Breakdown's hammer swung down. Starscream threw himself backwards and fell to the ground with a clang right as the hammer struck the ground where he had once stood. The asphalt cracked and splintered and Breakdown glared at Starscream angrily.

"You left," Breakdown said coldly. It was not a question, but just a statement. Starscream had never heard Breakdown speak so coldly and harshly before.

"I, I—"

"Save it." Breakdown raised his hammer again as Starscream leaped back to his pedes. He jumped behind a truck just as he heard Breakdown roar behind him.

He looked up and into the bushes. The faint blue glow of Bulkhead's optics shone from within the leaves and if he squinted, he could even see Miko there, a small and faint silhouette struck with horror.

Another truck crumpled behind him and Starscream shrieked as the buzz of a saw whirred past his helm. He had to escape, he had to transform—

His back spasmed as his single wing shook in pain. No wing, no flight, and no freedom. Breakdown and Knock Out slowly walked towards him with their weapons extended.

He had to lure them away from Bulkhead and Miko, he had to. Bulkhead was already dead—the least Starscream could do was honor his dying wish.

"Protect her for me, will ya?" Bulkhead had said with the special kind desperation and pain only a dying mech has.

"What's with all this running, Screamer?" Knock Out laughed as his saw whirred back to life.

"Protect her," Bulkhead's voice echoed in his helm, each word thick with emotions that Bulkhead had since then lost the ability to feel.

"Get away from me, you slaggers!" Starscream hissed. He backed away and felt himself clang into a car. He turned and leaped over the car right as Breakdown lunged and reached for him. The tips of Breakdown's digits grazed the scratched and bloodied metal of Starscream's leg. Breakdown fell onto the car and made it crumple into nothing. Smoke belched out from the ruined car and floated up into the sky.

A large monster truck on display sat off to the side. Starscream ran underneath it and slid under it right as Knock Out smacked his electro-prod into the ground where he had just been. Starscream crawled underneath the undercarriage and looked left and right as his spark pulsed with panic. Knock Out and Breakdown's pedes prowled around the truck.

"You can't stay under there foreverrrr, little Scream!" Knock Out laughed.

"Yes, I can!" he hissed back. He tried to comm the Autobot base, but all he received was static.

"C'mon, we'd much rather have you be our second-in-command than Soundwave!" Knock Out said.

Starscream froze.

Soundwave was his replacement?

He wasn't sure why, but that thought made a strange sense of pity for the silent mech well up within him.

The monster truck shook as Breakdown slammed his hammer into the side of it over and over again.

"Come out, we haven't got all night!" he grunted.

Starscream shook in fear and his processor went into overdrive as he frantically tried to look for an escape. He tried to sit up and his helm clanged against something. A large metal black tank was right above his helm and up in the truck's undercarriage. An idea entered his helm.

Knock Out knelt down and peered at Starscream. "Stop hiding like a turbo-rat and come out—you're ruining your finish!" He activated his electro-prod and swung it backwards as he prepared to send a blast of electricity right at Starscream.

Starscream prayed to Primus that this was not a terrible idea he had just come up with. He quickly slashed out with his talons and tore open the tank above his helm. A strange liquid began to pour out of it and over the ground. Starscream scrambled out from underneath the truck and ran back into the parking lot.

Knock Out sneered and sent a bolt of electricity into the air. The electricity zipped and zapped through the air and under the undercarriage—and right towards the dripping tank Starscream had torn open.

Breakdown grabbed Knock Out and fell to the ground right as the monster truck exploded. It let out a deafening burst of noise that made all of the vehicles in the parking lot shudder. Hundreds of car alarms began to blare and echo into the air as the monster truck smoked away in the night.

Starscream fell backwards into a pickup truck and looked up. The monster truck blazed away in a massive inferno of hot red flames that made the entire night glow red. The thick smoke blotted out the stars and obscured the star cluster in which Cybertron was in.

Miko stared at him from the trees and began to frantically wave her hands around.

Starscream looked at Miko through the cloud of smoke and mouthed two words.

I'm sorry.

Her eyes widened in shock.

Starscream turned around and began to run as far from the bushes as he possibly could.

A large hill rose up into the ground near the edge of the parking lot. Beyond that was the curve of the stadium and the hills of the wilderness beyond. If he got away from Bulkhead, then Breakdown and Knock Out wouldn't find Bulkhead and Miko, and then everything would be fine, everything would be fine.

A heavy pede landed upon his wing and forced Starscream to the ground. He craned his helm backwards and saw the massive silhouette of Breakdown.

At any moment now there would be so much pain, at any moment now he'd bring his hammer down and crush Starscream's helm into the dirt—

"What… what happened to your wing?" Breakdown said. Knock Out stood beside him, but instead of the usual smug expression on his face, his faceplate was drawn into a look of cold concern.

"Soundwave happened, that's what!" Starscream shouted. Breakdown removed his pede and Starscream shot up from the dirt. He tried to make a run for it, but then Breakdown's servo tightly grabbed Starscream's arm and immobilized the Seeker.

"No, slag it, what do you mean?" Breakdown hissed. The ex-Wrecker's field was taut with anger, but there was another emotion hidden there beneath the angry waves of static—an emotion Starscream was very familiar with.

It was the cold chill of fear.

"Your new second-in-command did this to me, you imbecile! You were there! You saw it all!" Starscream said. The cuts and scratches across his wing were still healing and had left behind long dark grey weld marks that snaked across his entire wing.

They'd never completely heal.

Breakdown looked at Starscream's scarred wing with horror. "We saw Soundwave doing… something to you, but… we never imagined…"

"You never imagined, oh is that it? You never realized just how bloodthirsty and cruel he and Megatron really are, did you? You saw what he was doing to me, to my wings, you just didn't wish to understand!" Starscream snapped.

Breakdown froze. Knock Out stood beside him and pointed his electro-prod at Starscream's chestplate.

"Don't make this hard. Come with us," he grit out.

"It's already hard, slag it! Why should I come back? So Soundwave can add more scars to my wing, so he can rip off my only one left?" Starscream said. He tried to pry himself free from Breakdown's grasp, but his hold on Starscream's arm only tightened.

"Yes!" Breakdown shouted.

"Oh," Starscream laughed bitterly. "You're just as sick and deranged as Soundwave and Megatron are, aren't you?"

"I don't want Knock Out to be their next target! I don't want to be their next target! I can't lose my other optic the same way you can't afford to lose your last wing."

"I'm your buffer? An obstacle to shove in front of your precious Lord to stop his tirade from reaching you? Is that all I am?" Starscream hissed. Breakdown pulled him in closer until he and the Seeker were faceplate-to-faceplate.

"You were our shield, slag it! You took the hits meant for us!"

"Breaky, calm down," Knock Out said.

"No! I need to say this! I don't want to bring you in, I really don't. But I don't want to get my chestplate cracked open again. Not ever ever again. So if it has to be you instead… I'd rather it be you than Knock Out."

"I'm your shield," Starscream whispered to himself. Horror filled his field. "I'm your shield?!"

Breakdown sighed. "You were everybody's field. You just never realized that. You took his anger so that the rest of the Decepticons would not have to. And for every single day you've been gone, we've lost another soldier to his anger, another drone killed during one of his tantrums. So come back and take the hits cause if you don't—we all will become his target."

"I got out of there, slag it, and I am not coming back."

"I know," Breakdown grit out. "I know. And it's weird, I know, but I'm kinda glad you got out, that you got away from his wrath—-but if you don't absorb his anger, then Knock Out will, and I can't let him get cut open the same way I was by M.E.C.H, okay? Slag it, Starscream, I'm not sure if I should just bash your helm in or drag you along with me or if I should just let you go."

"Let me go," Starscream whispered as Breakdown began to shake. "Just… just let go."

"You looked so miserable out there in the stream, you know that?" Breakdown whispered. His grip on Starscream's arm slightly loosened and Starscream began to slowly pull his arm free of the ex-Wrecker's grip.

"Breakdown, what are you doing? Less monologuing, more capturing!" Knock Out said. His faceplate looked playful, but there was a hint of tension hidden in his plating.

"You looked so scared out there. But when you looked at Bulkhead… you looked happy. I haven't seen you look at a mech that happily in a long time. Are you…"

"No!" Starscream shouted as he pulled his arm free and stumbled back. "Don't say it, slag it—"

"Are you his brother? His new Wrecking buddy?"

"Why does everybody think I'm trying to be everybody's brother?! I'm nothing, I'm nobody, just let me go!"

"You're not nothing," Knock Out whispered. His voice was softer than it had ever been before. He activated his electro-prod and made the entire parking lot light up with bright white light. "You're our shield, slag it. And you're coming back with us."

He swung his prod out in a wide arc of lightning and electricity. Starscream dropped to his knees and saw and felt the air above his helm sizzle as the prod just barely passed over him. He rolled away and leaped over a car and hid in the smoke cloud of the truck he crushed earlier.

Breakdown charged right through the parking lot and threw car after car to the side. Starscream crouched down and threw his frame flat to the ground as he crawled through the rows of vehicles.

"Slag it, just come out already!" Breakdown yelled. Starscream bit his glossa to prevent a cry of terror from escaping his intake. He looked over at the trees and saw the dark and hidden silhouette of Bulkhead within the leaves. Miko stood upon his shoulder and looked at Starscream with a grim expression.

Surely she called for a bridge, right? She had to have called somebody, anybody.

She frowned and shook her head as she held her phone out. Starscream readjusted his optics to make them as sensitive as possible and squinted at her screen.

NO SIGNAL

His spark dropped into his chestplates.

"C'mon, Screamer!" Breakdown shouted as he smashed his hammer into a car. It soared through the air and landed in the trees just feet away from Bulkhead.

No signal meant no bridge. No bridge meant no rescue.

"Come on!" Breakdown's voice echoed through the air.

No rescue meant that Starscream would have to rescue them all by himself.

He shot to his pedes again and hid behind the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler as Breakdown tore the parking lot to shreds on the other side. Miko waved at him and goaded him forward.

Starscream froze. She wanted him to come hide with her and Bulkhead.

Another car exploded as Breakdown smashed his hammer into it.

"Just… please come back! Please," Breakdown yelled.

But Bulkhead and Miko weren't the target—and he couldn't allow them to become new targets. He couldn't hide with them, that would just endanger them.

Starscream bit back a sob and ran away from them and towards the hill.

He needed to be their shield.

He ran off into the bushes at the side of the parking lot and quietly crawled up the steep ground until he was located above the parking lot down below.

"I need to capture you! I have to. I don't want to. But I have to. So just… just come out and let's get this over with," Breakdown shouted into the air. There was a tight resignation in his voice as he drove around the parking lot and none of his usual anger.

Starscream took one last look at the parking lot. Breakdown and Knock Out drove in circles through the rows of parked cars with their headlights on at full blast. The bright beams of their headlights flashed over the trees in which Bulkhead was hidden. A faint pair of blue optics watched him from within the foliage. Bulkhead raised his servo and shakily reached out to Starscream.

"Just come out already!" Knock Out shouted with a hint of desperation in his voice, a desperation Starscream had never heard from him before.

The bright lights of the stadium pulsed and made a flash of light wash over the entire parking lot.

"Screamer, come on!" Breakdown yelled.

Bulkhead began to walk through the trees and towards Starscream.

"Starrrr?"

Starscream slapped his servo over his intake in order to prevent himself from crying out. He frantically shook his helm and held his servos out as he backed up. An expression of pure hurt passed over Bulkhead's faceplate at the rejection. Miko stood on his shoulder and watched in horror as Bulkhead began to lope forward and out of their hiding spot.

They couldn't be seen, they couldn't, if the Decepticons caught them—

Starscream sent desperate comm after comm to Bulkhead.

"Stay back!"

Bulkhead shuffled his way through the foliage and at any moment now he'd be out in the open air, bare and exposed and so so vulnerable.

"Come back!" Bulkhead cried out over their comms. His entire frame shook and his optics rapidly flickered on and off. He had no clue where he was or what was going on—but he did understand one thing.

Starscream was leaving him again.

"Come backkkk!"

Starscream had left him behind on the ice sheet, and now he was being left behind all over again.

"No, no, Bulkhead, you stay right there, slag it!"

Breakdown drove right past the trees. The rumble of his engine shook the ground and made Bulkhead freeze.

"Come back, Star, come back to me," he whispered over their comms.

Starscream shook his helm and wiped coolant from his faceplates. The ground rumbled as Knock Out and Breakdown drove closer and closer to the trees and the hill.

"Please!" Bulkhead pleaded.

"Come out, you afthead!" Breakdown shouted into the air. "Megs won't be happy if we fail to bring you back, and I—and I—"

His voice broke off in a growl. Breakdown began to drive right at the trees.

"No, no no no," Starscream desperately whispered to himself.

"Starscreammmm," Bulkhead whispered over the comms. He stumbled over a fallen tree and was only a dozen feet away from the wide open.

"Slag it!" Starscream shouted. He ran over to the edge of the parking lot and hoisted a truck over his helm. Breakdown and Knock Out saw him and began to drive at him at full speed.

The truck creaked and groaned as he raised it above his helm—or was that the sound of his frame creaking and groaning?—and he felt something within him snap.

Bulkhead watched with wide optics as he stumbled his way forward. "Starrr?" he said out loud, right on the verge of the trees, right on the verge of discovery and death.

"Come and face us, Starscream!" Knock Out shouted as he and Breakdown transformed and brandished their weapons.

Starscream bit back a cry of pain as his entire frame shook with the effort of holding a truck above his helm. He faced Breakdown and Knock Out, tensed his entire frame—

Bulkhead clambered over the bushes and stuck one of his pedes right out into the open.

—and Starscream turned around and threw the truck right at the trees.

The truck slammed into the ground in front of the trees with a massive crash. It burst apart and sent a cloud of smoke and sparks into the air. Bulkhead recoiled away from the truck and looked at Starscream through the smoke.

"Star?" he whispered. He tried to push his way past the truck, but his frame shook too much to be able to do anything except helplessly grasp at it. Bulkhead stepped backwards and into the foliage as his field shook with the pain of rejection.

