Heeere she comes to save the daaaaaaaaaaaaay! New chapter! Good mood! Everything is wonderful! Well...unless you ask Starscream, poor kid...

Cobalt Cat: I know, I know...life ain't fair. 'Specially in fanfic. You wouldn't think he's my favourite character, would you?!

Nobleknightkaeru: Thank you, thank you...wait, didn't I do that last time? (Thinks.) Ah well. I'm trying to show that Screampuff wasn't exactly a saint before he joined the 'cons - but read on for his version of events. I won't spoil it.

Indigo-ink: Waargh! (ducks for cover in the blast) Penetrate?! It only blew the bldy doors off! ... Ahahaha. (puts Michael Caine mask down.) Kidding. Actually, the entire thing's flattened... Still, nice to see the little gits are loathable - means I'm doing my job right. (And it keeps Screamer happy - I couldn't be even vaguely complimentary even if I wanted to!) I love reviews (or anything else) that make oi larf. (Family in-joke - don't ask.) And speaking of updating...I will if you will (winks) Pleeeease?

Soryu: True, true, but he's cute when he's angry. We like him when he's angry. And he hates being played around with... (Evil grin) Skyfire'll hit the roof - in time. Give him a sec. And as for the sullen mech...I have plans for him, yes indeedy. Watch this space. And by the way - thanks for giving me a creative jumpstart the last two chapters. I had no clue how to start this puppy until I read my reviews - you and Indigo both. Thanks guys! (Hands out medals. Shiny medals, Muttley...Meggal! Meggal! Urgh - told you I was in a good mood. I'm quoting Catch the Pidgeon.)

Okay then...off we go!


To mourn

Starscream stared up at his teacher in dumb bewilderment. Somewhere, behind the icy wall that had frozen over his spark when he heard the words, he dimly felt his soul screaming, howling, protesting that it wasn't fair, they were wrong, it wasn't all his fault...but none of it reached him. He was cut off from his body and his furious, blazing spark couldn't touch him; just a cold memory of a mind that inhabited a shell far removed from him, and all he could do was stare at Skyfire and say "They want me barred, Skyfire. I've been expelled."

It wasn't enough, wasn't nearly enough, but the limp, lifeless words broke a hole in the ice and he started to quake, the realisation finally breaking through and hitting him that he'd lost - lost everything he'd worked so hard and so long for, and it was all his own fault. If he hadn't blundered into that...

...that...

...wait.

...No.

Oh, no.

This wasn't my fault.

Scarlet optics narrowed into blood-red slits.

The hell it wasn't his fault! Those two slag-sucking excuses of ground-scraping dirt-nosed tailpipes dragged his name through the mud and called him a seeker, starting rumours - his coolant boiled at the thought. They were asking for some sort of payback!

His optics widened and realisation seared blinding through his sensors even as Skyfire stumbled unsteadily to the floor in front of him.

They were asking for payback... He stared unthinkingly ahead and his mouth dropped open, not noticing Skyfire looking at him with increasing concern as he gazed fixedly past his worried mentor. They practically invited me to attack them and I walked right into it! I'm such an idiot! Why the slagging inferno didn't I see it coming?...

"Starscream? Starscream, talk to me! What happened...?" The anxiety in Skyfire's tone finally registered and the flier snapped his head round to fix him with a ferocious look.

"Those two scrap-junkie neophyte alchemists set me up! They...those-those conniving, devious, Primus forsaken little-"

"Stop, stop - Starscream, what are you talking about?!" Skyfire sputtered, concern mixing with confusion as he tried to keep up. "What do you mean? Why-"

"They planned this whole thing from the start!" Starscream was way past feeling sorry for himself - he'd bypassed Angry and was heading for Absolutely Bloody Furious at a huge rate of knots. "All of it - the names, the bickering, the slag-spreading - they knew exactly what I'd do, how I'd react..." The flier ground to a snarling, spluttering stop, choked with fuming indignation and fast approaching total meltdown he was so furious. If there was one thing Starscream truly hated it was being manipulated, and the thought of someone deliberately and accurately turning him into their puppet was more than he could bear.

Sadly, he was so irate that Skyfire, running along beside his train of thought and trying to jump on, kept missing the handholds on the sides of the carriage.

He took a flying leap of logic and managed to grab a rail. "Starscream, if you think Derby and Combine set you up then why didn't you tell the-"

"-the Council?" Starscream interrupted bitterly. "Oh, come on Skyfire. Do you really think that dozy bunch of Overlords would take the word of an accident-prone, trigger-happy flyboy over that of two shining examples of 'the Academy's investment in the young mechs of today?'" He smiled sourly at Skyfire's expression. "Be honest."

Skyfire faltered and gestured for a moment or two, but nothing convincing came out under the scrutiny of those sceptical red optics. He knew the Council, after all. He sighed and gave up, scooting over to slump against the wall next to the flier. They sat in silence for a moment or two, each lost in thought - although, truth be told, Starscream was more imagining what horrible, painful but above all poetically just accidents may befall the two smug little gits than thinking.

Skyfire stirred and sat up slightly, looking down at the flier. "You never told me what happened."

Starscream shrugged. "The Council took their side and threw me out" he said harshly. "Nothing else to it."

"That wasn't what I meant" the scientist said gently, knowing the tone wasn't aimed at him and ignoring it. "What happened to make you go for them like that? They've annoyed you before..."

Starscream looked up at him in surprise. "I didn't tell...?"

Skyfire carried on looking at him patiently, evenly. His optics dimmed a little. "No... No, I - suppose I didn't..."

