Starscream stood over the dead husk of a drone Optimus just killed.

"There will be more," Optimus said. His frame was smeared with energon and the smell of spilt blood hung hot and thick in the dead ship's stale air.

Starscream knelt over the corpse and stared into its blank and dead visor. "Yes," he agreed, his voice perfectly flat and emotionless. He tried not to look behind him, tried not to look at the hallway and to where he knew it led.

The sound of hot static hissed into the air from Optimus's comm. He tried to get a signal back to base over and over again, and was met only with static. Their only company was the dead drones and the aching emptiness of the ship they were trapped in.

"Can't we just a blast a way out of this scrapheap?" Starscream growled.

Optimus shook his helm. "I am afraid not. The ship is highly unstable and could go down on us if I harm it in any way at all."

Optimus began to walk off in the direction of the command deck.

Starscream lunged forward and tightened his grip around Optimus's arm. His talons left behind faint scratch marks in the red metal of his arm.

"Not that way, no!"

The sound of pedes marched towards them from the darkness and made the entire ship shake and shudder as another contingent of drones came their way.

Optimus just looked at him, his faceplate dark and hidden within the dim light of the ship's emergency lights. The sound of shouting echoed down the hall and rang around their helms until all Starscream could hear was the sound of his energon as it pumped through his cabling, the hiss of the comm's static, and the shouts of the drones that were about to be on them at any moment, so much shouting—

—The Enforcers had shouted in surprise when Starscream killed them—

"Not that way, Optimus. Please!" Starscream shook out.

Optimus just looked at him, his field calm and smooth around him. The sound of the drones grew louder and louder until soon the sound of their marching pedes was deafeningly loud.

H glanced down at the dark hall that led to the command deck and then back at Starscream.

Suddenly, he grabbed ahold of Starscream and pulled the both of them into a sidehall. The two of them sat there in the darkness as the drones marched past, one after the other, their red visors piercingly bright in the darkness. Static hissed in the air, the drones marched past, and Optimus held Starscream tight as they hid in the shadows.

"Starscream."

He opened his optics and looked up at Prime. Optimus just stared at him, his bright blue optics shining bright in the gloom.

"You've been acting... rather strangely as of late."

Starscream rolled his optics and willed his spark to calm down in his chestplates. "Of course I am! I'm stuck in some scrapheap, why do you think?"

"What did Soundwave say to you?"

Starscream's spark froze. "He said… he said nothing to me, Prime." The lie was weak, even to his own audials.

Optimus frowned and the two of them stepped back into the main hall after the drones passed. The dark shadows of the corridor that led to the command deck seemed like a dark and suffocating thing that wanted to consume Starscream at any moment. He turned his back to the darkness. He has lied to thousands of mechs over the course of the war, he could lie to Prime—

"You are not just lying to me, you are also lying to yourself."

Starscream's wings fell flat on his back as cold dread filled his field. Optimus just stared at him, his field ever calm and patient.

"I am not…"

"Yes," Optimus began as he knelt down until they were faceplate to faceplate. "You are. What happened to you back there?"

Starscream tried to look Optimus in the optics and found that he could not. He stepped back to get away from the Prime and his searching gaze and felt his back hit the cold metal wall of the hallway. How do you tell a mech that you killed a bunch of mechs in cold blood a thousand years ago, and that you weren't even sure if they were the ones who had to die? And how do you tell him that they were all heaped up on one another just one hall away, waiting to be found, waiting for the evidence of their unjust slaughter to be found so that they can have their revenge a thousand years later—

The sound of marching started up again.

The bright red light of the drone's visors shone in a sidehall and the sound of their clanking pedes grew ever louder and louder.

"Promise me you'll be ready to tell me one day, Starscream. Promise me."

"Promise me," the dying Seeker in Vos had said. "Promise me."

Starscream offlined his optics and felt his spark wither as he made another promise he knew he couldn't keep.

"All right," he said.

Optimus let go of Starscream and the two of them transformed and raced down the hall as the drones closed in a second time.

Starscream prayed that at any moment a ray of sunshine would shine out at them from some exit. No luck came. They descended farther into the darkness as the sound of the drone's marching pedes continued to grow louder and louder. They emerged into a large and vast room littered with the remains of mining equipment.

For a moment Starscream thought it was the command deck and he felt his spark freeze—but it was just some empty room.

The sound of the approaching drones boomed through the empty room's air.

It wouldn't be empty for long, though.

"Starscream…" Optimus started to say.

"What?! You still want to know what Soundwave said to me? Are you worried we're scheming something together, is that it? You want to know if he gave me a time limit to join Megatron or you, is that it?"

Optimus just looked at him. "I want to know what scheme he's devised to hurt you. And Starscream… I never said anything about a time limit."

Starscream felt his spark freeze. "I… you don't need to know, Optimus." Starscream grit out.

He couldn't tell Optimus, he just couldn't. That would require revealing the carnage he had caused on the bridge and would require telling him about the threat of the ultimatum looming over his helm. Optimus just stared at him as the emergency alarms began to blare and as the sound of the marching soldiers grew even louder.

He knew Optimus would not dispose of him—the Prime had made that clear—but telling the Prime about how Soundwave cornered him and forced him to choose between Megatron and him made something tight coil around Starscream's spark.

"Starscream..." Optimus began. Starscream looked around and felt a chill travel through his armor. There were no side passages, no hidden corridors or hiding spots, not a single thing at all to hide them from the horde of drones that was about to come their way. The entire room was just a dead-end.

"We will have to fight them," Optimus continued. His battlemask snapped shut and the hallway lit up with the blood-red light of the drone's visors.

Starscream offlined his optics and tightened his servos into fists. "Yes."

He'd been unable to fight Soundwave back at the river and he was unable to even get a single punch in when Soundwave confronted him about the ultimatum—he couldn't win those fights against Soundwave. But he would win this one.

Starscream began to walk away from the Prime when suddenly a servo closed around his shoulder. Optimus looked at him, one servo on his shoulder and the other transformed into a blaster and ready to fire.

"Prime, what now—? I know my place. I'm supposed to fight off in the corner away from you."

Optimus's optics widened. "You will not share the information with me. But you can at least fight with me."

The emergency lights lit up and made the entire room glow blood-red.

"You want to… you want to fight beside me?" Starscream stuttered. His field rippled in a strange mixture of shock and gratitude.

"Oh, Starscream," Megatron had said softly, so softly. Starscream had wanted to fight the Enforcers beside him back then. "I won't stop them. But you can."

"I—" Starscream stuttered out. Megatron had promised, he'd promised—

"I cannot stop and fight beside you every time you want to go off on some mad crusade!" Megatron growled.

Starscream's wings fell. "But… you said we'd do this together! "

"Things change!"

Starscream snapped back to the present as Prime tightened his hold on his shoulder.

"We will do this together, " Optimus said.

"Oh, together?!" a drone snarled.

They both turned around and came faceplate to faceplate with a drone standing before them. His red visor flared and he pointed a servo directly at Starscream.

"Together, did you all hear that? So this is the reason Megatron has been so… off lately."

"Megatron? Off? He's always off, he's practically insane!" Starscream growled.

The drone just looked at him. "He won't stop obsessing over you, Commander! " the drone hissed.

Optimus frowned. "Soldier, what do you mean? To what lengths will Megatron go to bring us back?"

"You just don't understand, do you? He doesn't want you back, Prime! He wants Starscream back because he wants Starscream to replace you!" the drone laughed bitterly. His visor flickered and a hint of anxiety entered his field.

The other drones did not have his patience. They all rushed forward in a swarm of red visors and flashing purple armor. Optimus fired off round after round of hot blue blaster bolts and Starscream unsheathed his talons and viciously slashed away at the joins and necks of the approaching drones that came running at him. The first drone just stood there, his frame frozen as he watched the battle rage on around him.

He turned and began to run back down the way he came.

"Wait!" Starscream shouted after him.

"Traitor!" the drone screeched.

Another drone snuck up behind Starscream and knocked him to the floor with a kick between his wings. Starscream fell hard against the ground and the drone lifted his pede right onto his cockpit, right over his spark chamber and began to press down

—bleeding on the ground, vents coming in harsh gasps, Megatron looming over him, raising his pede—

"You betrayed us. Why?" the drone asked slowly.

Starscream found that he did not know the answer. He kicked the drone's midsection with the tip of his pede and used that opportunity to roll him over and slash his neck.

Optimus grunted in pain and Starscream whipped around to face the Prime. A cloud of smoke curled away from his torso and he held a single servo to the singemark. A drone stood behind him farther off in the hall with an upraised blaster.

Starscream blinked. That blaster had been pointed right at him, not Optimus. Yet Optimus had moved in the way and gotten hit instead, but that made no sense because surely the Prime would've notice he was in the line of fire, unless—?

"Optimus… did you… throw yourself in front of me?" he shakily breathed out. The last time somebody had thrown their own frame in front of a blaster to save Starscream was when Megatron got really angry at him and fired at him, so Thundercracker—

"Starscream!" Optimus warned. A drone suddenly came out of a shadow and ran at Starscream at full speed.

He was thrown into a sideroom by the impact and rolled across the floor. The drone lunged at him and he yelped and slashed his talons at his neck cabling. The dead drone landed on his prone frame and Starscream sighed as he tossed the deactivated frame off of him.

Nobody moved. Optimus just stood there and held a servo to his midsection as Starscream shakily rose to his pedes. The bodies of the drones were all heaped up on one another, in much the same way the Enforcers were—

No. He wouldn't let himself think about what was hidden in the command deck. He'd find an exit and escape with Optimus and never, ever think about this wretched place ever again.

Something crunched under his pede.

Starscream's optics widened and he reached down and picked up a remote.

"A groundbridge remote," he breathed as Optimus stepped up beside him. "Primus, I love Decepticon scientists! We could use this to get out of here!"

Optimus frowned and picked up the remote. He typed in a set of coordinates and activated a groundbridge right in front of the two of them. Hope soared through Starscream's spark and he prepared himself to walk right through it and out of that hellhole—

The groundbridge flashed and trembled. Optimus grabbed ahold of Starscream and ran out with him to the hallway as the whole bridge exploded in a brilliant flash of green light.

The two of them just sat there in the hallway while breathing heavily.

"Scrap!" Starscream swore as he punched his fist onto the floor. "We needed that to work!"

