(ambles in.) 'lo people - me again. Yep, new chapter, and the plot is winding up to it's glorious conclu- Waitasec. I'm sounding like Galvatron...Argh! I knew watching all the 3&4 box set over three days would be bad! That explains the third person bit in my bio... Brr. Very strange. Wonder if Galvy had trouble with one of his wisdom teeth coming through? It'd explain a lot of the shouting, but it hurts too much to yell - expecially when it goes all puss-y and explodes in your mouth when you didn't know it was and-
Okay. Now I've suddessfully put everyone off their lunches and everything, depending on where in the world you are, (I'm ok - just had mine ') let's get on with the reviews...
Indigo-ink: Ooooh, a quote! (evil grin) Me liiike - but I can't see it happening to mine. Sadly. And late reviewer? I'm happy when people review at all! (beams) Especially with funny bits...Twins of Darkness! Hee! Hate to say it, but they're not twins - sorry. I meant to try and fit that into this chappie, but it didn't fit, so it'll have to wait. Such is life. Nice nickname, though...(sniggers.) Love 'Power Cut'! More! More now!
Soryu: Ah...the losing is all part of the finding, young grasshopper... -Brr. Brr-rrr-rrr - what the heck happened there?! Uh - sorry about that. It should all become a bitty clearer here - and yeah, the Converters' philosophy has a snowball's chance in hell of being accurate, but people believe some crazy things. Like me and the plot bugs - I'm half convinced they're real now, after I wrote the beginning chunk of this bit in the dark! Still, it's a bit early to set up an altar for them, don't you think? And thanks muchly, as ever, for the reviews on everything else.
Skins Thunderbomb: okay, read them however you're happy with. 'Meetings' is nearly finished (famous last words - gulp) so you shouldn't get too confused, but 'Sins' can be read as a separate story. It's set a looooong way after this one. And no, I'm not Australian - I just upload before my lunch 'cos I'm off school at the moment. My great-uncle lies over there, though - does that make m a semi-demi-Aussie or something? That'd be fun. Someone seemed to think I sounded like an Aussie or a new Zealander for some reason once - I must drawl unenglishly or something. I'm a UK girl, actually ;)
Cyblade Silver: They will, they will - just not yet. Wait for it...the ball has started rolling Eee-heeheehee...
Alexandra Spar: Then all I shall say is - here y'go. And I will. Promise (evil-yet-oh-so-innocent grin.)
Prof. Wayzegoose: Yeah, yeah, stop trying to sound clever. It doesn't suit you. (And yes, folks, I do know him - and I've told him this many times before. 'S sort of a running gag - I wouldn't insult anyone else. Which is sort of a compliment, really - and yes, I'm expecting the obligatory sarky reply.)
Jess: Thanks muchly! (beams) Those bugs'd deserted me on this one for a while, but now ther're back with a vengeance. Stay tuned ;)
Pinkfuzzyone: Nah, the Prof talked at me and I turned it into a fic, tis all. Thanks muchly - and the difference is the seekers are the original three and the coneheads are the jumped-up pointy-headed ones they were replaced with when the new toys needed selling. (pants a little.) Er - sorry about that, but Starscream stuck with Thrust never sat well with me. The only difference is Coneheads have...well...pointy heads, really. Sorry it's so mundane...
All righty, on with the show!
Game
Starscream sat, as he had been sitting for hours, picking grimly through the scraps of his null ray with dogged frustration all over his face. The chances of him finding proof that Derby and Combine had sabotaged the thing were slim to none, and he knew it. The flier let out a sigh that ended up as a growl of irritation - Starscream had gone over the wreckage a hundred times before in the Med Bay and now a hundred times again, and it was impossible. There was simply nothing left to study, let alone any evidence of possible tampering.
Finally Starscream let out a strangled screech of pure, hopeless anger and swept the bits back into a container, a useless jumble of scrap metal, before lunging to his feet to pace the floor of Skyfire's quarters. He hadn't taken much interest in his surroundings when they had first entered - himself too rattled by the mech calling himself Missionary, whose face still haunted his memory banks - and Skyfire had been visibly on edge, no matter how hard he fought to keep calm and composed for his student's sake.
It was Skyfire's idea that Starscream stay hidden in the professor's quarters for the time being - he was officially barred from the Academy (though it was being kept quiet by the Council, as was customary when something big happened, and rumour had started to spread like wildfire over why. Neither pair knew, though Skyfire may have guessed if he hadn't been so preoccupied, but Derby and Combine hadn't made many friends that day.) Skyfire took the very real risk of serious trouble by hiding Starscream in the building at all, let alone in his private quarters, and the younger mech was grateful.
