"Oh no, we lost them!" Bulkhead moaned.
"How did we manage to lose the two most volatile, loud, and angry mechs on the entire team?" Arcee groaned.
The three of them drove through the halls at full speed as they scanned each and every door they came across. The entire tunnel system shook and rumbled as Megatron's hidden lab throttled up again and tremored.
Bumblebee beeped wildly. "I'm getting a signal—"
A side door was thrown across the hall and slammed into the opposite wall with a blast of light and a large puff of smoke.
Starscream clambered out into the hall and collapsed onto his stomach as Ratchet coughed behind him.
"You cannot explode your way out of every situation! I am revoking your wire-access privileges!"
Starscream laughed maniacally as he laid faceplate-down on the floor. "Oh, now you're tired of me?! You weren't so sick of me when you let me hold you!"
"That was different! And we need to talk about what you… insinuated…" Ratchet trailed off when he noticed the rest of the team.
"What kind of weakling can't handle a minor explosion?" Starscream wheezed as he rolled over onto his back. Ratchet gave him a light kick and he glared at the medic before he then looked over and saw the team.
"Wait, who held who?!" Bulkhead gasped.
"No!" Starscream screeched as he leaped to his pedes and ran down the hall. "Lab is this way! Forget what happened!"
He ran down the bright green hall he and Ratchet had seen the glow of synth-en down earlier. He came to a halt when the hall diverged into two equally bright-green paths that led away from each other.
"I know it's a bad idea to split up again, but we have to know which way the lab is down," Ratchet sighed as the team came up behind Starscream and grimaced at both paths.
The team looked between each other. A rumble vibrated through their pedes and Starscream dropped to the floor and felt the shaky floor plating tremble underneath him as the entire tunnel system tremored again.
"It's near here for sure," Starscream sighed. "I just don't know which way."
"Fine. You two split off again, but this time you're bringing Bumblebee with you to keep you in line!" Arcee said.
Bumblebee blooped and walked up to them. "Don't look so downcast!"
Ratchet groaned and his green optics flared. "We do not need a sparklingsitter!"
"You'll have a good time, kids," Arcee smirked as she turned to go down one of the halls. Bulkhead lingered behind a moment and looked at Starscream.
"You okay?"
"Uhhh…"
"I mean, the answer is always 'no.' Obviously. But are you slightly more okay today?"
Starscream blinked. "Ah, perhaps a smidge?"
Bulkhead threw him a thumbs-up before he ran after Arcee. "That's more like it!"
The three of them crept through the dark shadows. The only light came from the dim purple lighting up ahead that flickered sporadically.
"Why does it keep flickering?" Bumblebee asked.
"...Maybe the Decepticons are running out of energon again." Starscream squinted up at the lights as they flickered and flashed and left afterimages in his optics.
"Again?" Ratchet sputtered as he followed from the rear. "I thought you were always well supplied!"
"Oh, we had dry spells every now and then. Of course, we had less dry spells when I was in charge because I did not waste precious energon on conducting dangerous lab experiments!" Starscream snarled as the lights flickered again.
Pedesteps echoed in the distance. He looked behind him to see if there was a new teammate there, but all he saw was Ratchet's glowering faceplate and—
Bumblebee's optics were green. They had been green before, yes, but now all traces of blue were gone. His frame shook minutely and his bright optics darted around and looked for something hidden in the shadows.
"Are we alone?" Bumblebee beeped lowly.
"Yes, I'm sure it was just the sound of Megatron's harebrained lab," Ratchet sighed.
"But are we actually alone?!" Bumblebee beeped shrilly now as he darted ahead and stared down the halls.
Starscream could recognize the symptoms of a synth-en overdose anywhere. "Calm down, it's just the synth-en messing with your processor. Megatron is not here."
Bumblebee's frame just shook more. "It's not him who I fear," he said as he passed by his reflection in the wall.
A snort echoed in the hall and Bumblebee swiveled around to look at Ratchet as the medic began to speak. "The drones are frightening you? Pah, we've taken down dozens—"
Bumblebee flinched.
"—so you have nothing to worry about. The synth-en brought out Bulkhead's insecurity and Arcee's arrogance. Perhaps it's bringing out Bumblebee's fear?"
Starscream stared long and hard at the scout. "...Perhaps."
Ratchet clapped a servo on the scout's shoulder as the tunnel rumbled around them again. "Don't worry, you have nothing to fear when you've got this sweet ambulance watching over you! I not only save lives…"
Starscream groaned and buried his faceplate in his talons. "No, no, not again—"
"I end them as well!" Ratchet laughed.
The lab shook even more violently than last time and all three mechs went down to their knees.
Starscream and Ratchet rose to their pedes but Bumblebee stayed crouched on the floor. His optics rapidly flickered between blue and green and blue again as he stared at his own reflection in the floor plating.
"We will destroy the lab," he said slowly, too slowly as he rose up to his pedes, "and nobody will get hurt." He stared off into space past their helms as if in a trance.
Ratchet pounded his chest plating. "Oh please, of course we'll be fine. I took down Megatron—"
Starscream cut in. "Before he took you down as well, you overconfident peacock."
Ratchet glared at the Seeker. "That was a fluke. Don't worry your little yellow helm, Bumblebee, I took down Megatron… briefly. And you took down Skyquake as if he was nothing! Hooah!" He punched the air and ran down the hall.
A distant whoop echoed through the air.
Starscream bit down a scream. "I was a fool to think our relationship had improved! I should be used to that old cog's awful behavior, I should, but he still finds new ways to infuriate me—"
He felt a tight grasp on his arm all of a sudden. Bumblebee held onto him with a shaky servo and kept his other servo transformed into a blaster and pointed out into the darkness.
