In an instant, Kai found herself thousands of feet in the air above a beautiful blue ocean and a little island that she once called home.
"Alo-ha, O'ahu." She smiled to herself as Starscream began a gradual decline. Though, she could barely feel the drop in altitude. The girl could hardly take her eyes off of her beloved island and its beautiful cities and sunny beaches and lush forests and- was someone calling her?
"Artemis Kailani Penderwick, are you listening to me?" Starscream's Decepticon insignia glowed on the little screen above the controls with every word.
She tugged at her dark brown hair to snap out of it, "Yeah! Yeah, now I am."
Kai could hear him sigh, "You're probably wondering why we're over your old home.-Oh, apologies for that."
He said that bit in Vosian! "Oh, no, no, it's fine! Please! Continue." The sudden change of language had surprised her, but she begged him to stick to it. Starscream usually just spoke in English around humans -though he called the language primitive and simplistic- so she only heard it whenever he was teaching her to understand it, but never in a normal conversation.
The seatbelts tightened around her protectively, which she took as a form of a hug. "Alright, little seeker. I will oblige to your request." Kai was glad to hear his pleased tone. He didn't smile nearly as much as she would like him to and she tried her hardest to make her guardian happy.
"I've had a bad feeling all day," And the mood dropped, much to Kai's disappointment, "-and it felt right to bring you here to ask something that I feel should not fall onto unwanted audio receptors."
The brown girl shrugged, "Go ahead." No biggie.
"What happened to your creator?"
Creator? In Cybertronian terminology, that meant...
Her dad.
Ok, big biggie.
By instinct, she played dumb, "What do you mean?"
Starscream vented deeply, regretting his decision already, "You know what I mean, Artemis." He could see that the smile on her dark face was fake, hiding something that her eyes showed:
Grief.
He went on in English, "You don't talk about him at all like Rafael, Jackson, and Miko do, and they have never seen him either in picture or with you. You live with your carrier's sister and her mate, but your carrier perished a year after your sister was born.
"What happened to your creator? I worry about you sometimes." The Seeker confessed, "You always tend to leave whenever the subject of your parental units is brought up. What happened, Artemis?"
Kai didn't move or respond, lost to a past memory
Black waves roared like hungry beasts.
There was a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, lost to the raging storm.
Damn it, it's been four years already. Kai grimaced. She had to move on.
"Artemis?" Starscream's voice thrummed over the speakers.
The girl almost forgot that she was sitting in an alien jet, hundreds of feet above the earth.
She looked away from the glowing, red insignia, "A hurricane hit home. Dad's boat never made it back."
"I- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"
She scoffed, "It doesn't matter anymore. 'Sorry' never brought anyone back, now did it?" Kai snapped, her tone becoming harsh.
There was a pause from the jet, "I- scrap, do you see that?"
The human's eyes narrowed, "If you're just trying to change the subject, then- what isthat?"
Two blips on Starscream's scanners pinged, unlike the other pinpricks that showed the position of human aircraft.
Cybertronian life signals.
::Starscream to base: requesting backup for possible Autobot encounter... Scrap!::
Once static filled the receiving end, Kai already knew the answer. One, there would be no backup. Two, there were definitely 'Bots here scrambling their comms.
Ultra Magnus stepped out of the groundbridge with a look of determination. If his master was right, this plan would result in the ultimate triumph over the Decepticon faction. It was of utter importance to get the job done with no space for error.
So why did the Prime assign Smokescreen to accompany him onto this island?
The chatty mech was about to make him lose whatever sanity he had left! Primus, why did the new recruit have to be so annoying?
"-and then Optronix Prime congratulated me! Me! I brought the Omega Keys back and kicked 'Con tailpipe, and-"
"As your superior, I will have you serve time in the energon mines-" Ultra Magnus threatened in a dark tone of Iaconian, "-if you speak one. More. Word. Without my permission, is that clear, subordinate?"
Smokescreen's red optics flashed in fear as he cowered before the tall mech, "Y-yes, sir."
He grinned, baring sharp dentae, "Good. Now, keep an optic out for any sign of Decepticon activity or the four humans."This fragging organic forest was getting on his nerve clusters. The humidity made his tanks churn and the tree branches kept on scratching at his faceplates. "You will do well to remember to keep the humans alive."
Smokescreen scratched the back of his neck cables, "Right, yeah- one question, though?"
The Second-in-Command glared, clearly irritated, "Make it quick, soldier."
"Why did Doc tell Master to send us here?"
To be honest, Ultra Magnus had no idea. From what he had heard, one of the Decepticon pets had a certain, strong attachment to this speck in the middle of the ocean. By coming here, he figured, their uncloaked life signals should attract the Decepticons and, ultimately, the humans.
All of a sudden, his sensors detected the sound of a jet engine too sophisticated to be of any organic creation.
Starscream.
A satisfied smirk made its way onto the Autobot's faceplates, "That is why."
