what he thought.

Barely a second after he dodged to his left, Starscream lifted his right arm and pointed it directly at him. Drivetrain cringed. Starscream had deployed his right null-ray without Drivetrain noticing, and charged up shortly after the left cannon. He had intentionally allowed the left laser to miss so he could get his right cannon to get a precise aim and a shot that couldn't miss.

Drivetrain was too taken aback by the second cannon that he failed to dodge the next shot.

The null-ray was fired with as much power, if not more, than the first one. The narrow laser blasted through the truck-bot's chest like it was nothing, and the contact caused Drivetrain's internal organs to blow up, causing an explosion from the inside. Drivetrain fell to the ground, his upper half and lower half blown apart, Energon pooling around him and the organs charred and in pieces. The light disappeared from his optics as his Spark exinguished.

As soon as the bot was dead, Starscream turned off his null-ray and reverted his cannons back into normal arms. He fell together a bit, letting out a sigh. The battle was over. He covered his left arm with his right hand, and the right side of his abdomen with his left hand. He needed medical supplies fast.

Starscream looked around at the bots on the ground. Sharpshot the technohawk was still in beast mode, with his insides torn out through his back. Shocker's body parts were all over the place, blown to bits by the explosion. Drivetrain was on the ground with his top half seperated from his lower half, a massive hole in the middle showing his organs, wires and cables hanging out with Energon in a large pool. Turbine lay on his back with three very deep claw marks from Starscream's talons, an even larger Energon pool underneath him as he had leaked out. Coilspring lay headless still over by the wall Starscream had woken up against. Roadwheel lay by the pile of blackish blue metal and Energon that used to be Shocker. The tank was still alive but couldn't move.

Starscream huffed as he limped over to the pile of weapons, past the dying Roadwheel. He found his two yellow swords and once again removed his hands from his wounds to pick them up. He wasn't done yet.

"D...don't..." Roadwheel groaned as Starscream approached him with the swords in hands. "P-please..."

Starscream didn't say anything. He just stared blankly at Roadwheel below him. Tired, indifferent. Starscream lifted his right sword into the air, and before Roadwheel could utter another word, the Seeker swung down hard, cutting the tank's head off, putting him out of his misery.

Starscream sighed as the deed was done. "Not this scrap again..." he huffed, remembering he had done the exact same thing not even a week ago.

A small sound reached his audio receptors, bringing him back to attention. He looked around the camp. Something was off.

Wait, wasn't there seven of them? he thought anxiously. Wasn't there a Mini-Con with them? Where did he-

A black and purple sphere dashed out from among some boxes in high speed. Starscream reacted quickly and dug his sword into the exact spot where the Cyclone was going. The sphere stopped just in time to not get sliced in half, and the Mini-Con immediately reverted back to bot mode. The Cyclone named Haze leapt away and shrieked.

"Where do you think you're going?" Starscream asked with a snarl, pulling his sword out of the ground and faced full front against the Mini-Con. "Are you going to run away from your comrades? Do you think I will let you?"

Haze held his arms anxiously in front of himself and looked around at his dead comrades. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead, he held forth his hands... and started signing with them.

Starscream paused at the action. "Cybertronian Sign Language?" he remarked. "You know that?"

Haze nodded vigorously. He kept signing. Starscream watched the signs, trying to remember everything he had learned about sign language.

My name is Haze. I am a medic. I fixed you up. I can fix you up again, if you will let me.

Starscream looked down at himself. Aside from the new wounds on his left arm and right side of his abdomen, he now noticed that the wound on the left side of his abdomen, gained from Tinker the Scrapmetal, was gone, as were the other glaring wounds he had kept bandages on for several days now.

Starscream put his swords back on his back, but only so he could cover his new wounds with his hands again, to slow down the leaking.

"I'm not sure I believe you," Starscream said skeptically. "I have never heard of a Cyclone medic."

Haze continued signing. I might be the first one. I am not like the others. I do not like fighting or hurting others or seeing others get hurt. We are not all like that. There are many like me who are trying hard to break the stereotype.

"Then why don't you just speak Cybertronian?" Starscream asked, both curiously and cautiously.

It is not that easy. Speaking Cyclonian has been part of our culture for so long, it is almost impossible for me or anyone else to change. I have no problem with our language, it is merely how you other bots view us that bothers me. I want to be seen as competent, trustworthy, someone who matters.

Haze paused in his signing, apparently waiting for Starscream to say something. Starscream thought about the information given. He hummed and let out a sigh.

"Very well," Starscream said. "If you insist to change, I will let you fix me up."

Haze seemed to brighten by the acceptance. He gestured towards a box, and Starscream walked over to it, sitting down. Haze immediately went to the medical supplies and fetched a blowtorch and bandages. As he got back to Starscream, he gestured for Starscream to remove the hand from his abdomen so he could work. Starscream hesitated for a moment.

"If you try anything funny, I still have enough energy left to slice you in half or blow you to smithereens, you understand?" Starscream warned.

Haze nodded vigorously, understanding very well. Starscream sighed and removed his hand. Haze put the blowtorch against the wound and began working on the wound. Starscream cringed when the flame touched a sensitive spot, and Haze said a noise that was perhaps meant as an apology. He was more careful afterwards, and Starscream barely felt anything.

Starscream felt a bit weird, sitting there, on a box, being fixed up by a stranger whose comrades he had just murdered all of. Brutally, even. He hummed.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" Starscream asked, as Haze seemed to finish with closing the wound on his abdomen. "I just killed all your friends."

Haze paused before applying the bandage and signed. They were not my friends. I joined them because I was alone and helpless, and they let me join them because I am a medic. But they were never nice to me. And yes, I was a bit scared of you, but only because I feared you would kill me in your craze.

Starscream chuckled. "I know you're signing, but you seem a lot smarter than most Cyclones."

That is the stereotype I was talking about before. Because we speak Cyclonian instead of Cybertronian, everybot thinks we are stupid and primitive. That is not how most of us are. There are a few loose screws here and there, but they are in the minority. I am sure not all Seekers are as smart and powerful as you.

"Seekers are not a race," Starscream argued. "It's an occupation. A class. We are air warriors, similar to gladiators being pit fighters. You, on the other hand, are a race. You can't blame us for having prejudices against your race."

Haze frowned at the Seeker's words. You know, that is really offensive. It is always wrong to have prejudices, whether it is against a species, a race, a class or a faction. You got offended when I spoke of Seekers, did you not? There is no difference, a stereotype is a stereotype, and anyone will be offended if you are being rude to the group they belong to.

Starscream's mouth contorted into a thin line, feeling a bit embarrassed about his phrasing. "I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound offensive..."

I forgive you. Just try to think before you speak, okay? Haze then got started on wrapping a bandage around Starscream's abdomen, to keep the wound from getting infected. They were silent while he did that. Starscream thought about what Haze had just told him.

"I... have a hard time knowing when to be quiet," Starscream said as Haze was about finished with the bandage. "I sometimes end up saying things without thinking. And very often I end up offending someone without knowing it. Sometimes they tell me, and sometimes they don't. And then I will go, having offended someone and I don't feel bad about it. It's been like this my whole life. And bots keep asking me what's wrong with me. I don't think there's anything wrong with me. Is there?"

Haze took a moment to think before he signed again. There are some bots that think differently than others. They are often considered weird and strange and not worth the same as normal bots. But I do not agree with that. I have a friend who is just like you, never knows when to shut up, rash, restless, rude, never thinks before he says or does something. He does not have a lot of friends.

Starscream sighed. "I've never really had any friends in my life either," he admitted, without knowing why. "Only Jetfire. But now I left him, and the others. And now I'm all alone. Like you."

Starscream felt a hand on his leg and looked back at Haze as he continued signing.

But I also know of other bots like you and my friend, who have all turned out with great lives, jobs and high positions. I mean, you used to be a leader, right? If bots knew what you are going through, what you have been going through your whole life, they might respect you more. And bots that think the same way you do might get inspired by your success to aim for success themselves.