Starscream turned and ran and did not look back. The sound of Knock Out's electro-prod being activated sizzled through the air and the ground shook as Breakdown's pedes slammed across it.

Stracream ran up and tumbled down the hill. He didn't look back and ran along the walls of the stadium as Bulkhead watched on.

"Star?" he whispered to nobody. He watched Starscream vanish over the rise of the hill and watched Knock Out and Breakdown drive right after him.

Bulkhead stood there in the trees and watched as he was left behind again.

"Oh, Starscream…"


"Where are you? Where are you?"

The bright white snow completely obscured his vision until all he could see was an endless expanse of pure white. Ice fell onto his frame in sharp flakes that dug into his plating, but that didn't matter—the only thing that mattered was Skyfire.

And Skyfire was nowhere to be seen.

His engines burned hot as he flew through the snow in circles and circles and circles. He sent out scan after scan across the cold white ice, but detected nothing. No spark signals, no comms for help, absolutely nothing.

The wind buffeted against his frame and drove sharp shards of ice into his wings as he gunned his engines and flew to the top of the sky. The clouds briefly cleared and for a single moment, the entirety of the ice sheet was laid bare before him. Cold white plains of snow rolled on for as far as his optics could see. The peaks of mountains rose far off in the distance. Maybe that's where Skyfire was. Maybe the snow crashed into his frame and threw him off course and he flew off by accident—or maybe he had intentionally left Starscream behind. Maybe he was fine and had just flown off deep into the mountains, far far away. Maybe Skyfire was out there waiting for him, like all those other times Starscream had flown off and then returned to camp.

Maybe he was waiting.

Or maybe he was dead.

Starscream transformed back into his root-mode in mid-air. He plummeted and felt the shards of ice and wind slice past his frame as he fell back to the ground. He slammed onto the ground and sent a flurry of snow into the air as his pedes struck the ice sheet. At any moment he expected Skyfire to emerge from the cold wind, a worried look on his faceplate and concern in his field.

But Skyfire was nowhere to be seen.

"Come on, Sky, we need to go back!" Starscream called into the wind. The wind shrieked back.

"Stop… stop messing around, we need to get back to Cybertron. We deposited the cylinder, we can go now!"

There was still no response. The only spark signal that appeared on Starscream's scanner was his own frantic sparkbeat.

A second spark signal appeared.

"Oh, oh Primus!" Starscream shrieked in joy. He ran right to where the signal had originated from. Each one of his frantic pedesteps sent a flurry of snow into the air as he ran into the blizzard in which the life signal had appeared.

Skyfire could be hurt, he could be alone, he could be looking for him—

A silhouette appeared amidst the snow. Starscream felt a strange chill run down his struts, but that was probably just the wind. He let out a laugh of pure joy and ran right towards the silhouette.

"Skyfire, Skyfire, Skyfire—"

A large servo shot out and grabbed ahold of his neck cables. Starscream was hoisted into the air until his pedes dangled underneath him. His captor turned around as a new flurry of snow blew out of the sky. Two bright red optics shone through the thick snow and glared right at him.

"Seeker."

Panic rose up within Starscream. He kicked the sharp points atop his knees into the abdomen of the Enforcer. Starscream dropped into the snow and ran from the enraged Enforcer and his reaching servos.

He had to find Skyfire and fast, they had been found, all he had to do was just find Skyfire and then the two of them could fly off to freedom—

Another pair of bright red optics shone from within the blizzard.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

A ring of red optics stared at him from within the dark snow. The Enforcers lifted their weapons and the sound of a dozen charged up blaster barrels whirred through the night.

Starscream turned around in a circle and stared at each of the Enforcers with wide optics.

"UNDER THE NAME OF SENTINEL PRIME—"

Starscream offlined his optics. "I'm so sorry, Skyfire," he whispered. He stood up tall and tried not to shake as the Enforcers closed in around him.

"YOU SHALL BE ARRESTED—"

One of the Enforcers lunged at him. Starscream just barely dodged him and was thrown back into the snow.

"—FOR MURDER."

Starscream transformed and took off into the sky right as a volley of blaster bolts struck the snow where he had just stood. He flew faster and faster into the sky until the only sound he could hear was the shriek of the icy wind past his frame and the pulse of his terrified spark in his chestplates.

The Enforcers flew after him, but Starscream wasn't worried about that. He could outfly them any day he wanted to.

Skyfire, however, could not.

Skyfire wouldn't be able to avoid them. Skyfire wouldn't be able to flee. Skyfire could die.

Skyfire was probably already dead.

Starscream flew off into the dark night and promised himself that he would return. He'd return, he'd find Skyfire, and the two of them would fly off back to Cybertron.

"Together forever," Skyfire's words whispered in his helm.

The bright stars of Cybertron shone brightly above his helm.

"I'll come back for you, I'll come back for you. Oh, Skyfire," Starscream said as he left his friend behind.


The stadium loomed tall within the night. Bright lights flashed in the sky and the ground shook as the monster trucks within the stadium thudded around. Alarms blared as the fire from the monster truck outside the stadium erupted and exploded again.

Starscream ran deeper into the wilderness. The tree branches sliced past his frames and his rapid pedesteps made dust and dirt fly into the air, but he noticed none of that. The only thing Starscream noticed was the silence—he'd gotten so used to hearing Bulkhead mutter on, and now the Wrecker was lost to him.

"I'll come back for you, I'll come back for you. Oh, Bulkhead," Starscream moaned. Fear closed in around his spark. He had no idea what to do. If he went back to Bulkhead and Miko, Knock Out and Breakdown would find them and capture them too. Maybe Miko had managed to successfully get a signal and call for help. Maybe she and Bulkhead were peacefully resting in the medbay as Starscream ran for his life.

Or maybe Megatron had found them both and killed them.

Starscream pressed himself tight to the wall of the stadium as the ground rumbled. Breakdown and Knock Out drove right past him at full speed.

Starscream waited for them to pass and let out a vent of relief. He couldn't return to the Autobots, but he could hide in the wilderness. He deserved to become an outcast. It was his fault Bulkhead was even like this in the first place.

Breakdown and Knock Out's tires screeched to a halt. Starscream froze and pressed his frame back against the stadium as he heard them transform.

"What are you doing here?" Knock Out said to somebody. He tried to hide the fear in his voice, but Starscream could tell that he was scared. Starscream knew what it was like to hide your fear.

There was no response. The air buzzed.

"Oh, Starscream," Bulkhead's voice said.

Starscream's helm swiveled around and his optics scanned the dark trees.

"Oh, Starscream," he said again. The lights within the stadium flashed and briefly lit up the entire forest. For a single second, the night was day and Starscream was able to clearly see a silhouette within the trees.

No. Bulkhead had followed him, that idiot. Starscream moaned and held his helm in his servos. He couldn't be here, he'd blocked the Wrecker's way with a truck—and somehow, the Wrecker had managed to break free.

A chill spread through Starscream's struts—the chill was probably just the wind, though. He quickly ran out into the open and into the trees as Bulkhead's voice echoed around him.

"Starscream, oh Starscream."

"Where are you?" Starscream hissed. "Come on you big oaf, we need to get back to base—"

"Why'd you leave me?" Bulkhead said softly. Starscream looked around for him, but saw nothing but dark trees all around him.

"I… I had to…"

"No, you didn't," Bulkhead said. His words were so soft, yet cut so deeply.

"I had to!" Starscream shrieked as he swivelled around. Bulkhead's voice whispered at him from all directions. "I left you in order to protect you."

"You left me so that you could protect yourself!"

"Slag it!" Starscream punched a tree. Splinters flew everywhere and scattered across his frame as he breathed heavily. "Don't… don't make this difficult. Please, where are you?"

"I am here. I am there. I am everywhere."

"Cut the scrap, Bulkhead, and let's just leave, please, we're being hunted!"

"I am not just Bulkhead."

Starscream leaned his helm against the tree and took a shaky vent. "Right… Skyfire."

"I am not just Skyfire, either."

Something blue shimmered in the trees. Dread coiled in Starscream's tank and he looked behind him. Skyfire stood before him with a frown. His frame shimmered and wavered and suddenly, Skyfire was gone and Bulkhead stood in his place. Their two frames then began to rapidly appear and overlap each other. Green armor was replaced with white armor, the badge of the Explorers League was replaced with the Autobot badge, wings and wheels rapidly appeared and disappeared—but the sad blue optics always stayed the same. Always.

"I'm not just Skyfire," the mech said. "I'm everybody you've ever failed."

Thundercracker and Skywarp shimmered into existence and stood beside him.

"Oh no, no no no," Starscream whimpered. He turned around and began to run back to the stadium as quickly as he possibly could. Bulkhead and Skyfire's combined laughter echoed after him as he ran through the trees.

The trees rustled and another mech came into view. Starscream's entire frame locked up and he felt his helm grow light and dizzy.

"You look like slag, Star!" Skywarp said.

Thundercracker rolled his optics. "We haven't seen our trine leader in years, and the first thing you do is insult him?"

This couldn't be happening. They were dead, they were dead, their frames were cold and grey buried amongst their brethren in the ashes of Vos, not here, not alive, not looking right at him—

Bulkhead's servo closed around his arm like a vice. Starscream turned around and came faceplace-to-faceplate with Bulkhead. Fear hung thick in his EM field like a foul odor and he tightened his grip on Starscream's arm.

"I worry about what you will do when I am no longer here," he droned on. His intake said one thing, but his optics said another. He offlined his optics and his entire frame shuddered as his vocalizer sputtered out. He opened his intake and tried to say a warning, something, anything, but the only words that came out were—

"My end is near. I can feel it."

He tightened his grip on Starscream's arm even more. Starscream yelped as his arm plating dented under the Wrecker's tight grip. "Bulkhead, let go of me! Are you even the real Bulkhead?"

Skywarp laughed. "Aww, he clings to you like a sick turbopuppy!"

"They're—they're not real, Star!" Bulkhead shouted.

Thundercracker glared at Bulkhead. "Don't listen to the murderer of our people."

Bulkhead snarled at something in the air. "Get out of here, Laserbeak!"

Something purple flashed right behind him. Starscream whirled around and came faceplate-to-faceplate with Skywarp. His joyous and jovial expression was now completely gone. Skywarp's black servos reached forward and tightly grabbed ahold of Starscream's cockpit. He crushed the thin glass like it was nothing. The glass of Starscream's cockpit shattered and rained down over his frame.

"You're not real!" Starscream hissed out as he kicked with his pedes. Another servo landed on his shoulder and it was definitely not Bulkhead's. Bulk's was warm and heavy and comforting, and this servo was cold and sharp, it wasn't Thundercracker's, it couldn't be—

"We are real," Thundercracker said as he leaned forward. His tight grip on Starscream's pauldron made the metal under his servos dent.

"The real T-thundercracker would've never hurt me!" Starscream kicked out. He kicked and clawed and scratched, but his limbs just harmlessly passed through their frames and made them shimmer and become transparent.

"My end is near. I can feel it," Bulkhead whispered.

"No! No! My end is near, I can feel that! Let me go!" Starscream shrieked.

Soundwave emerged from the trees. His visor flared and he walked away and back to the stadium. Thundercracker and Skywarp dragged Starscream out of the trees as he kicked and screamed. They dropped him in the dirt beside the stadium.

Starscream coughed and tried to run, but both of his trinemates held him down. Soundwave crouched in front of Starscream and lifted the dirtied Seeker's helm.

"LOOK," he said flatly. He moved aside and Starscream's optics widened.

The monster truck that he exploded earlier was now a full-on inferno. Massive blood-red flames as bright as the sun burned high in the sky in a pillar of fire. Starscream watched in horror as it burned on and on and on.

"LOOK WHAT YOU DID," Soundwave said. Bulkhead stood beside him with Miko on his shoulder. He didn't notice the massive fire, or the stadium, or even all of the holoforms—the only thing he could stare at was Starscream.

"I didn't… I didn't mean to cause this much damage," Starscream whimpered.

Thundercracker sighed and shook his helm. "Oh, nobody means to do this much harm, but… some people are just naturally destructive, don't you agree, 'Warp?"

Skywarp nodded. "Absolutely! Look what you did Starscream! You got us killed, you got Skyfire killed, you got Bulkhead killed, and now you went and literally created an inferno."

Starscream bit back a sob and tried to stand up again, but his trinemates forced him back down into the earth. Bulkhead wandered around as he muttered, the lights in the stadium continued to flash, the inferno blazed on, and Breakdown and Knock Out—

Starscream looked over at them. The both of them stared at the fire behind Starscream in horror—no, wait, Starscream looked closer—they were not staring at the first behind him, they were staring at him. Pure cold fear vibrated within their fields and they both stepped back from Soundwave as he walked around the Seeker like a hungry shark.

Soundwave crouched down again and grabbed ahold of both sides of Starscream's helm again. His visor lit up with a bright flash and an image of a familiar ice sheet appeared on the screen.

"No," Starscream moaned. "No, no, slag it, I never want to see that awful place ever again!"

Footage began to play on Soundwave's visor. Icy wind blew across the ice sheet upon the screen and an Enforcer came into view. The Enforcers all stood upon the ground and watched as a silhouette of a shuttle crashed hard into the ground.

Starscream was completely frozen. Coolant streamed down his faceplate as he watched the footage of Skyfire's crash loop itself over and over again.

"Why do you have this?" he whispered.

Alarms began to blare. Red lights flashed all across the stadium and the cries of a thousand dismayed humans echoed into the air.

"They're evacuating the stadium because of the fire, Sounders!" Knock Out shouted. "We can't be discovered, we need to hide!"

Soundwave rapidly glanced back and forth between the stadium and Starscream's tear-tracked faceplate. He tightly grabbed ahold of the Seeker's arm and began to drag Starscream along with him.

A sign with the word EXIT on it lit up bright red. Starscream wrenched his arm free of Soundwave's tight grasp with a shriek. He stumbled backwards into the dirt and away from Soundwave.

"Do you hear that, Soundwave?!" he shrieked. The siren of a fire truck blared in the air and lights flashed on the road. "We're about to have company!"

