CHAPTER 28
Two weeks after the Autobots lost the sparklings to the Decepticons, the former had tried to keep the little ones out of their processors, but it proved to be harder than assumed. Whenever there was a moment of silence, either after or without discussing the Predacon bones, someone would always break the ice by mentioning the sparklings.
"What if that Predacon tries to hurt the sparklings?" Bulkhead had asked concerned one day after the 'Bots speculated why no new fossils had been detected recently.
"While troubling indeed," Optimus replied calmly, "I do not believe that even Megatron would allow precious sparklings to be terminated by his own soldiers. He knows as well as all of us, that they are the future of Cybertron."
"Still... I just can't trust the Decepticons with the sparklings."
"Neither of us can," Arcee said. "But we don't really have a choice. Yet," she added quietly.
Such conversations were common the recent couple of weeks, followed by an awkward silence, as they were unsure of how to continue their conversation.
Two weeks after the forest incident, Smokescreen and Bumblebee had both recovered completely from Starscream's assault, and were back to training with their older comrades. As promised, Bulkhead and Wheeljack began training Smokescreen in Wrecker fighting. They had talked about training him since Bulkhead had recovered from Tox-En exposure, but had never really gotten around to do it. Hunting for the Omega Keys, assaulting Darkmount and searching for Predacon bones were all to blame for the delay. Now that things were finally a little peaceful, they might as well get on with Smokescreen's training.
While Smokescreen practiced defensive maneuvers with Bulkhead and Wheeljack, Bumblebee and Arcee were watching them. Optimus and Magnus conversed quietly about something, and the kids were playing their car race video game at the TV. Jack was currently watching Miko and Raf race against each other. While Raf was a tech genius, he wasn't very good at winning this video game against either Jack, Miko or Bumblebee especially. The yellow bot was an expert in that game. So it didn't take long for Raf's car to get bumped by Miko's car, spin out of control and crash, losing the game.
As Raf handed over his controller to Jack, so the latter could race against a gloating Miko, the little boy went over to see what Ratchet was doing. He was examining green goop through a (giant) microscope.
"What'cha doing, Ratch?" Raf asked curiously.
"I'm trying to finish the incomplete formula on synthetic energon," the medic replied. "But it's practically impossible without the recipe. I can only guess what goes where. It's extremely complicated."
"Did you get anything done?"
"Only about 2%, at best," Ratchet sighed. "And by my calculations there's still at least 18% left of the recipe to be finished. And I spent two weeks getting just 1% done."
Raf hummed. He knew Ratchet had been working hard on that synthetic energon formula ever since the mess with the stuff back in the cliff base. He had spent all his free time working on the formula and only managed to complete a very small amount before the destruction of their base. It was fortunate he had stored the current schematics in his memory bank, allowing him to continue his work after they received a new base of operations.
Raf's eyes inadvertently fixed on a large tape recorder on Ratchet's desk. He had never seen it before, or maybe he had but never really paid attention to it. It seemed kind of strange, now that he thought about it.
"What's on that tape recorder?" he asked and pointed at it.
Ratchet moved his gaze to where he was pointing and hummed. "I found it in the Harbinger, while we were salvaging the GroundBridge and other objects on the ship. It's possible it belongs to Starscream."
The mention of the Seeker made a few other Autobots perk their audio receptors. Arcee and Bumblebee listened to their conversation though did not join in.
"Have you listened to it yet?" Raf asked, curious of what the Decepticon could have recorded on the device. "It might contain something useful."
"Perhaps," Ratchet said thoughtful and pulled away from his work. "I suppose I can take a break, as I am unable to continue any further now."
He grabbed the recorder and turned it on. There were thirty five log entries on it, some longer than others, and some extremely short, as if taken on a whim. He set the recorder to play the first entry, and turned up the volume as it was low in the beginning. He set it on auto-play so it would automatically move on to the next.