"I'm not sure what other bots you're talking about," Starscream replied. "I have never seen a psychiatrist before. I don't know what I am or what I am supposed to be classified as. And I don't care. I have never needed to find out. I have never had a problem with myself. Only other bots have a problem with me. But that's their loss, not mine. Jetfire accepted me for who I am, and I don't need anyone else. I didn't need anyone else..."

Starscream fell silent. Haze decided not to respond right away. Instead, he gestured for Starscream to remove his other hand from the wound on his arm so he could work the blowtorch on it. They were silent for several minutes, the only sound coming from the faint roar of the blowtorch, melting the metal around the wound and slowly closing it.

When Haze finished blowtorching and started wrapping a bandage around the arm, Starscream looked back down at the dark Mini-Con.

"You know, you're not such a bad bot, Haze," Starscream said, letting just a faint smile on his face.

Haze looked back up at the Seeker and smiled back with his sharp Cyclone teeth, but didn't sign right away, first finishing the bandage. As it was all wrapped up and tied together, he took a step back and observed his work, then turned back to Starscream and began signing again.

You do not seem to be so bad yourself either, Starscream. Even though you... just killed the bots I was living with.

"You captured me, raided my camp and brought me here against my will. Where are we, anyway?"

We are still in the same city we found you in, if that is what you are wondering about.

"We are?" Starscream replied surprised.

Yes, you were only out for about six hours. It is dawn now, see?

Starscream looked up. The sky was starting to get brighter. The sun was about to rise.

"You're right," he replied. He looked back down at the Mini-Con. There was a moment of silence between them. Haze broke it... sort of. Signing was silent, after all.

Can I... come with you? Haze smiled nervously.

Starscream felt a rush in his tanks at the question. Memories of Paralax, Tinker and the others rushed through his mind, followed by their betrayal and immediate demise. He shook his head and sighed.

"I'm sorry," he replied. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Haze's smile faded from his face. Why not? Is it-

"I have... trust issues," Starscream interrupted the signing. "I was just recently betrayed by my so-called 'friends'. I'm not... I'm not ready yet to be with other bots. I'm sorry."

Haze seemed disappointed in the answer, but then forced a smile on his face. I understand. It was nice talking to you, at least. But are you really going to be okay alone out here? You had so many wounds before I fixed you up.

"I will be fine, Haze," Starscream assured. "You go and find a new group to be with. Or, if you are not against the factions, try convince either of them to take you in. I have heard the Decepticons are not very judgmental... though the Autobots might be less violent. I'm not sure, I've never been either myself. Actually, you are probably better off on your own, or with a neutral group."

Haze gazed uncertain between Starscream and the ruins.

"You will be okay, Haze," Starscream assured. "Just tell whoever you find that you are medic, and they will take you in. Medics are scarce these days, and very much needed. Just tell them before they kill you."

Haze nodded understandingly. That is what I have been doing this whole time.

Starscream stepped back. "Well, it was nice knowing you. Now take off before I change my mind about you."

Haze looked a bit confused at Starscream. Considering the conversation they just had, he couldn't really take Starscream's 'threat' seriously, but he knew he had to go. Haze nodded slowly and reverted to sphere mode. The black and purple sphere quickly darted out from the camp, into the ruins and disappeared into the dawning morning.

Starscream sighed and looked around the camp, at all the stuff the Marauders had stolen, from him and other bots. He had a lot of cleaning up to do.

---

Starscream took his time searching around the camp for everything the Marauders had owned, whether stolen or not. They were all dead now, so they didn't need it anymore, which technically made everything here his. And they had quite a lot of stuff; weapons, explosives, datapads, Energon, edible metal, armor plating, medical supplies, canned oil and even a rotary buffer. Starscream looked down at himself. While most of his wounds were healed, his armor was beginning to get a bit dull and full of dents. Perhaps some oil and buffing would be good for his plating.

However, at the moment, he had nowhere to put all these new things of his. His own camp had been discovered, which meant it could be discovered again, and this scenario could take place again. This camp was also too exposed for him to settle into. He needed to find a new place to stay, which didn't fall well with him. So he took his time to organize everything in the camp, then decide which of these things were most important.

Starscream decided to put the medical supplies in his cockpit first, along with a single Energon cube. The datapads were not important for his survival, and he already had weapons of his own - although he had almost lost his swords and didn't have anything to compensate for it. The talons on his feet barely made for a good replacement, and the claws on his hands were too blunt to be used as weapons.

"There's no excuse to delay it any longer," Starscream said to himself as he packed his cockpit. "I need to sharpen my claws and let them grow longer. Maybe more metal consumption will do the trick."

The oil and buffer were mere luxuries, also not vital, but definitely something he wanted very much. The Cybertronian body did work more smoothly if lubricated well with oil, and he had heard that shiny, smooth armor made for quicker movement and faster travelling than dull, dented armor. He wasn't sure if it was true, as he had applied it to himself most of his life. Perhaps now that he had been living without it for some time, he would be able to notice a difference. If he managed to get the polishing gear with him, that was.

As for the alloygator remains, the metalo-fruits and meshetables, he could always get that another time, from the plants and wildlife. But Energon was an absolute necessity for survival, and medical supplies were obviously utmost important to make sure his wounds healed and he didn't get any infections.

As Starscream stuffed his cockpit with the most vital items, he reverted to jet mode and scouted the city ruins from the sky. He wanted to make sure that it was indeed the same city his own camp was located in, and that Haze hadn't been lying to him. He needed to know where he was, so he could figure out where to go from there.

Eventually he recognized the small ruin that used to shelter him. He descended, landed, returned to bot mode, and took a look around. The camp itself was surprisingly intact despite the ambush and raid, though a few boxes had been knocked over, as well as a single broken datapad lying on the ground in front of the shelter. Starscream knelt down and picked it up to inspect it. It wouldn't turn on, so he didn't know which one it was.

He rose up and looked around again. Then something caught his attention within the shelter itself. One of the boxes stacked inside had been knocked slightly to the side, and now Starscream could see something was under it. Something out of place.

Starscream went over to the heavy boxes and shoved them aside, until the entire floor inside was visible. In the middle of the floor was a large dark square, which seemed to be some kind of hatch with some engravings on it.

"There's a basement here?" Starscream remarked at the hatch. "What could be down there?"

He knelt down to investigate it further, and blew away dust that had settled onto the main part of the hatch that hadn't been covered by boxes. Now the engravings became more clear, and the metal became darker. Starscream knocked on the hatch with loud, deep clangs. It seemed to be durabyllium, the hardest metal alloy to exist. Already there Starscream felt suspicious.

"A basement hatch made of durabyllium? Must be something important down there. But how to open it...?"

As he inspected the hatch further, he saw a small circular hollow with an hourglass marking inside. That must be the key to open the hatch, he assumed. But where could the key be? Somewhere in the area, perhaps?

Starscream mentally imprinted the image of the marking in his processor before getting up and searching the camp for something with the same marking. He searched the area within a ten mechanometer radius of the small shelter for an hour or two before he found something. But it wasn't a key.

It was a ring. A small, dark ring with a round, flat socket. As he looked closer, the socket had an hourglass marking similar to the one on the hatch. Starscream hummed and returned to the shelter, knelt down and looked between the ring and the keyhole. Indeed, the markings were identical, even the size of the circles.

"A bit unconventional key, but alright," Starscream commented and turned the ring so it was mirroring the keyhole. Only, he found it didn't really fit.

Starscream hummed and pulled the ring away from the hole, examining them further. They had the same size in the circles, the hourglass markings were the same size and shape, completely identical. What could be wrong?

He looked closer at the ring, first from the front, then from the side. He noticed something strange and zoomed in on the hourglass marking, just barely visible from behind the circular wall. One end of the hourglass seemed to be just about a millimeter shorter and askew to the other end. Starscream hummed yet again and looked closer at the keyhole on the hatch. He laid his head on the side for a better look. While difficult to see, he could just barely make out with his zoomed-in vision that the top half of the hourglass was just a millimeter shorter than the bottom half. It was just different enough that putting the ring in on the wrong end wouldn't fit.