Soundwave growled and lunged forward, but Breakdown's put his servo on his shoulder and stopped him. "We gotta go, Boss!"

"NEED TO CAPTURE—NEED THE DATA—NEED TO SEE STARSCREAM DESTROY HIMSELF—"

Miko jumped down from Bulkhead and ran in front of Starscream as she waved her arms around. "Hey, Slenderbot! Frag off!"

Soundwave looked between Starscream and the fire trucks in the distance. There was no way he could capture the Seeker and the Wrecker, steal the data, and bridge them all back to the Nemesis in time before they were discovered.

Soundwave made a staticky hissing noise and stepped back. "Go ahead. Run. Run."

Starscream grabbed Miko and Bulkhead's servo and ran.

"I still can't get a signal, Star!" Miko shouted up at him.

"Frag!" he swore. He looked around for any sign of cover, any, and saw the shapes of some side buildings off in the distance. He squeezed Bulkhead's servo and led him off. Soundwave, his trinemates, and Knock Out and Breakdown watched them flee. The inferno continued to blaze and lit the entire area in blood-red light as Starscream fled.

"My end will bring about yours, my end will bring about yours…" Bulkhead laughed.


"Oh, I don't like this," Starscream whimpered. The mouth of an open cave sat in the snow in front of him, a pocket in the ice that broke apart the endless white plain of pure nothingness that was the ice sheet.

It was his best bet at rescuing Skyfire, though. So in he went.

He crawled into the icy cave and maneuvered his frame past the frozen icicles that hung from the low ceiling and he shuffled his wings between the icy curved walls of the cave. The sun's faint glow and the shine of his blue optics lit up the ice within the cave. The ice reflected the glow and made the air shimmer a faint blue color. The wind moaned outside and made the icicles right above his helm rattle as he went in deeper and deeper.

He wanted to escape, to burst out of the cave and back to the surface—but if he left the cave behind, then he'd probably be leaving Skyfire behind. Skyfire had always gone back for him.

So he needed to go back for Skyfire.

He cast out scan after scan into the cold icy darkness as he went deeper and deeper into the confines of the narrow claustrophobic cave. The ice all around him creaked and groaned as he shakily crawled deeper into it. He felt like at any moment the icy roof of the cave would slam down and trap him there in the cold depths with Skyfire's dead frame.

But he had to find Skyfire, he had to. He ignored his intense claustrophobia and whimpered as he crawled in deeper.

A signal appeared on his scanner.

Starscream froze cautiously. It could be the signal of his brother, or the signal of another Enforcer. He took a deep vent and walked deeper into the cold caverns. The only light came from his blue optics and made the ice shine and reflect the pure blue light. He prayed to Primus that at any moment he'd see the prone frame of Skyfire, pure and whole and just asleep. Just asleep. Not dead, because if he lost Skyfire then Starscream had no idea what he'd do next.

The signal came from a block of ice right up ahead. Starscream lunged at it and slammed his talons into the ice. He ripped it away with his bare talons and sunk his digits into the sharp block to pry it apart. He hacked at it and slashed at it and struck it over and over again as it cracked more and more beneath his onslaught.

"Come on," Starscream gritted out as a crack began to form in the ice.

"Please, Skyfire, please," he pleaded as he wrenched his talons into the gap and began to pull it apart.

His entire frame shook with the effort. He dug his talons in deeper right as the sharp ice dug into his digits. Pain shot through his talons and he felt something wet drip down them, but that didn't matter because the only thing that did matter was Skyfire, dear sweet Skyfire, dead Skyfire—

His talon brushed against something hard and he gasped. He kicked at the ice block with the sharp tip of his pede and it split into two cold glistening halves. Starscream lunged forward and reached his arms around the cold metal he felt within the ice and he pulled.

He fell backwards onto the ground and laid on his back in the cold ice cave. He stared up at the icy ceiling in a daze and shakily lifted both of his talons up before his optics. The tips of his talons were cracked and splintered and energon dripped down them and onto his faceplate. Something beeped beside him and he turned to see what he had unearthed.

His spark froze.

It was the cylinder.

Hot anger rose up within his spark and he jumped to his pedes.

"No, no, slag it, I don't care about you, I only care about him!" he shrieked.

The cylinder said nothing in response and just sat there on the ground. The bright red glow of the data within it lit up the entire cave in bright red. Starscream shouted in rage and kicked it. He fell to his knees in the ice and offlined his optics as his energon dripped out from the cracks in his servos.

He did not know it was possible to hate an object so much. An object he and Skyfire had worked so hard to create. The formula was meant to bring life, not end it, yet it had taken Skyfire's life.

"Someone's down there!" a voice shouted. The echoes of more voices reverberated around Starscream's helm and the ice cave shook as more bots clambered down into it.

Starscream did not hear their shouts, or the creak of the ice around him, or the heaves of his own vents. The only thing he could still hear was the quiet beep of the cylinder as it beeped on and on and on.

Skyfire still had to be somewhere nearby. Hope bloomed within his tight chestplate and he shakily rose back to his pedes. He stumbled past the block of ice covered in his spilt energon and wandered deeper into the black, icy, and very claustrophobic ice cave. Skyfire had to be here, he had to be. He had the cylinder in his cargo bay when he crashed, which meant he had to be somewhere near. All Starscream had to do was find him. He grit his dentae and crawled deeper into the cave. He didn't care if he split apart all of his talons or even his entire frame—all that he cared about was Skyfire, Skyfire, Skyfire—

"There he is!" the voice shouted. Starscream's helm whipped around and his breath left his vents in a cold gasp. The ice cave was full of Enforcers. The bright red glow of their optics lit up the entire cave in harsh contrast as they stomped towards him.

Starscream shrieked and threw himself deeper into the cave. The ice pressed in around him even closer and made his spark pulse and his gasps come even harder, but he had to keep going forward—not for his sake, but for Skyfire's.

He emerged into a larger chamber within the cave and his optics widened. A large wall of ice stood before him. The bright blue glow of his optics shone upon something larged embedded within the ice. Whatever it was, it wasn't natural.

"I found you!" Starscream laughed as coolant streamed down from his optics and froze on his faceplate. "Hold still, just hang in there, I've got you, Sky, I've got you, please hold on—"

He slammed his servos against the ice and shoved the bloody tips of his shredded talons into a thin crack in the ice block. Cold pain shot through his entire frame, but he had to keep digging, he had to free Skyfire—

The ice creaked and groaned as something within it shifted.

"Skyfire!"

"Murderer."

Two large servos tightly grabbed ahold of his shoulders and wrenched him back. His talons fell out of the ice crack and the ice settled as it closed in again.

"No, no, let me go, slag it, let me go!" Starscream shrieked as two Enforcers hauled him away from the ice block. A faint life signal appeared on his scanner again and pinged away. It was weak and faint, but it was alive.

"He's alive, don't you see that? We need to free him!" Starscream shouted at the Enforcers. They harshly dragged his frame across the jagged icy ground and away from Skyfire. He desperately reached his talon towards Skyfire, but then an Enforcer blocked his view and Skyfire was lost to him again.

"We need to imprison you," one of the Enforcers snarled in his faceplate. They grabbed the data cylinder as they dragged Starscream out of the cave.

"You're supposed to bring justice! So then free my friend, he's done nothing wrong!"

They emerged from the ice cave and back onto the surface. Starscream was thrown to the snowy ground. The two Enforcers squinted at the cylinder suspiciously.

"So that's what Sentinel is in a fuss about?" one of them said.

Starscream shakily crawled towards the entrance to the ice cave. If he was quick and quiet then maybe—

"Whatever, we don't need to worry about this and that stupid shuttle anymore. Hey, what are you doing?" the other Enforcer said. He kicked out with his pede and struck Starscream hard. Starscream rolled across the snow and away from the ice cave. He tasted energon in his intake.

The first Enforcer sighed. "Oh, he just won't give up, will he?"

The second snorted. "Warframes. Take the thing, I've got this." The second Enforcer handed the cylinder over to the first one and stood in front of the ice cave. The first one walked over to Starscream's prone frame and pulled Starscream up onto his knees.

"You caused us a lot of trouble, you know that?" he hissed to Starscream.

"You deserved all of it," Starscream hissed right back.

"Doesn't matter. None of it matters. This is what you get for trying to hide the synth-en from us."

"Sentinel doesn't deserve to have it, he'd just abuse it! It's ours!"

"Whose?"

"Skyfire and I's!"

The Enforcer hummed. "Seems now like it's just your formula. Your friend's dead."

"No, he's not!"

"He's about to be."

The second Enforcer stood tall in front of the entrance to the ice cave. His arms clicked and whirred as they transformed into blasters. He pointed them right at the cave—

"Skyfire!" Starscream shrieked.

—and fired a volley of hot red blaster bolts into the cave's depths.

The entrance to the cave fell inward and the ground shook and rumbled as the entire underground system of caves collapsed beneath their pedes.

The second Enforcer laughed and came back over to the first one. They congratulated each other, but Starscream saw none of it. He continued to stare at the snow where the cave had been in pure horror.

The faint life signal on his scanner beeped once. Then twice.

It did not beep a third time.

Something red shone in the corner of his vision and he slowly turned his helm to look at the cylinder. It sat there innocently, harmlessly, as if it wasn't the reason someone had just died.

Starscream felt something within him snap. He whirled around and lunged. Energon sprayed into the cold air and the Enforcers shrieked as Starscream fell upon them.

He viciously tore into the two mechs with the kind of mad grief that only a grieving mech can muster. Armor parted and plating cracked and protoform tore under his talons as he violently ripped into the two mechs who dared to steal Skyfire from him.

He didn't know how long he sat there and clawed, ripped, and destroyed them.

Starscream rolled backwards into the snow and felt the cylinder roll up against his side. He squinted up at the sky and the bright blue stars in which Cyberton was in. That was strange. The sun had been up when he had gone into the cave, and yet now the stars were out. Starscream shakily raised his helm and squinted.

The two bloodied frames of the Enforcers sat broken in the snow.

Something dripped down Starscream's chestplate and he looked down. Bright blue energon was completely smeared across his entire frame. Most of it wasn't his.

"Promise me you'll never hurt anybody ever again," Skyfire had said to him what felt like a million years ago. "Promise me."

Starscream froze.

"Promise me," Skyfire had said.

"I promise," Starscream had said right back.

He slowly turned around and looked back at the bloodied frames of the Enforcers. A sob rose up within his frame and burst out of him.

"I promised you, Skyfire, I promised you we'd be together forever and t-that I'd never hurt anybody ever and look what happened—I hurt everybody." Starscream sobbed and grabbed ahold of the cylinder and clutched it to his bloodied chestplate. He hated it, hated it so much and just wanted to tear it apart—but it was the last remnant of Skyfire he still had.

Skyfire had died so that the cylinder could live.

So by Primus, Starscream would ensure that the cylinder and the information on it would live.

He shakily rose to his pedes and stepped past the ruined frames of the Enforcers. He walked into the blizzard as he tightly held the cylinder to his chestplate. If he offlined his optics, he could almost pretend that the beep of the cylinder was the beep of Skyfire's spark signal.

Almost.


"Don't die on me yet," Starscream grunted as he pulled Bulkhead along. An abandoned cluster of buildings and bleachers sat right ahead of them. The bright red emergency lights of the stadium flashed and flared and made the bleaches cast sharp shadows onto the ground.

"Hide in there," Starscream wheezed as he guided Bulkhead underneath the tall structure.

"Oh, Starscream," Bulkhead whispered. He tightly grabbed ahold of Starscream's dirtied helm in his shaky servos and pressed his forehelm to the Seeker's. "I have one last log, one last message for you, just one more to recite and then I will be done—"

"Slag it, Bulkhead, we do not have time for this!" Starscream hissed. He tried to pry himself free of the Wrecker's grip, but Bulkhead's hold on him only tightened.

"You left me," he said quietly, so so quietly that Starscream's audials had to strain to hear him. "You left me. So don't leave me again."

Starscream froze. "I… I…"

"I can't get a signal!" Miko whined from her perch on Bulkhead's shoulder.

Starscream took a deep vent and forced down the raw panic he felt coiled around his spark. Alone in the dark night, hunted by Decepticons, and stuck with a shell of a mech.

But he'd been through worse. So much worse.

—the Senate had been in full session that day—

Starscream grabbed ahold of Miko and placed her on the ground.

"Listen, Miko, I…" he trailed off. He stared into the dark wilderness that stretched beyond. "If the Decepticons get us, then they will capture you too. And Bulkhead made me promise that you would be safe. So if we are found—"

"I am not leaving!" Miko shouted as she pounded her little fists on the tip of Starscream's pede.

"Yes, if things do come to that, promise me you will run and go somewhere where there is actually a signal!"

"Nope! No promises!"

Starscream's wing flared and pain shot through it. "Why you little—!"

"Everybody else in your life has walked out on you, but I'm not gonna be one of 'em. I'm staying with you."

Starscream fell silent. "I…"

Something shimmered in the corner of his vision.

His helm whipped around as a Seeker glowed within the shadows. It was a fake holographic Seeker, it had to be, but he didn't know who the hologram was supposed to be of. He tensed his frame and prepared himself to look into the faceplate of Thundercracker or Skywarp.

The holoform glowed in the air and stepped into view.

Starscream's spark froze. He didn't know her name. He never had a chance to learn it. He only remembered holding her as she died.

"Do you remember me?" the unknown Seeker asked. "Remember how when Vos was bombed, you found me in the rubble? Do you remember me?"

Starscream held perfectly still. "I…"

Thundercracker and Skywarp shimmered into existence beside her. Then another Seeker appeared next to them.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

Starscream's helm swivelled around in horror as he looked around at the hundreds of Seekers around him. More and more came into existence with each moment and each one glared at him. They were everywhere—-they were on the floor, hidden in the rafters, in front of the exit—everywhere.

"You're not real!" Starscream snarled at them. "You're all dead!"

Some of them were solid, but some of them disappeared the moment he looked at him. They all glared down at him from above with cold red optics.