The first entry was uninteresting, only about the Seeker's self pity and declared solitude. Those present merely looked over for a second, then returned to their businesses, having lost interest in Starscream's blabbering. The second entry, however, was interesting enough to make all the Autobots perk to attention, even the distraught Prime and Magnus in the other end of the room. Even the kids stopped their video game to listen in.
"One week has passed since I left the Decepticons. Six days since I met this stranger named Creop Trivem. He had energon pellets which he claimed would fuel me up for at least a month, and grant me supreme power. Well, he was wrong! I'm more hungry now than any time I've gone without energon!"
The Autobots glanced at one another. "Creop Trivem?" several muttered in question.
"Who's Creep?" Miko asked confused. "He another 'Con?"
Optimus glanced at Miko, while Starscream rattled on about his misfortune. "I am sorry to say, but he is unknown to me. I have never heard of that name before."
"It was never recorded in the Hall?" Ratchet asked surprised. "Every Cybertronian has a file in there, even the no-names and drones. It does have that, right?"
Optimus nodded. "While the Hall of Records holds many files, I have never come upon the name Creop Trivem. We must be cautious of this bot, if we ever meet him."
The third entry was about the purpose of Transformer teeth and consuming energon crystals. Again, nothing interesting or important, though somewhat fascinating to know.
At the fourth entry, however, interest was renewed once again.
"I can't believe my luck. Two Heralds of Unicron within the same mega-cycle, and both helped me dig through the mine that had caved in not long ago, after my – ahem – conflict with Lord Megatron."
"Heralds of Unicron?!" the Autobots repeated and shared gazes again.
"I don't know what that means, but it sounds like trouble!" Miko said. Before anyone could reply, Starscream continued:
"Anyways, these two mechs, Sideways and Thrust, they managed to help me gain access to a whole week's supply of energon! Thank the AllSpark!"
"Sideways..." Arcee repeated.
"Thrust..." Ratchet said.
"Do you know those names?" Jack asked.
"Thrust was a Conehead Decepticon, with Ramjet and Dirge as his trine mates during the war for Cybertron," Wheeljack replied. "But he didn't live long. I personally snuffed him with one of my explosives."
"And Sideways was a double agent, siding with both Autobots and Decepticons, depending on his mood," Arcee snarled. "He was even more treacherous than Screamy. He was shot down by me and Tailgate before he could deliver vital info to Megatron. It was shortly before Tailgate...was taaken by Airachnid."
"Weren't they both Seekers?" Smokescreen asked. "Both part of Screamer's army?"
The Autobots became thoughtful while Starscream's voice was complaining about the weather.
"Both were Starscream's Seekers, both terminated during the war," Magnus muttered. "Both returned to Starscream some months ago. Highly suspicious..."
The next six entries took place during the cataclysm, they could hear. Starscream describing the usual weather, his screams of fear and finally relief as he had found shelter. The two next ones were during the first time he had requested Ratchet's assistance, as well as about Optimus being a Decepticon. They all shuddered a bit by the memory of Prime being on the 'Cons' side. Magnus, Smokescreen and Wheeljack were all shocked, as they had not been present at the time and the Autobots had found it best not to talk about the events again.
The thirteenth and fourteenth logs were tied and included Starscream losing his T-cog, and they heard expressive screams on the second one.
Then, something very strange happened, just as entry number fourteen had finished.
"Entry number sixteen. I had to sleep without shelter last night. I was simply too exhausted..."
"Wait, what?" Ratchet paused the recording. "Sixteen? What happened to fifteen?"
"Perhaps he forgot which number he had reached and skipped fifteen?" Bumblebee suggested.
"No, there are thirty five logs recorded here. Let's see..."
He simply skipped through each recording, listening only to the entry number. Seventeen... eighteen... nineteen... all the way up to thirty five.
"They are all there," he said. "No doubles, no number thirty six. Entry number fifteen is listed here, but it didn't play..."
He played back to specifically number fifteen, turning auto-play off. A bunch of glitched letters appeared on the small screen, along with horrible crunchy noise.