Starscream sighed and rose back up, looked closely at the ring and turned it so the taller half of the hourglass was facing up, then inserted the ring once again into the keyhole. This time the ring fit right in, making a small click sound.

"Why does it have to be so precise?" Starscream muttered in wonder.

Despite the click, nothing else happened, so Starscream tried to turn the ring in place. But it wouldn't budge even a nanometer. Starscream scratched his head in confusion. The key fit, but it still wouldn't unlock the hatch? What else could be wrong?

Taking another look at the hatch, particularly at the keyhole, he noticed it wasn't just a circular hollow; now that the ring was in, he noticed there were other, larger hollows surrounding the circle, four rectangles on the vertical side, the second left containing the ring. These hollows were slightly shallower than the ring hollow, and the right-most rectangle seemed to be slightly shorter than the others.

"This almost looks like... a fist," Starscream remarked after looking at it for a while. "A ring on a fist. I suppose that makes sense. So I'm supposed to insert the ring while it's on my fist? And apparently it has to be the right fist, if the small finger is anything to judge by. Well, okay then..."

Starscream removed the ring from the hollow, making sure not to accidentally turn it the wrong way, and then put it on his middle digit, so it would face the right way when he put his clenched fist down on the hatch.

Starscream's fist only just fit the hollow. Not perfectly, as the rectangles were sharp and his digits were a bit rounded, but apparently the exact shape of the fist wasn't too important, for as he pushed against the hole, another click sounded. Even then, nothing new happened. Starscream waited a whole minute, but nothing happened.

"Okay, obviously it wants me to turn the key," Starscream deduced. "It might be a bit difficult with my fist in, but I will give it a try."

He tried turning it right, but as soon as he made a quarter of a circle, the ring suddenly returned to its default position, followed by a low buzz and a mild electric shock going from the ring through Starscream's arm. He let out a yelp and pulled his hand away.

"What the frag," he exclaimed as he sat a mechanometer away from the strange hatch. "The lock is electrified?! Who designed this thing? What could be so important down there that the lock is this complex?"

Starscream shook his head to clear his thoughts and returned to the hatch. It had been a mild shock, not enough to damage him, but it was unpleasant enough to deter any sane, normal bots from trying again. But Starscream was not a normal bot. He was only even more curious to know what was hidden behind the hatch.

"So if I make a mistake in the unlocking mechanism, the door will shock me. Fine, give me your best shock."

Determined to find out what the hatch was hiding, Starscream reinserted his fist with the ring into the keyhole. The click sounded, and he thought. Since turning right was wrong, he had to go left, obviously. He turned his fist the left way and held his breath in suspense. As he reached the quarter circle, a click sounded, and no electric shock hit him. Starscream exhaled in relief and smiled. He was doing it right. But it didn't seem to be unlocked yet, so he had to continue.

He continued downward in the left direction, but as he reached the half circle, a deep buzz sounded and the ring reset swiftly and suddenly. Another electric shock hit Starscream as a punishment for error, but this one was notably harder than the first one. The first one had been a warning, just a little more unpleasant than a static electric shock. This one actually hurt, and Starscream let out a yelp in pain. It didn't last for more than a second, however, and he didn't feel as if anything was damaged.

"Well, this is interesting," he hissed lowly. "So every time I make a mistake, the voltage gets higher? What kind of bot would be so crazy to make this kind of system?"

Without removing his fist this time, Starscream remained in his knee-sitting position and thought a bit harder before trying again. If the voltage got higher for every mistake he made, this could get pretty dangerous. He had to be very precise in solving this strange and a bit bizarre puzzle.

"You will not keep me out, whoever you are," Starscream said to the hatch. "I will get you open and see what you're hiding from me. Let's see, a quarter to the left seemed to be correct, but continuing left was wrong. Which must mean I have to go right then. Very well, I shall try it out."

He took a deep breath and restarted the unlocking mechanism. First he turned his fist 90 degrees to the left. As soon as the click sounded, he turned his fist back in the right direction. As it hit the top part of the circle, another click sounded, as expected. But now he was uncertain how to continue. Should he continue toward the right, or should he go back to the left?

Before continuing, Starscream looked around the hatch again, to see if there was any clue he might have missed. At the top middle of the hatch he noticed three circles, a big one in the middle with two smaller circles to the right and left. There was nothing else to see on the hatch, and the circles didn't provide much information.

"Screw it, I'll figure this out by myself," Starscream said and decided to turn his fist back in the left direction.

As soon as it hit the quarter left circle, the ring reset back to its original position with a low buzz and a shock to Starscream's frame. This time it lasted for two seconds and was even stronger than the previous shock. Starscream shrieked in pain and rattled as the shock disappeared. He felt sore in his arm and blinked several times, his optics almost malfunctioning. He had not expected the power of the voltage to be raised to such high levels so quickly, as it was only the third shock.

"I will kill whoever came up with this..." he hissed as he got his senses back together. "This... death thing." He snarled and shook his head to clear his thoughts and focus on the task at hand. This was starting to get dangerous real fast. Who knew how strong the next shock would be? Who knew if he could actually survive the next one?

"Why am I doing this," he said to himself, more as a complain than as a question. "This is a really bad idea. But... I must see what's down there!"

Steadfast and determined, Starscream made another attempt to unlock the hatch. Whatever was in the basement must have been very important for the owner to have constructed such a complex and dangerous unlocking mechanism. They were trying to hide something, something very important.

Starscream did as he had done before, first ninety degrees to the left, then 90 degrees to the right, hearing both clicks. Since going to the left was wrong, he decided to go another 90 degrees to the right, going an entire 180 degrees right, half a circle, and heard a click.

"Ninety degrees to the left, one hundred and eighty degrees to the right," he noted. "Is there a pattern? Or should I keep going?"

Letting out a nervous huff and holding his breath, Starscream decided to continue with another 90 degrees to the right.

The ring reset. A low buzz sounded. And an immense shock ran through Starscream's body.

One moment he felt a massive shock of pain for five whole seconds, the next moment he found himself lying on the ground, the sky having turned from light to dark. He had passed out. The shock had been so great that he had been unconscious for hours. He still felt numb several places and couldn't move right away. He couldn't even open his mouth. He felt a burning sensation from within, and he could smell a scent of smoke.

Four shocks in and I was knocked unconscious, Starscream thought, about the only thing his tired self could still do at the moment. If I make another mistake, I might die. Maybe I should just give up and find another place to live in...

After about ten wake minutes of lying immobile on the ground, Starscream finally felt himself able to move his fingers and face again. After a few more minutes, he could move his arms, his right arm having pulled itself loose from the keyhole in reaction of the shock. He tried lifting himself up, but his right arm had been more weakened than his left, and he slipped back onto the ground. After a few more minutes he tried again, this time managing to lift his upper body from the ground, though still sitting wobbly and dizzy up, barely able to keep his eyes open.

Starscream shook his head to clear his thoughts. As dangerous as this was getting, he still wanted to find out what was under the basement. But he had already made four mistakes. A fifth one could kill him. It seemed a bot only had five attempts to get the door unlocked. A very morbid punishment for intrusion.

"Not like I have anything to lose anyway," Starscream sighed. "Vos is gone, I'm no Winglord anymore, I left my Seekers and abandoned my post as Sky Commander, I have no allies and live out here all alone. If I die... no one will miss me... No one will remember me..."

Well, perhaps except for Haze. If he survived, that was. Despite being a medic, the Mini-Con probably didn't have greater chances of survival than Starscream himself.

Starscream looked back at the keyhole and tried to remember what he had done before.

"Ninety degrees left... one hundred and eighty degrees to the right," he listed. "Going further right triggered a shock. Which means I have to go back left. But with how much? I can't afford to make another mistake or I might die."

Starscream thought about the numbers he had so far. 90 and 180. A circle. There must be a pattern somewhere.

Starscream's gaze went to the sky, which had turned black and was full of stars. He could just barely see the two moons shining their light down on him.