Now, though, with Skyfire gone to his classes after the most hurried council of war Starscream was ever to have, the walls were starting to close in on him. He paced, going over and over the schematics in his head and trying to see any way they could have created such a spectacular explosion, how they could have managed to pervert his creation without his knowing, how...
Starscream broke off the thought with a snarl of frustration. He whirled from the path he'd been taking, around and around the centre of the room in ever-tightening circles, and flung his arms wide to try and shove the walls away and break free, fight his way out into open sky.
But he couldn't. Still, the effort did make him feel a little better - he managed to calm down, however slightly, and stood quiet for a moment in the centre of the room.
Okay. He was calm. He was perfectly calm. And he would stay calm until he had worked this out, and then he would pound those two leeching, slag-sucking balls of Ikthiak snot until their own creators wouldn't recognise them. Again.
Starscream gave the room a radiant, beatific smile, and reactivated his optics before narrowing them in thought.
So. There's no evidence to say they did it. I've gone over my null ray with every sensor I can think of and a few they haven't invented yet, and I still can't find any proof.
The ruby slits tilted to gaze consideringly at the ceiling.
Then maybe I've been looking in all the wrong places...
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Scrape.
Thump.
Thud.
Persistent, snarling yet thankfully muffled curses that would have made a minibot wince.
With an irritated huff, Starscream folded his wings back and finally managed to yank himself through the window - a little too enthusiastically, if truth be told, so he ended up sprawling on the floor in an even worse humour than before. He picked himself up and dusted himself down, his grumbling quiet and half-hearted all the while, and threw a scalding crimson glance around the room.
"For a scientist Combine makes a great mathematician" he muttered, snidely hitching his wings as he inched between towering stacks of datapads covered in equations so complex it made his processor hurt to look at them. He cast around the room, trying to find somewhere to start searching in the stacks, when a set of figures on a nearby pad caught his attention. Frowning slightly and leaning on another heap, he hooked a corner of the pad and pulled it towards him. Unluckily for him Combine happened to be a little haphazard when piling things up, and with a whoosh and an audio-splitting rattle the entire pile dissolved and Starscream fell with a yelp to the floor.
Fortunately the students in the nearby quarters had lessons at the time so no-one heard the racket, but Starscream still had to re-stack the jumble of datapads he was sprawling in. Not that he cared - all he could see was the calculations, schematics and scribbled notes spilling across the datapad in his hand.
Everything he'd ever written down about the null ray.
Starscream stumbled out of the room, a cold-burning fury shaking him from head to foot. He'd read the datapad from end to end, and everything was there - everything he'd ever put down, from rough sketches of the outer plating to the most detailed inner workings of the ray's innards...it was all there. All his work. All of it stolen. Starscream's face contorted in anger as he tried to stay focussed - he knew from taking apart instruments in classes the brothers would have had to have another pad or two to work out their own calculations, to figure out how to deform his project...
Starscream gritted his teeth. Calm now, clobber later. Think. Where could they hide the other data- oh. He smacked a hand to his forehead and groaned at his own stupidity. They're brothers, dummy! If one of them doesn't have it, the other will. And it wasn't in Combine's room, so let's just guess where it'll be, you stupid drone...
A short while later, after Starscream discovered that Derby's door was locked - as per usual - so he couldn't get in, and that he'd left Combine's door wide open when he wobbled out earlier, the flier sat in a cramped clear space between towering piles of datapads and stewed - until he realised that there was a door connecting the brothers' rooms. Rather sheepishly, he opened it and stepped through.
He looked round at the spotless, tidy shelves of datapads, equipment and other little academic nick-nacks, and immediately thought- Derby really needs a hobby. Or a personality transplant.
The room was immaculate, intensely so, and thus it was with no small degree of suspicion that Starscream noticed one datapad sticking out on a shelf of it's pristinely-angled brethren. Still...A hint was a hint, even if it was just Derby leaving in a hurry and being less neurotic than normal in his tidy-spree - however unusual that may appear to be - so Starscream walked over and pulled the pad out. A single glance was all it took - complex calculations and speculation on how, exactly, the two could blow up the ray with maximum damage and minimum guilty evidence.
The young mech's fingers shook. Starscream clenched his fists, then heard a slight, ominous creak from the pad and put it back on the shelf before he snapped it. He took a final hurried glance at the pad, checking where it was on the shelf so he could find it again if he needed to, and caught sight of a tiny symbol on the edge. A circle, half white, half black, with a band of grey binding the two halves together.