"Do you remember what happened in the Senate that day, Starscream?" Skywarp whispered as he slid up beside Starscream. "D'ya?"

Starscream offlined his optics and clutched onto Bulkhead. He shoved his faceplate into the green curves of the Wrecker's armor and tried to turn his audials as low as they could go so that he didn't have to listen to the dead voices all around him.

Skywarp's field flared with anger. "Do. You?"

Miko ran up to him as she wildly waved her arms around in the air. "Shoo, shoo, go away you fake freak!"

Thundercracker knelt down and smiled at her. It was all teeth. "Another sparkling… I bet you'll fail to save this one too, Starscream."

Starscream grabbed Miko and Bulkhead's servo and ran. He frantically looked around for the large hole in the wall through which they had entered. The hundred Seekers up above in the rafters all whispered and murmured and laughed to themselves as Starscream desperately searched for an escape.

A beam of bright red light shone onto the ground. Starscream turned a corner and saw the large hole in the wall through which they had entered—

It was completely blocked with Seekers. Thundercracker and Skywarp spread their wings wide over the exit.

Starscream whimpered and immediately began to back up.

"Oh, look, he's leaving us again," Thundercracker laughed bitterly. "Nothing new here."

Starscream began to shake. "No, no, no no no—"

"Starscream!" a small voice shouted.

He backed up into a large column and looked up at all of the dead Seekers in horror.

"Star. Scream!" the voice cried out again.

Miko ran up to him and kicked his pede. He wiped the coolant from his faceplates and glared down at her.

"What?!" he snapped.

"Star…" she said softly. Unlike the other times she had spoken to him, there was no mockery in her voice, no judgement or anger or cockiness. "They're not real."

"They're right there, how could they not be?!"

Miko shook her head. "They are only as real as you allow them to be."

Starscream's optics widened. "I allowed them to die. I didn't meant to get them killed, I didn't, I didn't—"

"Hey, hey, calm down, calm down! Starry, your trinemates aren't out there—" she pointed at the doorway, "—they're… there." She pointed at his helm.

"I'm… not following…"

Miko groaned loudly and dragged her hands down her face. "Eugh! I know it's cheesy, but it's true, slag it! Those… weird hologram thingies? Fake. So fake. But you're real. I'm real. And Bulkhead is in very very very real danger. And you can't stay here and keep getting' all spooked over your dead friends, 'cause if you do, you'll have another dead friend right there!" She pointed right at Bulkhead and the blank expression on his faceplate.

Thundercracker and Skywarp glared at her and began to stomp toward them. The giant monster truck on fire outside cast a harsh red glow everywhere. Starscream looked down. His frame cast a shadow—

—he looked up again. But Thundercracker and Skywarp's frames did not. The inferno's red light shone right through their frames. Their frames shimmered and became semi-transparent for a moment before they became opaque again.

"The scraplet is right," Starscream whispered to himself. "You're not real."

Thundercracker growled at him. "I am real! My death was real!"

Starscream took a deep vent and grabbed ahold of Bulkhead's servo again. He picked Miko up and tightly held her in one talon and Bulkhead's servo in the other. She looked up at him and smiled as Thundercracker ranted on.

"You were there, you saw me die!" he shouted.

Starscream tensed his frame and looked out through the exit his trinemates blocked.

Thundercracker stomped his pede onto the ground. "You are the reason I DIED—"

Starscream ran right through his frame with Bulkhead in tow. Thundercracker's frame became transparent and it shimmered with light as Starscream leaped right through it. He and Bulkhead burst free of the building and ran back into the open night air. The bright red glow of the hundred Seeker's optics flared and then vanished as one. Thundercracker and Skywarp stood back and watched in shock as Starscream ran from them.

"New strategy, new strategy!" Starscream panickedly said to himself as he dragged Bulkhead behind him to the very back of the stadium.

"Signal's still not working!" Miko shouted from his servo.

Alarms continued to blare as the last of the humans evacuated out of the other side of the stadium. The sound of their collective screams rang into the air and echoed around in Starscream's helm. The last time he had heard screams like that—

—no, he couldn't afford to think about what happened to Vos right now. Not now, not ever again.

"The back entrance! The stadium should be evacuated now, I'm sure they have better reception in there! Let's go into the back entrance, Starry!" Miko shouted up at him.

Starscream said nothing. He stared up at the stars in which Cybertron was in with wide optics. His grip on Bulkhead's servo tightened and his entire frame began to shake harder.

"Starry?" Miko whispered.

"Do you remember, Starscream? I have one last log for you, but I fear to say it out loud right now in case the Enforcers overhear—"

The Enforcers. They had been there when Vos was bombed. The screams of the humans continued to echo into the night and pierce his audials. The screams. The screams. When Vos was bombed, there had been so many of them.

"This is not Vos!" Miko shouted up at him. "This is some freakin' monster truck rodeo in the middle of nowhere! There's no bombing, Starry, no Vos, none of that. They're alive!"

Starscream looked down at her. "But then why… why are they screaming… unless they're being killed?"

Miko shook her head as the wail of a fire truck's siren echoed through the air. "They're just scared, Starry. They're alive, but they're very scared. You know what it's like to be scared."

Starscream offlined his optics and took a deep and shuddery vent. "I do. I know what it's like very w-well."

"So then let's get into the stadium, Starry. Let's get somewhere a bit safer so you can stop being scared."


"Ohhh, I don't like this," Starscream whimpered.

"Shush, it'll be fine," Miko sighed.

"Everything will be fine, everything will be fine," Bulkhead muttered nonstop.

The three of them walked through the tall and dark halls of the stadium. The alarms continued to blare, but the sounds of the human's screams were now gone and now the only sound beside the alarms was the labored heave of Starscream's vents.

"Where are we?" Starscream said as he looked around at the massive hallway they were in. The tall ceiling loomed over them and the floor was completely covered in skid marks. Piles of supplies and paint cans sat scattered around their pedes.

"A hallway built for monster trucks, Star! Any of this look familiar to you, Bulk?" Miko said.

Bulkhead tightly held Starscream's talon as he shuffled forward behind the Seeker. His blue optis stared straight ahead and his field hung cold and dead around his dirtied frame.

"Once. Maybe. Is this Iacon?"

Starscream and Miko sighed. This was fine. This was fine. If Starscream kept telling himself that, then maybe he'd believe it. Maybe.

The three of them emerged from the tunnel and into the actual arena itself. An enormous dirt pit with monster trucks scattered all over it sat ahead of the three of them. Tall towers completely ringed the entire stadium and each tower had a massive light on it that shone like a sun onto the dirt ground below. The ground was covered in the deep tracks and gouges the large tires of the monster trucks had grinded into the ground. The trucks themselves sat tall and still upon the high dirt mountains in the center of the arena.

"This is…" Starscream whimpered. He had been in an arena like that in Kaon many years ago. The air had been filled with dirt and the stands had been packed with mechs and he saw him for the first time, his silver armor and his false promises—

"Awesome!" Miko whooped. "Don't you remember, Bulk? You always talked about wantin' to get down in the dirt pit so you could drive around with the monster trucks! Remember?"

"I remember the cold spires of Vos. I remember…" Bulkhead's optics widened as he looked at Miko. The little human didn't have an EM field, yet she still radiated pure hope.

Bulkhead's frame began to shake as he stepped out into the dirt arena. "I remember…"

His servos lashed out and he hugged Starscream from behind. "I remember you, Star. You and I, in Vos, doing science!"

"Oh, for Primus's sake!" Starscream yelped as he maneuvered his way out of Bulkhead's arms. He stomped off into the dirty stadium and held his helm in his servos as a deep growl rose up within his frame.

"Starry? Are you okay?" Bulkhead asked, so concerned, so sweet, so unaware of how much pain he was causing.

"I don't know what I have to do to get you to remember. That…" Starscream pointed his servo up at a monster truck, "thing is apparently supposed to help you."

Miko jumped down from Starscream's talon and continued to wave her arms around. "Surely you remember the big monster trucks and their flips and tricks and… and…"

Bulkhead wandered away from her and shuffled off across the fake sand dunes.

Starscream rested his forehelm against the cold dirty surface of a monster truck's tire. This wasn't how this was supposed to go—this wasn't how any of this was supposed to go.

"Do you not realize how often you do that?" Miko asked softly.

Starscream cracked an optic open. "Do what?"

"How often… how often you talk to yourself."

Normally the revelation that he had been airing his thoughts out loud would have mortified him—but now, it just made a sick sense of humor rise up within him. Starscream laughed bitterly and banged his helm against the monster truck tire.

"Oh, so now both Bulkhead and I have memory problems. Great."

Bulkhead continued to shuffle around the dunes and examine the sand. "Oh Starscream, do you remember the organic worlds we all visited, you and I together in the stars? Do you remember, do you remember?"

Those words echoed into Starscream's helm and replayed nonstop.

Do you remember? Do you remember?

His optic twitched.

Do you remember?

"I remember. It seems like I have to do all of the remembering for you," Starscream sighed to himself as he slid down and sat beside the monster truck tire.

Bulkhead—or was it maybe Skyfire?—turned around and stomped toward him. "I remember our adventures together, Star!"

"You remember Skyfire and I's adventures. But only I seem to remember all the times we had together, Bulkhead, and… wait a second."

Starscream shot to his pedes and grabbed Bulkhead's shoulders. "If you can't remember all of the times you and I had together, then I will just have to remember those times for you." It was a wild idea, an insane one, but it was the only one he could think of.

He sat Bulkhead down in the dirt and activated his comm line to the Wrecker. Starscream offlined his optics and mentally brought up every memory of every time he ever spent with Bulkhead. He thought of the times he spent with Bulkhead messing around in the base and the times he spent with Bulkhead out in the field of battle with dead mechs closing in on them. His frame shook as he brought up each data file of each memory out of the depths of his processor.

His optics shot open—-and he sent each memory over to Bulkhead.

"What are you doing now?" Miko asked.

Starscream sighed deeply. "I'm remembering."

Bulkhead received the incoming message from Starscream and his optics widened at the influx of memories within.

"I know… I know that messaging something as fragile as a memory is difficult, it's hard, but—it's my best bet, slag it! Tell me you remember something!" Starscream pleaded as he leaned in closer to Bulkhead.

Bulkhead's jaw dropped and he continued to numbly stare out into space.

"Oh, come on!" Starscream swore as he punched the dirt. "Do you remember our night in the woods? When we first saw the fake Skyfire?"

Bulkhead's optics began to rapidly flicker on and off. "I… I don't…"

"Do you remember all those paintings we made together? Do you, do you?"

"Starry…"

"D-do you remember how you caught me back in the river?"

No response.

Starscream punched the ground again and held Bulkhead's faceplate so that they were only a breath apart.

"Do you even remember hating me? Do you remember threatening to bash my helm in?! I would much rather have you remember that than nothing at all!"

Starscream's voice echoed into the night and reverberated through the air. He cringed as the sound of his shout floated throughout the entire stadium and into the night air.

Something banged off in the distance. Starscream's helm shot up and he scanned the vast rows of empty seats all around them. Breakdown emerged from one of the tunnels the monster trucks came out of with Knock Out by his side. Instead of the usual cocky look on their faceplates, they now had a cold and detached look Starscream couldn't see well. Knock Out whipped out his electro-prod and activated it, but he seemed much more hesitant to do so this time around.

"Let's play a game, Starscream," he said coldly.

"Oh, Primus," Starscream moaned. He pulled Bulkhead to his pedes and grabbed ahold of Miko again before he ran to the opposite side of the monster truck. He and Bulkhead crouched down behind one of the massive tires as Knock Out and Breakdown transformed and drove around the monster truck in circles. Dirt flew into the air in large clouds and their headlights swept across Starscream as they drove around and around him.

"Let's try and figure out how you're trying to manipulate Bulkhead this time," Knock Out laughed. "We've seen you play so many games with so many mechs over the years—so what's the game plan this time?"

"There's no game plan, you overwaxed buffoon!" Starscream shouted.

Knock Out skidded to a halt. "Oh, now you've really done it!" he growled.

"Are you manipulating him? Stupid question, of course you are. Are you trying to get something from him?" Breakdown asked as he drove right past Starscream.

"No!" Starscream shouted.

"Are you trying to get close to him so you can kill him?" Breakdown yelled at Starscream as he drove around for another past. His tires ground into the dirt and sent a spray of pebbles at Starscream's frame. Starscream yelped and stepped in front of Miko to protect her from the shower of rocks.

"Once again, no, now if you will both please just listen to me—"

"Well if you're not trying to kill him, what are you trying to get from him?" Breakdown shouted as he aggressively swerved around and drove right at Starscream.

"He's my friend!" Starscream shrieked as Breakdown drove at him at full speed.

"Breaky, stop!" Knock Out screamed.

Breakdown slammed to a halt only inches away before Starscream's chestplate. He transformed and grabbed ahold of both of the Seeker's shoulders as he pulled him in close. Breakdown's field roiled with anger, but there was another familiar, yet hidden emotion there in the hot static that Starscream couldn't identify.

"...He's your friend?" he said after a few moments.

Starscream gulped down the panic in his throat and shakily nodded.

Breakdown took a deep vent. "This is low, even for you. Pretendin' to be somebody's friend—slag, what kind of relationship do you two even have? Are you mentoring him?"

Starscream bit his lip.

Breakdown shook him again. "C'mon! Is he mentoring you? Are you… lovers?"

"What?! No!" Starscream shouted as he kicked out with his pedes. Breakdown moved his legs apart to avoid Starscream's kicks.

"What? Father and son? Cousins? Is he your uncle? Are you his uncle? What have you made him believe?!"

"Who are you?" Bulkhead asked.

Breakdown's helm shot up and he looked right at Bulkhead. "...Say that again."

"I said, who are you? Get your servos away from Star! Don't worry, Star, we'll be together forever, together forever, we'll get off this organic planet and be back at the Academy in no time."

Breakdown and Knock Out's jaws dropped and horror bloomed in their field. Cold rage pierced Breakdown's field and he slammed Starscream's dirtied frame up hard against the monster truck tire.

"What. Did you. Do to him?" he growled in the Seeker's faceplate.