It had started innocently enough, apparently. Starscream had heard from a classmate that rumours had been circulating in the few days he'd been in the medbay - rumours that all lead back to the brothers. He wasn't too keen on telling Skyfire exactly what they were, and the scientist had an abrupt flashback to the lab, when a shaky flier had wavered over telling him about the seeker jibes - Skyfire had had a nasty feeling this could be either similar or much, much worse, so insisted, carefully and patiently, that his student tell him.

With an uncharacteristic hesitation Skyfire would have on another occasion found endearing, Starscream reluctantly told him, almost as if he was afraid of hurting or disillusioning his teacher.

Skyfire's optics grew wide and his audios burned. A long, slow anger began to simmer deep in his core as the list went on, whispers of secret research, weapons and betrayal came stumbling from the dark lips of the pupil he'd come to know and like, whispers that came fast and bitter as Starscream's anger rose again until he was almost shouting.

Skyfire gritted his teeth until they ground as Starscream slowed to a halt - he had almost begged Starscream to stop in his fevered recital, but had forced himself to listen if only to help shoulder the pain in his students' optics so he wouldn't be alone. Skyfire, unlike his mercurial student, was slow to anger, but when he was truly roused it was fierce and defensive. Starscream could storm into any argument like a tornado, but his temper normally blew out after the argument and he didn't hold grudges for long - unless he was repeatedly riled. With Skyfire, on the other hand, one almost never saw him really, truly angry. He could be annoyed, true - he was a teacher, not a saint - but it took a lot to push him into a fury. Now he was walking on the knife-edge of being absolutely incensed.

He kept enough of his self-control to at least try and be the objective partner, however. Skyfire wasn't one to rush in blindly, unlike his protégé, and managed to keep his head to ask "What did you do after that? Did you just throw yourself at them without a word?"

"No" the flier muttered. "I found them in the courtyard and I yelled at them, wanted to know why they were telling lies about me. They just smirked at me and I-" he grimaced wryly. "I lost my head and started yelling insults. I don't do well when I lose my temper."

Skyfire nodded encouragingly and he kept going. "Derby looked annoyed at that, like he'd expected something different - probably thought I'd run at them then." He smirked, just a little, at doing something that the two hadn't predicted. "Combine moved and Derby grabbed his arm - he must have wanted me to attack them first so they wouldn't get the blame." A small, mirthless snicker and Starscream fell silent. Skyfire frowned. "If they wanted you to go for them, what could they say that tipped you over?"

Starscream shivered, ever so slightly. Skyfire noticed and put a large, comforting hand on his wing. The flier sighed.

"They said...It - was sort of ...spooky" he admitted in a low voice. "Cultish. All this mumbo-jumbo about how some sort of balance had to be kept, that there always had to be conflict, light and dark fighting and I was only a means to an end... They used me, Skyfire!" he burst out, startling his teacher into losing his grip as the flier gestured violently at the sky. "All this, all the aggravation and the jibes and the sneering - it had nothing to do with me! I was a tool for them to use and set the Universe to rights! I was a counterweight!" He started to laugh, and Skyfire heard with horror the edge of hysteria high and shrill in his voice. "I'm just a statistic, a box to be ticked for the saviours of the Universe on their to-do list! That's it! That's it!"

Starscream's vocaliser abruptly cut out, his self-repair work cracking under the tensions of so much shouting and dissolving into the croaking, groaning whine of machinery under stress. The flier shrieked something unintelligible at the ceiling and collapsed back in a juddering heap against the wall, frustrated and exhausted. Skyfire didn't hesitate - with only a brief, silent death wish aimed at the brother mechs and the stuffy Council alike, he slid over and slipped his arm over the shaking wing and round Starscream's back, the other over his cockpit and held the shaking flier close. Starscream the flier couldn't stand anyone clinging to him or even crowding him, but Starscream the tired, upset emotional young mech needed someone there for him and held on to the white arms like a lifeline.

They stayed there in silence until Starscream had recovered his self control. Still in Skyfire's arms, he said I can't stand anyone deciding my future for me. I hate it.

"I know" Skyfire murmured soothingly, the brief interlude putting his slow, hot fuse on the back burner to comfort his student. Silence reigned, until, with a slight, reflexive coughing noise like a jet engine starting, Starscream's vocaliser came back online. In a voice somewhat raspier than usual he said "Thank you."

"Any time," Skyfire smiled as he let the smaller flier go and stood up. "Now. How do you fancy finding some evidence to get you reinstated and the other two booted out on their smug blue spoilers?"

Starscream looked up at him wide-opticed. "You can do that?" he said, looking taken aback - and more than a little awed - at the look on his teacher's face as he loomed purposefully overhead like an avalanche about to descend from a pure white mountaintop.

"Oh yes" Skyfire said, with a slow, grim, deathly intent smile eerily reminiscent of the one spreading across his student's face.

"I can and will - with great pleasure."


Yes! Now things are turning round - wahey! Time for some fun...

Author's note - for fun to be had, reviews written there must be, or triumph to Dark Side will. I get miserable if no-one reviews. :D Enough Yoda! Go, review - and tell me what nasty punishments I can give to the two little blue gits. I've got some ideas of my own, but be inventive and make me either laugh or wince. I'm throwing it wide open - be inventive. And cruel. I'm a seekerfan too... he he he.

Starscream and Skyfire are © to Hasbro or somebody, Derby and Combine are © me, as is the punishment waiting for the evil, slag-raking sons of mothers - unless I have help, and then they share the credit. Um...can you tell I'm biased here? (The story's © me too, by the way. Well, I'm not gunna hand it over now, am I?!)