"Are… are you okay?"
"Nobody will get hurt, I won't have to hurt anybody—"
Pedesteps came down the hall.
Bumblebee's grip on Starscream's arm tightened even more in synchrony with the tightening of his field around him. His field lurched with white-hot staticky panic and his grip on Starscream's arm plating tightened—
"You're denting me," Starscream said softly.
Bumblebee twisted around and his field went hard and cold around him at the sight of a faint servo-shaped impression mark on Starscream's plating.
"I did not, I swear I did not mean to…"
"You didn't mean anything bad by it, it's fine," Starscream laughed nervously as he glanced down at the indent. The indent on his arm plating didn't look that dissimilar from the ones Megatron had used to leave behind on him.
A high-pitched keen broke the air and Bumblebee turned and stumbled away from Starscream.
Starscream panicked. "Oh, oh frag no, I didn't mean to make that noise, get back here, it was a mistake!"
"Was it, though?" Bumblebee beeped even more shrilly. "What if I meant to do that, but just didn't realize it?!"
The pedesteps grew louder as Bumblebee stared at his reflection with wide green optics.
A drone turned around the corner in the hall. Starscream looked back at the frightened scout and sighed. He crouched forward and spread his talons because apparently it was now up to him to dispose of the threat because Bumblebee was too busy panicking—
A blast shot out into the air. The drone's visor flashed and his field flared for a split second before he dropped dead to the floor with a loud clang. A curl of smoke floated into the air in front of Starscream as he slowly looked behind him.
Bumblebee stood there with his blue-hot blaster barrel extended outwards and pointed right at where the drone had once stood. His optics were narrowed so much that they were only just two slim green slits and his plating and field were cold and hard all around him.
Ratchet crept back down the hall and glanced between the drone and Bumblebee. "Well," he cleared his throat cabling. "That takes care of that, but you could have just asked me to dispose of this foe for you—"
Bumblebee continued to stare into space as he began to shake minutely. Starscream slowly reached forward and gently placed his talon atop the scout's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
He flinched and stared at his blaster as if he had never seen it before and rapidly looked between Starscream's concerned faceplate, Ratchet's surprised one, and the drone's dead one.
"Oh no," he mumbled. "I hurt somebody."
Bumblebee's anxiety, his nervous laughter, his earlier fear, the anxious way he glanced at his blaster—
Ah.
Starscream sighed. "You weren't scared that you'd get shot. You were scared that you would shoot somebody."
"I did shoot somebody," Bumblebee breathed. "I am a good mech, I know I am. Right? Right. I just—I just killed a bot, but—"
Starscream blinked as dread coiled around his spark. "Bumblebee…"
"No, no, do not look at me like that!" Bumblebee shook out as he narrowed his green optics and pointed an accusatory digit right at Starscream's chestplates. "I am not like him! I am nothing like him!"
More sparks leaped out from the burnt hole in the drone's fallen frame and lit the air in flashes of hot white light that reflected across Bumblebee's frame.
"Of course you're nothing like that drone! He's dead! You're not," Starscream scoffed.
A dozen emotions passed over Bumblebee's faceplate all at once as he stepped up to Starscream. "That's not who—"
He looked down at the faint dent on Starscream's arm where he had gripped the Seeker far too tightly.
"I'm not…" Bumblebee's beeps were much softer now. "I'm not like him."
Starscream looked between the old scar Megatron had left behind on his chestplate, the new dent on his arm, and Bumblebee's downcast faceplate. Oh.
"You're not like Megatron, you do not need to fear that."
Bumblebee's optics shot up and he narrowed them even more at Starscream. "That's—that's not what I said!"
Starscream nodded slowly. "It is what you said, whether you realize that or not," he said softly, softly, because caution was paramount here. He was used to dealing with volatile mechs, but not so used to dealing with a mech's grief rather than a mech's anger. Optimus would know what to do.
Hot regret flooded Bumblebee's field and Starscream flinched at the sheer familiarity of it. It was the hot acidic kind of regret that flooded you after you made an irreversible mistake. Sometimes you felt it immediately after you made the mistake, or in his own case sometimes months or perhaps a few thousand years afterward.
It always came, though. That was certain.
If he offlined his optics Starscream knew what faceplate he'd see drift up from his memories. Red, horned, blue-optics—
Starscream took a deep and steadying vent.
"I know what you're going through," Starscream said slowly.
"Do you? Do you really? You've killed bots before, yes, but have you ever ripped their internals out as t-they fell flaming to their death?!"
Ratchet swore and Starscream recoiled.
"That's… oddly specific? I cannot say I ever did those specific things in, er, that rather gruesome order?" He glanced between the wide-opticed scout and Ratchet's frozen form at the other end of the hall.
Ratchet mouthed one word at him.
Skyquake.
Starscream's wing flared. "Gruesome? Did I say gruesome? No need to feel bad about how you killed him, just, just, please calm down? 'Gruesome' is such a strong word, perhaps, mhmm, just 'intense' would be a better way to describe… what it is… that you did to him?"
"Oh, come on!" Ratchet shouted. "That's the best you can come up with?!"
Bumblebee sobbed.
"Oh, oh, oh oh oh—" Starscream's vents hitched as he found himself with a servoful of tearful Autobot scout.
"Did I really have to be that brutal with him? I told myself I'd get over how I killed him, but I haven't, slaggit, I just haven't! I can still see his scared faceplate as he plummeted down while burning to a crisp. How can I be better than Megatron when I kill bots the same brutal ways he would?!"