Starscream was so scared that he could hardly speak. "I… I didn't do anything!"

Lies, lies, Skyfire's voice whispered in his helm. Lies, lies, lies, all lies—

"Well, you did something!" Breakdown shouted. "What's going on with his processor? What? What did you do to him? Why doesn't he… remember me?"

Starscream said nothing and stared up at Breakdown with breathless terror.

Bulkhead moved forward and stepped between Starscream and Breakdown.

"Leave my brother alone."

Breakdown's optics widened and he stumbled back. "You're… you're his brother. You're his new Wrecking Brother." It was not a question.

Starscream shrank behind Bulkhead's back and prayed to Primus that it would all stop.

"Answer the question!" Breakdown shouted.

"Yes?! Okay, yes, we're brothers! Are you happy now?!" he shouted back at Breakdown.

Breakdown stood frozen. "No. I'm not happy at all."

A dark shape stood upon the top of the monster truck. Soundwave intently watched the conflict down below. Laserbeak trilled and flew down from the air and landed on her Creator's shoulder.

"ARE YOU READY, CREATOR?" she whispered to him over their bond.

Soundwave did not move. He continued to just stare at Starscream's shaking form down below.

"CREATOR?"

Soundwave's servos clenched into fists. When had Laserbeak become like this? When did she begin to scheme and plot and manipulate bots? At what moment did this chance overcome her?

"THE NEXT STAGE IS READY, CREATOR."

Or was she always like this all along, and was he too blind to see that?

"DO YOU FEEL FEAR?" she asked Soundwave.

The answer was a yes. Fear for her, fear of what Megatron was turning into, and fear of Starscream. He did not want to admit it out loud—but he feared the Seeker. He did not fear the Seeker's strength, or his cunning mind—no, for some reason, Starscream scared Soundwave, and Soundwave did not know what that reason even was.

"ARE YOU A COWARD, JUST LIKE STARSCREAM?" she whispered into his audial.

Soundwave slowly turned his helm to regard her. She stared right into her own reflection in his visor without flinching.

"I AM NO COWARD."

"THEN ENACT THE PLAN."

Soundwave bowed his helm. This is what Megatron wanted. This is what he ordered. Soundwave wanted nothing more than to just grab ahold of the Seeker and drag the traitor back to the Nemesis to be disposed of—-but his Lord was too insistent on reliving the past. This strategy had been used to dispose of the trine, so maybe it could be used to dispose of the Autobots.

Or maybe it would all just crash and burn, the same way the Nemesis had when Starscream had made it plummet into the ocean.

No, the Seeker had this coming. He ignored the twinge he felt inside of him as he activated his holoform generator.

Down below, Breakdown slammed Starscream up against the tire again.

"Why are you doing this?! Don't you two imbeciles see that the Decepticons are rotting away? Look at that they've turned into! Look at what Megatron has turned into!" Starscream shrieked.

"He's our Lord!" Breakdown shouted.

"He's insane! Is this why you joined the Decepticons?! To serve a madmech?!"

"He's still a better leader than you are!"

Starscream scoffed. "Who led the Decepticons while Megatron was away procrastinating in space? Who kept you fed and hidden while he was off searching for the essence of evil? Who organized a group of bots to rescue you from M.E.C.H? Who, Breakdown, who?"

Breakdown stopped slamming him against the tire and just stared at Starscream.

"He's easier to hate," he said softly.

"...What?"

The air buzzed. Starscream's helm shot up right as all of the empty stadium seats began to shimmer with light. The air glowed and wavered as holoforms appeared in all of the empty seats.

Breakdown, Knock Out, and Starscream all watched as the entire stadium went from being completely empty to completely full of mechs in a matter of seconds. A thousand pairs of optics in a thousand different hues stared down at them from their seats.

Starscream froze. These weren't the holoforms of Seekers. He saw Thundercracker and Skywarp there, yes, but this crowd wasn't from Vos.

"Why the slag did Sounders make the whole Senate appear in the seats?" Breakdown gasped.

Starscream remembered the Senate and Sentinel so well. Their cold glare, their aloof attitudes, the disdain in their voices as they looked down at him and said Starscream, you have been convicted with murder—

The Senate had been in full session that day, that awful awful day.

Sentinel Prime sat in a seat high above. The holoforms looked down at him so proudly, so arrogantly. That's not how they had looked the most recent time he had seen the Council. Not at all.

He remembered the fear in their optics as he had—no, he couldn't think about that.

"Do you remember?" Skyfire said. Starscream looked up and saw the alt-modes of his trinemates and of Skyfire up in the sky. They flew around one another and their wide wings blotted out the stars and cast shadows across the ground below.

"This is the kind of thing your Lord loves to create!" Starscream shouted at Breakdown and Knock Out as they continued to stare at the Senate in pure horror.

"I… what is this?" Knock Out whispered.

Bulkhead leaned forward and grabbed Starscream in his arms. He dragged Starscream behind the tire and underneath the monster truck. Both he and Miko looked up at Starscream in concern as the Seeker fell to his pedes and sat in the dirt.

"Don't worry, Star! One day somebody will overthrow the Council, one day, one day, one day, one—"

Starscream covered his audials with his servos and held back a sob.


Heat washed over his frame. Starscream flew through the cold dark sky while completely surrounded by Enforcers. Enforcers flew directly behind and ahead of him, above him, and to the sides of him. He was completely caged in by their sharp and angular frames as they flew on through the sky.

The dark silhouette of a spaceship became visible over the curve of the horizon. A jolt of fear shook Starscream and he briefly slowed down.

"Hey!" the Enforcers in front of him shouted. He flew backwards and let the heat of his jet engines blast over Starscream. Starscream yelped and sped up again.

Pure grief flowed in his field—but pure satisfaction flowed within the fields of the Enforcers around him. He wasn't a person according to them. He was a prize, something that had been won and earned.

The data cylinder beeped on and on. It wasn't in his cockpit, but in the cockpit of the Enforcer in front of him. The ship grew larger and larger on the horizon as they flew closer to it. He didn't know what would happen to him if he went aboard it—he didn't even know if he would ever get the opportunity to disboard it. Maybe they'd send him off to Kaon to work as a miner. Or maybe they'd bring him onto the ship and shoot him square in his chestplates.

No, he needed to stay alive for Skyfire's sake. He didn't know what that dark shape he saw in the ice was. Maybe it was his brother, but maybe it was a delusional shadow borne out of paranoia.

"Speed it up!" one of the Enforcers shouted. The Enforcer in front of him flew backward again and let the hot roar of his jet engines rumble across Starscream again. Starscream bit back a cry of pain and watched as his blue paint melted off his frame and down to the vast forest far down below.

They had taken the cylinder. They took it from him, even though it was not theirs to take. It was his and Skyfire's, but Skyfire was gone, and so now it was just his—and by Primus he would make it his again.

Skyfire's last words were on that thing. He had no idea what that actually meant, but that's what the shuttle told him. He might never get the opportunity to hear Skyfire spear ever again if that cylinder was lost to him.

"Why do you keep slowing down?" the Enforcer in front of him sighed as he sent another blast of agonizing heat over Starscream's frame.

The Enforcer flew backward and let the heat wash over his frame again, and again, and again until his entire frame felt like it was on fire. The spaceship up ahead loomed larger and larger against the stars until soon it cast a shadow over all of them as they flew up to it and—

"Promise me," Skyfire had said to him what felt like so many years ago, but was in reality just a few weeks ago. "Promise me you'll never hurt anybody ever again."

Energon dripped off Starscream's frame and fell down into the sky below like rain. It was not his energon. Skyfire had asked one thing of him, one promise, and he'd already broken it. His entire life was broken already.

The Enforcer in front of him flew backward again—Starscream hadn't even slowed down this time—and sent another blast of heat and pure pain over Starscream.

He'd had enough.

Starscream transformed into his root mode and lunged right at the jet in front of him. He sunk his talons into the Enforcer's transformation seams and he screeched as he and Starscream fell out of the sky. The other Enforcers rained down a volley of hot plasma bolts, but Starscream sharply grabbed ahold of the Enforcer's nose cone and twisted them both around so that the bolts hit the Enforcer instead.

The Enforcer also transformed into his root mode and the two of them plummeted through the sky in a tangled heap of limbs and talons.

"You stole him from me!" Starscream screamed into the Enforcer's faceplate. He shoved his talons into the Enforcer's abdomen and pried apart his cargo bay. The data cylinder fell out and Starscream clutched it tightly in his arms.

Something hard slammed into his back. A flurry of Enforcers swarmed over him and tried to grab him, but he kicked out hard against each and every one of them. Alarms began to blare in the spaceship and the launch bay doors opened as the dark angular shapes of more Enforcers flew out of them.

Starscream plummeted into a cloud layer. All he could see around him were the dark grey shadowy clouds. The only light came from the bright blue glow of his optics and the red glow of the cylinder clutched tightly in his bloodied and dirtied arms.

He dared not make a noise or move at all as he fell down to the ground below. A vast forest stretched out beneath him and he knew instantly in that moment that he was completely and utterly lost. There was not a single piece of ice to be seen for miles around. Wherever he was, he was far from Skyfire.

Starscream let out a keen of grief at the thought of his dead friend.

That was all it took for his enemy to find him.

The first Enforcer from earlier smashed into him and the two of them spiralled towards the ground. The Enforcer's energon dripped down and onto Starscream's frame as he tried to pry the cylinder out of Starscream's arms. Starscream held onto the cylinder for dear life. He could never let go, never, because to lose the cylinder would mean losing the last bit of Skyfire that still existed.

"Let. Go," the Enforcer hissed as his optics gleamed blood-red.

Starscream felt something wet stream down his faceplates. This mech was the reason Skyfire was dead, the reason he was buried under a hundred tons of ice in the middle of nowhere, the reason he and Skyfire were even on this wretched world in the first place.

A hot anger rose up within him and overwhelmed his processor.

"Promise me," Skyfire's voice whispered in his helm.

It would be easy to just lash out and rip away at the Enforcer's throat.

"Promise me you won't hurt anybody," the voice echoed around and round in his helm. It sounded desperate now.

The Enforcer kicked Starscream in the helm and ripped the cylinder right out of his arms. Lightning flashed around them and sizzled past their frames as the Enforcer grabbed the cylinder and held it triumphantly in one of his servos.

"Kill me and kill the data with it."

Skyfire's voice repeated in his helm over and over again. "Promise me, promise me promise me promise—"

If he killed this Enforcer, then he could never hurt anybody else ever again. Starscream unsheathed his talons, prayed that Skyfire could forgive him, and lunged.

The Enforcer's optics had only a fraction of a second to widen before Starscream's talons dug into his throat. Starscream instinctively offlined his optics as a hot plume of energon sprayed out of the dead bot's throat and across Starscream's faceplate.

The cylinder slipped out of the Enforcer's limp servo. It plummeted through the dark storm clouds and down to the earth below.

Starscream wiped the energon off of his faceplate and looked around for the cylinder.

It was nowhere to be seen.

Instant regret flooded Starscream's field.

"Oh no, no no no," Starscream whimpered. He kicked the Enforcer's frame away and transformed before he then activated his engines at full speed. The hot lightning flashed again and briefly lit up the cylinder's silhouette as it tumbled down and down into the cloud tops. The lightning sizzled past his helm and completely disoriented his systems. His HUD flickered and flashed before it glitched out and vanished altogether.

"Skyfire, please, no, I need to catch it, I need to catch it—!"

Starscream transformed into his root mode and reached his talon out toward the falling cylinder. The very tips of his digits grazed the cold metal—

—and pushed the cylinder deeper into the clouds. It vanished amongst a swell of clouds and disappeared into the gloom.

"No!" Starscream shrieked. He had chosen, and he'd chosen wrong.

He sent out desperate scan after scan into the storm clouds and detected nothing except for the angry life signals of the Enforcers far above. The clouds briefly parted and he looked up and saw the sharp dark shapes of the Enforcer's silhouettes up in the sky. They flew around in circles and prowled the clouds like hungry hawks as they searched for Starscream.

He wanted to scream, he wanted to go down into the forest and destroy something, he wanted to go up to the Enforcers and throttle each and every one of them—but most of all he wanted Skyfire, just Skyfire and his warm words. And now his last words were lost to him forever.

The alarms from the spaceship continued to blare and the lightning continued to flash and Starscream continued to detect nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Starscream bit back a cry of grief and gunned his engines. He flew off into the sky and hoped that he was headed south towards Skyfire.

He didn't realize it at the time, but he was flying north instead.


"Are we running from the Enforcers again?" Bulkhead asked Starscream. His blue optics were so bright and unaware and innocent—

"No, Bulkhead, we are not," Starscream whispered.

Bulkhead blinked at him in confusion. "Who's Bulkhead?"

Starscream froze and bit back a scream. "You. That's you, that's—oh Primus, what did I get myself into?" He dropped to his pedes in the dirt and screwed his optics shut. If he dared to open them then he would see them, the Senate in all of their awful and terrible tyrannical glory. The entire stadium was lit up with the red and gold glow of their optics and the sound of their voices murmured nonstop until the only sound Starscream could hear was their voices melded into each other.

"Murderer," the Council whispered. "Murderer, murderer, you killed the shuttle, murderer, murderer, you killed the shuttle," they whispered nonstop—but there was no grief in their voices, nothing but thinly-hidden sadistic glee at the thought of another dead winged mech.

Breakdown and Knock Out walked around outside the monster truck and prowled around the perimeter as the Council's voices rose in volume.

Starscream felt like he was going to purge, like his frame was just going to collapse in on itself and like he was about to become dust again. He hadn't felt this much despair and loss since Skyfire—since he—

Bulkhead stroked his back softly. "Hey, calm down, just get into my cargo bay and we'll be back at Iacon in no time," he said softly, sweetly, heartbreakingly.

"Starry!" Miko shouted as she ran up onto one of Starscream's knelt knees. "Listen to me, listen to me—"

"What's even the point anymore?!" Starscream shrieked at her. "At any moment Soundwave will come and he'll take him from me again, do you know that? He'll snatch him away and I'll lose Bulkhead and I'll lose Skyfire's final words, the final words I lost because I was too angry to see that violence wasn't the answer!"