Optimus shook his helm. "I am sorry, Starscream, but that groundbridge remote is far too unsafe to use. It has been sitting unused for probably a thousand years and any bridge it creates could collapse upon us. We should just find an exit and comm for a bridge from Ratchet once we reach the outside."

Starscream sighed as he dragged his servo down his faceplate. "Fine, fine, whatever. Just… let me keep it. I want to reverse-engineer it."

He slid the remote underneath his cockpit and hid it there under his armor.

Optimus smiled. "And yet you say that the scientist in you is dead. We must continue searching for an exit together."

Starscream let out a heavy vent. Together. There was that strange word again that meant so much and yet so little at the same time. He and his trinemates—no, his brothers had fought together, and it was amazing. Megatron and him had fought together, and it was… awful.

Except, Megatron never really did fight beside Starscream, did he? He was often present at battles, yes… but when was the last time the warlord fought with him back to back? Starscream frowned and found that he had trouble remembering.

But Optimus…

The Prime continued to walk off down the hallway, oblivious to the turmoil within Starscream's processor.

The Prime had fought beside Starscream the same way the brothers of Starscream's trine had fought beside him.


"We're brothers, right?"

They looked out across the vast swath of destruction before them. The spires of Iacon burnt away in the night and flames roared everywhere. The bright lights of a distant construction yard lit up the sharp hulking hull of Megatron's warship under construction.

"Master, you heard me, right? We are brothers, right?" Starscream repeated.

Megatron's smile faltered for a split second. "Oh, of course my dear Starscream. Of course."

The warlord pulled him closer and the two of them watched the flames together. "We are brothers Starscream—we came from different cities, different castes, different everything, yet we still came together in the end. And soon, we shall end all of this and rebuild Cybertron. Future Decepticon historians will speak of how Orion Pax and Megatron—"

"Um, who is Orion Pax?"

Megatron froze. Starscream gasped harshly as his talons suddenly dug into his armor and drew energon.

"Megatron, you're hurting me—!"

He shoved the Seeker away as if revolted by him. Megatron's faceplate suddenly spasmed in anger and his fist clenched and unclenched by his side.

"Did… I say another designation instead? My bad, brother."

"That's a weird mistake to make! How could you possibly mistaken me for some other bot? I'm one of your most loyal followers."

Megatron nodded as if in a daze. "Yes, yes, of course, Starscream, of course. Orion… was like a brother to me. I realized far too late though that his kindness was just a charade that he used to manipulate so that he could claim the Primehood for himself. You… are different, though."

Megatron knelt down and grabbed ahold of Starscream's helm in both of his talons. His touch was gentle, yet it still made a cold chill go down Starscream's struts. That was odd, everything was on fire around them, so how could he be cold? He decided not to think too much about it. Megatron had said he would do the thinking and scheming for him. Instead, Starscream could just focus on avenging Vos.

The warlord's grip on his helm tightened as he pressed their forehelms together and soon their faceplates were only a breath away. Megatron stared at Starscream as if in a daze, as if he was seeing somebody else instead.

"You… Orion—I mean, Starscream… you will be everything that Orion should've been."

A sense of honor flared up in his spark. He did not know who this Orion was, all he knew was that Megatron thought Starscream was worthy enough to take his place. He didn't know why Orion Pax left and betrayed Megatron—but it didn't matter why, did it?

And yet again he got that feeling again—that cold, slinking, climbing, crawling sense of danger that he got right when he was on the precipice of great danger. The last time Starscream had felt that chill was right before Vos was vaporized.

"Oh, Starscream, you are my brother now," Megatron said softly.

Starscream's wings perked up. It had been so long since a bot looked at him with such intensity before. He was tired of being ignored and was glad to be considered useful again.

"And when my trinemates come and join us again—" Starscream began to say. Megatron's optic twitched. "Then nothing will stop the four of us—!"

"No!" Megatron roared. His hold on Starscream's helm suddenly grew painful and pinpricks of energon bled out from where his talons pierced his helm.

"It will be just us two, Starscream! Just us two brothers, no one else! You will have no other brother before me! Show no emotion for no one else!" Megatron shouted directly into his faceplate.

Starscream tried to pull away, but Megatron suddenly yanked him tight and wrapped his massive arms around him. He could hardly move, could hardly breathe—all he could see was the bright metal chestplate of Megatregaton and the reflection of the flames within them. Megatron stroked his spinal strut with a shaking talon.

"Oh, Orion—I mean, Starscream… we need no one except for ourselves. We do not need the fledgling Autobots, the cowards of the Council, or even the Primehood. We just need each other."

Megatron's grip suddenly grew tighter until soon Starscream began to feel a strange pressure in his spark chamber.

"M-megatron? P-please let go, you're crushing me—!"

"Never leave me the way he did. Never," Megatron growled. Starscream was held so tightly to the warlord's frame that he could feel his every word and growl boom through his entire frame.

"You shouldn't have made me angry, Starscream. Do not dare to bring other mechs into this. You only need me. Now, do you have anything else to say?" Megatron said softly as he leaned his helm down to look at Starscream—his voice was soft, but there was a hard glint in his optics that made a shiver run down Starscream's struts.

Starscream wanted to open his intake and just let it all out—every complaint, every grief of his, every doubt and worry and concern about whether Megatron's way was really the right way—

He felt Megatron's servos clench into fists.

Starscream let out a shuddering vent and offlined his optics. Megatron's way was the only way. Starscream's other options had all burnt away. He had even helped Megatron burn them.

Megatron smiled and his sharpened dentae glistened in the harsh red light of the flames. "Good, Starscream, good. True brothers do not need to share words—just let me do all of the speaking, thinking, and hard work for you. Follow my word, my every thought, bend to my will—and Vos will be avenged."

Starscream nodded. He was tired, oh so very tired, the kind of tiredness that was not just physical, but mental as well. He felt like he was going to crumble into a hundred pieces at any moment… but fortunately, he had Megatron. He just had to follow Megatron and let him do the hard work. All Starscream had to do was execute his will. His will was… brutal, sometimes. But the Council was also cold and brutal at times as well. Megatron had helped him to understand that.

And yet—

Starscream looked behind him and back at the charred remains of the Academy. A voice in the back of his helm—no, not just any voice, Skyfire's voice—quietly whispered to him from within the depths of his processor.

He's not your brother, Starscream. He's not—

Megatron pulled him closer and they both stared out into the burning night. Starscream had to stay with Megatron, he had to. He had no other choice.


"It's a trap. It has to be!" Ratchet scowled.

The computer console shone in front of the three of them. The datapacket Soundwave had sent over to Arcee had been downloaded onto the computer and now sat there innocuously on the screen.

"It could be a virus! Who knows what the creep is trying to download onto our computer?" Bulkhead said.

Ratchet frowned. "I scanned it and it came up clear. He's not trying to hurt us with malware, I know that much. I don't like this not one bit."

"Is Optimus still on his mission with… him?" Bumblebee warbled.

Ratchet let out a deep sigh. "Unfortunately. I have no idea what's holding them up so much."

"Could Sounders have gotten them? Or Buckethead?" Bulkhead said.

Ratchet just stared at the screen. "I've tried comming Optimus… but there was no response." Ratchet softly said as he gripped ahold of the lever that controlled the groundbridge. One comm, one word, one set of coordinates—that was all it would take to bring Optimus home. Yet the comms remained dead and silent.

"Something is wrong. Soundwave shows up bearing 'gifts,' and then Optimus goes comm dead? We should have never let him go on a mission with Starscream alone!" Arcee growled as she paced across the room.

Ratchet just continued to stare at the unopened datapacket, his field dark and heavy around him. "He will call us when he is ready to come back."

Arcee whirled around. "And what if he is ready? What if he's trying to contact us right now, but can't because that Seeker got his claws in him and—"

Bumblebee let out an alarmed warble and put a servo on her shoulder. The comm lines continued to hiss static and the three of them continued to just stare at the screen.

"Do you really… do you really think Screamer did something?" Bulkhead asked as he wringed his servos together. Grief and rage mingled together in his field, Bumblebee just beeped sadly, and Arcee just continued to pace across the room.

Ratchet felt his whole age hit him all at once. It would be so easy to find out the truth behind one of the greatest mysteries that had plagued them for so long, just one click of a button, and they could see how Cliffjumper died.

"Do you think it hurt?" Bumblebee warbled. Everybody turned to stare at him and his optics widened.

"I know… what we're really avoiding talking about here. Cliff—"

"Don't say his name, Bee. Don't." Arcee hissed.

Bumblebee's doorwings fell on his back. "I'm sorry, it just slipped out… I just… wonder sometimes."

Ratchet returned his optics to the screen and continued to stare at the datapacket as it blinked on the screen. "I wonder about that too. I think we all do. But it's a trap, it has to be. It has to be. We're not making any decisions on whether to open it or not until Optimus returns."

"But what if he doesn't return? What if, while we're sitting here debating whether to figure out how Cliffjumper died—the same bot who killed Cliffjumper is currently off killing Optimus? " Arcee shouted.

Silence fell. The dead static of the comms hissed in the air.

"We will wait for Optimus to return. He will return. He has to. And when he does return with Starscream in tow, we will find out just how our teammate died—either from this datapacket, or from the murderer himself."

"As if Screamer would tell us that!" Bulkhead scoffed.

Ratchet stared at the screen and listened to the dead static. "We will make him tell us."


"Why… why did he never fight beside me?" Starscream whispered. He and Optimus continued to walk aimlessly into the ship's depths.

"You were just a tool to him, Starscream. A weapon. Something to be used and then thrown away when broken. He did not bother to watch over you," Optimus said, his voice so quiet and so soft. Megatron had spoken softly to Starscream, too.

Optimus fought beside him, was honest with him—and yet Starscream wasn't honest to him in return.

It had been a long time since that kind of guilt had welled up within Starscream, yet there it was, fresh and raw and hurting.

But he couldn't tell Optimus the truth about what was on the command deck. He couldn't .

A groan came from the debris.

Optimus whirled around and pointed his blaster directly at a pile of debris that had crashed down from the ceiling during the fight. The dim red glow of a prone drone's visor shone weakly amongst the dust and debris. Optimus's field instantly softened and he knelt beside the pinned drone. The drone immediately began to struggle and try to get away.

Starscream wasn't sure why, but the sight of that drone trapped under all that rubble made his spark twinge.