Smokescreen watched in awe as Ultra Magnus transformed his servo into a blaster, the risen weapon whirring as it reached maximum power
He fired.
Smokescreen could just barely feel the 'Con's EM field flare out in panic as he plummeted to the ground, wing reduced to useless metal and engine trailing thick, black smoke.
The grey jet crash-landed in the forest a few clicks ahead, "Advance now!" The superior officer rushed to comm Optronix as he made his way through the thick of the trees, ::My liege, I have visual of the Decepticon Starscream. Proceeding to crash site in order to finish the job and extract the human, sir!::
::No. ::
This reply caused him to freeze in his tracks. His optics stared at the ground in disbelief, ::But... sir-,::
::Simply ensure that the human is close to being offlined. The Decepticon may live... for now.::
With that tone, Ultra Magnus knew that he had no right to refuse.
::Yes, sir.::
When Starscream onlined his optics, the urge to shut them off grew as he took in all of the damage. Blurry vision picked up vague shapes of trees and mountain cliffs, HUD alerts taking up most of his view.
He rebooted his optics and waited, letting darkness swallow the hazy images.
Loading...
Loading...
Something warm trickled over his servos and onto his armor. He tried to flex his digits when he suddenly became aware of something squishy sliding off of his claw. The object fell limp in the middle of his chestplate
Loading...
Oh Primus. Realization hit his spark like a truck.
Where. Was. Artemis.
Optical Reboot Complete.
Blood.
There was somuch blood.
The red, foreign substance coated his digits and chest armor, steadily spreading over silver plating. His tanks churned at the sight of his cupped servos covered in the scarlet liquid. The scent of iron hit his receptors in a wave.
Slowly, almost painfully, he lifted trembling digits to unveil the horror that hid beneath.
The Seeker had to fight a sob. His charge, his humanwas leaking lifeblood.
Primus, she wasn't moving.
Starscream was afraid to do it, but he raised a servo from her limp frame. The sickening noise and the sudden lurch of her body that followed only confirmed his worst nightmare.
He- he did this.
"Well, well, well. Get a load of this!"
Starscream's helm snapped to the side, his free servo in blaster form and aiming at the new voice before he could even realize it. Smokescreen, the new Autobot, stepped out of the shadows with a slag-eating grin on his face.
Fury rose in his throat, "You." However, he knew that the speedster's blasters were far too weak to shoot him out of the sky from hundreds of klicks away. No, a larger threat was somewhere around here.
"My my, look at what you've done, Starscream." Ultra Magnus sneered, "You killed your little pet."
"Frag you!" The SIC shot up to his pedes, ignoring the pain shooting through his system, "I'll blast your helms off and make you beg for mercy!" Through his wrath-clouded processor, there was one thing that he could not simply brush off.
Artemis.
"Optronix was right,"Ultra Magnus mocked in Iaconian, "you do bring death wherever you go."
The bright light of a Groundbridge appeared behind him.
Starscream vented in relief, optics growing wide watching his teammates leap through the portal. As Megatron, Ravage, and Breakdown dealt with the Autobots, he could finally tend to his charge while tuning out the sounds of battle.
He ran a deep scan over her body, trying to keep a level processor. The very tip of his claw had run clean through her flesh, but just avoiding her spine and heart.
She wasn't dead, not yet anyways.
With a surge of determination, he looked to the groundbridge.
He could keep her from dying.
Starscream's pedes thumped against the moist earth, spilled energon dripping from his wings in a glowing trail behind him. Every jolt sent a flash of pain through his frame, but he had worse to worry about than his mangled wing.
He had a spark to save.
"Shockwave!" The desperate cry tore at his ragged intake, "Shockwave!" His vocal processors shifted to Cybertronian. He had lost his trine; he would not lose his human!
"Shockwave, we have to do it!"
The scientist's spark pinged with fear, "What happened?" Starscream staggered through the green vortex, right wing in critical condition and upper chassis covered in- Primus, was that human lifeblood!?
"Shockwave." The Seeker vented heavily, "Shockwave, ready the stasis chamber." His stabilizers shook with effort and exhaustion.
Shockwave was- well, shocked, "Starscream, the prototype has never even been tested. What did those heathens do to the human?" If he could, he would scowl in anger.
Starscream sent a steely glare his way, "Do as I say, or I will do it myself." Clearly, he was in a rush.
Knowing very well that they had to act fast, the truck gave in, "Fine, but we must hurry before her vitals give out."
"We must."
"You alright, 'Nid?" Jack asked his guardian, who had recently suffered the loss of three of her extra limbs. Well, they weren't lost anymore at least.
The white spider rubbed her forehelm, "Yeah, I'm good. How have you been?"
The boy hummed, "Eh, good enough. Vince picked on Miko again, and now has a gap in his face where a tooth used to be." He went back to reading his comic.
Airachnid raised an optic ridge and sent a skeptical look at her charge, "Grounded again?"