Starscream sat there and stared at Miko with coolant on his faceplates as his vents worked overtime to cool down his exhausted frame. She stared up at him with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

"I have one final log for you, Starscream," Bulkhead said as he sat in the dirt beside Starscream. He looked up at the internals of the monster truck above them with a distant look in his optics. Somehow, Starscream knew that he was looking in the direction of Cybertron.

He wanted to hear the log but at the same time he did not want to hear it, he wanted to delete it and yet also cherish it forever, this one final message from his final friend in the final era of his life—the era before Megatron, the era before the warlord was a warlord and back when Starscream could actually and honestly say he was happy.

"You can be happy with us," Miko said softly as the Council's chants rose even higher in volume.

"Murderer, murderer, MURDERER—"

"No, I slagging can't!"

"You can't listen to one final log?" Bulkhead asked him. His field shook with grief, but it wasn't real. It was just a pale imitation of the grief Skyfire had felt as he had recorded his logs. It was nothing more than the echo of the dead.

"I don't know," Starscream groaned miserably.

Bulkhead sat right in front of Starscream and held the Seeker's dirty shoulders tight. He looked right into Starscream's coolant-filled optics, opened his intake—

—and then shut it. His optics widened and flickered as his frame spasmed.

"W-what's happening to him?" Miko said in alarm.

"I don't know!"

Bulkhead's optics turned off and then turned on again. "Subspace Log Number 99—"

His frame spasmed again and he offlined his optics.

Miko gasped. "He's not… he's not…?"

Starscream hung his helm. "He may as well be."

Bulkhead's helm shot up again and his optics flared with light. "Autobot Log Number 1."

Starscream blinked. That wasn't what he expected. Skyfire was never an Autobot and crashed long before they even existed, so then how—?

"Hey Star, this isn't one of your old buddy's logs," Bulkhead said.

Starscream's jaw dropped.

"This is one of your new buddy's logs. I—I worry about what you will do when I am no longer here… Anyway, Scree, I worry about ya. You're cold and mean to everybody you don't like, but when you do like somebody… you kinda get too attached."

Bulkhead and Knock Out stood beside the tire and watched with wide optics.

"So when your friends fall, you fall with 'em. So when my processor is all gone, don't spill your bolts, 'kay? My end is near. I don't think my processor will last much longer. I can feel it. You've still got Prime to stick by ya and 'Bee, and even Ratch! He doesn't really show his concern for you that much, but he does care."

"And I worry, y'know? So don't go coo-coo for coco puffs and go running back to Megs cause it's the only thing ya know. Cause Megs knows you, but I've gotten to know you even better, and I know you're not worthless—slag it, you're too good for Buckethead, okay? You gotta wake up n' see that.

"So don't let my end… make you go crazy, okay? 'Cause Optimus has helped mechs before, and he'll keep on helping you, and I know that his awakening will bring about yours… Oh, Starscream, I worry about what you will do when I am no longer here. My end is near. I can feel it. And I worry that my end will bring about yours… yours… yours… Oh, Starscream."

"No. I can't… I can't give up on you yet. Maybe I can bring your memories back by sharing mine again," Starscream gasped. He had completely and utterly failed to send his memories over to Bulkhead the first time—but maybe, just maybe, he needed to instead form a more direct connection. He reached behind his helm and pulled out a data cable and held it shakily in his servos.

"Star, what are you doing?" Bulkhead asked. Starscream placed one of his servos over the Wrecker's intake to shut him up and grabbed ahold of one of Bulkhead's muddied arms as he searched for a data port.

"What are you doing?!" Knock Out shouted at him.

Starscream hissed at him. "Saving him." Miko stared up at him in awe.

"By—by linking?" Knock Out sputtered.

"Someone has to save him! You both were just going on about how ruining his processor was low, even for me, and you know what? You're right! I made a huge mistake! And now, I am going to fix it."

Breakdown rapidly shook his helm back and forth. "No, no, Screamy, there has to be a better way than this."

"This is the only way." He found a port in Bulkhead's wrist and was about to attach his data cable to it when suddenly a servo lashed out and grabbed ahold of his talon. He turned around and stared right up into the faceplates of Knock Out and Breakdown.

"Will you stop me?" Starscream asked.

Knock Out and Breakdown just blinked at him. Breakdown's grip on Starscream's wrist shook slightly.

"I need to do this, slag it! So tell me, Doctors—can I get his memories back by sharing mine?"

Knock Out's field became cold and hard around him. "It could go wrong. Do you know what the consequences of a failed memory transfer are? You could become just like him."

Starscream's servo began to shake. "I am aware of the consequences."

Knock Out and Breakdown glanced at each other before they looked back to Starscream.

"Then may Primus be with you," Knock Out said.

Starscream took a deep breath. He remembered the last time something like this had happened, the last time he'd hooked himself up to another mech and bared his memories for them to see.

It was one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

But letting Bulkhead's processor rot away would be another huge mistake, another invisible weight on his shoulders, another dead mech on his conscience—-and he didn't want anymore dead weights to weigh down his spark. He wanted to fly.

Starscream shakily attached his data cable to Bulkhead's dataport in his wrist and opened his processor up to the Wrecker.

His vision flared and his hearing became muffled and muted. Everything moved in slow motion as streams of data flowed back and forth between their connected minds. Bulkhead's optics shone a piercing blue and he reached out a dirty servo to Starscream's shoulder as his mind linked to Starscream's.

Starscream blinked and the stadium disappeared and was replaced with Vos. He blinked again and saw the tall golden buildings of the Academy up in the sky, and then he blinked again and saw an endless white ice sheet.

"So you've come for the final log," Bulkhead and Skyfire's voices echoed in his helm.

"I'm here to delete them!" Starscream mentally shouted back at him. All of Bulkhead's firewalls were completely shattered and his entire processor was laid bare for the Seeker to see. Rampant lines of coding pierced through his neural network and spun around and around across Starscream's vision like shocks of lightning. Equations rapidly appeared and disappeared and the silhouettes of shuttles and Seekers danced across his vision.

He felt his own thoughts grow slow and sluggish. He raked his talons down his arm and the hot pain helped him stay focused.

The memories. Yes. The memories. That is what he was transferring over. Starscream offlined his optics and thought of all the times he spent with Bulkhead—the time they spent in the woods, back when Skyfire first appeared, the time they spent making painting after painting, the time when Megatron called and Bulkhead had had to guide Starscream through his fear—he thought of each memory of everything he ever did with the Wrecker and sent each memory over to Bulkhead's helm.

"The f-final log is here, you've finally found out how to find it!" Skyfire laughed and laughed and laughed.

"I'm not here for the log, Bulkhead, so just shut up and let me help you!" Starscream mentally yelled back at him.

His vision flickered and flashed—-one moment he was looking at Bulkhead knelt before him—-and the next moment he was looking at Skyfire. The edges of his vision staticked out and everything around him disappeared in a haze of data codes until all he could see was Bulkhead's faceplate right in front of him.

"I never told you in person. I hid this log deep in the cylinder because we were being watched, Starry, we were being observed so carefully and I needed to make sure the Enforcers didn't overhear us—"

Starscream's optics shot wide open—he didn't realize he had offlined them—and he stared right at Skyfire—Bulkhead—Skyfire. A morbid sense of curiosity rose up within him. What could possibly have been so important and yet so dangerous that it could never be spoken out loud? What warning could the shuttle have possibly given him?

It was so tempting to just say tell me, tell me the last log—but then his vision flashed and the spires of Vos appeared in the sky again, and then vanished and got replaced with the Academy, back and forth and back and forth until he couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't.

"I… can't…. I can't listen to it, Bulkhead! Didn't you already send it to me earlier?! Autobot Log Number 1?" Starscream shouted over the data link.

The air began to buzz and a stream of data floated right over his vision and blinded him.

"No. I do not know what that was," Skyfire's voice echoed back and forth.

"That was yours! You made that!"

"I am Skyfire and I made no such thing."

Another unwanted line of code from the cylinder scrolled across his vision. Starscream reached up and rubbed his optics to try and get the data stuck in them to disappear. He felt something warm spill out onto his digits. The data continued to flash and flicker across his vision. Something warm and wet dripped down from his optics—it didn't feel like coolant—and it was hot and acidic.

"Oh, shut up and let me send over the next batch of memories already!"

He screwed his optics shut and tried to recall his memories of Bulkhead, but then they skittered and flickered away from him. The massive amount of hostile data stuck in Bulkhead's processor seeped over into Starscream's over the link until he couldn't tell which memory was which anymore.

He grabbed a memory—he did not know which one—and sent it over to Bulkhead's helm.

Bulkhead's optics widened. "Oh Star, oh Star, what did he do to you?"

Cold realization seeped into his frame. "What… what did I send you?"

Bulkhead sent the memory back to Starscream and Starscream felt his spark sink. It wasn't a memory of Bulkhead, but of a different mech, a crueler mech, an abusive one—bleeding on the ground, vents coming in harsh gasps, Megatron looming over him, raising his pede—

"No!" Starscream's voice echoed in both of their processors. "F-forget you saw that! Forget that! Wrong memory!"

The data stream between them shuddered with pain. A fresh wave of grief welled up from within Bulkhead, and it wasn't a dead echo of Skyfire's pain—it was Bulkhead's pain too, Bulkhead's grief, Bulkhead's pity.

"He hurt you like that? He hurt you, oh Primus, Buckethead really did hurt you like that, I can't believe—"

"You saw nothing!" Starscream shouted at him and at this point he couldn't tell if he was shouting out loud or shouting over the data cable.

"Oh Starscream," Bulkhead said. "I saw everything."

"H-how much did I send you?"

"Enough."

The streams of data froze and reversed. The grief vanished as the cold clean lines of data tore it apart and took over Bulkhead's helm again.

"I have one final log for you," he said. "Subspace Log 99… There is going to be an—"

Grief shot through Starscream. "I want to hear it but I can't, I can't allow you to plunge back into the logs, I can't lose another brother, slag it! I'm sorry, Skyfire. I really am."

The air buzzed. Warnings flared across his HUD.

Starscream rested the tip of his crest to Bulkhead's forehelm and sent over one last batch of memories with him

"What are you doing?"

Starscream cracked one of his optics open.

"I'm grounding you."

He sent over the final burst of memories, his vision staticked out, and he fell backward and into the dirt.


"Where are you? Where are you?"

The bright white snow completely obscured his vision until all he could see was an endless expanse of pure white. Ice fell onto his frame in sharp flakes that dug into his plating, but that didn't matter—the only thing that mattered was Skyfire.

And Skyfire was nowhere to be seen.

His engines burned hot as he flew through the snow in circles and circles and circles. He sent out scan after scan across the cold white ice, but detected nothing. No spark signals, no comms for help, absolutely nothing. The white ice flickered and flashed and for a split second he saw two frames standing over his—that was strange.

The wind buffeted against his frame and drove sharp shards of ice into his wings as he gunned his engines and flew to the top of the sky. The clouds briefly cleared and for a single moment, the entirety of the ice sheet was laid bare before him. The ice sheet briefly vanished and for a split second he looked up and saw the underside of some kind of massive truck above his helm. Strange. Very strange.

The odd vision vanished and cold white plains of snow rolled on for as far as his optics could see. The peaks of mountains rose far off in the distance. Maybe that's where Skyfire was. Maybe the snow crashed into his frame and threw him off course and he flew off in the wrong direction—or maybe he had intentionally left Starscream behind. Or maybe some data got beamed into his helm and destroyed it. Starscream blinked. Where did that odd thought suddenly come from? He shook his helm and sighed. He needed to focus, slag it! Maybe Skyfire was fine and had just flown off deep into the mountains, far far away. Maybe Skyfire was out there waiting for him, like all those other times Starscream had flown off and then returned to camp.

Maybe he was waiting.

Or maybe he was dead.

Starscream transformed back into his root-mode in mid-air. He plummeted and felt the shards of ice and wind slice past his frame as he fell back to the ground. He slammed onto the ground and sent a flurry of snow into the air as his pedes struck the ice sheet. At any moment he expected Skyfire to emerge from the cold wind, a worried look on his faceplate and concern in his field.

A silhouette appeared in the bright white snow. Starscream squinted up at it and hope flared in his chestplate. "Skyfire? Skyfire? Is it really you?!"

The mech walked towards him through the blizzard and his two bright optics shone brightly amidst the snowy gloom. Starscream broke into a run and ran right towards him.

The snow blew away and the mech's frame became visible. Instead of white shuttle armor, he saw green armor instead.

"Hey, Star," Bulkhead said. "It's me. You found me, Star, you saved me!"


"Oh slag! Oh slag!" Starscream shouted as he lurched upwards. A nauseous sensation overwhelmed his frame and he leaned over and purged.

"Ew!" Miko shouted.

Knock Out grabbed his shoulders and forced him to sit up right.

"Hmmpf, he managed to survive all that. Somehow."

"Ohhhh," Starscream groaned. "Why did I join the war again?"

Knock Out was pushed to the side by Bulkhead.

"Hey, there, Star!" he laughed.

Starscream blinked up at him sluggishly. "Are you g-going to recite a log to me?"

"No, Starscream. You ended that. My processor is still… it's still kinda mushy and confused, but—I remember you. I remember."

Starscream lunged forward and wrapped his bloodied arms around Bulkhead. He buried his helm in the curves of his green armor as Bulkhead laughed.

"Aww, so you do like me after all!"

"Shut up. Are you really… you again?"

Bulkhead smiled down at him. "The one and only!"

"Bulkkkk! You have to take me dune riding again to make up for last time!" Miko screamed as she tried to crawl up Bulkhead's leg.

He frowned. "What happened last time?"

Miko and Starscream looked at each other.

"THERE WILL NOT BE A NEXT TIME."

The air buzzed and a bright violet glow shone over their shoulders. Soundwave stood at the other end of the monster truck they were hidden under. Dozens of his cables lashed out and coiled themselves around the end of the truck. With a single mighty heavy, he tipped the whole monster truck over.