"Optimus—"

"You!" the drone snarled suddenly. "You… L-lord Megatron wants you back, Commander—I mean, traitor Starscream!" the drone hissed out as a trickle of energon leaked out of his intake.

Starscream was frozen. Hot rage and confusion warred within him all at once. A part of him wanted to rebuke the drone for having refused to call him by his rank, another part of him wanted the drone to just die, and another part of him just wanted to leave him there. Optimus moved to the side and watched Starscream carefully.

"You… wait, what's that light?" Starscream said as he took a step back. A bright white light shined from somewhere nearby, he had to find it, it could be a way out—

It was coming from the drone's internals. A large gash stretched across his chestplates and arcs of electricity flickered and danced across his plating.

"Oh," Starscream said. "You're the slagger who tried to shoot me!"

The drone coughed up energon. "And you're the s-slagger who b-betrayed us all and left us!"

Starscream growled. "Well, then, I won't leave you! I am no traitor! Megatron betrayed us all first."

"W-what?"

"Well...neither of us can pull you out from under there. But I'll stay here. I'll be here. You accused me of leaving you all. So then I'll just have to stay."

The drone went silent and just stared at him.

"Stay here. Be here. Promise me ," the dying seeker had asked him.

Starscream didn't need to wait for the drone to ask.

"I'll stay here. For you." Starscream said as he rubbed the back of his neck cabling awkwardly. He wasn't sure why, but staying there beside the drone who felt so hurt by his betrayal just felt like the right thing to do for some reason.

The drone's visor flickered and his field rippled weakly around him.

"Okay," he finally said.

Starscream sat there with the drone and waited for him to die.

He didn't know how long he sat there. He was only aware of the weak whir of the dying drone's internals as they shut down one by one and the hot hiss of static from Optimus's dead comm.

"Megatron saw you as just another drone, Starscream," Optimus softly began.

"What, you can't wait for the drone to pass into the Well before you begin to lecture me again?"

"He has already passed."

Starscream jolted and looked down at the prone drone. His visor was black and his frame had already begun to turn grey.

"Oh," he said numbly.

"Starscream…"

"I'm not going to tell you what Soundwave did to me. I just can't. "

"That is not what I was going to ask. I was just going to say that… you did well."

Starscream scoffed. "Of course I did well! I'm an excellent fighter."

Optimus shook his helm. "No, you did well comforting him as he died."

Starscream's intake drew into a hard line and he frowned at the drone. "That's not what I was doing. I was proving a point!" he said. He was just supervising an enemy as he died, that was all.

Optimus seemed to think otherwise. "Comforting him is precisely what you were doing. I did not expect that from you."

"And what did you expect?" Starscream said as he walked away from the drone's body. He couldn't stand to look at it for some reason.

"For you to get angry at him. For you to scold him, kill him, or just walk away. But you stayed. You didn't want him to be alone."

Starscream tried his hardest to avoid looking at the Prime. "So?" he scoffed.

" So you care. You didn't want to be alone, so you didn't want him to be alone."

"What? I'm not alone, I have you!"

"You didn't want to fight alone. You thought you'd have to fight by yourself on the other side of the room, and I had to stop you. Is that what Megatron teaches his soldiers? To fight for their lives away from where they could be helped and to fend for themselves when he could easily help them? Does he just leave them to do his dirty work for him?"

"He…" Starscream stuttered out. "He prefers to have more room to fight."

Optimus's field bloomed with sadness. "He has no room for you beside him because he doesn't care about you."

" You fought beside me," Starscream said. He turned around and saw Optimus smile at him sadly.

"Of course."

"But… why?" Starscream said as he whipped around to face the Prime. Nobody ever liked fighting alongside Starscream. They were too worried about him betraying and attacking them, or they thought he was too vicious out on the battlefield, or they thought he wasn't v icious enough, or—

Or they just didn't like him, so they didn't want to risk dying beside him.

"Starscream, why wouldn't I fight beside you?" Optimus said as he walked over to him.

He flinched backwards and opened his intake to respond, tried to come up with a reason why he wouldn't... and then he just shut his intake. "For… so many reasons, Prime. I've always had to fight alone. It's just the way of things."

Optimus frowned. "What about your trinemates?"

Starscream's armor locked up around him. "What about them?" he said icily.

Optimus seemed to realize his mistake and cautiously raised his servos. "Did they not fight alongside you, back to back?"

Memories of flying through the gleaming towers of Vos sprung unbidden into Starscream's processor. He offlined his optics and forced the memories of blue and purple wings shining in the light back down into the depths of his processor, right back where they belonged.

"Once," he said. "In the early days of the war… but as time drew on, we drew apart from each other, and— gah! " Starscream took a shaky step backward and pointed his servo at the watchful Prime. "I am not having yet another one of these emotional Autobot chat breakdowns, not again! Nope!"

Optimus's field fell heavy around them both. "Do you want to not be an Autobot?"

Starscream froze for a moment. "Well… I do, but I didn't know it would include all of… this! " he harshly breathed out.

Optimus's field seemed lighter now. "Being an Autobot does mean that you will be treated like an actual person and not a tool to be disposed of, yes. I suppose Megatron never bothered to see how you or any of his other soldiers were feeling, did he?"

"No. We never really did talk about the way the war affected us all."

"Then you must get used to it. Becoming an Autobot means that we will have more 'emotional Autobot chats' in the future, not because I want to break you down, but because I want to build you up. Megatron never had any talks like this with you because he never cared about you."

Starscream flinched. He knew for years that the kind and friendly gladiator Megatronus was just a facade meant to hide the true uncaring monster beneath. He knew this, and yet somehow, those words still hurt to hear.

"But you care, Starscream," Optimus said as the two of them began to walk out of the dark room they were trapped in and back into the main hall of the ship.

"What, about the war?"

Optimus shook his helm. "You cared enough about that drone to not leave him behind."

"Oh, pffft, I had to stay beside him because I promised to."

Optimus just looked at him. "He never made you promise to stay with him as he died."

Starscream stopped walking. "What, no! I could see it in his optics. He did make me promise to stay with him… didn't he?"

"You promised yourself that you would stay with him."

He just stared at Optimus before he then looked away. Yet again, the Prime had somehow managed to render him speechless.

Optimus saved him from having to say something yet again. "We should continue looking for an exit so I can comm Ratchet."

Starscream just nodded silently and walked off. He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw the Prime smile at him.


"You are coming with us."

Starscream scoffed at the Autobots before him. "Oh, really? I don't think so."

He had not been having a good day. His new Decepticon insignia had been burned into his chestplate and Primus, did it hurt! His trinemates were growing distant from him, Soundwave was constantly observing him, and Megatron had gone and slammed him into a wall. It hadn't been Megatron's fault, though, not really. He was having a bad day and he had to let some anger out. Megatron just lashed out, that was all. That made it okay, right? Right. It had to be okay. It would be okay—Megatron promised him.

"I have more important things to attend to than two upstart hot rods," Starscream said as he strode away from the two Autobots who had their blasters pointed at him. Right as he began to turn around he felt a burst of heat and light explode in the air beside him.

Starscream whirled back around and snarled at the two Autobots. For a single moment they looked frightened, but then their determination returned and they continued to point their blasters at him.

"You will come with us, Decepticon! The Prime will ensure you receive justice."

"Is killing oppressive tyrants not just, Autobot? Because I did just that. I did more than you Autobots were ever willing to do."

Slag it, he didn't have time for this. Megatron's mood had been worsening ever since the disastrous Council meeting a while back and Starscream had to return to base soon. He didn't want to make his already temperamental Lord even more temperamental by being late. For a single moment he wondered if he should just rip out the new insignia that had been burnt into him and just fly off into the night—

No. Starscream grit his dentae. He had promised to avenge Vos, and he would. He couldn't abandon bringing about justice for his dead people just because his new leader couldn't control who his servos hit sometimes. Megatron had promised him he would help him avenge Vos, and Megatron wouldn't go back on his promise. He wouldn't.

"I would appreciate it if you two young menaces would leave me alone. I have actual threats to worry about."

Hot rage flared up in their young, oh so very young fields. "You're not much older than we are, are you?" one of them said.

Starscream turned to look at them and frowned. Now that he really looked at them, he realized that they were older models than him. His wings drooped once he realized that he was the young one there, not them. Apparently, they realized the same thing. For a single moment he felt pity flare up in their fields.

Starscream snarled at them. "I am not something to be pitied!"

"Precisely," a harsh voice said.

Cold dread closed around Starscream's spark and he looked up and into the shadows. Two blood red optics leered down at him from the shadows of a nearby rooftop.

"Ah… my Lord," Starscream began. He was distantly aware of the terror that suddenly rose up in the two Autobot's fields, but he was too concerned with the terror rising up in his own field to care.

Megatron cocked his helm and just looked at him. "You do not deserve to be pitied, Starscream. You let your people die, after all. Why do you waste your time with these children?" he said as he looked over at the shivering Autobots with bored disinterest.

Starscream cleared his intake. "Well, er, they're wasting my time."

Megatron's head slowly turned to look back at him. "Is that so? Then make them stop. Starscream, kill them."

Starscream's jaw dropped. "What?" Yes, they were annoying, but they hadn't done anything to actually hurt him. There was no need for that much violence, was there?

A voice in the back of his processor said otherwise. Memories of the carnage upon that silver ship he'd boarded suddenly flashed back into his processor. Starscream grit his dentae and tried to will the images away. He'd done the right thing. He had.

"What are you waiting for? We have work to do. Don't make me hit you again, Starscream. Don't make me angry. Do you remember the last time you made me angry?" Megatron said as his optics flared. For a single moment, Starscream felt a brief pulse of more pity from the two Autobot's fields. Megatron's helm whipped around and he turned his intense gaze onto the Autobots. "This wretch is worth nothing, not even pity."

He turned back to Starscream and smiled. It looked just as kind as all the other ones he had given him before, yet there was something about this particular smile that made Starscream's armor lock up.

"Why waste time and energon killing two Autobots who we can just leave in the dust behind us?" Starscream said.

Megatron hummed in thought. "And why should I help you avenge the deaths of your people if you won't even bother to lift a servo to dispose of two enemy soldiers?"

Starscream felt his spark sink. "That's not what I meant—"

"Oh, but it was what you meant, my dear Starscream. When you are a Decepticon, you must fight your enemies who have wronged you."