The entire lab ominously rumbled and Bumblebee's shocked green optics flared. Ratchet and Starscream glanced at each other as the entire hall tremored around them.
"What do I do?" Starscream harshly whispered to Ratchet as the medic ran over to them.
"Uh, okay, listen up Bumblebee, you don't need to worry about that because... " Ratchet trailed off and stared off into space. "That's just how war is sometimes."
A loud metallic slap rang through the hall.
"Think with your processor, not the synth-en!" Starscream hissed.
"Oh, and lie to him?" Ratchet scoffed. "I will not ascribe to your methods. You don't need to lie anymore and neither does he."
"Well, fix this!" Starscream snapped.
Bumblebee stared off brokenly into space as the hall shook and tremored around them. He was physically there, yes, but Starscream didn't need a cortical psychic patch to see into his processor to be able to tell what memory the scout had begun to relive.
Starscream blinked rapidly.
There was a red mech knelt before him, horned and red and smiling, so where's your master?
Then Bumblebee was back, hunched over and yellow and broken, "Fear will be your master," Megatron's soft raspy voice echoed 'round and around in his helm.
He rubbed at his optics and for a split moment thought he saw silver horns atop Bumblebee's helm. Desperate servos grasped at his arm. Except wait, Bumblebee hadn't moved, so then who had grabbed him?
"'Fix this'?" Ratchet snarled to Starscream as he tightly held onto the Seeker. "Fix. Him."
"How?! You're the medic, it's your job to fix things! You said you could fix everything!"
Ratchet shook his helm and kept one tight servo grasped onto Starscream's arm as he dragged the other down his faceplate. "I was wrong, okay? I can't fix everything and I can't fix this."
"But why?"
"But—but why? Because you best understand what's he going through and that makes you the only one who can fix this!"
Red and horned and smiling
Yellow and hunched over and crying
Starscream shook his helm. "No. I don't want—I don't want to relive what I had to go through!"
"So you're just going to stand there and let him relive what he had to go through?!"
He pried Ratchet's shaky servo away and approached the hunched over and distraught form of Bumblebee. "Listen…"
Bumblebee flung himself at him and tightly grabbed his arms in his servos again. His green optics flickered with a thousand questions he had no vocalizer to ask.
The familiar ice-cold sensation of fear stabbed itself into Starscream's spark.
Red and horned and smil—
Starscream took a deep vent. No. He wouldn't relive that memory today.
The entire tunnel violently tremored around them and the lights flickered and flashed.
Yellow and hunched over and cry—
"We need to destroy that lab," he said softly.
Bumblebee just stared at him for a few moments. Then stared. And stared.
He let go of Starscream's dented arm with a sniff and walked down the hall.
Starscream did not need to turn around to know that Ratchet's optics were on him.
A servo came out of the blue and grasped his again. Starscream helplessly watched as Bumblebee pulled him forward by their interlaced digits down and down the halls.
Starscream offlined his optics and the memory of Bumblebee's faceplate drifted up from the depths of his processor, yellow, wide-opticed, crying—
Hot acidic regret flooded his field as he walked deeper into the tunnels.
Starscream felt Ratchet behind him. Normally this realization would make him scoff and roll his optics, but now things were different. Ratchet's field was still puffed up with hubris but now there was something else under the static.
"Just… just look at me."
Starscream snorted. "No." His plating was fine and intact yet he still somehow felt raw and exposed anyway.
"What happened in that storage closet, what we discussed—"
"No, no no no!"
"—needs to be discussed again, Starscream!"
Starscream spun on his pede. "That is where you are very very wrong. It does not in fact need to be discussed!"
Ratchet snorted. "Not now, maybe. But we will discuss it sooner or later."
Starscream just stared at Ratchet with wide optics as his processor raced with ways to get himself out of this situation. He was used to trying to come up with ways to avoid another mech's anger, but never another mech's pity.
"Maybe I'll even involve Optimus…"
Starscream gasped. "No, no, he already provides me with enough therapy already! I do not need him to pry in and try to help me with my past starvation!"
Bumblebee's field perked up and he glanced over at them.
Ratchet let out a vent and just stared at Starscream as his field went ice-cold around him. "I wasn't entirely certain you were also a victim of starvation… I just strongly suspected it, I thought that maybe I had misheard what you said back there. But now?"
"Oh, frag—"
"Now I know for certain. Why don't you want Optimus's help with this?!"
"I'm trying to be independent slaggit, which is why there is no way I am going to stroll up to Optimus while saying, 'hey, Megatron starved me to discipline me and it still haunts me!'"
Bumblebee ran up to them. "I thought his punishments were just physical. Just beatings!"
Starscream dragged his talons down his faceplate as he let out a whine. "He got creative. That's when he's at his most dangerous."
"I agree with that," Ratchet grumbled as they turned a corner.
The lab loomed before them, massive and bright green and so much worse than Starscream had ever imagined.
"Come to our coordinates," Ratchet spoke over the comm. The three of them stood near the doorway that led to the lab. The bright green glow of the synth-en within it shone out into the hall and plunged everything into green.
Bumblebee's optics were wide and his plating twitchy and nervous as he stared out into space. Starscream stared up at the ceiling and pointedly ignored Ratchet's stare.
"Don't," Starscream said softly.
Ratchet grimaced. "We need to talk—"
Starscream grabbed tightly onto Ratchet's shoulder and yanked him into the lab. He glared at the medic as he pointed at the lab inside. Ratchet took one really good look at it and gasped.
Tall vials of hot green synth-en towered above the old and cracked floors. It was just green, green green green as far as they could see.
"Oh, snap!" Bulkhead whistled as he and Arcee came around the corner.