It tilted over all of their helms and slid down the dirt hill before it crashed into the bank of the dirt road with a screech of metal and a shower of sparks.

"Soundwave, no, stop!" Starscream shouted, but it was too late. Soundwave ran right at Bulkhead and Starscream at full speed. He raised his arm into the air and the bright harsh glow of the stadium lights glinted across the sharp edge of his arm as he swung his arm down and into the data cable that connected Starscream to Bulkhead.

A burst of pain shot through Starscream's helm and he shrieked as the data connection was abruptly and suddenly severed.

Starscream screamed as Soundwave's cables tightly grabbed ahold of his limbs and dragged him through the dirt. He pulled Starscream away from Bulkhead right as the Wrecker lunged forward and tried to catch Starscream.

"Star!" he shouted as he threw his arm out. The tips of his digits grazed the tips of Starscream's talons as the Seeker was dragged away.

Soundwave loomed over him. His single red optic leered down at him and the hot white lights of the stadium lit up all of the sharp angles of his frame as he knelt down over Starscream.

Breakdown and Knock Out tightly grabbed ahold of Bulkhead and forced him to his knees in the dirt.

"C'mon, let me save Starry!" he pleaded.

Breakdown's tight grip on Bulkhead's shoulder wavered.

Knock Out activated his electro-prod and pointed it right at him. "Sorry, Autobot, but we can't afford to become Megatron's new punching bag."

"Wha—so you helped save Starscream just so that you could capture us?!"

"It's not you that we want," Breakdown said softly. "It's Starscream. He has the data now."

"It's been deleted!"

Knock Out shook his helm. "It'll take a few minutes to leave his processor. And Soundwave needs only seconds to snatch it all up." He shrieked and looked down at his pede as Miko banged her fists against him. "Watch the paintjob!"

"Watch this!" she shrieked louder as she began to bang against Knock Out even more.

"Miko, please, listen to me!" Bulkhead pleaded as Starscream screams echoed through the air. "You need to run, do you understand? Run and get a signal!"

"I'm not leaving you!" she shrieked.

"Get away from here! Jump down that hill!"

Miko froze. Jump down that hill.

Jump.

Starscream had told her to jump free of Bulkhead that day they went dune riding—and she hadn't.

Starscream shrieked again as Soundwave connected one of his cables to the back of the Seeker's helm.

Miko watched Starscream writhe and claw and kick under Soundwave's grasp.

She looked at Starscream, then Bulkhead, and then she screamed in anger and ran.

Miko ran across the dirty ground and clambered her way up and down the steep hills and banks of the monster truck track. She ran over to one of the other monster trucks parked near the side of the stadium and crawled up the spokes of the tire.

Soundwave dug his cable deeper and deeper into the port in the back of Starscream's helm. He used his other cables to hold Starscream's limbs down as he broke the firewalls within his helm and plunged into Starscream's memories.

"W-why are you doing this? Why not just kill me?"

Soundwave hummed. Laserbeak floated down from the sky and landed upon his shoulder. "SAVING YOU: FOR LATER."

"But why?!"

Soundwave leaned in so close to Starscream's audial that he could feel the Seeker's terrified vents wash over his visor. "SAVING YOUR DEATH: FOR LATER. FOR MEGATRON."

He shattered all of Starscream's firewalls and broke right into his helm. Starscream thrashed and kicked under the intrusive onslaught as Soundwave digged around in his memory files. He briefly forced Soundwave out of his helm, only for him to dig back in again.

"Get out of my helm!" he shrieked up at Soundwave.

Soundwave tsked as he pulled up a certain file and began to play it across his visor. "REMEMBER THIS?"

Starscream froze at the memory Soundwave had chosen to replay. "No. No. Please, any memory but that one!"

The deactivated frames of Thundercracker and Skywarp glowed brightly on his shattered visor. "LOOK WHAT YOU DID. LOOK WHAT YOU DID—"

The dirt hill underneath them collapsed. The cable hooked to Starscream's helm snapped out of him as the two of them both tumbled down the dirty bank and into the race track. Starscream shakily rose to his pedes and looked around for Bulkhead. The Wrecker was all the way on the other side of the stadium and both Knock Out and Breakdown loomed over him.

Starscream began to run to Bulkhead. He needed to find him and then find Miko and then—

Soundwave leaped in front of Starscream and extended his cables out. He lashed them around him in a flurry of movements and stirred up massive clouds of dust that rose up from the floor of the stadium and into the air. A large dust cloud obscured Starscream's view of Bulkhead and he shrieked as he lost the Wrecker within the storm. The only light came from the panicked red glow of Starscream's optics and the eerie violet glow of Soundwave's visor and cables.

Starscream dodged a cable that swung over his helm and ran off to where he'd last seen Bulkhead and prayed to Primus that he was going in the right direction.

"Soundwave, why are you doing this?!"

Soundwave said nothing and continued to silently march towards him as his cables whipped and lashed all around him. "FOR MEGATRON."

"He's insane! Why do you still serve him?!" Starscream shouted as he slid down a steep dirty embankment. Pede steps were pressed deep into the dirt and the distinct pedestep of Bulkhead stood out amongst all the others—yet Bulkhead was nowhere to be seen. The intense winds of the dust storm swept the pedesteps away.

Starscream frantically looked left and right for any sign of the Wrecker and Miko. A cable grabbed his ankle and pulled him to the ground. Soundwave loomed over him as he hooked his cables back into Starscream's helm.

"D-do you remember the Senate, Soundwave?"

He ignored Starscream and broke through the Seeker's firewalls again.

"Do you? Do you remember how they h-hacked into mech's processors?"

Soundwave dug deeper into the Seeker's helm. He'd need to patch the Seeker in order to do any real damage, but for now, just a few added lines of coding could work. He loaded a fresh burst of coding into his helm and—

"You hated the Senate, so then why are you a-acting just like them?"

Soundwave froze.

"NEGATIVE. SOUNDWAVE IS NOT LIKE THE SENATE."

Starscream snarled up at him. "Soundwave, you are exactly like the Senate. L-look at what Megatron's turning you into! A towersmecha!"

"SOUNDWAVE: NOT LIKE TOWERSMECHA."

"Then why are you acting like one?!" Starscream shrieked.

"SOUNDWAVE: IS DOING THIS TO AVENGE CASSETICONS."

Starscream's optics widened and flashed violet as the foreign data settled in his processor. "I'm sorry, how many times do I have to say that?! I didn't meant for them to—"

Soundwave had had enough. He slammed Starscream's helm into the dirt and finished uploading the new aggressive protocol coding into Starscream's helm. Now he just needed to trigger it.

He unhooked his cable from Starscream's helm. The Seeker shot to his pedes and stumbled away from Soundwave.

The air shimmered and a frame glowed amongst the dust storm. Skyfire stepped out of the storm and knelt beside Starscream as he lovingly draped his arm over the Seeker's shoulder.

"Look, Starscream," he said softly, so softly. "There he goes."

Starscream's helm pulsed and ached as the intrusive data Soundwave downloaded into it ripped through his processor. "W-what? Who?"

Skyfire smiled. It was all teeth. "The killer of Vos is escaping, Starscream. Avenge me."

"W-what?" Starscream whimpered as he stumbled back. An expression of pure rage replaced Skyfire's calm smile and he stood up to his full height. His blue optics that were normally so calm and kind shone a bright sharp blue as he leered down at Starscream.

"Avenge. Me."

"I don't understand—"

"You do understand! Kill the Autobot! You've killed so many before, so why can't you do it for me?"

Starscream stood frozen in the midst of the dust storm. "I—"

Skyfire knelt back down and the ground shook as the weight of his massive frame slammed back down onto the ground. He moved right up to Starscream so that their faceplates were only a breath apart. Skyfire's enraged faceplate and blue optics completely covered Starscream's vision and all that the Seeker could see was the angry faceplate of his dead brother.

"Kill the Autobot. Do it for me. Don't you love me, Star?" Skyfire said with a hint of hurt in his voice.

"Of course I do!"

"Then…" Skyfire whispered as he gently grabbed ahold of Starscream's shoulders. "Prove it."

He lifted Starscream into the air and chucked him away.

Starscream's frame tumbled through the dust storm and slammed back down into the ground.

"Star!" Bulkhead screamed at him. He thrashed and strained under Knock Out and Breakdown's tight grip on his shoulders.

Soundwave's helm whipped around and he narrowed his optic at the Wrecker. He opened up a groundbridge beside the three of them.

"SEND HIM TO THE NEMESIS."

Breakdown and Knock Out froze. The hot lightning of Knock Out's electro-prod sizzled inches away from Bulkhead's dirtied armor. The two of them stood over Bulkhead and did absolutely nothing as they stared up at Soundwave with a grim expression on their faceplates.

"QUERY? IS THIS DEFIANCE?" Soundwave's voice boomed at them.

Fear bloomed in both of their fields, but they held their ground.

"This isn't what you promised us, Sounders," Knock Out said softly.

"I CAN DELIVER EVERYTHING I PROMISED YOU—AND MORE."

"No," Breakdown said as he slowly shook his helm. "You can't."

Starscream shakily rose up from the dust. He onlined his optics and they glowed bright purple as the hostile new coding within his helm activated itself. He slowly turned his helm and saw Bulkhead's frame through the whirling dust. Starscream growled and he lunged forward and ran towards the Wrecker at full speed.

Bulkhead's jaw dropped. "Star, Star, no, calm down, calm—!"

Starscream slammed into Bulkhead's chestplate and the two mechs fell down in a sprawl of limbs in the dirt. Soundwave lashed his cables around even faster and made the dust in the air whip past their frames even more.

"Calm down!" Bulkhead shouted. His back was pinned to the ground and Starscream sat atop him. The Seeker's optics shone a feral shade of violet instead of their usual bright—but sad—red color. There was no hint of recognition in his optics nor in his field. Nothing but cold rage.

Starscream lifted his talons and prepared to plunge them into the seams of Bulkhead's armor. Bulkhead lifted his servos and caught Starscream's talons right as they swung down. The two of them wrestled in the dirt and Bulkhead grunted as he tried to stop the Seeker from sinking his talons into him.

"This isn't you, it isn't! Soundwave manipulated your processor, so just calm down!"

Starscream showed no sign of understanding anything and raised his talons up high above his helm again as he readied himself for another attack.

"My end will bring about yours!" Bulkhead shouted.

Starscream froze and stared down at him with wide violet optics.

Bulkhead didn't know where those words came from. It just felt like the right thing to shout, the right thing to say to catch his attention.

"Kill… kill me, and you'll regret it forever. Don't let Soundwave manipulate you," Bulkhead breathed heavily.

Starscream sat frozen atop his frame. His optics rapidly flickered back and forth between red and violet as his entire frame began to shake more and more.

He stumbled off of Bulkhead's frame and away into the dust storm.

"Star, come back, we need to get back to base!" Bulkhead cried after him, but his voice was stolen by the roar of the windstorm Soundwave had created.

Starscream knelt down in the dirt and let the sand whip and grind past his frame. His entire frame shook and strained and coolant streamed down his faceplates. He held his helm in his servos and dragged his talons down the sides of his helms as the intrusive data within his helm battled for dominance.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted.

"Starry, no, now stop being dramatic and c'mon! I never… I never got to finish telling you my Wrecker stories!"

Starscream offlined his optics and leaned down into the dust. "I-I'm sorry, Bulkhead. You'll have to t-tell them to somebody else. Soundwave is winning, he's going to make me kill you, and I can't, I can't—"

Starscream ran into the stadium. The Autobot, the Autobot, he needed to kill the Autobot. That was what the new data was screaming at him non-stop—kill the Autobot and kill the murderer of your people and avenge them—

The dark shadows of a massive hall loomed over his helm. His optics widened. This is where he'd entered the stadium—and this is where he'd end the Autobot's life.

"Starscream, no," a voice in the back of his helm whispered. It sounded like Skyfire. "Starscream, no, no, no, promise me you won't hurt anybody else, promise me!"

Starscream stumbled forward and into the shadows of the hall as he hunted for the Autobot. He wanted to rip the intrusive data out of his helm, but he also wanted to obey everything it ordered to do. It pulsed in his helm and ripped through his neural network as it replaced will with obedience.

His helm flared in pain and he tilted over into the wall of the hall with a gasp. What was he doing here again? Right, he was trying to find Bulkhead so that they could flee and escape—and then the data in his helm pulsed hot white and painful and all thoughts of escape and freedom were replaced with thoughts of revenge and murder.

Kill the Autobot, the Autobot, the murderer of your people, the data whispered to him nonstop, neverending, nonstop, he wanted it to just shut up—

"Starscream!" Bulkhead shouted.

He stood frozen in the center of the hall and felt himself being torn in two. Stay, leave, kill him, or let him live.

Bulkhead ran off into the shadows away from the Seeker and Starscream gave chase. His helm throbbed in pain but he had a mission to fulfill, a mission, he'd do whatever it took to get the data to leave him alone.

Bulkhead skidded around a corner and Starscream ran after him.

He turned the corner and then froze as his pede stepped into something wet.

He looked down and saw a spilled can of pain. Starscream slowly looked up at the concrete wall in front of him and his optics widened. That was familiar. Yes. Familiar. Not the wall—but what was on it.

A crudely drawn and sloppy painting of a Seeker and a Wrecker was slapped onto the wall. It had obviously been made in only a matter of seconds, yet the silhouettes were clear. Starscream looked down and saw a splattered trail of paint across the floor. He followed the trail and saw the Autobot at the other end of the hall. His servos were smeared with the paint.

He wasn't sure why, but the sight of that painting made something within his spark cry out. He had to do what the data wanted, what it wanted, yes, yes, but at the same time there was that painting, that wretched painting there that made his breath freeze in his vents and a well of nostalgia well up within him although he did not know what he was being nostalgic for—

Bulkhead grabbed Starscream and hoisted the Seeker over his paint-covered shoulder.

Starscream pounded his fists against the Wrecker's back and tried to pry himself free of his strong grip, but to no avail.