"Enchhhh-zzzchhh... Bzzzzchhhh and Rzzzorzhhazz... Crzzazzch Trozzzizzz... crazzz... crrrrhhhzzhhh... zzzz..."
Then, the recorder shut off by itself. Ratchet stared at it like it was contagious.
"The entry is corrupted. Something must have interfered during the recording."
Suddenly, it turned itself on again, set on the last entry, specifically at the end. No sound came out, only five eerie words, derived from the original text in the log entry. All the other letters were missing:
'T-H-E D-A-R-K L-O-R-D S-H-A-L-L R-E-T-U-R-N'
The Blendtrons were heading for their rendezvous point to meet up with the other Heralds. They had been quite surprised at Starscream's reaction to what they had told him about.
They had arrived at the Harbinger, to check if the Seeker had returned to his den, like they had checked a dozen times already. Only this time had he actually been there.
"Ey, Screamer! Nice to see you're alive," Rartorata had greeted the nervous Seeker. "Where you been all this time? We were worried about you!"
"For your information, I have returned to Megatron's side, in my rightful position," he snapped. "No need to have you creeps follow me around anymore."
"Right, you can function all by yourself now," Drancon said sarcastically. "We were all pretty upset you didn't even leave us a note. We thought Nightbird had taken you away."
"Not really though, because if she had we-"
"Quiet, Rartorata!" Elphorca said and banged him on the head. "Remember our orders. No revelations."
Starscream didn't really listen to them though. He had dwelled on Drancron's notion "you didn't even leave us a note". He had left his log behind, explaining his situation and even said goodbye to them in it. Had they not arrived until after the Autobots had salvaged the place?
Secondly, he was distracted by Cross-Eyes stirring. She was beginning to wake up!
"Hey, Screamer, are you a'right?" Rartorata asked, catching his attention. "You seem kinda odd."
"Says the Fuzor," Starscream mumbled to himself. But before he could answer, Cross-Eyes let out a loud:
"Uuuaaaaahhh..." More of a yawn than a wail, but it was equally loud.
And thus the Blendtrons learned that Starscream had given birth to six sparklings, which utterly shocked them. Strange, Starscream thought puzzled. I was almost certain they were the reason the Heralds were so desperate to protect me. But it seems they didn't have a clue...
"Oh, by the way, Screamer," Drancron said, snapping the Seeker out of his thoughts. "There's something you should know about. We've actually been searching for you for so long to tell you. Nightbird has decided she can't take you by herself when we're involved too, so she has sent for help."
This gave Starscrean a shudder, while Cross-Eyes continued hanging on his back with the help of her build-in magnets that sparklings had, just for this purpose. He didn't like the thought of Nightbird getting reinforcements at all.
"And, um, what kind of 'help' might she be sending for?" he asked nervously. He hoped dearly she wasn't asking the Autobots for help.
"Real interesting, really," Rartorata said excitedly. "It's this ancient mech who is said to have vanquished the Predacons and thus saved the Cybertronian race that followed."
"He's said to have been created by the Primes as one of the first Cybertronian settlers, and the only survivor due to the attack of the Predacons," Drancron continued.
"It is said he's some kind of supernatural being with the power to burn anything he touches and destroys any machinery he gets near," Elphorca explained. "Furthermore he's a neutral, so he's a valid candidate to destroy either Autobots or Decepticons, which may be why Nightbird chose him."
Starscream stiffened. Ancient Cybertronian? Vanquisher of the Predacons? The power to burn and destroy machinery? Neutral?
"Wh...what is the name of this mech?" he asked, anxiously awaiting their answer.
"It may sound hard to believe," Elphorca began. "But the name of this mech is..."
"Sunstorm?!" Sideways exclaimed in disbelief, as the Blendtrons had met up with him. Thrust was keeeping an eye on Nightbird for now. "You've gotta be kidding me! How did Nightbird get such a legend on her side?"