Starscream stiffened. A thought suddenly popped into his mind. He looked down at the hatch, specifically at the three circles engraved in the top middle. He looked back at the twin moons, then back at the circles.

"A large circle and two smaller ones," he muttered in thought. "They almost look like... a planet and two moons."

He looked back down at the circular keyhole and thought about the numbers used in the unlocking mechanism.

"A planet and two moons... a circular keyhole... ninety degrees left and one hundred degrees right..." After a moment, an idea popped into his mind. "Ninety and one hundred and eighty... they're the quarter and the half of a circle. First a quarter circle, then a half circle... does this mean I have to make a full circle?"

He looked back at the moons. "A quarter circle and half a circle are like smaller circles... like those on the drawing, and like the moons. If the small circles represent the moons, does that mean the big circle represents... the planet itself?"

It was still uncertain whether a full circle was what was needed though, and he couldn't afford to make another mistake. It was all or nothing now.

Taking a deep breath, Starscream went back in kneeling position and inserted his right fist with the ring into the keyhole, hearing the first click. Rather than being nervous, he felt calm now. He knew what to do now. He was certain his thought process was the correct one.

Starscream began the unlocking mechanism. He turned the ring 90 degrees to the left. "Hecate..." he whispered.

As he heard the click, he turned his fist back 180 degrees to the right and heard the two next clicks. "Artemis..." he whispered again.

Now was the moment of truth. The point of no return. If his theory was incorrect, this next action would be the death of him for sure. He would not be able to take another of those high voltage shocks, let alone an even stronger one. This next shock would be fatal. It was all or nothing.

Taking a deep breath and then holding it, Starscream made his decision and began turning his fist to the left. First 90 degrees... a click. Then another 90 degrees... another click.

Starscream felt a droplet of lubricate graze down the side of his face as he strained his fist to go another 90 degrees to the left, a whole 270 degrees in the left direction. Having flexible and somewhat magnetic joints was one of the good things about being a Cybertronian, but even that had limitations.

Another click sounded at the 270 degree mark, and Starscream let out a sigh of relief. Just one more quarter to go. And then he would either have unlocked the hatch... or die trying.

Starscream took another deep breath. "C-Cybertron..." he whispered and turned his fist another 90 degrees to the left, going 360 degrees left and straining his arm more than was considered normal.

He hit the 360 degree mark...

...and heard a click.

The ring turned back to its default position in the right direction.

Starscream cringed at the result and felt a rush in his tanks. Had he made a mistake? Would he get shock-

As soon as the ring returned to the top, another click sounded.

The keyhole ejected the ring and Starscream's fist.

A rumble sounded, and Starscream watched as the hatch began sliding into the floor away from him, presenting a flight of stairs leading into a dark basement.

Starscream felt his Spark racing fast, still getting over the shock... multiple shocks, as well as the surprise that he survived his final attempt to open the basement.

"I did it," he whispered and let out a laughter. "I did it! I survived! I unlocked the thing! Now to find out what's down there!"

His energy renewed by his success, Starscream got back on his feet and began descending into the dark basement. As he reached a certain point below the floor, the hatch suddenly began sliding back into place, covering the entire room in darkness. Starscream looked back in the direction the door was, until it closed and enveloped him in blackness. No turning back now, apparently.

Starscream moved on down the stairs, until he hit the floor. As he took a few steps forward, lights suddenly turned on by themselves on the ceiling, only slightly lighting his path through a long hallway. He walked on until he found a door on the left wall, and stopped in front of it. It had a sign above it. Most of it was faded, but he could somewhat make out the word 'Helix'.

"Helix, as in the city or a name?" Starscream wondered. "Must be a name. Otherwise this is spelled wrong. But if not, then these ruins must be the former Helex. Perhaps I will find out if I enter."

There was no handle or other normal way to get in through the door. It did not take long for Starscream to notice a panel to the left of the door, however. It had the same hourglass pattern inside a circle as on the ring, though this time without the additional fist hole. Starscream decided to keep the ring on though, as he put it against the panel. This time, a red light appeared and seemed to run up and down the ring before turning green and emitted a light beep. The door opened up.

Starscream stepped inside the dark room. As soon as he did, automatic lights turned on, enveloping the entire room in bright light, unlike the dim ones in the hallway.

It was a lab. And it was a huge lab. But at first it didn't look like a lab, as Starscream noticed dozens, scores of potted metalo-trees lining up the walls and most of the floor, as well as several of the lab tables being covered by small pots containing metalo-plants in them. All the plants seemed to be dull, leafless and dead.

"This lab must have been abandoned for quite some time," Starscream remarked as he wandered the lab. On the first table he approached, just by the door, he found a datapad and turned it on. It only had one page, with three rotated arrows going left, right and left. Within the arrows was the text '90°', '180°' and '360°' respectively, and under the three numbers were the names Hecate, Artemis and Cybertron.

"This must be the code for the door topside," Starscream deduced, having just learned that. "Would have been nice to have this when I actually needed it, so I didn't have to risk my life for this. What else is down here?"

Starscream put down the datapad and took a look around the lab. Other than the many, many metalo-plants, there were also some empty tables in the middle and by the walls, several cabinets filled with all sorts of chemicals, glass tools and containers, datapads in many rows and piles, devices placed here and there, most of them with a datapad lying right next to them.

Other than this one lab, Starscream could also see two doors in the right end of the lab, and another two doors in the left end of the lab. He decided to check out the doors to the right first.

Starscream opened the door on the right first. Inside was a small room with several cages, as well as two datapads on a table. He turned one of them on to check its contents. It was a list of subjects with numbers and letters, and a status to the right saying 'deceased' all the way down.

He turned the datapad off and turned on the other one. This one seemed to be more of a journal, describing the various 'subjects' and their statuses throughout specific periods of time, what they had been fed on and what had been done to them. It was too long for Starscream to get focused on, however, so he quickly turned it off again and put it down to check out the rest of the lab.

He left the small room and entered the one next to it. This room was larger and had a large pile of empty Energon cubes.

"Looks like whoever lived down here had plenty of Energon to go on," he deduced. "I wonder if they decided to hunker down here or if they went out for more..."

Not finding any datapads in this room, Starscream decided to leave it, close the door and walk down through the long, huge lab to the other end of the room. He noticed on one of the lab tables a visor and mouth mask, as well as a datapad next to it. The visor was red and the mask a regular gray color. Looking at another table, he saw a device he had no idea what was, which also had a datapad lying next to it. Perhaps the datapads lying around were instruction manuals or something.

As he reached the other end of the room, he started by opening the door to the right like in the other end. Another big room, though this time it wasn't a storage room, instead having rows of monitors and computers, as well as a big screen in the center serving as the main monitor, probably. There was a datapad lying on a table next to the door, and Starscream opened it. It was an instruction manual on how to operate the computers and how to access the Grid.

"Like I don't know how to go on the Grid," Starscream muttered insulted and turned off the datapad. He would look at it later. Maybe.

Starscream left the room and closed the door before moving to the last door. He opened it and stepped inside what appeared to be a closet for equipment. He stopped and cringed at the sight that met him.

On the floor, leaned up against the back wall, sat a bot. A dead bot. He was small, sleek, a Grounder for certain, having no apparent wings or rotors anywhere. Starscream could barely spot any hidden wheels on him. He was grayed out, suggesting he had been dead for quite some time, though he didn't have any rust on him, suggesting otherwise. What he did have, however, were large patches of black several places on his frame, which seemed as if it used to be blue and orange, but it was hard to determine with the grayness. His optics, though blackened, seemed to have used to be purple or pink. The optics were large and round like goggles, and the head was shaped into a sort of crown with two small spikes at the front and an additional spike to each side of the head. His body-type was pretty generic for a light Grounder, without many defining features.

On the floor next to the Grounder lay a strange device that looked like a vacuum of some sort. This one also had a datapad lying next to it. Starscream knelt down and picked up the datapad, turning it on. It was indeed an instruction manual, for what was indeed a vacuum device. It mentioned something with impurity and air.