"Yep."
"With detention?"
"E-yup."
"June told you to clean the bathroom?"
"Oh yeah."
She couldn't help but smile, "You humans are always so strange."
"Hey, if we weren't weird, we'd be boring!" Miko defended from a little desk on a bot-sized table. With the voice of a medical expert, she added, "Also, you're free to go, Airachnid."
The femme gladly stood up from the berth and stretched all of her limbs, "Ah, it feels nice to have all of my appendages once more." Jack had to duck from his place on the shelf to avoid getting impaled by one of her stabilizers.
With a satisfied sigh, Airachnid retracted her limbs and locked them in a resting position along her backstruts, "So, where's Raf?"
Miko answered, cleaning up her desk, "He's in the Lab with Soundwave, last time I checked. They're making an invisibility cloak."
This earned a head tilt from the insecticon, "Cloak?"
The Japanese girl shrugged, "Raf showed him the Harry Potter movies... though, I prefer the books." She pushed her chair in, "Long story short, Soundwave made a wand with voice-command and they were both messing with the weather."
A scoff escaped Airachnid's fangs, "Soundwave may be millions of earth years old, but he never really grew up, did he?" She looked around the room, "And where is Kai?"
Jack's eyes never left the comic book that he held, "She's with Screamers. They're flying somewhere over Hawaii, last time I've heard." He flipped to the next page.
Both humans could have never expected the excited gasp that came from Airachnid, or the blurted words that came next.
"He's doing it! He's telling her, finally!" She nearly jumped for joy. Pure delight radiated off of her frame like fireworks.
After getting over the intial shock, both humans insisted to know what on earth she was talking about.
She offered them a question, "Have you noticed how 'ol Screamers has become rather attached to Kai?"
Miko hummed, "Well, he's her guardian, so... yeah?"
She smirked, "Anyways, he had confessed to me that it goes rather deeper than just that. To him, it's as if she were his- what's the earth term?- daughter! Yes, his daughter."
They shrugged, "So?"
"Megs is like the robo-dad of this entire team, 'Nid." Jack pointed out, "Honestly, having an adoptive cyber-parent isn't that weird to us. Especially in this day and age." Airachnid was just over-reacting again.
The spider tapped her chin, "Good point, but still. He wants to adopt her."
If Jack had been drinking water, it would have spewed out of his mouth right then. Unfortunately, Miko wasn't so lucky and choked on the bottled liquid.
"Adopt her?" Miko gasped, a little red in the face, "He's a two-story-titan! She's a five-foot-four human!" she rambled on, wiping water from her face, "What would her aunt and uncle say!? Or her sister? What about the- oh God, the authorities!"
Airachnid would have rolled her optics if she could, but settled on using the resulting movement to show her emotion, "Slow your roll, Miko, It's not literal adoption. Screamers knows very well that he can't do that." After letting the girl regain her breath, she continued, "He's just going to say how he thinks of her, that's all."
"And is he ok with you telling us this?" Jack questioned.
"Yeah, he said that he really didn't care." Airachnid replied, "Anywho, I'm off to check on Predaking. Hardshell's probably driving him insane right now. You know how those two always bicker about who gets the next mission."
Just as she was about to leave, the bulkhead doors flew open. Jack and Miko watched in concern as Shockwave, Breakdown, and Starscream burst inside in a panicked frenzy.
"We have to stabilize her now!"
"Frag, her vitals are dropping!"
"Open the stasis chamber!"
The humans could only observe in worried silence as the three Decepticons hooked up something- no, someone- to their newest invention: the stasis chamber. Miko could recognize it anywhere. Knockout had been the one to come up with it, while Shockwave was the one to carry it out.
The chamber was created to provide life-support and hopefully heal humans while they were in induced stasis. The glass cylinder was filled with a foreign liquid, then certain tubes and wires were attached to the patient before placing them inside. They would never have to breathe, eat, or drink once inside. While genius, it was never proven to work.
When Miko figured out just who was getting submerged, she prayed to whoever was up there that it did.
Please,
Don't let Kai die...
"Starscream, you should go and get yourself cleaned up."
The Seeker looked up from his trance, but said nothing. He felt nothing, not in his processor nor the pain in his wings. There was nothing but deep, black, emptiness. The sight of Artemis's lifeless frame floating upright in the chamber mocked him. She would have hated to see herself like this, so helpless and on the verge of death. The seal that they had placed over the gaping hole in her chassis didn't even account for her broken arm, or shattered femur.
Shockwave sighed, "Look, I know you care about her, but she's alright now. The other humans are long gone and you should be to." He placed a reassuring servo on the commander's shoulder-plates, "It's not your fault-"
"It is my fault." Starscream grit his dentae, "I am the one who could have killed her, not Ultra Magnus or Smokescreen. It was I." He had put his claw through her fragile body.
Optronix was right; he did bring death with him.
But this time, the SIC was going to bring life to his human.