"Dunno," Drancron said and shrugged. "But it spells big trouble for us. And when I told Screamer about it he didn't say anything. Just up and left without a word. What do you suppose happened?"
"Maybe he knows Sunstorm?" Rartorata suggested.
"Don't be stupid," Drancron said. "Sunstorm lived at the same time as the Predacons and is said to have been sealed away up until this point. Starscream wasn't even alive at that point. There's no way they know each other."
"To get back on topic," Sideways said, "we know Sunstorm has been hired by Nightbird to kill Starscream, and we can't have that. Secondly, we know that Starscream has returned to the Decepticons, which explains why we couldn't track him recently. Hopefully Nightbird hasn't figured out his location yet. As long as she doesn't know, she can't send Sunstorm after him just yet. There's still time to track this guy out and put him out of the picture."
"Is that a threat, Starscream?" Megatron growled at his second-in-command, after the Seeker let out his previous words not to touch the stranger or he'd be dead.
"No, it's serious," Starscream said and turned to look at the much taller, blazing Seeker, the exact same size and build as Dreadwing but with a different head and minor details on his chassis. "This guy is seriously dangerous."
"Wait, wait, wait," the stranger said. "You didn't just call this bitlet Starscream, did you?"
"Yes, and I believe he called you Sunstorm," Megatron countered. "What of it?"
Sunstorm's malevolent expression suddenly became like a ray of sunshine. The flames surrounding him disappeared into thin air and revealed a stunningly beautiful frame of shiny, golden armor, perfectly shaped and without even a single scratch or grain of dust to dirt his image. His helm was pitch black, his face plate snow white, both the same perfectly shaped, shiny form as the main armor, as if this frame had never known fighting or even getting a little dirty. It was so surreal so see such a clean, perfect mech, it seemed as if they were staring at a painting – though even a painting would not compare to his shininess.
On each wing was a red and white stripe, his optics were a sparkling golden color, his cockpit was an amber-orange color, and what little they could see of his protoform was silver. He didn't seem real, with this perfect, beautiful body of his. In fact, he seemed more real and living when he was on fire. Perhaps it was the fire that burned away any dirt and debris, and protected him from ever getting hurt. Maybe even buffing his armor in a rather disturbing way.
Both Megatron and Starscream were shocked at the bright colors and ridiculously shiny armor. Despite being nighttime, the moonlight shined brightly on his glossy armor, making him glow like a saint – which was exactly what he was, coincidentally.
"Starscream, I can't believe it's you!" Sunstorm said and held out his arms, almost as if he expected Starscream to hug him. But the small Seeker stayed put, and the bigger one lowered his arms again. "I had heard you were onboard some deception ship called 'Name-Sis', but I was lost for two weeks searching for this ship. I really didn't recognize you! What happened to your body?"
"First of all, it's Decepticon, and Nemesis. Secondly...I don't want to talk about it," he said in an embarrassed manner.
"Come on, last time I saw you, you were as big as me, all silver, red and blue. Why are you such a pipsqueak now?"
Starscream looked nervous in Megatron's direction. The warlord seemed to sneer but didn't say anything. He didn't know how Starscream had gone from being a fairly big, powerful and competent Seeker, to being a tiny, skinny and weak bot, comparable to a Vehicon. He was a little curious to know, but as this change made him more submissive towards the now much more powerful-than-him Megatron, he generally did not care how it came to be.
Starscream sighed, knowing this person wouldn't leace him alone until he got his question answered.
"I was...fatally wounded during the fall of Cybertron," he admitted hesitantly. He didn't need to tell them how; he had thought he could coerce the Dinobot Grimlock into assisting him with taking the power from Megatron, but the big brute had simply thrown the Seeker hard into the lock panel, getting himself free from his restraints. The Seeker had afterwards fallen unconscious. After a few mega-cycles, just as he had regained consciousness, the building exploded and collapsed on top of him. Unable to escape, he got buried beneath the rubble.