"Who are you?" Starscream said quietly to the dead bot as he turned off the datapad and put it back on the floor. "What happened to you?"

Starscream rose up again, not wanting to touch the bot in case whatever had killed him was contagious, since there were no visible wounds on him. He looked around the small closet and found a small table with, not a datapad, but instead an audio log on it. He turned it on and examined it.

"'Professor Helix' log'," Starscream read aloud. "Sixty-five entries. Wow. So your name is Professor Helix, I suppose?" He looked between the dead bot and the audio log. "Perhaps this will tell me what happened here."

Starscream set the audio log to play entry number one. A scratchy but still clear voice sounded from the log.

"Entry number one. Solar cycle 1, orbital cycle 1, lunar cycle 1, stellar cycle 1. My name is Professor Helix of Vos University. Today, disaster has hit Vos."

Starscream felt a rush in his tanks and stiffened. "Vos?" he repeated, but silenced as Helix continued.

"I was conducting an experiment in my personal lab in the basement when a great explosion happened above ground. The tremor made me fall over and hit my head against one of the counters, knocking me unconscious. After an uncertain amount of time, I finally awoke, and everything was quiet. I left the basement and found my entire house gone - along with the rest of Vos City. I could see only smoldering ruins, raging flames and single bots darting through the sky, screaming while desperately trying to get away from the fire."

Starscream stared at the dead bot. "This is Vos? I've... been in Vos this whole time...?"

As Helix continued on the log, Starscream returned his attention to the machine.

"I immediately returned to my lab and firmly shut the door. I did not wish for any of my specimens to get damaged. For it is extremely important research I am running here. I am trying to find a way to save the metalo-plants of our world. For they are in deep decline, and it only gets worse as the years pass."

Starscream perked at the mention of metalo-plants, now looking out into the lab at the many rows of trees and smaller plants. At least that explained why there were so many of them in the lab.

"The war has been going on for millions of years now, and there's no indication that it's going to stop anytime soon. It seems Vos has been hit by the war as well. After returning to my lab, I tried to access the Grid to find out why Vos was bombed. It would appear a mysterious missile hit the city shortly after Tarn was bombed. There are rumors going on that Winglord Starscream and Lord Shockwave of Tarn have something to do with this."

Starscream perked at the mention of his name and Shockwave's name. Memories of the long discussions with Shockwave ran through his mind, and memories of the Seekers bombing specific areas of Tarn also presented itself in his mind. Followed by the destruction of Vos, which he had not seen personally himself, but which he had seen the aftermath of, shortly before leaving for Trypticon Station with the rest of the Seekers.

"I personally do not care who's responsible for this city's destruction. In fact, I am only glad it happened."

Starscream frowned at Helix' dead body at the notion. How dare he think the destruction of Vos was a good thing! He soon continued:

"Hopefully the destruction of Vos will reduce the amount of waste found in the surrounding Energon deposits. I am only glad that my lab is reinforced with durabyllium. Had it not been, I would have been a goner. Though my situation is not looking so good either. For while I am Vosian, I am but a simple Grounder, and thus Energon gathering will be a hard, may I even say an impossible task."

Starscream's anger subsided as Helix continued talking. He couldn't imagine how hard his current lifestyle might have been if he had been forged a Grounder instead of a Flier. The mention of waste in Energon also caught his attention.

"The good news is, I still have plenty of Energon here in my lab, normally used for experiments. But now, it seems I must conserve my Energon for the time being, until I can figure something out. It is recommended to consume one whole standard Energon cube once per week, but I know Cybertronians can go longer without. Months, even years. Though this requires stasis lock, and I have no time to go into stasis. I must continue my research, for the future of all of Cybertron. For now, I will wait with my next refuelling until next month. Until then, I shall work."

The entry ended there. Starscream hummed at the information gained.

"So I'm in Vos City," he concluded. "All this time, I've been in Vos without knowing. How could I not have recognized my own city? Is it really so destroyed that even I, its former Winglord, could not recognize it anymore? And this bot, Helix, he was the only one who stayed behind? How long did he live? Maybe I will know if I play the next entry..."

Starscream set the log to play entry number two and listened. This entry was recorded a month after the first one.

"Entry number two. Solar cycle 31, orbital cycle 5, lunar cycle 2, stellar cycle 1. Today I refuelled for the first time in a month."

Starscream hummed at the information. "That must have been hard," he commented.

"It was very hard," Helix' voice sounded on the log, almost as if replying to Starscream's comment, taking the Seeker slightly by surprise, "but I managed to resist the temptation for thirty solar cycles. I do not think I could have handled going another month without Energon. It seems appropriate then that I refuel once a month. That should leave me functional for another five years. Not a lot of time, given my research. But my life is hardly more important than the future of Cybertron. If I am to only live for another five years, then I shall work to the best of my abilities, and nothing shall distract me or deter me."

Starscream scoffed and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. "You could just go to the osmium forest and get more Energon," he commented. "Well, if you knew about it, I guess. You probably didn't."

"In the course of the first month since Vos' destruction, it seems the Seekers have left Cybertron and been posted on an orbital space station known as Trypticon. I do not know what kind of place Trypticon Station is, but I have heard rumors over the Grid that a substance known as "Dark Energon" is produced there. Again, I do not know what this Dark Energon is, but it does not sound good."

"You have no idea," Starscream commented. Helix continued:

"Regardless of what Trypticon or Dark Energon are, or what Starscream has decided to do now that his dear city is gone, I will not get involved in any business going on outside. I only left my lab once this month, about a week ago, just to see what the situation is out there. It would seem the entire city has become void of life now. Not even a single mechanimal pet or Flier in the sky did I see."

Starscream hummed again. "So you were the only one to stay behind and survive," he commented. "Well, for a while, anyway."

"I collected as many samples of dead Vosians, domesticated mechanimals and metalo-plants as I could find. Things aren't looking good, from what I found in their CNA. The pollution from the Energon deposits surrounding the cities are having an effect on the residents of the cities. Even if they do not consume it, the particles in the air from evaporated Energon contain these toxins, and the Cybertronians are inhaling them in their ventilation systems without knowing it."

Starscream perked to attention at that and cringed. "Toxins? In the air? What-" He silenced as Helix continued speaking.

"The effect does not take place right away, as the dosages of these toxins in the gas are small, but over time, the bots will be weakened and need more Energon to survive, as the toxins drain them of energy, little by little. And refining the polluted Energon of the cities doesn't make things better. The Energon itself may be safe to consume, but the toxic waste product from the refining process... it is destructive, to say the least. Even more so than when it was connected to the Energon itself. I fear the power of the toxic waste may soon be discovered, and in the hands of madmechs like Megatron, it would become a nightmarish bio-weapon."

Starscream felt himself shudder a bit by the information. One of the things he had heard of the Decepticons doing was using something called 'Tox-En', a weapon created from the waste product of refining crude Energon. The Toxic Energon was no news to him, and he knew of the devastating effects crude Energon had on bots before it was refined. Bots could die within minutes of contact, sometimes even seconds, and Toxic Energon was all concentrated poison, one hundred percent lethal upon contact.

But the toxins being in the air was new to Starscream. He did not know about that, as Helix said in his log. Helix continued:

"This contamination in the Energon isn't just within the residents of the cities. It is within all of us, including me. Only time may tell when the toxicity will take me down as well. I must conduct further research to find out if anything can be done about the toxicity in a specimen already poisoned. It will be most important for everyone's future, both Cybertronians and Cybertron itself."

The entry ended there. Starscream was left with a feeling of foreboding.

"Pollution is not just in the Energon," he repeated. "It's in the air and even in ourselves. Even in me?"

Starscream looked at the entire log again. There were sixty-five entries. He did not have enough time to go through all of them right away. He could listen to them all later, but for now he just wanted to know what happened to Professor Helix. As such, he tapped forward until he was on the last entry, five years and two months after the second entry.

"Entry number... sixty-five... Solar cycle... 1893... orbital cycle... 4... lunar cycle... 4... stellar cycle... 6..."