"How did they even manage to build something like this so quickly?" Arcee whispered as she stared into the electrical green jungle of wires, computers, and equipment.
Starscream laughed. "He did not! He just took the ruins of this ship and twisted it for his own purposes. That's just what he does, hah! He doesn't let anything die, he just takes and twists and corrupts everybody and everything and—!"
Ratchet put his servos on Starscream's shoulder and twisted the panicked Seeker around to face him. "We're going to destroy the lab, comm Optimus, and be back in the base within the hour. Okay?"
The rest of the team stared at Starscream and Ratchet and glanced between each other.
Starscream said nothing and just nodded tightly.
Ratchet let out a vent of relief. "Okay. Okay. Everybody find a big vat of the synth and blow it to bits!"
The team spread out across the vast lab and each Autobot stood right in front of one of the giant vats. There were hundreds of vials all across the tables and the ceiling, but only several large vats that loomed like mountains. Elaborate wires criss-crossed the entirety of the lab's surface and connected all of the sickening vials to the massive vats.
Arcee stood in front of one of them and transformed both of her servos into blasters and pointed them right at the vat in front of her. The rest of the Autobots minus Starscream followed suit and the air was lit up with the bright glow of eight hot blue blaster nozzles.
Starscream retreated to the back of the lab and felt his back collide with something. He turned around and saw several computer consoles positioned under a window with a view of the Earth high in the starlit void above their helms.
"Everybody ready?" Ratchet shouted. His voice broke halfway through and Starscream turned to look at him.
Ratchet stared at his own reflection in the vat in front of him and his blasters shook slightly. He saw Starscream watching him in the reflection and looked over his shoulder to scowl at the Seeker.
"C'mon, just let me loose!" Bulkhead's voice echoed from the other end of the lab.
Bumblebee bleeped. "Ready!"
"What are we waiting for?!" Arcee shouted.
Starscream rapidly glanced between the Earth high in the sky above and the computer consoles. He squinted at the screen and saw a list of coordinates all positioned on a virtual map of the Earth.
His optics widened. "...Wait."
"On the count of ten!" Ratchet said.
"Wait," Starscream softly repeated as he began to shake. Dread coiled around his tanks. Somehow in some way these coordinates and the lab were connected, but he just didn't know how yet.
Ratchet counted down. "10...9...8…."
A door was thrown open at the end of the hall and there was a growl.
"What was that?!" Bumblebee beeped in alarm.
Ratchet's blasters shook more and more as he continued the countdown. "We need to fire all at the same time, slaggit! 7...6...5...4…"
Somebody fired a blaster bolt. The air sizzled around Starscream and a hot plasma bolt arced right past his frame and shot right into the computer console he was in front of. It exploded in a shower of metal and glass that was so strong the sheer force of it threw his frame across the lab and made him skid over the floor. His back clanged as he slid into one of the vats. Everything looked foggy and his audials hissed with static as he blearily looked up at the blurry silhouette of a mech crouched over him. Ratchet came into focus, his green optics wide with shock but focused as he scanned Starscream.
"W-who fired early?" Starscream scoffed.
"I did."
He looked up at Megatron. His massive frame blotted out the Earth behind him and all Starscream could see of him were his two red optics bright red in the green gloom of the lab. Smoke curled away from his fusion cannon and drifted past Soundwave's frame. The new second-in-command of the Decepticons stood behind him in the shadows.
"I must admit, I did not expect you to make it this far. I thought you'd drown in my magnificent sea long before you ever found this place," Megatron chuckled as drones came out of side doors and pointed their own blasters at the now frozen Autobots. "If you dare to fire a single bolt through my vats then my soldiers will not hesitate to fire their own bolts through you."
Soundwave crept into view and his long sinuous cables curled over the sharp angles of Megatron's frame. "KILL, KILL," he repeated the same way he did earlier, but now his voice was even more staticky and broken.
Megatron pushed Soundwave away and looked over the Autobots. "A shame Prime isn't here. How I would have loved to see his reaction to my magnificent creation. Behold me, Megatron, creating the stuff of life needed to keep Cybertron alive! And yet they call me the deathbringer. Nonsense—I am the lifebringer!"
Starscream sat up and winced at the headache in his helm. "The coordinates," he croaked. "What were those for?"
Megatron frowned. "Ah, yes, those. Such private information is not meant to be privy to Autobots the likes of you, Starscream. But I will indulge your request for information: you discovered my contingency plan."
The team's fields flared with alarm and they all looked between each other.
"What is your new sick plan?" Arcee grit out.
"'New'?" Megatron's optics widened as his massive field curled angrily around him. Oh, no. That was the look he got in his optics when he was in the mood to be creative. "No, this plan…" Megatron trailed off and looked at the Earth through the window. "This plan has been in place all along! Did you seriously think I did not prepare myself for the scenario in which you actually did manage to successfully locate my lab? No, fools, I have ensured that you will not even lay a digit upon my work here. If you explode the lab a bomb located on the Earth will also explode simultaneously and wreak havoc and destruction there."
"You bastard!" Bulkhead shouted. "Let me at 'im, c'mon, let me—"
"Why didn't I see this coming?" Starscream whispered. His voice was quiet and yet still loud enough to make everybody turn and look at him. He began to shake harder and harder as he rose to his pedes and stared out the window at the Earth above. "Of course you had a backup plan, of course! You're using my own old methods against me, how clever!" Starscream laughed bitterly.
"I knew you pathetic Autobot weaklings would not dare to harm my lab if it also risked the wellbeing of the even more pathetic fleshies you have for some reason decided to latch onto," Megatron chuckled.