"And then," he continued, leaving the most embarrasing details out, "Shockwave found me."
Megatron listened deeply. Shockwave? He knows something about this? he thought. I must ask him about this later.
"We made a deal," the Seeker continued, unbeknownst to Megatron's thoughts. "He would save my chassis if I replaced his arm for him. I don't remember much myself, but when I woke up, I found myself in this sorry state, my own body turned to scrap. He told me he had used a spare Vehicon protoform and transferred my spark into it, along with a cube of energon. While these claws have been useful several times, everything else about this body has been utterly useless and humiliating."
Megatron hummed. So that's what happened. I always thought he looked somewhat similar to the Vehicons...
Sunstorm had crossed his arms while listening to the Air Commander's explanation. "And how are Thundercracker and Skywarp?" he suddenly asked.
The question seemed out of the blue. Neither Starscream nor Megatron had heard those names for many, many years. The twosome had followed the Decepticons on the Nemesis to Earth after the fall of Cybertron, but shortly after arriving, they had both disappeared. They never bothered to search for either of them, as Skywarp was a scrap-brained idiot and Thundercracker was an even bigger bloat-head than Starscream. Starscream had been the only one to get a new body after the war, however, making those two physically more powerful than the Air Commander himself, regrettably. He had been unhappy about his Trine commanders being stronger than him, and now Sunstorm had just reminded him of them.
It was a good question though. Where were they? What were they doing? Were they still functional? Had they been offlined, by Autobots or even the human government? Starscream had no idea.
"No clue," he simply answered. "Dead, most likely. As they should be, those good-for-nothing morons."
"Wow, wow, what's with the language, Star?" Sunstorm exclaimed while waving his hands. "I thought you three had become Trinemates?"
Megatron noticed he didn't give him the usual "Screamy" nickname. And by the way they talked, it seemed as if they knew each other personally. Even so, practically everyone who knew the Seeker personally – even his Trinemates Skywarp and Thundercracker, as well as the rest of his Seekers - would call him "Screamer", "Screamy" or just "Scream". Some even call him a "harpy" or a "whiner". Starscream had always hated that. But he never showed signs of hating his name itself. Strange.
But this mech seemed to know Starscream on a different basis. What was he to the Air Commander?
"We were, but I've never liked them, and I still don't. I honestly don't care what's happened to them or if they're even alive. What are you even doing here, Sunstorm?"
"Primus told me to return to Cybertron," the golden mech explained with a sigh. "But when I arrived, I saw it was destroyed. A horrible sight. Whatever happened to our world?"
Megatron quirked a brow and went in. "Ignorant fool," he sneered at the mech, who turned and gazed at him by the insult. "Our world was lost to the war. It's been that way for eons. As a Decepticon, you should know that."
"Pardon me, dear sir," Sunstorm said in a surprisingly calm tone despite the criticism thrown at him. "But I am not a Decepticon, neither am I one of these so-called Autobots. Furthermore, I have been on a voyage for five million years in space, searching for other Cybertronian colonies to introduce to the Will of Primus. I did not know of any war ever taking place since he time of the Predacons. Speaking of which," he added and looked past Megatron at the open door where the Predacon and Metalhawk were trying desperately to hide, but in vain, "isn't that a Predacon right there? I thought I had wiped them all out a billion years ago."
This made the newcoming Decepticons, who had entered the flight deck to investigate what what going on, all gasp in shock.
"A b-b-billion years?!" Knock Out coughed. "No mech can be that old and be so stunning! You're jibber-jabbering."
"I never lie or kid, if that's what you mean, Grounder. But thank you for the compliment. You too have quite an impressive finish. Though, not as impressive as my own, of course."
He almost sounded as arrogant as Thundercracker. Almost.
"Uh...thank you?" Knock Out was uncertain whether to take this mech seriously or not.