Starscream cocked a brow. Helix sounded very weak. Every word was slow and strained, as if he was just about out of energy, which he likely was, considering it was his last entry.

"I... cannot... do this... anymore... My strength... is slipping... My consciousness... is fading... I have made... much progress... over the last five years... but it is... not enough... I still haven't... collected the specimens... needed..."

"Specimens?" Starscream commented. Helix continued, still strained.

"I need... someone to... take over for me... Whoever is out there... listening... please... help me. I don't have long... so I will make this quick. I have locked... the door. The key... is outside somewhere... waiting for someone... to find it."

Starscream pouted at the dead bot. "So you're the one who made this death trap, huh?" He silenced as Helix continued.

"The lab is made... of durabyllium. Nothing... will penetrate it. Only... the key will open... the lab. The lab... is sterile. This room... is safe to stay in. You must continue my... research... in my stead. You must... help save Cybertron... in the long run."

Starscream's pout disappeared. "Wait... what?"

"Find and collect as many... specimens of... metalo-plants and... mechanimals as you can... Keep the CNA samples... safe. The small cubes will do. As will... the larger ones."

Starscream let his arms fall to his sides and stepped off the wall. "No, wait, I can't... I'm not a scientist, I don't..."

"If you are a scientist... please, do what you can... to continue my research... If you are not a scientist... learn. There are datapads in the shelves... which will teach you what you need... to know..."

Starscream looked uncertain between Helix and the log. "I'm not... the right one for this... There has to be someone else... Someone good..."

"I do not care... if you are a good bot, or bad... just please... have some consideration for our planet... Use my log for your own research... if you skipped ahead to the last entry... I bet you did... after all, sixty-five entries is a lot... heheh..."

Starscream fell silent. It was as if Helix knew what he was going to say, even with more than a thousand years between them. Now the Seeker just listened to the rest of the dying bot's log.

"Remember me or forget me... I do not care. All I care about... is that Cybertron will still be there... when I return from the Well of All Sparks... Use my knowledge... and use it to expand your own... Make your own discoveries... and do what I could not... find a solution to our predicament... Do not let the Autobots... and Decepticons... destroy Cybertron. Be the hero... that no one will notice. The hero... who will save us all..."

Starscream straightened up and stared at Helix, thinking about the words the living one was delivering through the log.

"A true hero does not care for fame... and a true scientist does not care for Shanix... and a true Cybertronian does not give up... I give you my legacy, stranger... May you use it well..."

Starscream didn't know what to think about this. He had just found this lab by coincidence, and now suddenly he had been given a mission by a dead bot. He didn't think for long before Helix continued, struggling even more to speak than before.

"My time... has come... I cannot... hold on... any longer..."

Starscream stared at Helix, imagining the live one getting weaker and losing his grasp on life.

"I will now... join with the AllSpark... and hope... for the future..."

There was a long pause before Helix uttered his final words:

"'Til all... are one..."

Ten seconds passed in silence. Then there was a click. And the entry ended, along with the log.

Starscream stared a while longer at Helix on the floor. He had died alone in this room, in this very lab. No one knew he had been down here. No one remembered him. No one probably knew him any longer. Starscream had never heard of this bot before. No one remembered him after he died.

Except now he had been discovered by Starscream. His lab had been found, and his research uncovered. Whatever that research was.

"You have waited long enough, citizen," Starscream said and walked over to Helix, then scooped him up under the arms and legs. He was less than half Starscream's size, probably well under a head shorter than him.

Starscream carried Helix out of the room. This bot had stayed in his lab for over a thousand years. Now it was time to put his body to rest.

As he walked through the main lab, Starscream passed one of the strange devices he didn't know what was. Curiosity got the better of him, and he laid down Helix on an empty table to check out the device.

He turned on the datapad lying next to it. It was an instructions manual, and the device was dubbed 'contaminometer'.

"Quite a mouthful," Starscream commented and read through it.

There were two pages, one being instructions on how to use the device, and the other being a list of 'toxin levels', apparently. On the instruction page, apparently you could check your own toxin levels by offering just a drop of your own Energon to the socket in the contaminometer. It would then scan the Energon and after a minute it would tell you how toxic you were.

Starscream hummed and shrugged. "Suppose there's no harm in finding out," he muttered.

Starscream turned on the contaminometer, using the instructions. He bit onto the tip of his right thumb until it leaked. He then placed the thumb into the socket on the device, keeping it there until it started scanning, in which after he removed his thumb.

While waiting for the scan to finish, Starscream looked around more at the lab. The many metalo-plants might have been part of some experiments, though for what Starscream didn't know. Helix had mentioned saving the metalo-plants of Cybertron, the mechanimals, as well as something about pollution. Were those things tied together? He suddenly remembered the cages in the other end of the room. There must have been mechanimal specimens in there. Had they been part of his experiments too somehow? Had it been something to do with pollution?

The contaminometer emitted five small beeps, signalling it was done analyzing his Energon. Starscream looked back at the small screen on the device.

"Sixty-four percent," Starscream read aloud. "Sounds a bit high. I wonder what it means."

Starscream referred to the datapad and flipped to the page with a list of percentages. There were percentages ranging from 10 percent all the way up to 100 percent. The lowest percentage was at the bottom, and the highest, 100 percent, being at the top. Next to the percentages were text, describing how bad the toxicity was in each percentage.

Starscream looked down until he reached the interval 60-70 percent. He noticed there was a line between 10 and 20, 20 and 30, and between 40 and 50 percent. At the bottom line between 10 and 20 was the text 'Safe', at the line under 10 percent it said 'Clean', and between 20 and 30 percent it said 'Prone to illness'.

At the line between 40 and 50 percent, the text said 'Fatal zone'.

Starscream cringed at the words. And gazed at the text by the interval 60-70 percent.

Individual may die within a hundred years.

---

Later, around midnight, Starscream left the ruins of Vos with Professor Helix in his arms, heading for the osmium forest in bot mode flight. After having stared at the datapad with toxin levels for several minutes, he saw his life flash before his eyes and thought about all the things he had wanted to do and what he hadn't done yet. Then he had started doubting if what the datapad had said really was true, in which after he decided to try and ignore it.

He hadn't taken Helix away immediately. Since the professor had said on the audio log that the lab was both sterile and reinforced with durabyllium - not to mention having survived the bombing of Vos that had reduced the city to a flat ruin - and due to the fact that the door could only be opened with this special ring key in a specific pattern, Starscream decided the lab may be the safest place for him to stay in on Cybertron. For the time being, at least.

So after having deposited his one Energon cube and medical supplies, he had left the lab - unlocking the hatch simply by putting the ring against another panel near the top of the stairs, he found out - and returned to the Marauders' camp, where he gathered the rest of the Energon cubes, metalo-fruits, meshetables, weapons, armor plating, oil, buffer, datapads and whatever else was there, returning them to his old camp in piles, right in front of the hatch. He had taken several turns to tuck the items in his cockpit or carry the things too big to fit in there, such as the weapons.

Afterwards, he had initiated the unlocking mechanism, now fully integrated into Starscream's memory (partly thanks to the deadly shocks he had previously suffered) and he started dumping most of the new items into the darkness. He only threw the items that could handle impacts such as Energon cubes, and things that wouldn't hurt him to step on such as the sharp weapons. He didn't want to have to carry everything down into the basement and then having to unlock it again several times, so he took a shortcut. Of sorts.

He had kept the datapads and buffer in his cockpit along with the remaining metalo-fruits and meshetables. After everything else had been dumped into the basement, he carried the sharp weapons and oil can in his arms down himself. He had walked carefully down to avoid stepping on anything, until the automatic lights turned on and he could see the hallway. Nothing seemed to have landed on the stairs, but the floor below was a huge mess.

After having deposited everything in the lab on tables, in the closet and empty cage room, clearing the floor and trying to make the lab somewhat resemble a living space, Starscream had taken two of the empty cubes in the storage and put them in his cockpit, so he could refill them when he arrived in the forest. Afterwards he picked up Professor Helix' body and ventured outside, locked the door behind him and set off in the sky.