"They haven't even done anything to me yet! They haven't wronged us—"

Megatron leaped off of the rooftop and leaned in so close he could feel the hot air from his massive vents blast over him. "They have! They chose the wrong side in this war, and for that alone they must die. It does not matter if they have wronged you personally or not, Starscream! They still must be disposed of. Don't make me angry!"

Starscream took a step back. "What?! Aren't you angry already?"

Megatron's optics flashed. "You have seen nothing yet."

Starscream grit his dentae and tried not to think about what that meant. Megatron didn't like it when he thought too hard about the orders given to him—he just wanted him to obey those orders.

"If you want them dead so much, then just get rid of them yourself! Why do I have to do your dirty work for you? Take your anger out on them, not me!"

Megatron hit him and sent him hurtling into the air. Starscream felt something inside of him snap as he hit the ground. The cold and clear sound of Megatron's laughter echoed after him.

"You've seen nothing yet, Starscream!"

The two Autobots were frozen in the street. They watched him pick up his bleeding and shaking frame from the ground and stand back up.

"I will not kill them, Megatron," Starscream said. He still remembered killing the Enforcers. He still remembered the sensation of his claw ripping through their mesh wiring and the smell of their spilt energon and the snap of their necks and—

He couldn't go through that again. He's spilt enough blood for Megatron already.

"You will, oh, but you will . I cannot fight alongside you, don't you know that? A good commander must be above their soldiers, not beside them. You must have power over them. If you aren't powerful enough to take down two runts, you're not powerful enough to avenge Vos."

Starscream felt every word stab into him like a blade. "Master, no! I don't… I don't want to hurt anymore mechs. I shouldn't have hurt those Enforcers in the alleyway and on the ship. I can still avenge Vos, Master, I really can! I just don't want to hurt anymore mechs than I have to, that's all. Violence isn't the answer!"

"Violence is the only answer, Starscream, and you must force your enemies to accept that!" Megatron growled.

The two Autobots were gone now. They had seen Megatron's madness and fled from it. If only Starscream had enough sense to do the same.

Starscream just laid there on the street as his entire frame ached and burned. A shadow fell over him and he looked up to see Megatron's frame tower above him.

"Oh, Starscream. You think my anger was bad? The Council's anger is far worse. Were it not for me, the towersmecha and the Enforcers would still be hitting you and beating you around. Fortunately, you made the right choice and you joined me. I hit you far less than they do, do you know that, Starscream? Do you understand how much better I am? I am a kind Lord."

Starscream choked out a sob and nodded. Megatron gently patted his shaking shoulder before he then yanked him to his pedes.

"Good. I need you to kill some more mechs for me…"


Starscream couldn't bring himself to look the Prime in the optics. They continued to wander through the dark and dusty halls of the abandoned ship as they constantly tried and constantly failed to find an exit. He began to miss his old cell back at the Autobot base. At least in his cell he didn't have to worry about Megatron prying his way in and grabbing him in the middle of the night and—

Starscream shook his helm. Optimus wouldn't let that happen.

"I hear you, sometimes," Optimus said softly.

Starscream felt a sinking feeling in his spark. He wasn't even sure why. "Hear what? My screaming? I don't have my designation for no reason, Prime."

"No… I hear you at night."

"You mean…?"

"Your nightmares."

"...Oh. Well, they're not really nightmares, Prime, not every bad dream is a nightmare. Primus, you Autobots are far too soft. I just… see things sometimes."

Optimus hummed thoughtfully. "What do you see?"

"I see Meg—why does this matter?! What does my recharge have to do with anything? We're trapped in a ship while being hunted by killer drones, and you want to talk about sleep health?"

"When else am I supposed to do so, Starscream? I have seen mechs like you before. You'll be loud and outgoing one day and then quiet and holding in your trauma the next day. I'm worried you are—"

"—Burning up?"

"Precisely."

"I still don't understand why you're so determined to help me. I hold in the...fear... so what? It's the way of things."

Optimus's field fell heavily around them. "It is Megatron's way of things. Not mine. Never mine."

Starscream didn't know what to say to that.

"Do you dream of… him?"

Starscream offlined his optics. "Of course I do. Who doesn't?"

"...How often?"

He rolled his optics and growled. "Prime, this has nothing to do with our current situation."

"It has everything to do with our current situation. I am worried that this nightmare Soundwave has constructed is getting to you."

"Of course it's getting to me! His schemes always leave me…"

"...Traumatized," Optimus finished. "I've seen too many mechs lose themselves to the nightmares and trauma of war. I worry that you're losing yourself to those nightmares as well. I don't want you to burn yourself up the same way Megatron burnt himself up. When we finally give in to the trauma and become numb to it, we lose ourselves. I don't want you to lose yourself. I have lost enough mechs in this war already."

"I'm already lost, okay, Prime?"

"No, you are not. If you were truly lost, you wouldn't have tried to comfort that drone as he died. Yet you did so anyway. When we lose ourselves to the nightmare and get used to their fear and horrors, it becomes easier to commit horrors. I saw… many mechs so traumatized by the machinations of the Council do terrible things in order to get their nightmares to stop."

Starscream remained silent. They continued to wander aimlessly through the dark and cold halls of the ship.

Pedes clanged against the floor.

Optimus and Starscream both suddenly whirled around and stared into the darkness behind them. A light shone from within a sideroom and Optimus quietly stepped up to the door and peered inside.

A whole room of drones stood before them, their backs to the door as they all stared at some message on a computer console.

Their presence hadn't been noticed. It would be so easy, wouldn't it? To just give into the nightmare Soundwave schemed up and just numbly kill all the drones that stood before him. That was exactly what Soundwave wanted. Deep down, some twisted part of himself wanted that as well.

"Let's just get rid of them," Starscream harshly whispered to him.

Optimus looked down at him and narrowed his optics. "Why?" he said. His voice sounded deeper and harder now.

Starscream blinked in confusion as the Prime continued to stare at him with a hard glare. "What? I'm just saying…"

"...that these mechs who have done no wrong to us should just be killed? They have not harmed us. This is a different group from the ones we encountered earlier. They have not noticed us nor tried to attack us. There is no need for carnage in this place."

Carnage. Starscream tried not to think about what was hidden in the command deck.

"But they might attack us sooner or later! Why should we give them the chance?" Starscream growled.

"My team and I do not entirely trust you yet. You might attack us sooner or later. Why should we give you the chance?"

Starscream went silent.

"...That is what I thought, Starscream. Violence isn't the only answer."

"Violence is the only answer, Starscream, and you must force your enemies to accept that," Megatron had said to him so many years ago, yet his old voice felt so relevant.

He'd killed that Enforcer in that alleyway and the ones on the ship. He could've fled, could've run away from them in both situations and been done with it—those Enforcers were different groups from the ones that had hunted him down and hurt him before. Yet he had been violent to them. And there was all the other times during the war he didn't have to kill, but chose to. The image of dead Enforcers heaped up on one another on the command deck flashed into his processor. He thought of a certain cocky red Autobot on his knees before him—

Starscream continued to be silent. Optimus grabbed ahold of his shoulder and gently steered him away from the room of drones.

"If violence isn't the answer…" Starscream asked softly, so softly. "Then what is ?"

"Peace. That is why we are fighting this war, Starscream. For peace."


Starscream leaned heavily against a wall and slowly slid to the floor. Optimus stood beside him and just stared off into the endless darkness of the shadowy halls.

The Prime's frame was frozen, but his field was not. It roiled and heaved around his red and blue frames in large waves that radiated pure uncertainty and concern.

The air hung stiff and dead around them. If there were some kind of airflow, some kind of little breeze, then Starscream could detect it and guide them to the exit. Yet there was no fresh airflow, no hidden exit to find—just dead stiff air that hung around them like a smothering blanket mixed with the smell of spilt energon.

When he offlined his optics he still saw the image of the dozen or so drones standing there with their backs to him.

"They will come back," Starscream sighed.

"Yes," Optimus said stiffly. Even the Prime seemed to be getting worn down by the endless dark hallways and the endless patrols that constantly marched through them.

He was reminded of the Nemesis all of a sudden. The old ship they were trapped in was an Autobot ship and looked nothing like the Decepticon warship, yet it felt the same. That sense of oppressive dread and the constant fear of failure was a sense of dread Starscream was very familiar with.

The air began to buzz.

Optimus and Starscream stiffened and slowly looked behind them into a side hallway. A faint violet glow shone from the other end.

"Oh, Primus," Starscream breathed. A sense of sheer dread and resignation filled his struts as he shakily rose to his pedes and let his wings fall behind him. He wasn't a religious mech who believed in the supernatural—but he definitely believed in and feared the supernatural force that was Soundwave.

Optimus's engine growled as his battlemask snapped shut around his faceplate yet again. "You do not seem to be angered by Soundwave's return, Starscream. I am surprised."

The buzzing grew louder.

"I got used to it. I had to get used to this." Starscream sighed as the dead ship's emergency lighting switched on again and flooded the hall with red light.

Optimus looked at him and his bright blue optics pierced the blood-red emergency glow of the hall. "No one should ever have to get used to this."

They both stood there in the doorway as the air began to buzz louder and louder. Optimus stepped forward into the main hall and pushed Starscream behind him and back into a side hall.

"We will fight him together this time," Optimus said as Starscream took a step back into the side hall. Optimus walked forward and away from Starscream as the Seeker watched warily from the side hall's doorway.

The air buzzed even louder—

—Suddenly a massive metal door slid shut between Starscream and Optimus.

One moment Starscream was peering past Optimus's shoulder, and the next thing he knew he was staring at a metal slab.

"Optimus?!" Starscream shouted as he banged a fist on the metal door. It was just him alone in the hall.

Everything was perfectly silent. The Prime had just completely vanished. Starscream just stood there with his jaw dropped as he stared at the door that divided them.

The air began to buzz again. Something purple lit up behind him.

Starscream whirled around and came faceplate-to-faceplate with Soundwave's blank visor. He yelped and slammed backward into the metal door as he stared at his own terrified expression reflected in Soundwave's visor.

"Oh, no! No, no no no! Soundwave, I am beginning to get very tired of this—"

Two drones who stood beside Soundwave lifted up their blasters and pointed them directly at Starscream's chestplate. Soundwave cocked his helm.

"Don't look at me like that!" Starscream panickedly breathed out as his processor whirred into overdrive. He could fight the drones, maybe, but Soundwave himself—? No, he could wait for Optimus, but the Prime was lost to him and locked away in the Primus forsaken corridor.