Starscream's optics narrowed. He stared at the symbol, and fixed it firmly in his mind. He had a feeling he knew exactly what it represented - and if he was right, it would be yet another nail in the brothers' coffins.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
"You did what?!"
Starscream stood solidly in front of Skyfire and lifted his chin. "I found out that Derby and-"
"That's not what I mean and you know it. Whatever possessed you to go wandering around in their quarters? Need I remind you that you're still barred from the Academy - and if you're caught it won't exactly help your case?" Skyfire frowned down at his student as the chin dropped and Starscream started to look more than a little uncomfortable. "Not only that, because you broke into their quarters to find whatever it is we can't use it ourselves - no matter how planet-shattering a revelation it may be. And did you even think about what would happen if you were caught?"
Silence.
"No, I suppose you didn't. You can't go flying blind, Starscream! And you can't break into people's quarters to get what you want. Understand?"
A muttered "yes."
"Good." Skyfire turned and sat in a nearby chair. "So what did you find?"
Starscream looked up at him in surprise. "Didn't you just say-"
"I'm your teacher Starscream" he said primly. "I'm supposed to teach you what's the right and wrong thing to do." A sly smile grew in his optics at the look on Starscream's face. "That doesn't mean you don't do it, as long as you know it's wrong." He leant forward, the innocent expression turning to one ready for serious business. "Now, lesson over - what did you find?"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Out in the courtyard a group of students stood talking. One of them, a purple femme scrunching a writing case between her hands, said "I don't understand why he'd just go for them. I mean, they're not exactly polite and perky, but that's no reason to..."
"I heard he's a real seeker" a dark grey-gold mech interrupted, pushing forward. "I heard that he was planning to make a weapon and use it to-"
"To what?" the femme snapped, annoyed at being interrupted. "Take over the science lab? Enslave the energy dispenser, maybe?" A guilty giggle from the others and the mech looked abashed. "Don't be stupid. Starscream's got a temper but he's no seeker - it's not right that he got kicked out for no good reason."
"The Council must have had something on him to boot him out so suddenly" a quiet voice near the back murmured. "They just haven't told us."
"Oh, they had something" came a voice from a passing mech. "but not on Starscream."
The group turned as one to stare at the sullen-sounding voice. A greeny-grey mech stopped and stared back at the band of inquisitive optics, and utter silence reigned until the gold mech said "What do you mean, not on Starscream? Why'd they kick him out if it wasn't something he did?"
The dull mech looked back, almost appraisingly, then turned to face them and leant in. They all huddled unconsciously closer as he started to speak... "Yes, Starscream went for them, but the Council didn't tell anyone why, did they?"
"Well, no, but-" The gold mech got a purple elbow in his side and took the hint.
"That's because they didn't know." The mech's optics looked cautiously round as he continued. "You know that Starscream was in the Med Bay a few days? Because his project blew up?" A series of nods, and a few sniggers from those who hadn't heard, or didn't know the extent of the damage. Those who did glared at them, and they shut up.
"The thing was sabotaged-" Gasps echoed round the courtyard as a babble of exclamations and questions rose - and died abruptly as the green mech glared for silence. When it came he said, slowly and quietly, "-by Derby and Combine. That's why he went for them."
In the total, shocked silence, the calm before the storm of noise erupted, he said "Skyfire's looking into it. He's looking for proof, evidence they did it, but he can't find any. If anyone saw or..." But his words after that were drowned in the maelstrom.
The purple femme, one of Starscream's classmates, stood in horror as she remembered the events of a few days ago - before Starscream had returned with Skyfire - and frozen to the core.
The sullen mech slipped away unnoticed, well pleased with his work. Missionary smiled. The Programme had been served well.
Ta-daaa! Watch me multitask! Starscream the cat-burglar - oy. Read and review while I go and upload 'Sins' now, okay? Reviews make me happy, and a happy author writes lots. Well, before she goes off to Uni, anyway - I'll try and polish off 'Meetings' before next Monday (20th, I mean) and then it'll be every fic for himself. I don't know how much time, if any, I'll have spare for fic-writing apart from weekends, so make the most of me now. Ta-ra!
Starscream and Skyfire are hasbro's. I think. They ain't mine, but the students, Derby, Combine and Missionary, along with the Converters, are. (looks back.) Woo. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. Well, for me anyway.