"Where?" Bumblebee screeched. "Which city will blow up if we blow up the lab?"
Megatron raised an optical ridge. "You are the scout, are you not? It is your job to find out information. Do not expect handouts from me." He scoffed and stomped away back through the door. Soundwave glanced between Starscream and the high Earth above before he slinked after Megatron into the shadows.
The rest of the drones filtered out and left the Autobots alone in the lab. Suddenly the vats themselves began to shake and flash and bubble and the entire building and all of the equipment within it began to shudder and groan. The sheer force of the vibrations brought the team to their knees and they all looked between each other as the synth-en flashed around them—except for Starscream, that is. He stared at the floor and clenched his talons so hard that he felt them prick the inner mesh of his palms and draw out beadlets of energon.
A servo landed on his shoulder, Optimus, Optimus, please be Optimus—
"It's just me," Ratchet said softly as Starscream looked up at him. "It's just me. He's not here, but I am."
Bulkhead walked forward and held onto a desk for support. "We… we failed?" he wheezed.
"There has to be a way to get rid of this awful stuff that won't endanger Earth in the process," Arcee said as she glared up at the vats.
Starscream took a deep vent and rose to his pedes. The team stood in an anxious circle and looked around at the now indestructible synth-en around them. Megatron's loud laughter echoed down the hall and into the lab and—
And.
And Starscream snapped. He darted between Bumblebee and Bulkhead and ran out into the hall and made a right turn that was so sharp that it left scratches on the floor from where he had skidded. The shocked voices of the Autobots called after him but he didn't care, Megatron's laughter was near here, closer and closer and—
He skid around another corner that led to the outside and was blinded by the sheer brightness of the synth-sea ahead of him. The entire ground shone a blindingly bright shade of hot acidic green and reflected the giant luminous sphere of the Earth above. Megatron stood a ways off in the sea, synth all the way up to his knees, and outstretched his arms as he looked up at the Earth above.
"Where?" Starscream snarled as he stomped out into the sea. The synth-en splashed around him and onto his frames until he was green all over, but he didn't care, he just marched on and on out to Megatron.
Megatron turned around to face him and Starscream froze as terror overwhelmed him. Mistake, mistake mistake—
"Ah, look," Megatron said as he gestured to the Earth. "Soon you will have one less wretched fleshie city to worry about. You hate humans, so why would you care if some got vaporized?"
The smell of ash drifted into Starscream's vents. It wasn't a real smell, no, but just the memory of one.
"I remember Vos," he said slowly. "And I don't want anybody else—fleshie or otherwise—to have to go through a city-burning like that ever again."
"You pesky Seeker!" Ratchet shouted as the rest of the team ran through the sea and up to him. Get away from him, Megatron, get away!"
"I am never far away, Starscream. I am upon the Earth, the moon, and Cybertron itself. I am in your processor itself!" Megatron laughed as he stomped up to the Seeker and loomed over him. "I cannot wait to see you try and scheme your way out of this. I must admit, the desire to just grab you and throw you through a groundbridge and into a cell in the Nemesis is… deeply tempting. But I am patient, Starscream. You will end up in that cell of your own will one day. Just not today."
"I won't rejoin you!"
"You will," Megatron shrugged as he stomped off through the synth. Each one of his massive pedesteps made a massive wave roll through the sea that knocked Starscream off his pedes and onto his side.
He just laid there on his side as he watched Megatron's sharp silhouette vanish and disappear over the curved horizon. The air buzzed and glowed purple beside him as he slowly turned to look at who was now near him. Soundwave stood over him in the same way Megatron had, but not in a looming sort of way. No, Soundwave's frame and field were tighter than ever before.
Ratchet ran up to them and threw himself between Starscream and Soundwave. "Strike me if you must, but leave my patient alone! Unless you want a taste of the Doctor of Doom, that is!"
Starscream threw his helm back into the synth-en with a splash as he laughed bitterly.
Soundwave said nothing and continued to stare at the spot on the horizon where Megatron had disappeared.
"You…" Starscream wheezed. "You destroyed that first lab."
He didn't know it was possible for Soundwave's frame to get any tighter, but it did. He showed no outward reaction, but it was never what he showed on the outside that mattered when it came to Soundwave. It was always what was going on inside of his helm that made him a danger.
But Starscream got the distinct sense that Soundwave was now only a danger to himself and to nobody else.
"You heard me, don't pretend otherwise," he said as the rest of the team came up behind them.
"AFFIRMATIVE."
"Hmmphf. Well. I know that you ruined the first lab and I know precisely why," Starscream snarled as he rose to his pedes again.
"NEGATIVE."
"No, I affirmatively know that you ruined the lab because you loathe the synth even more than I do. You have seen the way in which Megatron has fallen and become more and more corrupt and insane over time. He's not the same mech you joined and you know that. You know the truth, you know how to fix all of this, you just don't want to know how to fix all of this because the solution… is not pretty."
Soundwave's servos clenched into fists as he continued to stare at Megatron's distant pedesteps on the lunar shore near the horizon.
"Uh, Starry, should we really be doing this?" Bulkhead whispered harshly.
Starscream ignored him and continued. "And—and, you hate the dark energon and the synth-en because they're both just gimmicks Megatron is using to make himself more and more powerful! That's why you hate them, because if he actually cared about the war he'd recognize t-that winning it is more important than empowering himself—"
Soundwave began to shake.
"—and the ship of war is gliding on and on and it's all his fault—"
Soundwave slapped Starscream.
The metallic slap noise echoed across the synth sea. Soundwave finally turned down to look at Starscream. His own single optic was wider than Starscream had ever seen it before. Soundwave looked down at his own servo and just stared at it.