"Oh, Starscream. My dear Starscream," a recording of Megatron's voice began to say. Starscream knew that tone. That was the way Megatron spoke to him whenever he was about to say something kind to him so that he could manipulate him.

"Don't say my designation. Don't! " Starscream hissed. "What's your plan here? What, is this Megatron's newest scheme unfolding before me, is that it? What's his goal here?"

"GETTING THE PRIME—TO THE COMMAND DECK."

A chill went through Starscream. He looked closer at Soundwave and saw just how tightly he was holding himself.

"You're… you're holding yourself back, aren't you? I know what sick twisted plan this is, and I know why you won't just capture me here and now. Megatron just wants Optimus to get disgusted with what I did on the command deck here a thousand years ago so that the Prime will just drop me off on the Nemesis himself. But I won't let that happen! I'm not, I'm not some dog you just use and kick around!"

Soundwave tilted his helm and played a voice clip of Megatron. "Your rage is a weapon, Starscream! Use it!"

"No," Starscream gritted out. He was distantly aware of the sound of hacking and banging coming from the door. "I won't let him use me any longer. You're just here to make me panic."

The two drones charged up their blasters.

Starscream flinched as the air began to heat up with the glow of their charging weapons. "You're not going to shoot me."

"Why sit here in the rubble and let our anger consume us when we can instead use our anger?" the recording said.

The drones began to step forward. The barrels of their blasters shone like red-hot suns in the pitch-black darkness.

"You're not going to kill me. You're not. Megatron wants me alive. You—you're just trying to manipulate me the same way he did!"

"Choose, Starscream. Your rage is a weapon. Wield it. They say you are only good for destruction—"

Starscream swung his leg out and caved in the helm of one of the drones with a swift kick. Soundwave remained motionless and completely ignored the dead drone as it fell on his pedes. Surprise suddenly burst into the other drone's EM field and for a single moment, his blaster wavered.

A single moment was all Starscream needed. He lunged forward and grabbed ahold of the drone's shoulders as he flipped the both of them around. He slammed the drone onto the ground and pinned him down with his frame, his red optics bright with rage and his wings flared out aggressively.

The drone's field suddenly flared out again with a familiar emotion—

"The Autobots...they say you are only good for destruction—" Soundwave monotoned.

It was a strange, but familiar emotion, one he had personally felt so many times himself—

Starscream lifted one of his talons and prepared to rip the drone's neck cabling out—

"—So prove them right. "

His talons froze inches above the shaking drone's neck cabling.

Fear.

That was it. The drone's field was shuddering with fear.

Starscream blinked. The hall was dark and dimly lit and for a moment he saw an Enforcer pinned beneath him. He blinked again and the illusion faded away. The drone just laid there on the ground, his visor blindingly bright with fear as he shook under Starscream's frame.

The drone was young. His frametype was slightly different from the one Starscream was used to. This drone was from a newer, younger generation.

Soundwave looked down at him. "So prove them right! " he repeated the recording, except this time Megatron's voice was harsher and more staticky.

Starscream looked into the visor of the shaking drone below him and dropped his talon to his side. He looked up at Soundwave's blank faceplate.

"No. I'm going to prove you wrong, " he said as he got up off the drone and stepped back.

Soundwave just stared at him. The drone shot to his pedes and spared the Seeker a glance before he suddenly ran off back into the shadows.

At any moment now, Soundwave would lash out. He knew it. He'd come at him, his visor bright with light, his cables extended and ready to snatch him—

Soundwave turned around and walked back into the hallway.

Starscream watched him walk away until his frame was nothing but a purple slender shape at the end of the corridor. He walked around a corner and vanished completely.

He just stood there as his frame shook slightly and as his vents whirred loudly. That was so close. Too close.

A large servo suddenly grabbed ahold of Starscream's arm and pulled Starscream away and into the corridor. His entire frame froze and he unsheathed his talons, ready to slash at whoever had grabbed him—

His faceplate was pressed up against a windshield and a massive pair of arms wrapped around him.

"Starscream," Optimus said as he pulled him closer.

His spark stopped pulsing in his chestplate and he leaned back to see Optimus's concerned faceplate. "What? Did you think I wouldn't be able to handle myself?" he scoffed as he tried to ignore the sense of relief that Optimus's smile brought him.

"No, Starscream. I am proud of you."

"Pfff, of course you should be proud. I am great, after all," Starscream shakily breathed out. Some part of him wanted to wrench himself free from Optimus's arms, and another part of him just wanted to stay there with the Prime for a few more minutes. Or hours.

"You spared him. I am glad you did so, I am unsure if you would have been able to handle the fight or if I could have reached you in time—"

Starscream leaned back. "Wait, how do you know what happened? Soundwave locked you up in that side hall."

"He did, yes, but I managed to transformed my servo into a sword and hack through the door as you were busy fighting. I was able to see you."

"Oh… you saw… everything, didn't you?" Starscream said as he felt that same sense of familiar dread suddenly spread through his struts again.

"Yes," Optimus said as he pulled Starscream back and grabbed ahold of his shoulders so he could look the Seeker in the optics. "Starscream...I am concerned about what I heard you say."

Starscream froze. "Oh? And what did I say?"

"...What role does the command deck play in Soundwave's scheme?"


"Sometimes I can't get to recharge at night because I'm too busy wondering about how he… how he died," Bumblebee warbled.

Bulkhead patted the scout's shoulder. "I gotta admit, I'm curious about how that slagger did Cliff in too. But I can't help but worry, it'll, you know…"

"Enrage Arcee?"

Bulkhead awkwardly scratched the back of his neck cabling. "Somethin' like that. I mean, whenever I see the guy, a part of me just wants to turn my servo into my wrecking ball and just—" Bulkhead smacked his fist into the palm of his servo, "—but another part of me just… just remembers the way he reacted when we encountered Buckethead back in the mine, and I just… can't go through with it."

"It's been a very long time since I've seen a bot get that scared. I don't want to see anybody get that scared ever again, Bulk. And I think if Star found out that we know how he offlined Cliffjumper, then…"

"He'd go berserk? Probably."

"I mean, what does watching the footage achieve? We already know about the crime and… what specifically happened to his deactivated frame. Do we really need to know about how he got into that state?" Bumblebee beeped.

"I mean, no, not really, but…"

"Are you hooligans fooling around with the comm towers again?!" Ratchet scowled at them as he came running into the hall.

Bulkhead gulped. "Uh, no, that happened last week. How was I supposed to know that I threw my lugball at a comm tower—?"

"Because I can't contact Optimus!" Ratchet said as he ran away and back into the main room. Bumblebee and Bulkhead glanced at each other before they ran after him.

"I've tried everything! Optimus and Starscream were supposed to return hours ago, and yet all I've got is silence. I've checked every frequency, every channel—"

"Did you check the Decepticon frequency?" Bumblebee beeped warily.

Ratchet shut his intake shut. "...No. But maybe I should."

"What, you don't think Scream snatched up Prime and hauled him back to Buckethead, do you?" Bulkhead asked.

"I think that Megatron 'snatched up' Prime, that's what I think! Besides… I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't think Starscream will betray Optimus. Well, not yet, at least." Ratchet scowled.

"What?! Why would the slagger wait to stab us in the back?" Bulkhead said as shock filled his field.

"I know… but after seeing what Megatron did to his frame, after seeing his spark—" Ratchet shut his intake. He shouldn't have said anything, that was private information. He couldn't let the stress of the dead comm get to him, not again.

"There's something wrong with Starscream's spark? What?!" Bumblebee trilled in alarm.

"What's going on?" Arcee asked as she walked into the main room.

"The comms are dead, so now Ratchet thinks everybody's dead too!" Bulkhead said as he waved his servos in the air.

"What? I knew Starscream was planning something, that slagger!"

"Hup hup hup, calm your engines, it's possibly just a comm malfunction. Nothing less, nothing more," Ratchet sighed as he scrolled through the frequencies.

Arcee scoffed. "What? A 'comm malfunction'? I remember the last time a comm malfunctioned. Do you remember, Ratchet? Because I very distinctly remember Cliffjumper's comm 'malfunctioning' before—"

"We. Are not. Watching. The recording! " Ratchet practically shouted. "Not until Optimus gives us his approval."

"But Optimus might never give us his approval if Starscream offlines him!" Arcee scowled.

"Maybe we should just check on them! Bridge me in and I'll see what's wrong, okay? I'll scout out the area. Maybe they just got stuck in another cave-in."

"Oh Primus, or maybe… maybe Optimus's helm got caved-in by Screamer!" Bulkhead growled.

"Bulkhead, no!"

Ratchet shook his helm. "No… perhaps you're right. Bumblebee, I'm sending you in."

Ratchet reached over to the lever and prepared to activate the groundbridge—

"Scream… it's been a while," Cliffjumper said.

Ratchet blinked. "Did I just hear Cliffjumper's voice?"

All of the Autobots glanced at one another and then slowly turned around to face the computer console. The screen flickered and the image of Starscream proudly standing over Cliffjumper flashed onto the screen.

Bulkhead's jaw dropped. "What?! Who played the recording, I thought we agreed to wait for Optimus?"

Ratchet shook his helm and stared at the screen with wide optics. "I did not press anything! And none of you even touched the computer… so how—?"

"So… where's your Master?" Cliffjumper continued. The Autobots all stood transfixed around the screen and watched on with wide optics.


"The… command deck?" Starscream shakily breathed out. He tried to think of some explanation, some kind of lie—

—But he just couldn't bring himself to lie to those blue optics.

Something banged off in the distance. Their helms snapped around and they both stared off into the shadows as the deafening clanging noise of dozens of pedes came pounding down the hall.

This wasn't an ordinary patrol of drones on its way to them.

Optimus and Starscream both looked at each other as all the doors along the corridor whirred open and drones poured out.

Optimus shoved Starscream behind him yet again, his battlemask snapped shut again, and he pointed his blaster at the approaching horde of drones again—

It was happening all over again and Starscream could not, would not let that happen.

Droplets of energon went flying through the air as Optimus's blaster wildly fired away at the approaching horde. Starscream stood frozen in the center of the hall as he stared off into the dark shadows of one of the side halls.

There was nowhere to hide. All of the side rooms and side halls were either filled with drones or shut tight… except for one side hall in particular—

Optimus's sword flashed and reflected the blood-red glow of the emergency lights and the bright blue glow of the drone's energon as he slashed through them.