It had taken about three hours from the moment he entered the lab to set off for the osmium forest. He hadn't thought about the datapad's revelation in all that time, but now that he was in the air and not doing anything else but aim for the osmium forest, his mind returned to the dreaded results.

"What exactly do you mean I only have a hundred years left to live in?" Starscream hissed at the body in his arms as he left the ruins of Vos. "Is it a guess or have you conducted actual research on this? If you're right, how long do I actually have left to live in? When did I only have a hundred years left? A hundred years ago? A few weeks ago? Decades ago? Why couldn't you be a little more specific?"

The corpse did not answer, obviously. Starscream sighed. "Here I am, talking to a dead bot. I wish you had been more specific on that list of yours. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the log. I suppose I will have to listen to the whole thing when I get back."

After about ten minutes, Starscream reached the osmium forest and touched down near the river. Helix wasn't a heavy bot, considering his small and lithe build and the fact that he was dead, but carrying him for over ten minutes was still a bit weary for Starscream.

"I need to get stronger," Starscream muttered to himself as he reached the river. "And I need to sharpen my claws. Too bad those Marauders didn't have a claw file. Maybe I can find something else to file them with."

Starscream put Helix down on the ground next to the river and looked around. There weren't any rocks nearby to bury him with. But perhaps the ground was soft enough to dig through?

Starscream knelt down and scratched the surface of the flat ground. Flakes of metal were scraped off. It seemed to be sodium. Perhaps forests tended to have soft metals in the ground, to better allow the seeds of metalo-plants to break through and grow up. Soft metals were also very nutritious, perhaps very important for the plants' growth.

"I suppose I will have to dig then," Starscream muttered and put more force into the task.

Despite the soft sodium, it took several minutes before an actual hole presented itself. Once he had gotten the hang of it, however, Starscream quickly managed to dig a large, suitable hole within ten minutes or so. He measured the size of the hole and compared it to Helix himself. Deeming the hole deep and large enough, Starscream picked up Helix and lowered him into the hole. After fitting him in, Starscream covered Helix with the soil until there was only a small mound to indicate the grave. It took another five minutes to completely fill and cover the grave.

Starscream pulled back and gazed at his work. It didn't feel complete yet. He went to the horizontal side of the mound and started carving into the metal with his claws. He wrote the name 'Helix', and underneath the name he wrote the text 'You will not be forgotten.'

As he finished writing, Starscream's attention was caught by his hand. He held up his hand and looked at the dirty claws. They seemed to be slightly sharper than before. Not much, but enough to be noticable. He looked at his other hand, seeing all the claws had been sharpened a bit. He looked around at the forest.

"Of course, who needs a claw file?" Starscream said and smiled. "Any metal will do. This must be how mechanimals keep their claws sharp in the wild."

Having completed his task, Starscream rose from beside the grave and walked over to the river. He knelt down and took out the two Energon cubes he had brought with him. He had counted a little over a hundred empty cubes back in the lab in total, so he had to go several rounds to fill them all. At least this meant he would have plenty of Energon to sustain himself for quite a while.

He ran the first cube through the river and filled it up, trying not to think about anything. He took the second cube and filled it up. He opened his cockpit and tucked both cubes inside.

He heard a sound from across the river and looked up. He felt a rush in his tanks. On the other side of the river stood a turbofox, likely the same turbofox he had encountered every time he had gone to the river alone, the one with the kits. Maybe even the same one he met the very first time he arrived in the osmium forest, when it was alone.

This time however, it was completely alone. No kits stood near it, no one else came out from the forest. It just stood there, staring at him with its two red eyes, not even trying to get a drink. Starscream studied its features. It seemed even more mangled than last time he had seen it. Its left ear was severed, it had three large scars on the right side of its body, and it seemed to be missing a few spikes from its tail and mane. It also had two scars across its face, between its eyes, which seemed pretty new.

It must have been attacked again while I was gone, Starscream thought to himself. And lost the other two kits during the fight. It's all alone now... like me.

He couldn't tell its mood very well, but its ears were slightly drooping, looking a bit sad. Perhaps it had just recently lost its kits. He then remembered the lone gridwolf whose partner he had killed a few weeks ago. They were all loners now, all responsible for only their own lives and destinies.

But maybe... it didn't have to be that way.

Without thinking much about it, Starscream rose slowly to his feet, keeping his eyes on the turbofox across the river. The action caused the mechanimal to perk its ears in attention, and its staring at him became more intense.

Starscream stepped into the river, which wasn't deeper than to just below his waist, and started wading across the body of Energon. As he approached slowly, the turbofox rose its back, flared the spikes on the tail and mane, laid back its ears and snarled. Starscream continued on, undeterred by its display of hostility. Turbofoxes were one of the fastest mechanimals on the planet. If it was afraid of Starscream and saw him as a threat, it would run away instead of staying. It was merely testing him, or perhaps it thought it could scare him away from the river it regularly fueled by.

Starscream reached the shore on the other side and got on land. The turbofox took a few steps back and kept snarling, but didn't go anywhere. The two of them were only three mechanometers away from each other, closer than they had ever been before.

Starscream faced front to the turbofox and gazed down at it. He reached behind his back and grabbed his swords. The turbofox took a few steps back again and snarled even louder, its spikes flaring even more than before.

As Starscream brought out his swords and held them forth... he tossed them aside on the ground. The turbofox followed the swords, and the snarling was reduced to silence. It gazed back up at Starscream and relaxed a bit more, though the ears remained down.

Starscream took a step forward and knelt down, about two mechanometers away from the turbofox. The turbofox' mane and tail seemed to flatten down a bit, and its ears rose a bit, but it stayed put, still wary of him.

Starscream gazed calmy at the turbofox for a few seconds. Then he started softly speaking to it.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said quietly. The turbofox' ears rose further in attention. "And now that the Autobots just recently launched the AllSpark into space... no new life will emerge, from the Well or otherwise. Those kits were your last chance to have descendants. And now they're gone."

The turbofox' ears drooped a bit, and the mechanimal sat down. It seemed sad somehow. It understood Starscream's words.

"We are all creations of Primus," Starscream said softly. "Even if you cannot speak like I do, I know you understand what I'm saying. We are all created with the ability to understand Cybertronian, mechanimals like you included. We bots merely believe only highly intelligent beings such as ourselves can fully comprehend Primus' words. But I know better now. Everyone on this world understands. It is just not everyone who is able to voice their thoughts."

The turbofox rose its ears a bit as it listened to Starscream's words. It curled its tail around itself and cocked its head at him in curiosity. It didn't seem so scared of him anymore. Starscream smiled.

"I know there's plenty of Energon and prey here," he said quietly. "But you have no company anymore. You're alone. Do you turbofoxes usually live alone? Or do you live in groups?"

The turbofox flicked its tail once. Starscream didn't know what it meant.

"I suppose you can't tell me," he said. "But I'm sure you enjoyed the company of your offspring while they were with you, right?"

The turbofox blinked at him with its glossy red eyes and flicked its ears.

"I'm sure you did," Starscream guessed. "I am currently alone. I don't think I can trust another bot for a long time. I don't like other bots. They lie, cheat and betray. They can be unpredictable and cruel. You never know if one is a friend or a foe. But you... you seem different. I don't think you would lie to me, would you?"

The turbofox cocked its head in a questionable way. Starscream smiled at the sight.

"You wild mechanimals have enough trouble trying to survive on your own. You don't need to risk yourselves by lying, cheating and betraying others. You're honest, pure, reliable. I have lived on my own out here long enough to know that's how it is. I have experienced what you are all going through. I feel different from when I still lived in civilization. I have changed. And I intend to show the world that I have."

In a slow movement, Starscream reached out his hand towards the turbofox, which got back on all four and took a step back in caution. It didn't snarl, flare or lay its ears back though. Starscream held his hand out with the backside up, his newly sharpened claws pointing down.