Behind him, the sparklings had all followed him outside, running into each other as he had stopped. They had now gotten up and walked over to get a better look at the stranger. Their eyes gleamed with excitement as some of the reflected light shone on the floor. Outrage, the green sparkling, touched the floor to try and catch the light, but as it just continued to move around, he followed its quick movements and patted the floor to catch it, all while emitting little squeaks as he thought he had caught one.
Sunstorm intentionally made it hard for the sparkling. The glowing Seeker grinned at the sight of the playing sparkling.
"Cute sparklings," he commented. "Whose are they?"
Starscream turned around and first noticed them now, as did the others. "Oh, that reminds me... KNOCK OUT!"
The doctor winced at the call of his name, but knew he had no way of hiding now. "...yes?" he whispered.
"Why had Cross-Eyes tagged along with me when I had told you to keep an eye on all of them at all times?" He turned to show the now sleeping sparkling resting on his back. They hadn't noticed her until now because she blended so well into the Seeker's back, due to both having gray and silver plating.
"Um, I...uh..." began Knock Out.
Sunstorm stared at the clingy sparkling. "That sparkling..."
Starscream turned with an irritated look on his face. "What?"
"I sense dark energon within it."
They all stared at him. They only knew she had dark energon because Knock Out had examined her chassis and spark chamber. Megatron knew because he had dark energon flowing through him as well, thus being able to sense dark energon anywhere. The Seekers were somewhat able to sense it because they had worked with refined dark energon back on Cybertron, and they had all gained sonewhat of an immunity to its effects, unlike the Autobots who couldn't tolerate touching the stuff or even being near it.
But Sunstorm had no dark energon within it, and if he did he would probably try to kill himself. He was the biggest hater of Unicron in the universe, and would eliminate anyone even suspected of siding with the Chaos Bringer. This thought made Starscream wince. He knew exactly what he meant now.
"You're not touching her," he said and turned to face him, shielding his sparkling. "They're all mine."
Something in Sunstorm's processor seemed to snap. "Oh," was all he said. "I see."
There was a long moment of intense silence. What was going to happen now? Was he going to attack? Would he try to kill the sparkling?
Come to think of it, Starscream thought, if he, the biggest Unicron hater and Primus zealot ever, had the ability to somehow sense dark energon, then why did he not try to frag Megatron?
Because he knows Lord Megatron will be equal, if not greater in power than him, the Seeker thought. He may be a mad Saint, but he is anything but stupid. He will hold back on terminating Megatron until he has gathered more information, I'm sure. He won't let such a dangerous "Unicron-lover" as he calls them, live. I doubt he'll have a chance against Lord Megatron though. Then again, he was the one who wiped out the Predacons...fortunately.
Sunstorm turned around, heading for the edge of the flight deck.
"What-where are you going?" the Seeker asked confused. He was certain he was going to scrap them.
"I am not dumb, Star," the golden Seeker replied rather gloomily. "And I am also not sparkless, despite what you and the others may think of me. I will not strike on one of my own, and the only reason I would try to kill a sparkling would be if it had a direct threat. I promise I will not harm it now, but once it grows up, or if you ever leave it alone, I will not hesitate to rid the universe of one more demon."
"Gee, thanks," the small Seeker snarled sarcastically. "You're too kind."
"I'm serious, Star. I will kill it if I see it alone. This one has a bad spark, and the others have strange sparks too. The yellow one though...feels kind of nice," referring to "Goldy".
Starscream winced at the notion. "I won't allow you to harm any of my sparklings. I do not care about the past, I won't hesitate to kill you if you try to or do harm even one of my children."
Sunstorm shook his head and transformed to his Cybertronian jet mode, flames starting to flare up again. "I hope you'll come to understand the truth soon, Starscream. I do hope to see you again. I will stay on Earth for now until Cybertron becomes inhabitable again. I was really looking forward to coming home. And Megatron," the Seeker said just before taking off, making the warlord looked at him with a questionable look.
"Don't you dare convert my little brother into a Herald of Unicron."