That side hallway was familiar to Starscream for some reason—

Prime stepped over the fallen body of the drone Starscream killed earlier and he continued to fight for their lives.

Yes, that was the side hallway that led to the command deck, the one place Starscream did not want to go to—

Optimus grunted in pain as a stray blaster bolt sizzled past his thigh.

But it was the one place they needed to go to.

The entire hall lit up with blinding flashes of bright blue and red as the alarms blared and the sheer force of their fight made the entire ship creak and groan unsteadily all around them.

All of the other doors in the corridor were shut. One end of the corridor was blocked off by the horde of drones Optimus was trying to fight off, and the other end of the corridor led off into pitch black darkness.

A weak sob shook Starscream's frame. He'd tried to hard to ensure they stayed away from this one spot—

Optimus cut a drone's helm off with his blade—

And they'd ended up going in a circle, right back to where they began.

He could grab Optimus's arm and they could flee, back into the dark depths of the ship. Back into the endless maze of dark tunnels and drone patrols and paranoia and fear until they circled around right back to this same spot. And when they did reach this place, Starscream had no idea if he'd be able to convince Prime to stay away from the command deck again. How long would it be until the Prime forced his way through those doors and saw the carnage Starscream had created a thousand years ago on the other side? How long would it be before Optimus realized just how monstrous Starscream was and just left him alone in the gloom of the ship for Soundwave to find and bring to Megatron—

Optimus screamed in pain.

Starscream's helm whipped around and he turned around just in time to watch Optimus fall to the ground. Soundwave stood above Optimus's prone frame. His violet blaster was extended out and a wisp of hot violet smoke curled away from the barrel.

He felt his spark freeze in his chestplates. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't—

Soundwave just continued to stare right at Starscream.

"W-well? Are you going to kill us?"

Soundwave tilted his helm and made a deep thrumming noise. His visor flared violet.

"NO. NOT YET. HE MUST—SEE."

Starscream felt a deep sense of dread prickle through his entire frame. He knew the answer to the question he was about to ask, but he had to ask it, had to know for absolute certain why Soundwave chose to spare their lives in that moment.

"See what? " Starscream choked out.

Soundwave said nothing. His arm suddenly lifted up and he pointed a single slender servo right at the hall to the command deck.

Starscream offlined his optics. He knew what he had to do. He just didn't know if he was ready to let the Autobots know the depth of his evil and just what kind of carnage he had left behind there—

"The Autobots say you are only good for destruction…" Megatron's voice echoed into his helm.

"—So prove them right . "

Starscream ran forward and grabbed ahold of Optimus's frame. He hoisted the shaking and bleeding Prime onto his shoulder and heaved himself up onto his energon-splattered pedes. Soundwave did nothing at all except just stand there and watch Starscream drag the Prime down into the depths of the side hall, all the way down to the command deck.

Soundwave's bright purple faceplate and the angular blood-red glow of the visors stared at Starscream as he heaved his exhausted frame and Optimus's frame up to the command deck doors.

Optimus stirred beside him and Starscream slung one of his massive red arms over his energon-soaked pauldrons. His blue optics slowly turned back on and widened when he saw Starscream staring at him.

"Starscream… are you… is that coolant?" Optimus wheezed.

Starscream blinked and touched one of his servos to his faceplate. It came back wet.

He growled and slammed a fist onto the door to the command deck. He didn't have time for this, he had to get the two of them inside and safe amongst the carnage he created—

"Promise me… promise me you won't think of me differently because of what's on the other side," Starscream choked out.

Optimus just stared at him. He gave Starscream a single slow nod. Starscream tightened his grip around Optimus, put a single servo on the doors, and looked at Optimus one last time right before they entered the deck. Once they went through those doors, Optimus would be disgusted and repulsed with Starscream after seeing the slaughter the Seeker left there. There was no way at all that the Prime would want to continue to be friends with him after this.

Starscream took a single shuddering vent, took one last look at his only friend, and threw open the doors to the room that he knew would destroy their friendship.

He grunted as he pulled Optimus into the pitch-black room and he kicked out with a pede to shut the two doors. Soundwave stared at him as the doors shut.

They slammed shut with a deep clang that boomed through the entire room.

Starscream rested his forehelm on the cold metal surface of the door. Death awaited them outside in the hall. But even more death waited behind them. The bright blood-red emergency lights flickered on. Optimus just looked at Starscream, his frame covered in energon and his optics wide, and he slowly turned around.

Even after a thousand years all of the destruction was still there. All of the results of his revenge were scattered across the entire bridge. The frames of the Enforcers, the scorch marks his blaster had left behind on the walls—all of the evidence of Starscream's crimes were still there and perfectly intact after a thousand years.

The computer consoles lit up and footage of Starscream slaughtering the Enforcers played out on the screen. Starscream shakily stepped back and looked up at all of the screens with wide optics. Every single screen was lit up and every single one played footage of him committing some crime.

Optimus's optics widened and his field coiled around him in horror at the sight of the carnage before him. Familiar slash marks littered the Enforcer's fallen frames. One screen showed footage of Starscream doing a bombing raid, another screen showed him interrogating a prisoner, a screen off to the side showed him burning a city, and so much more.

"Optimus…" Starscream shakily breathed out as he looked up at all of the footage of all of his crimes.

The Prime looked at him and then fell to his knees. He just sat there and looked up at all of the screens, his optics wide and his frame covered in his own energon and the Enforcer's energon. Starscream looked at the shocked Prime and tried to think of something, anything to say—

Optimus just looked at him. His field hung hard and stiff around him and radiated feelings of shock and hurt and— betrayal.

Starscream flinched back. He didn't know what to say to that. There was nothing he could say to that.

"So… where's your Master?" Cliffjumper's voice said.

Starscream froze.

"Never mind him! I am my own Master!" the voice of Starscream's past self yelled at Cliffjumper.

He slowly turned around and felt a sense of overwhelming dread flood his struts as he looked up at the largest screen of all.

An image of Starscream and Cliffjumper was playing on the massive computer screen on the back wall. He stood over Cliffjumper's kneeling frame with a cruel smile and with his outstretched talons glinting in the Nemesis's harsh light. Cliffjumper knelt there before him. His frame was scratched and bleeding, but his optics still shone with confident light.

That light was about to go out.

The image of Starscream's past-self snarled at the Autobot and drew back his talons—

"No!" Starscream screeched. He jumped up onto the keyboard of the computer console and swung his leg at the screen in a massive kick. The glass of the screen shattered in a glittering storm of sharp fragments. Starscream stood upon the computer console while he vented heavily. His entire frame had hundreds of tiny scratches on it and fragments of glass coated his frame.

Optimus watched him with wide shocked optics. He held a shaking servo to the bleeding wound on his midsection and watched Starscream in complete silence.

"So… where's your Master?" Cliffjumper's voice said.

Starscream snarled and whirled around. Another screen that had previously been playing footage of Starscream interrogating a prisoner was now showing footage of him interrogating Cliffjumper. Hot panic coiled around his spark.

"No, no, no! " Starscream shrieked as he jumped off the computer console and ran right up the second screen. He unsheathed his talons and drew them across the surface of the screen. The sharp piercing noise of his talons shattering and slicing through the glass rang out onto the command deck and the screen lit up with bright flashes and sparks of light as Starscream shredded it.

The footage of Cliffjumper's arrogant faceplate flickered and disappeared.

He just stood there and leaned his forehelm against the dead screen as his energon began to trickle out from all of the cuts of glass that littered his frame.

"Starscream…" Optimus began to say as he struggled to rise to his pedes.

"So… where's your Master?"

Starscream let out an incoherent shriek and leaped off of the computer to yet another screen. He clenched both of his talons into fists and pounded them both against the screen. The image of Cliffjumper's smug faceplate flickered and wavered before it disappeared entirely.

"So… where's your Master?" Cliffjumper's voice said again.

Starscream's optics twitched and he turned around again. Another screen on the side of the room was playing the exact same footage of him killing Cliffjumper, except this time the picture was just inverted and wrong. The image of Starscream's past self stood on the Nemesis. Pictures of Megatron rapidly flickered on and off the screen until Starscream wasn't sure if he was looking at a picture of Megatron or his past self.

"Starscream, calm down ," Optimus said weakly as his field flickered with pain.

"So… where's your Master?" Cliffjumper's voice said yet again. A screen off to the right was now playing the footage.

"So… where's your Master?" A screen off to the left turned on and began to play the footage.

A screen on a nearby datapad lit up with an image of Cliffjumper. "So… where's your Master?"

"So… where's your Master?"

"So… where's your Master?"

"So… where's your Master?"

"So… where's your Master?"

Starscream just stood there and silently cried as every single screen all around them began to turn on and play the footage of Cliffjumper's death.

"I am my own Master! " Starscream shouted at all of the screens as they all lit up with the image of Cliffjumper all at once.

"Starscream!" Optimus said. His shaking servo reached out and he grabbed ahold of Starscream's arm. He pulled the Seeker closer to him and he shoved Starscream's frame against his own.

"Prime, let me go—"

"No."

"Optimus!"

"I won't let you go until you agree not to hurt yourself."

Even when he was bleeding out, the Prime was still ridiculously strong. He held Starscream so tightly against his own bleeding frame that the only thing Starscream could see was the bright red of Optimus's armor and nothing else. Optimus's engines rumbled deeply and Starscream felt every rumble vibrate through his glass-covered frame.

"Never mind him! I am my—!"

A deep booming noise suddenly burst out into the air. Starscream's past self never got to finish his boast.

Starscream tried to lift his helm to look at whatever in the name of Primus made that booming noise. Optimus's battlemask was retracted over his faceplate and smoke curled away from his blaster. He tightened his hold on Starscream with one arm and pointed the smoking barrel of his blaster right at another screen. A whisp of smoke curled out from Optimus's hot blue barrel and his stern optics scanned the room from above his battlemask. He briefly looked down and looked Starscream right in the optics.

Starscream froze.

Optimus looked away and went back to shooting the screens. Starscream threw his arms over his helm as Optimus fired away at every single screen and destroyed every single one.

A screen that was playing footage of Starscream standing haughtily over Cliffjumper—

—got vaporized.

A screen that was playing footage of him demanding that the Autobot's corpse be taken away—

—exploded in a shower of glass.