"I'm sorry, Star, I'm sorry!" Bulkhead said as he carried Starscream back outside into the stadium. They emerged outside under the harsh white stadium lights and Bulkhead began to walk up the rows of seats with Starscream slung over his shoulder.

Starscream snarled. "I have a mission—"

"no, you don't!" Bulkhead finished for him. He carried Starscream up higher and higher up the metal bleachers until they were high above the stadium and near the very top of it. A blast of wind came out of the sky and blew hard into Starscream's frame as Bulkhead finally let him down to his pedes.

"Listen to me, you have to ignore whatever Soundwave implanted in your helm, okay?"

It was getting harder to think. He had to ignore what? The data. The data. A violet visor flashed in his memories. A visor. Soundwave. Soundwave was bad, very bad.

"Star, look at me, you're passing out—don't go to sleep, Primus, don't go to sleep—and resist him!"

Resist. Resist what?

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The data.

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Yes.

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He felt his thoughts slip away from him.

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The intrusive data barged into his thoughts again and

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Is this how Bulkhead had felt?

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Yes

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The memories

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Resist

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My end will bring about yours

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My end

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will bring about

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yours

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"Star!"

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Somebody touched him.

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Bulkhead gently grabbed ahold of Starscream's servos and held Starscream close to him.

"B-bulk?" he slurred as his optics flickered on and off.

"Yes, yes that's me! Do you remember!" Bulkhead laughed.

Starscream writhed around in his grasp and kicked out at him.

"Calm down, calm down, don't let Sounders get to you!" Bulkhead yelped as he struggled to hold the Seeker down. He pinned Starscream down to the cold metal bleachers and held the Seeker down tightly as he glared up at him.

"Star, Star, you gotta remember me, right? Right? Please. Please."

Starscream's optics flashed violet and he kicked out at Bulkhead again.

"Oh no, no no no," Bulkhead muttered as he rapidly shook his helm back and forth over and over again. "Please tell me your processor isn't also disappearing!"

Starscream hissed at him.

"Slag, come on, knock it off, Sounders just screwed with your processor a bit, just shake off whatever weird programming he put into you!"

Starscream's angry snarl disappeared and his optics widened. His optics flickered back and forth between bright red and purple. His field grew cold and hard around him and optics shone pure violet again as he hissed back up at Bulkhead.

"Oh, c'mon, stop hissing at me like a scraplet! There's gotta be somethin' here to jog your memory, c'mon, c'mon—"

A cold breeze blew out of the sky and Bulkhead looked up. The stadium lights were behind them now and their glare was much weaker. The stars were bright and visible. Thousands of stars sprawled across the sky glowed brightly. A certain cluster of bright blue stars stood out.

Bulkhead grabbed onto Starscream's arms and hoisted the Seeker up to his pedes. He tightly held Starscream up against his armor and grabbed ahold of Starscream's arm. He pointed Starscream's talon right up at the cluster of stars Cybertron was in.

"Look, see that? See those stars? Those were the stars you were named after!"

Starscream looked away and struggled in his grip. Bulkhead grabbed the side of Starscream's helm and forced the brainwashed Seeker to look up into the sky.

"See? See? That's home, Starry, that's what we're fighting for. D'ya remember? Do you?"

Starscream's optics widened and he stared up at the stars.

"Come on, you've managed to survive Megatron for this long, surely you can survive Soundwave?"

Starscream began to shake. He leaned back and into Bulkhead's arms as he buried his helm in the curves of his armor.

"Let me tell you a Wrecker story. So Jackie and I were out on a mission and we found a cave that was obviously a trap…"

Starscream's optics glowed redder.

"...and then, er, I'm having trouble remembering what happened next… uh, oh yeah! He said 'why bond to a Conjunx when you can bond to a grenade instead?' And... and I was like, 'Jackieeee, no!'"

"D-dumbaft."

Bulkhead froze. "Say that again."

"I… I think…"

Bulkhead's helm shot down and he knelt so that he was optic level with Starscream. "You think what?!"

"I think…" Starscream reached his servo up and shakily pointed it at a cluster of stars. "I think C-Cybertron is there."

"Oh, oh frag, you're back, you're back!" Bulkhead cried out as he wrapped Starscream in a tight hug. "How do you feel?!"

"Like I'm b-being crushed."

"What? Oh, sorry. You did it, Star, you got me back. You got me back."

Starscream's optics flashed between red and purple. "Anyway, I s-said that he's a real dumbaft—"

"Oh! It's you, you've got your snark back!"

Starscream sighed and looked up at the stars. He reached out and lethargically patted Bulkhead's shoulder. "A-and I got my big dumb oaf back."

"Let's get outta here, Starry! Where the slag is Miko?"

Starscream let out a high-pitched keen. There was so much he wanted to say to the Wrecker—he wanted to apologize to him, he wanted to yell at him for scaring him, he wanted to cry, he wanted to do everything—but all he did was lean forward into Bulkhead and sigh.

A violet light shone over both of their shoulders.

Soundwave crawled up the metal seats and right up to them. His field violently thrashed around him and he uncoiled and extended all of his cables up into the air.

"STARSCREAM: WILL NOT ESCAPE."

Starscream shrieked. "Bulkhead, c-comm the base!"

"I can't, he's blocking the signals!"

Soundwave crawled over to the two of them as his cables began to flash and undulate with light. Normally his field was cold and sharp around him, but not this time. His field pulsed around him with barely contained wrath and the air buzzed as he grappled his way up to them. Thundercracker and Skywarp shimmered into existence and clambered their way up to Starsream with pure rage on their faceplates.

"WILL NOT ESCAPE. WILL PLEASE MEGATRON GREATLY. WILL—-"

A loud honk blared through the stadium. The cloud of dust cleared away as a massive monster truck barreled right through it. The truck's two bright headlights beamed out into the sky and blinded Soundwave as it drove right at him. He let out a metallic screech as the truck's tire rolled right over him and pinned him underneath its tread.

Soundwave lashed his cables out and tried to pull his frame out from under the truck, but to no avail. The holograms of Thundercracker and Skywarp vanished and left Soundwave alone under the tire. The bleachers of the stadium creaked loudly under the sheer weight of the truck.

Miko popped her head out of the window of the monster truck. "Hey there, guys!"

Bulkhead blinked up at her. "Ahaha, my little Wrecker! C'mon down!"

She hoisted herself over the edge of the massive truck's door and down onto the foot bar.

She slipped.

Miko screamed as she fell down into the air and down from the tall monster truck's cabin. Starscream and Bulkhead watched in horror as she plummeted towards the bleachers below.

Breakdown lunged out of nowhere and slammed his frame into the ground. He shot his servo out and caught Miko just in time before she hit the dented metal seats.

Breakdown looked down at her. "Um."

"Once a Wrecker, always a Wrecker!" she shouted. Breakdown let her down and she ran up to Starscream and wrapped her arms around the tip of his pede.

"I still can't get a signal, Screamy!"

Starscream frowned and looked back at Soundwave. His entire frame strained and shook with effort as he struggled to free himself from under the tire.

"Let us go, Soundwave," Starscream said as he walked up to him.

Soundwave glared up at him with his single visible red optic. His field shook in rage and he grunted in effort. He dug his servos into the dented metal bleachers underneath him and pulled. The entire monster truck atop him rolled forward slightly as he crawled his way closer and closer to Starscream.

Starscream yelped and jumped back.

Soundwave played an audio file of Megatron's laughter. "STILL A COWARD. ALWAYS A COWARD."

"You tried to brainwash me! You tried to take over my processor! You tried to take me!"

"SOUNDWAVE: DOES NOT NEED TAKE THAT WHICH IS ALREADY HIS." He looked off to the side at Breakdown and the ex-Wrecker cringed under his glare. "I AM SURROUNDED BY TRAITORS. NEXT TIME, THOUGH…"

The air buzzed. Miko's cellphone vibrated in her pocket and she picked it up and answered the call.

"Miko!" Ratchet's voice shouted over the phone. "Oh Primus, where are you three?!"

"You…" Starscream sputtered as he pointed a digit right at Soundwave. "You stopped blocking the signal! Why are you letting us go?"

Soundwave looked up at him. His frame was completely pinned and trapped, yet somehow it felt like he still towered over all of them. "SAVING YOU: FOR NEXT TIME. THIS MISSION: FAILURE. NEXT MISSION: WILL NOT BE."

The stadium seats creaked and groaned as the monster truck weighed the building down. A groundbridge swirled into existence and blasted hot air and dirt everywhere. Ratchet appeared in the bridge and looked over the scene with wide optics.

Soundwave laughed again using a recording of Skyfire's laughter. "NEXT TIME. NEXT TIME."

Bulkhead placed his servo on Starscream's bloodied shoulder. "It's time to go, Star."

Starscream nodded and kept his optics locked onto Soundwave as Bulkhead gently guided the Seeker to the groundbridge.

The last thing he heard as he vanished into the green light was the sound of Skyfire's laughter.


Dozens of tubes and wires snaked around Bulkhead's frame. Starscream sat beside the unconscious Wrecker's frame and held his helm in his servos.

The floor shook as somebody approached him.

"Not now," Starscream mumbled.

Optimus pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. "So he is back."

Starscream sighed. "Yes, Prime. He's back." A thousand feelings warred in his field. He wanted to run into the halls of the base and hide forever, but he also wanted to just throw himself at the Prime and beg for forgiveness.

"You do not have to do either of those things," Optimus said.

Starscream's optics shot open. "Did I—?"

"Yes."

"...Oh."

Optimus sighed heavily. "What you did was reckless. You could have chosen to stop Miko from taking Bulkhead out of the base in the condition that he was in, yet you condoned their behavior. Instead of ending their quest before it began, you chose to instead supervise it."

And here it was. The scolding, the punishment. The overwhelming urge to beg for forgiveness rose up within him and he thought of a thousand pleas to say to the Prime. He hung his helm and stared hard at the wall as he waited for his inevitable punishment for messing up so badly.

"However…"

Optimus gently grabbed Starscream's shoulder and turned the Seeker so that he was looking at him. "You also saved Bulkhead. Had you not joined the mission and shared your memories, he would not be here with us. You knew the risk of memory-transferring—and you took that risk anyway for his sake. And for that, I am proud of you."

Starscream's jaw dropped. "Oh. Um." Most of the time when he was praised he soaked up the attention and felt a burst of pure pride—but not this time. Optimus's praise didn't make him feel confident and proud, it just made him feel empty. Cold.

Unworthy.

"But if I hadn't started this mess in the first place…"

"This was not your fault. Do you understand? This was the fault of sheer chance alone. You did not fire the data into his helm, nor did you make it take over his processor. Had you not encouraged him to recite the logs, he probably would just have recited the equation instead. Do you understand?"

Starscream bit his lip. It made sense on a logical level, yes, but there was still a little voice in the back of his helm that sounded like the voices of all the mechs he'd ever failed all mixed together.

Your fault, they whispered to him. Your fault. Your fault.

Optimus looked at him as pure grief bloomed in his field. "It may take you awhile to understand your innocence. But please understand that even if you refuse to think of yourself as his savior… we think of you as his savior."

If anybody had called him a savior even just a few months ago, he would've preened at the attention and would've fluttered his wings with joy.

Now all that word did was make him feel sick to his core.

"Please don't," Starscream said as he rapidly shook his helm back and forth. "I'm not a savior of anything, there wouldn't have been anything to save had I not endangered him in the first place. I'm not a savior, I'm not, I'm not—"

Optimus reached forward and hugged Starscream as the Seeker shook.

Ratchet watched from the doorway of the medbay. He took one last glance at the two of the hugging mechs and then walked into the shadows of the base.

The way Optimus and Bulkhead looked at Starscream now made a shiver go down Ratchet's struts. He wanted to trust the Seeker, he really did, but every single time he caught a glimpse of his sharp talons, any desire he had to talk to the Seeker rapidly disappeared.

Many of his patients had died with those same talons buried in their frames.

He tightened his plating and walked deeper into the base. Starscream was trying so very hard to become one of them, and yet for some reason Ratchet just couldn't accept that. He'd seen within the Seeker's internals, he saw what Megatron had done to his frame, all of the scars, all of the unnecessary and disturbing modifications, and yet

Ratchet stared at the wall. His entire frame was exhausted all the way down to his very struts. But there were other bots in the base who were far, far more tired than he was.

This couldn't keep happening. The threat of Megatron's wrath loomed over all of them—especially over a certain Seeker in particular. He offlined his optics and saw a mental image of Starscream lying in the riverbed, his blood pouring out of his mangled wing and pooling in the water that flowed past him. He saw Bulkhead before him, his processor rotting away.

Ratchet leaned heavily against a work desk. His grip upon the metal table was so tight that his servos left faint imprints in the surface. He was a medic, it was his job to treat his patient's injuries.

But maybe…

A new idea entered his helm. He ran and skidded around the corner to a certain sideroom.

The door creaked open and Ratchet stepped into the room with all of the equations and paintings Bulkhead had drawn. Most of the equations had been ruined, but just enough remained for his purposes.

Maybe…

He picked up a plate with an equation sprawled onto it. This could work. Most of the formula was gone, but if he worked hard then he could complete it, and then he and his team would never have to worry about going hungry ever again.

He was a medic. It was his job to treat his patient's injuries.

But what if he was strong enough to stop them from getting injured in the first place?

He bit his lip.

But what if this went wrong? The metal plate in his grasp creaked as his shaky servos tightened. So many had tried to create synthetic energon and so many had failed. Almost all of the scientists who tried to replicate the creations of the Ancients failed miserably—instead of creating the life-giving substance all Cybertronians need to survive, all they instead did was create insanity-giving substances. There have been thousands of insane concoctions and poorly-made energon substitutes made over the years and not one of them had managed to even come close to replicating the real thing.

It would be dangerous.

He looked up and saw a crudely-drawn painting of Bulkhead and Starscream smeared onto the wall.

But that right there was what he had to fight for.

Ratchet grabbed as many of the equations as he could and ran out of the room and back to the medbay.

He would ensure that his team would never starve or get injured ever again.

He just needed to be stronger and faster.