Starscream was silent for a few moments. Then he laughed. "...I have been struck far harder than that by mechs far scarier than you."
Soundwave turned around and his cables whipped around him in a way that caused a giant wave to form. Starscream crouched down as the wave hit him and reached out to Soundwave as the Decepticon walked away from them all.
"Help me destroy the lab," Starscream begged at Soundwave's distant form. "If it's ruined and he can never produce another droplet of synth-en then literally everybody would be better off, even Megatron himself! So help him by helping me!"
Soundwave paused again. The only sound came from the quiet waves of the synth-en sea as they lapped at the shore and Starscream's own labored vents.
He pointed his digit off at something in the distance. A tall reactor tower glowed a bright shade of white-green way off across the lunar hills.
"... You know the truth, you know how to fix all of this, you just don't want to know how to fix all of this because the solution… is not pretty."
The replayed recording of Starscream's voice ended and there was silence again.
Starscream knelt down in the synth sea and just stared off into space. His processor was active and busy but his frame was cold and still. The rest of the team stood behind him and spoke in soft voices.
Bulkhead shuffled up behind him. "Star?"
He just moaned in response.
"We… we need to move on…"
"Do we? I would much rather just let the current drift me away," Starscream snorted.
Bulkhead was silent for a moment. "There isn't a current."
"Gah! I know that! I wish there was, though," Starscream mumbled as he finally turned around to face the Wrecker. If he just ignored the vivid green hue of his optics then maybe he could pretend everything was fine.
But everything wasn't fine.
"Why is he going after cities now?" Bumblebee beeped softly.
"For the same reason Megatron does anything: egoism, a lust for conquest, glory, honor, that kind of thing."
Bumblebee shuddered. "There is no honor in burning cities."
Starscream offlined his optics, remembered the way Vos's skeletal burnt towers creaked in the wind, and then opened his optics again. "Causing destruction is the same thing as being honorable in his processor."
"I hate his processor so much! You know his mind got stuck in mine once, right?" Bumblebee blooped.
Starscream froze. "Uh—"
There was a flurry of static behind them and everybody looked to Ratchet just as a high pained keen broke out of his vocalizer. His green optics were locked onto his retracted wrist plating and his exposed vital signs.
Starscream had to squint to see, but it was there: a half-full tank notification right on Ratchet's vitals.
Ratchet barked out a harsh laugh. "It's dropping, haha, see? Dropping, dropping, plummeting, burning!"
Bumblebee flinched.
"No, no, I refuse to let my tank shrivel, I refuse to starve again!" Ratchet hyperventilated. He knelt down in the sea of synth and scooped it up in his servos and watched it pour out from between his digits in long streams of green.
"Don't you dare!" Starscream hissed as he rose to his pedes and splashed over to the crouched medic. "Don't do it—"
"We need to get rid of the synth-en anyway!" Ratchet snapped back. "Why not just drink some of it and lessen our workload?"
Starscream wildly gestured at the massive sea of synth-en they stood in. "Uh, because I don't think taking a few sips of it will make a big difference here? There's quite a lot of it if you haven't noticed that! Primus, it will just make you more erratic, more crazy!"
"Why not allow ourselves to j-just be a bit crazy, to be a bit full for a short while? This mission is a disaster already! Can't we just… just…" Ratchet trailed off. The puddles of synth-en in his servos tremored and rippled as his servos began to shake. "Maybe I just want to be full and well-fed for one last time before we figure out a plan to get rid of it for good, okay?"
Starscream took a deep vent and listened to the sounds of Ratchet's quiet and desperate vents and the soft sounds of the synth waves as they hit the rocky shore.
"One sip turns to two," he began slowly.
Ratchet scowled and turned away from him. "Oh, no you don't!"
"Then two turns to three," Starscream continued as the team watched on.
"I understand how addiction works!"
"Then three turns to thirty then thirty turns to three hundred and then—"
Ratchet splashed the synth-en in Starscream's faceplate and watched it drip down his front. Starscream had no reaction and just watched the green rivulets trickle down and across his plating. He looked back up at Ratchet.
"Then three hundred 'sips' later, and, well, somewhere along the way you'll realize that… you didn't take synth-en. Synth-en took you."
Ratchet looked up at him with wide optics. He rapidly glanced back and forth between Starscream's calm and sad faceplate and his own lowered vital signs.
"One sip," Ratchet shook out. "Just once. Right here, right now, and then never again."
Starscream took a deep steadying breath. "'Never again' always turns very quickly into 'again and again.' I would know."
"I know that too. So just let me know what it's like one last time."
Starscream looked away and winced at the sounds of Ratchet as he chugged down one last gulp of synth-en.
"Oh frag, oh frag, he's chugging it from the sea like a thirsty little earth fishy, stop him, Star, stop him!" Bulkhead whined.
"He can stop himself whenever he likes," Starscream said coldly.
Ratchet sprang to his pedes and beheld the sea and spaceship and all the stars above as he turned in a wide circle with his arms out. He mumbled something very quietly as the entirety of his frame began to shudder.
"Please don't do this to yourself," Arcee said as she cautiously reached an arm out to him. "What did you just say?"
"I said… I am no longer hungry."
The team blinked at him.
"...Yes? Is that supposed to be surprising?" Arcee scoffed as her field swelled with sadness.
Ratchet's helm rapidly shot over to face hers and oh. A chill went down Starscream's spine as he activated his commline to the medic.
"They don't know that you've been starving yourself, do they?"
Ratchet whipped around to glare at him and said something over the commlines, but all Starscream heard was static.