"I have Energon and a safe place to stay," Starscream said softly while gazing at the cautious turbofox. "I have medicine and I have leftovers of an alloygator. I will learn to hunt if you will teach me, and in return I will allow you to stay with me and be safe from predators that are chasing you."

The turbofox gazed between Starscream's face and his outstretched hand, seemingly considering its options.

"We can protect each other," Starscream continued and smiled at the turbofox. "We can assist each other. We can keep each other company. We can be partners. Will you stay with me?"

Starscream silenced and let the turbofox decide. It was generally not a good idea to present one's hand to a wild mechanimal that had lots of sharp teeth and could easily bite off one's fingers, but this was a display of trust on Starscream's end. He wasn't sure if rejecting Haze had been such a good idea, as that had been another Cybertronian and even a medic, who could have been of huge help to Starscream in his life of solitude. But he had lost faith in his fellow Cybertronians, and it would take a very long time before he would consider trusting another. Perhaps a mechanimal would be different.

After about half a minute in silence with nothing happening, the turbofox took a few cautious steps forward, eyes focused on Starscream, occasionally looking back at the hand, uncertain if anything was going to happen. Starscream held his breath and remained still, not wanting to scare the turbofox off.

The turbofox approached Starscream's hand, and hesitated. After about ten seconds of hesitation, it sniffed his fingers cautiously. Starscream felt his Spark racing faster in excitement and anticipation.

The turbofox licked Starscream's fingers with its metallic tongue, which was soft and malleable, mainly used for lapping up Energon without getting its metal coat stained. It had also used the same tongue to clean and groom its late kits, in a display of affection. And now it had touched Starscream with it, in a display of trust.

After the lick, the turbofox rubbed its muzzle against the fingers like a cybercat. It didn't purr, but it did emit a faint whimper of sorts. Starscream turned his hand so the turbofox' face was in his palm, and rubbed circles into the creature's forehead. It emitted small huffs along with the whimpering noise. It seemed to like the touch.

Starscream relaxed and let out the breath he had been holding. He smiled down at the turbofox with a soft glow in his eyes.

"I think I will call you... Turbo," Starscream decided. "Is that okay?"

The turbofox removed its head from Starscream's hand and looked up at him. It let out a small yap, its ears standing in a normal position. It seemed to be okay with the name.

Starscream hummed and rose to his legs, this time without the turbofox flinching or snarling in wariness. It just looked up at him.

"You're fast, right?" Starscream asked with a smile. "Do you think you can keep up with the fastest Seeker on Cybertron?"

Turbo yapped in response. After picking up his swords and returning them to his back, Starscream leapt into the air and reverted to jet mode. He rose above the trees and flew towards the end of the forest, though in a slow pace.

As he got out of the forest, he switched his sights to below him. Turbo was running right beneath him, and had no trouble keeping up with him. Starscream chuckled at the sight.

"I think we will do just fine together."

---

Starscream continued his slow pace so Turbo could keep up with him and see where he was going. Despite heading for the ruins of Vos, Turbo kept going and followed Starscream, trusting he wouldn't do anything bad. Starscream observed as the turbofox zigzagged between the buildings and obstacles with ease, until they reached the entrance to Professor Helix' lab, now Starscream's lab.

Starscream reverted to bot mode and landed in front of the hatch. Turbo arrived barely a second later and stood to attention. Starscream chuckled.

"Good girl," he praised. "This is where I live. It may not look like much, but watch this."

Turbo sat down and observed as Starscream knelt down by the hatch and inserted his ring into the keyhole, turned the lock a quarter to the left, half to the right and then all the way around to the left. The door began sliding into the ground, and Turbo sprung to her feet and yapped in surprise. Starscream rose to his feet as well and looked down at the turbofox.

"It's okay," he assured her. "We'll be safe down there. Trust me. Come on."

As the door was all open, Starscream descended into the darkness. Turbo hesitated for a moment before following suit. As the door closed behind them, Turbo turned around and ran back to the entrance, but too late to get out. She started yapping frantically and snarled. Starscream continued walking to the bottom until the automatic lights turned on.

"It's okay, calm down," Starscream said softly at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm not going to hurt you. You are one of the fiercest beings on this planet. Do you really think I, a Flier, would want to tackle someone like you in a cramped space like here?"

Turbo stopped snarling and calmed down a bit. She followed Starscream down the stairs, but looked anxiously from side to side and back at Starscream on occasion as they walked through the dimly lit hallway.

"I understand how you feel," Starscream said and side-glanced the turbofox. "I wouldn't trust a stranger like myself either if I were you. But we are not strangers, right? We know each other. We have seen each other across the river several times. You know I wouldn't hurt you. And I know you wouldn't hurt me. Because we have not hurt each other in the past."

Turbo remained silent throughout the walk to the door. Starscream unlocked it and they stepped inside without fuss. The automatic lights turned on in the lab, and Turbo took a moment to adjust her eyes to the bright light, having just been outside in the darkness.

As they stepped inside the lab, Turbo looked curiously around at the metalo-plants and tables everywhere. Other than the visor and mask, contaminometer and vacuum device, Starscream had also found small cubes containing seeds of metalo-plants, as well as a couple containing what seemed to be samples of small mechanimals, a crystal feather from a lilleth, the tip of a tail from a retrorat and other things. He had also found one of the cabinets filled with small empty cubes, apparently to be used for storing the seeds Professor Helix had mentioned in his log.

Starscream also found what seemed to be a label maker on one of the tables by the wall. There was a datapad with instructions even next to that one. Starscream scoffed silently. How incompetent did Helix think his successor would be?

Other than the instructions manuals, there were rows of datapads on shelves, some being educational books, some being blank datapads, others containing what seemed to be Helix' own notes on metalo-plants, mechanimals, Energon and pollution. There was a cup full of datapens to be used for the datapads, some being simple black or white ones, others having the feature of switching colors at the press of a button. And then there was the standard lab equipment, such as a bunsen burner, thermometers, vials, ammeters and electronic test machines and many other things.

He had not tried the computers in the monitor room yet, but from what he had read on the instructions manual it had access to the Grid, as well as a map of Cybertron and was able to detect energy signals, whether from bots, fighting or exposed Energon. That could come in handy later.

There was also a cabinet with a few audio logs in them, all blank. Starscream had taken out Helix' audio log from the closet to listen to it when he got back from the forest. Now that he had taken care of moving in the lab and returned with a few Energon cubes, along with a new friend, he could finally settle down and listen to the log.

Starscream took out the two Energon cubes he had filled in the forest, and put one on an empty table with the audio log on. The other cube was placed on the floor below, and he opened the lid to the cube. Turbo stared between the cube and Starscream.

"This is for you," Starscream said and smiled. "We will stay here for now, to rest and recover on our wounds until we can go back out there. Oh, I almost forgot."

Starscream fetched the few remains of the dead alloygator from another table where the remaining golden apples and chromium-carrots also resided on. He brought the alloygator bits to his table and broke it in half. He put one half on the floor in front of Turbo and her Energon cube. She perked at the action and immediately dug into the mesh. It was the only part of the mesh left which had not been charred from the Marauders' cooking of it. Starscream ate the cooked bits, and soon he learned he preferred the mesh raw.

"Well, we can always catch another one," Starscream said after swallowing a piece and grinned at the thought. "Should be easier with two mad fighters working together, am I right?"

Turbo didn't respond. She just continued eating the alloygator bits. Starscream shrugged and ate his. He sat on a chair by the table and pulled the audio log of Professor Helix closer, so he could press the buttons.

Despite having already heard the first two entries, Starscream decided to listen to all of them in order, so he could better understand Helix' life, research and results, as well as understanding why he had done the things he did with the lab.

And he was also anxious to find out the truth about the datapad's message to him that he was so polluted that he would die soon. And if anything could be done about it.

With a deep vent, Starscream set the audio log on autoplay, and to play from the first entry to the last entry. And every one in between.

With alloygator to feast on and an Energon cube to drink from, and company in the form of Turbo the turbofox, Starscream pressed play.

This was going to be a long night.