A screen that was playing footage of him grinning in delight as he watched Cliffjumper's optics dim—

—blew up in a fiery ball of hot metal and plastic.

The entire command deck lit up over and over again with the bright blinding blue flashes of Optimus's blaster and the entire deck shook and rang with the deep boom each of his blaster bolts sent reverberating across the entire ship.

Soon, none of the screens remained. The torn and vaporized remains of computer screens hung loosely from the wall and deep black scorch marks completely covered every part of the room where there had once been a screen. Clouds of smoke hung thick and heavy in the air and completely obscured Starscream's vision—the only thing he could see through the dark cloud of smoke was Optimus's two brilliant blue optics shining amongst the shadowy gloom. Optimus leaned down and knelt before Starscream's shaking frame until they were faceplate-to-faceplate and the only thing Starscream could see was the bright blue glow of his optics.

"So... you finally came clean," Optimus said.

Starscream froze. He opened his intake and no words came out.

Optimus let out a deep shaking sigh and sat down in the ash beside him. "Y-you tried to hide this from me… but I already knew this was here."

"W-what? You… already knew ?" Starscream gaped.

Optimus nodded solemnly and looked out across all of the frames of the Enforcers.

"I don't…" Starscream stuttered. "You led us here while knowing what kind of carnage I'd left behind?"

Optimus gave a single nod. He winced and held a servo to his bleeding blaster wound.

"But… why? " Starscream shook out.

Optimus opened his intake to respond, but then suddenly froze. His optics widened and he looked past Starscream at something behind him.

"So… where's your Master?"

Starscream froze. They had destroyed all of the screens, they had, he'd watched every single one of them go up in smoke and glass and dust—

A single small screen up in the rafters played the footage of Cliffjumper's death.

It flared violet.

Soundwave's entire frame lit up with bright purple lights and his cables slowly and sinuously extended out from his frame. He hung there in the rafters and his visor reflected Starscream's terrified faceplate as he climbed through the ceiling beams. He hung there right above their helms and just watched them both. The footage of Cliffjumper's death continued to play on his visor.

"Starscream…" Optimus said weakly.

Starscream said nothing. He continued to stare at Soundwave in horror.

"It's here, " Optimus said.

"I see that, Prime!" Starscream snapped.

"N-no, Starscream," Optimus began to say as he grabbed Starscream's arms and pulled the Seeker close to him again. He grabbed ahold of Starscream's helm and gently tilted it upward to look at something else in the shadows.

A thin ray of light shone out from a crack in the wall.

Starscream's spark soared and his optics widened. If Optimus could fire his blaster right at the crack and widen it, then maybe he could pull their frames through.

"NO ESCAPE," Soundwave's harsh robotic voice boomed out.

He hung down from the rafters and glided his way over to Optimus and Starscream until he was practically hovering right above their helms.

"NO. ESCAPE," he repeated.

Starscream took a deep vent and quickly glanced at Optimus. The Prime nodded and slowly turned his blaster to point in the direction of the crack in the wall.

"SO… WHERE'S YOUR MASTER?" Soundwave said using Cliffjumper's voice.

The crack in the wall creaked and widened. A single silver blade shoved its way through the gap and wrenched it apart. Starscream and Optimus froze and watched as something hacked its way into the command deck from outside.

The sound of a cannon firing up boomed through the crack.

"Optimus, duck!" Starscream shrieked as he shoved the Prime's frame down to the ground and threw himself atop him.

A hot violet bolt of pure energy slammed through the air and flew right above their helms before it collided with a computer console on the other end of the room in an explosion.

The entire wall exploded in a shower of dust and smoke that sent fragments of metal and debris flying everywhere.

"Your Master is right here, Starscream!" Megatron growled as he emerged from the new hole in the wall.


"We… we shouldn't be watching this!" Bumblebee trilled. He lifted a shaky servo to the computer console and paused the footage. His digit hovered right over the stop button.

"We don't need to be seeing this. We already know how he died and what happened to him. Watching this will only bring about more pain. I'm going to stop the footage—"

"No!" Arcee grit out. Her servo lashed forward and she tightly grabbed ahold of Bumblebee's wrist. "We… we need to see."

"No, Arcee," Bumblebee blooped as his field filled with sadness. " You need to see. Not us."

Arcee growled at Bumblebee and moved his hand away from the computer console as she blocked the keyboard with her own frame. "No! We know that Starscream killed him, we know what Starscream d-did to his corpse, but we need to see what his last moments were! What was the last thing he saw? What were his last words? I need to know!"

"No, you don't! Wait for Optimus!" Ratchet scowled as he slammed a fist down onto the keyboard.

"Did you see him?! Did you see the way his lifeless and scarred optics stared emptily out at me?" Arcee snarled.

Ratchet's field grew cold and hard around him. "Arcee… we are all grieving for his death. You are not in this alone! You've trusted Optimus to lead us through tough situations before, so by Primus, why can't you wait for him to lead us through this?"

"Because I know what he'll say, Ratchet. We all know what he'll say! He'll just tell us that watching the footage will achieve nothing and just make us angry and…"

"Your anger is a weapon. Use it, Autobots!" Megatron's voice laughed.

They all turned around and stared at the screen. The computer console flickered and a picture of the Decepticon logo briefly flashed onto the screen.

"Oh, Primus, the datapacket. We should've never downloaded it onto the computer, it's given the Decepticons a way to hijack our systems. I need to purge the computer!" Ratchet scowled as Megatron's laughter began to echo out of the computer and boom into the base.

"Your anger is a weapon. Use it, Autobots!"

"Shut off that recording, please!" Bumblebee beeped in desperation.

The screen flickered and Cliffjumper's scarred and energon-covered faceplate covered the screen again. Bulkhead growled and transformed one of his servos into a wrecking ball and ran towards the screen at full speed.

"No, Bulkhead, no! We need the computer intact so we can use it to reactivate the groundbridge! We can't lose Optimus and Starscream!"

"But if we don't destroy it, then we will have no choice but to see how he died…" Arcee grit out. She looked up again and her optics flashed. "I see no problem at all with watching the recording. Let's see just how awful Starscream really is."

The recording glitched and replayed itself.

"So… where's your Master?" Cliffjumper said. Arcee froze.

The image of Starscream's past self snarled and stomped forward until he loomed over Cliffjumper's kneeling frame. He flexed his talons and a bright and feral glint entered his optics.

"Never mind him! I am my own Master!"

Starscream snarled and drew back his arms. For a split second Arcee felt doubt. She wondered if she should be watching this, if she should just turn around and walk back into the base and forget about all of this—

Starscream shoved his talons deep into Cliffjumper's chestplate and left behind a gaping puncture wound. Cliffjumper's optics widened and flashed as his entire frame shuddered. Energon poured out from his chestplate, Starscream smiled, and Cliffjumper fell dead.

—Arcee's doubt was replaced with rage .

"He killed him the same way you would kill a scraplet!" she snarled. "Where is he? Why has he not come back yet? Let him come back so I can, so I can—"

Bulkhead held her away from the groundbridge and dragged the thrashing femme away from the controls. Bumblebee just stared at the screen with wide optics, Ratchet made a choking noise, and Bulkhead went silent.

The four of them just stood there and stared at the screen as Cliffjumper's corpse was dragged away like garbage.

"Autobots…" Ratchet grit out. He leaned heavily against the computer console and held his field tight to his frame as it shuddered with waves of grief. "We will send Bumblebee to scout the ship. We will find Optimus. And we will make Starscream answer for his crimes."

Bumblebee nodded slowly and watched Ratchet activate the groundbridge with wide optics. He stood upon the threshold of the bridge and glanced back. Raw hurt and grief mingled in his field as he stared at his friends. He stepped through the bridge.

The harsh light of the setting sun pierced his optics as he stepped into the woods. The massive ship Optimus and Starscream had been sent to scout loomed before him and glinted in the dusky light. It looked innocuous enough from the outside, yet Bumblebee could tell something was wrong with this place.

He warily stepped forward and felt his sense of dread grow with each step. There were no visible exits, entrances, or openings of any kind. All of the doors were sealed tightly shut. The sense of dread grew and for a moment he considered comming his team, but then stopped. The only sound he could hear over the comms was the hiss of static. Yet they were listening, though. He knew his teammates were listening in so that they could protect him if Starscream came lunging at him.

He walked in a perimeter around the ship. His pede suddenly slipped into a hole and Bumblebee froze. A dark imprint in the shape of a drone's pede was imprinted into the dirt. A whole trail of dozens of pedeprints stretched away from him and bent out of sight beyond the rusted hull of the ship.

"Oh no, oh Primus, no…" Bumblebee trilled. He broke into a run and sprinted around the side of the ship along the same path the drones had taken.

"What's wrong? Is Optimus…?" Ratchet breathed heavily over the comm.

"No, no… there were just drones here. So many drones…"

Bumblebee didn't need to be in the base to know that all of his comrades just tensed up.

A sharp hacking and slashing noise accentuated with grunts of effort rang around the curve of the ship. Bumblebee slid to a stop and peeked his helm out from the side of the ship as his optics widened. Megatron stood there and viciously hacked away at the ship's walls in massive swinging arches. His massive field loomed over the forest like a hot staticky cloud while radiating feelings of pure rage, betrayal and—

—Was that grief?

Megatron had enough of the wall. He stood backwards and smiled cruelly as he activated his fusion cannon. Bumblebee ducked out of sight just as a blinding violet flash lit up the woods and a deep thrumming noise boomed into the air.

"Optimus and Starscream are trapped in the ship and Megatron is about to close in on them, I need backup now!" Bumblebee trilled into his comm as panic began to fill his field.

"We weren't able to save Cliffjumper, but by Primus, we will save Optimus!" Ratchet said over the comms. A groundbridge suddenly burst to life right behind him and Arcee and Bulkhead jumped right out of it, their blasters drawn and their fields sharp with determination and grief.

They walked over to the belching cloud of smoke and peered through the hull into the dark chasm of the ship's command deck.


Starscream felt his spark stop in its chamber. Optimus's field radiated pure dread as Megatron laughed and began to stomp toward them. His talons twitched as his sides and his feral optics glowed a bright blood-red light in the darkness of the command deck.

Think, Starscream, think! Starscream moaned as he held his processor in his servos.

"Megatron…" Optimus said as he tried to rise to his pedes. He grunted in pain and fell back to his knees as he hurriedly placed his servo back over his bleeding wound.