"Okay, first of all, you're having a hissy fit without us, and second of all, the comms are whack," Bulkhead said.
Ratchet turned his back to the team and stumbled off to the shore. He stood out alone on the cold silver surface. He stared up at the Earth above—
And then hunched over and fell to his knees.
"Uh… are you dying?" Starscream asked out loud.
"No!" Ratchet snapped. "I am alive, I am living, I am the definition of life itself!"
"Okay, okay, you're feeling snappy and vigorous, I get that. So then what's…this?" Starscream gestured at Ratchet's hunched-over frame.
The medic's field flared out and bristled like a wild animal that had just been poked. "I am fine!"
"Then why do you look like you're sick?"
Ratchet's helm shot up and his optics flashed. "Because I feel sick!"
"What, is the synth-en going to come back… up…?" Starscream's snarky comment died in his intake as he actually took a really good look at Ratchet's faceplate. The medic's intake was pressed into a thin line and he shook as something hot and acidic flooded his fields.
"You feel guilty that you drank it, don't you?"
Silence fell and the only noise came from Ratchet's overworked vents.
"I don't feel guilty. I do not."
Starscream said nothing and merely offlined his optics. His own calm field clashed with Ratchet's cacophonous one and a pang struck his spark. Optimus would know what to do and say and would have this entire awful mess fixed.
But Optimus wasn't here and was instead far far away on that green and blue planet far up high.
Ratchet moved. He went from being knelt in the moondust to suddenly being halfway across the lunar plain. The sheer determination in his field hung thick in the air even as he ran farther and farther away and up a high lunar hill.
"Oh, frag," Starscream muttered as he ran after the suddenly active medic.
Dark moon rocks crumbled and clattered down in lazy arcs as Ratchet climbed his way up to the top of the hill.
The urge to let the bastard mope was strong, very strong—
The familiar pain in Ratchet's field was stronger.
Starscream climbed his way up the rocky hill and swore as he slid down. "If you're going to mope in some high spot, I'm joining in. Offer a servo, slag it!"
"Nobody helped me when I struggled, so why should I help you?" Ratchet grunted as he stood up high atop the hill and looked out over the vast expanse of the moon beneath and the Earth above.
"Okay, first of all, you're being rude—and second of all, your team does help you! They do see you as helpful! So then why—"
"Because," Ratchet snarled as his faceplate spasmed, "that is the problem."
"Being seen as helpful is problematic?!"
"Because they just see me as just that: just the help. Just the help, just the mech whose only purpose is to patch them up so that they can blaze off in glory and leave me behind in the dust—"
The team erupted in protests from the bottom of the hill.
"Woah, Ratch, no way!"
"We do respect you!"
"How long have you felt this way?!"
Starscream raised a talon and the team fell silent. "Leave me alone with him."
Arcee gawked. "What? Why?"
Bulkhead put his servo on her small shoulder and sighed. "I get what's happenin' here. You're the only 'bot who can relate to him, so it's just gotta be you. C'mon gang, let's wait for their spark-to-spark to finish first. Hey, look, a cool rock!"
The three of them walked off as they nervously glanced over their shoulders at Ratchet and Starscream. When they were just three colorful shapes in the distance Starscream sped up the hill.
Ratchet's moan echoed around his helm. "I am second-best, just second-best..."
He swallowed the sudden weight in his neck cabling because slag, he could understand that. He wanted to look at this deranged medic and say that there were no similarities there to see between them, but. But.
He was also used to being left behind.
Ratchet scowled at Starscream's silence as the Seeker stomped up the rocky hill. He gazed up at the Earth above with wide green optics and held his arms out to the planet above.
"I am no longer hungry, do you know that, Starscream?" Ratchet almost whispered.
Starscream grunted as he finally reached the top. "Okay, is that like a melodramatic metaphor for something?"
"It is no metaphor," Ratchet said as his rippled with raw grief that made Starscream pause. "This is the first time I've actually felt full and not hungry in years, years and years and years!"
Ratchet let out a shaky breath as he brought up his now-full vitals. The bright green glow of his vitals screen lit his faceplate and wide smile in pure vivid green. Starscream felt his tanks roil.
"I am full now, just for now, and I intend on enjoying it. Because this is the only time I will ever be able to be fully fueled without feeling guilty. If somebody got hurt and needed energon that was in me instead of available for them to use…"
The light of his vitals and the Earth above lit up every line of pain on Ratchet's faceplate in crisp and clear detail.
"Then you could never forgive yourself?" Starscream asked softly.
Ratchet said nothing and glared up at the Earth. "I thought that facing down this wretched world that has caused us so much pain would make me feel better, and you know what?"
"It hasn't and you have now recognized your folly?"
Ratchet's optics flared. "No. This has only made me realize my genius!"
Starscream's spark sank. Ratchet's frame seeped pure arrogance out of every strut and piece of plating, a familiar bravado Starscream himself had felt before and had crushed out of him before.
"Do not make my mistakes!"
"You haven't learned from them! You are still arrogant, still a coward, still a liar, so don't lecture me about your 'mistakes'!" Ratchet spat. He stretched his arm out to the sphere of the Earth above, spread out his digits and covered the Earth with his servos—
And then closed his servo into a fist. He sent one last cold glance at Starscream and then marched down the hill.
This was okay.
His optics remained locked onto the team's spark signals and their slow and steady beeps.
They began to get more intense.
This was fine. Everything was fine.
The sound of metal being bent cracked into the air and Optimus glanced down at the computer desk he stood at. He released his grip on the metal as if he had been burnt and rapidly glanced back up at the screen again.