"Oh, Prime, you have no idea how long I have awaited this moment!"

Think, think, think!

"I had hoped I would never see the likes of you again, Megatron."

"You should have stayed beside me, Optimus. You both should have. It did not have to come to this, dear broth—I mean, Prime. You brought this upon yourself. Do not make me angry!"

Starscream flinched and sat down as he struggled to come up with a way to escape. Something shifted around loosely underneath his cockpit and he froze. He slowly reached a single servo beneath his chest plating and felt the handle of the old groundbridge remote slide into his talon.

Megatron and Optimus were too busy fighting with each other. If he just pulled out the groundbridge remote and quickly typed in a set of coordinates—

Soundwave rested his servo atop Starscream's pauldron. He froze and looked up into Soundwave's blank and expressionless visor.

"You dare choose him over me? " Megatron's optics twitched. Optimus couldn't tell if he was scolding Starscream for befriending Optimus, or Optimus for befriending Starscream.

Soundwave's cables extended around Starscream's wings and gently dragged the Seeker over to him until all Starscream could see was his own tear-stained faceplate reflected in Soundwave's visor.

"THE BASE. WHERE IS THE BASE?" Soundwave spoke using a recording of Starscream's own voice.

"As if there was a choice, Megatron. Your hateful and cruel actions gave me no choice—" Optimus began to say.

"I don't… I don't know." Starscream shook out. He genuinely didn't know, he had absolutely no idea where the Autobot base was located—for once, he was grateful for the Autobot's mistrust of him. There was no way Starscream could possibly bridge the Prime and him back to the base, but he could bridge them somewhere else that was safe.

Soundwave seemed to sense that he was telling the truth and leaned in even further. There was something off about the communications director, something… angry.

"Get away from Optimus!" Arcee shouted.

The four of them looked up and into the hole in the ship that Megatron had created. Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee all stared through the hole and down at them.

Starscream's spark dropped. They had just walked in on the sight of him kneeling over Optimus's shaking and bleeding frame as Megatron and Soundwave stood proudly over them.

The command deck doors slammed open and dozens of drones rushed into the room.

"No, no, Autobots, it's not what it looks like—!" Starscream begged.

Arcee cut him off. "This looks like betrayal. "

"I did not betray you!" Starscream shook out as he pulled Optimus closer to him.

"Then what are we looking at here, Screamer?" Bulkhead growled as he transformed his servo into a wrecking ball.

"Oh my, Starscream!" Megatron laughed. It was not a happy noise. "It seems that your new comrades and you do not get along. Are you not an Autuobot, then? What are you now?"

"TRAITOR," Soundwave monotoned.

The Autobots rushed forward and the drones rushed forward to meet them. The entire ship creaked and ground as the drones and Autobots began to fight, slash, and fire at one another in their haste to reach their fallen leader.

Megatron watched them and laughed as the bright red and blue glow of their flashing blasters lit up the entire bridge over and over again in harsh light. Starscream hooked his servos around Optimus's shoulders and tried to drag the Prime over and away from the firefight. He yelped as a heavy servo suddenly landed upon his shoulder and lifted him up.

Megatron yanked Starscream up and into the air by his pauldron until his legs dangled loosely beneath him. The tips of his talons dug deeply into the metal of his pauldron and energon began to bleed from the puncture wounds.

Starscream was yanked even closer until soon his faceplate was only a breath away from Megatron's. The warlord just stared him, his faceplate expressionless as the battle raged on around them both.

Then he smiled.

A large smile stretched from one end of his faceplate to the other and every single one of his sharp fangs glinted harshly in the blood-red glow of his optics.

"I once called you brother, " Megatron said softly, oh so softly.

Starscream just hung there as panic consumed his spark. The urge to say my lord suddenly rose up within him. He could defect, he'd done it before, he could yield and submit to Megatron and end this hunt—

Optimus groaned on the ground and looked up at the two of them. His optics widened and he weakly stretched an energon-covered servo up to Starscream.

Starscream grit his dentae. He would not say my lord or any variation of the word Master ever again, not ever, ever again. He bit down onto his glossa to keep himself from calling Megatron my Lord and he felt blood well up in his intake.

"W-we were never b-brothers, Megatron. Not now, not ever!" Starscream snarled in Megatron's faceplate as coolant fell down his ash-covered faceplate.

"You chose him over me. After everything I did for you? After everything I did to help you?" Megatron growled. He tightened his grip and the metal of Starscream's shoulder crumpled under his grasp.

Starscream opened his intake. He wanted to say something dramatic, some powerful and emotional speech about all of the ways he had been abused over the years, all of the ways in which that abuse was wrong. He wanted to pick the warlord apart and deliver a proud and dramatic speech, the kind that Optimus would give—

He snapped his intake shut. Starscream tried to open it again, tried to reactivate his vocalizer—and found that he couldn't. He couldn't even find it within himself to beg. Fear flooded every single one of his circuits and paralyzed his frame.

Megatron laughed and dropped him to the ground beside Optimus. Soundwave leaned in and a picture of Optimus helping Starscream stand up on a rugged hill suddenly flashed onto his visor.

"DO NOT FORGET YOUR SIN."

"Oh, Starscream. Soon we shall replace that picture with a new picture of you two together in a cell!" Megatron grinned.

Starscream crawled back over to Optimus and placed the exhausted Prime's helm onto his lap. Bolts of sizzling hot red and blue blasterfire seared through the air, Megatron loomed over him while laughing, and Soundwave was shoving the picture that represented the friendship between Starscream and Optimus right in Starscream's faceplate.

The friendship that he was about to lose.

Starscream took a deep vent and looked right at Soundwave's visor where he knew his optics were hidden.

Optimus had chosen to not leave Starscream behind at the snow mine. Now it was time for Starscream to repay him.

Starscream slammed his helm forward and right into Soundwave's visor. The glass of his visor shattered and he flinched backwards and away from Starscream as energon welled up from within the crack in the glass.

Megatron growled and lunged forward at Starscream, but the Seeker managed to roll away and escape Megatron's reaching servo. The warlord's talons scratched Starscream's wing and left behind four bleeding scratches. Starscream gasped in pain, but he couldn't slow down now, he had to move and fast—

Starscream grabbed ahold of Optimus's arm and reached his other servo under his cockpit. He whipped out the groundbridge remote as Megatron roared in rage behind him. His shaking digits hurriedly typed in the very first set of coordinates he could think of.

The air shimmered and warped as a single green spark lit up in the middle of the air.

Please work! Please! Starscream internally begged.

A massive green groundbridge lit up in the middle of the room and formed right in front of Starscream and Optimus. The bridge sent out a massive burst of wind that threw Megatron and Soundwave's frames back and into the shattered computer consoles. The Autobots and drones went flying into the back doors of the command deck and slid down to the floor. Starscream grabbed tightly ahold of Optimus's bleeding frame and dug his servos and talons into the floor as he tried to resist the blow of the wind.

"No, no, no! Soundwave—" Megatron growled. He turned around and his jaw dropped at the sight of shakily Soundwave kneeling on the ground with his visor smashed. The warlord slammed his fist into the floor and he charged right at Optimus and Starscream. His fusion cannon lit up with a brilliant violet glow and he ran forward with a massive roar.

Starscream shrieked and grabbed ahold of Optimus's arm. He slung the weak Prime's arm over his shoulder and shakily rose to his pedes with a grunt.

"Starscream, you wretch, I made you what you are, and this is what I get in return? You owe everything to me! Traitor! " Megatron shouted.

"Do not go anywhere with Optimus!" Arcee shrieked as she ran towards Starscream as well.

Starscream pulled Optimus over his shoulders, took one last look at Megatron and the Autobots, and then ran through the groundbridge.

"No, no, I will not be betrayed yet again!" Megatron yelled. He ran right at the groundbridge at full speed and unleashed a bolt of energy from his fusion cannon.

The groundbridge closed just as Megatron was about to run through it. He skid to a stop and watched the fusion bolt slam into the wall and bring it crumbling down in a massive explosion.

A blinding flash of light lit up the entire room and everybody froze. A large fire blazed on the other side of the room where Megatron's fusion bolt had hit the wall. Everybody just stared at the blank spot on the floor where the groundbridge had once been.

Silence fell.

Megatron stood there covered in dust and debris and Soundwave was blearily rising to his pedes behind him.

"What did you fraggers do to Prime?!" Bulkhead growled.

Megatron snarled. "The question is not what did I do to Prime, but what did he do to me? Where are they? Where did the brothers head off to?" He spat the word "brothers" out with so much acid it made the Autobots flinch.

"Wait, did you not capture them?" Bumblebee beeped.

"No, the wretched Seeker grabbed ahold of Prime and hauled him through a bridge to some unknown location. I would very much like to know where the beloved siblings escaped off to, scout! Do not make me rip out the vocalizers of your allies as well."

"Primus, that slagger took Prime!" Arcee breathed out. She snarled at Megatron. "I don't know where Starscream could've taken him."

"We've got warlord-shaped problems to worry about right now, 'Cee!" Bulkhead grumbled.

"Oh, now that is good!" Megatron laughed. "The Seeker truly has deceived you all. It pleases me to know that even when he's away from the Decepticons, he still acts like one. Who knows where he took your beloved Prime to? I do not know. But I will. I suppose it is just a question as to who will find them first. And when I do find them…" He clenched his servo into a fist and made his fusion cannon hum.

Soundwave shakily rose to his pedes. A large crack split his visor in half and the outline of a bright red eye was faintly visible through the cracked glass.

"Soundwave, use Starscream's tracking beacon. Find. Them."

Soundwave nodded and activated a groundbridge.

"I would love to tear your spark chambers out, Autobots, but there is Seeker whose spark chamber I want even more." Megatron turned around and walked right through the groundbridge alongside Soundwave.

The Autobots just stood there in silence and watched the clouds of smoke belch away.

"Ratchet, bridge us back to base now. We need to find Optimus before Starscream sinks his claws into his spark chamber too!" Arcee shouted into her comms.

Bumblebee and Bulkhead glanced at each other as another groundbridge opened up for them.

"Bulkhead… am I hearing things, or did Megatron really just call Optimus and Starscream 'brothers'?" Bumblebee warbled.

"I heard it too, 'Bee. And it really, really worries me," Bulkhead said as he and Bumblebee stared into the flames.