The team was gone, communications had begun to phase out, their spark signals were erratic and scratchy—
But this was fine because this was the nature of things and they had gone on much more stressful missions before and come out alive. His team wasn't reliant on him to be successful. Optimus took a deep vent and let it out. They would return to him, he knew they would.
The computer screen fizzled and their signals went flat.
No, no no no—
The comms had went out, but that didn't mean their sparks did also. Optimus let out a rattled vent of relief and resisted the urge to grip at the metal desk again.
All he had to do was just stand here and patiently man the bridge and not think about how he was indirectly responsible for all of this.
If he had just not ignored Ratchet and if he had just not helped Megatronus then this wouldn't have happened.
Optimus bowed his helm and watched and listened to the static fizzle on and on. He either didn't do anything at all in the past or when he did act he did the wrong thing. There was Starscream, too, whom he saved, which was right of him to do, but did he save him for the right reasons?
The metal desk creaked again.
Optimus released it again and then just stared at the blank and lifeless static on the screen.
Everything would be fine.
Except this time, maybe not. And it would be all his fault.
Starscream stood amongst the puddles of synth-en and stared down at his scratched reflection below. "I can bring peace," he tried to say firmly, but his voice came out weak to even his own audials.
He offlined his optics tightly and thought of Skyfire. Normally whenever he pictured the shuttle he pictured his calm and serene smile. But now? Now he pictured a scowl on Skyfire's faceplate, the scowl he would surely have if he could see Starscream now.
Starscream wandered the dark and cold halls of Sentinel's new base. He anxiously glanced around at the tunnels and the low ceiling above his helm.
The synth-en pulsed within him like a second sparkbeat and he scowled as he shook his helm. Everything would be fine, everything would be fine—
Sentinel loomed in the doorway. He lunged forward and grabbed onto the Seeker's arm and pulled him through tunnel after tunnel.
"What's wrong?"
Sentinel remained silent as the tunnels shook and distant booms thudded from far away.
They emerged into a room with windows in it and looked out over the lunar landscape of Cybertron's moon. Cybertron itself shined brightly in the sky and briefly vanished for a moment as a bright flash overwhelmed Starscream's optics.
He flinched and looked out the viewport. Green synth-en was spilt everywhere over the lab complex below and red-opticed bots shot wildly at Enforcers who in turn fired back.
The bright blue and red flashes lit up Sentinel's calm but stern faceplate. "Rebels. They have come to claim your creation."
Starscream froze. The damage the synth could cause in the servos of mechs who would only wish to abuse it—
"Warframes," Sentinel scoffed. "They are good for nothing but violence. It is our natural right to literally look down on those who are figuratively, morally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually beneath us. That's why I built this lunar lab. But the rebels seem to feel… otherwise."
"No! I'll go down there and fight them off, you'll see!" He fired a bolt at a window and transformed and leaped outside into the battle.
Blaster bolts zinged past his frame as he landed in the middle of the fight. Synth-en pulsed in his veins as his spark pulsed faster and faster in his frame. The tall distant figure of Sentinel Prime watched him from his place in the tower far above.
He took one last look at the watchful Prime before he turned and ran into the fight. He would prove himself, he would, he would. Sentinel saw him as not a threat, but he'd prove that he was a threat indeed and could bring peace.
He fired blaster bolt after blaster bolt after each rebel he could, one after the other. A tiny voice in the back of his helm that sounded like Skyfire whined in protest with each fire of his blaster, but he pushed it back down.
Movement came from behind him and he turned around and shot a bot in the chestplates. He turned around to get back into the fight—
"Oh, Primus…" one of the Enforcers moaned. Starscream's helm whipped around and he took another look at the bot he had actually shot. Smoke curled away from a hole in his chestplate and Starscream's spark sank within his own.
The battle continued to rage on all around them but now everything felt as if it was in slow-motion. The hole he had blasted into the Enforcer's frame looked so similar to the ones the rebels had blasted into the frames of their enemies.
"No, I didn't mean to, I…" Starscream began to shake. He was no better than the vicious murderous rebels and had just killed a bot in cold blood the exact same way they would have.
He sank to his knees as the sounds of the Enforcer's and rebel's engines drifted off into the distance. The only sounds came from the roar of several lit fires and from pedesteps behind him.
Sentinel stepped up beside him and tsked at the sight of the dead Enforcer. "So I was right, then."
"Right about what?"
Sentinel turned his gaze onto Starscream and glared at him. "Warframes really are good for nothing but war."
"What?!"
"Look at you, trying to prove to the world that Seekers can be more than just warmachines. And what have you become? Just that, in fact. No, I'll have to deal with the rebels in another way. If I can't have the synth, then no one can."
Sentinel strode off and calmly walked right over the ruins and fallen frames left over from the fight. Starscream shakily followed after the Prime and the both of them walked into a control center. They both looked up through its windows and up at the distant reactor tower in the distance.
"Ah, how desperate times call for desperate measures," Sentinel sighed as he pressed several switches and—
"You're going to melt the tower and synth down?" Starscream gasped.
Sentinel shrugged. "Why not?"
"But—the synth-en, it will just evaporate! You could hurt the mechs still fighting for it!"
"...So?"
The bright red switch shined brightly in the green-tinted darkness of the base as Sentinel reached out to it.
"I thought these kinds of reactor towers could only be melted down from multiple stations, though?"
"Oh, I already went in and flipped the other switches. This is the last one. Watch and learn."
He flipped a final switch and both mechs held onto the computer console as the entire base violently trembled around them both. Starscream craned his helm to look out the window and watched with wide optics as the nuclear tower shined bright white as it melted down in a spill of slag and metal. Green waves of synth-en roared past the window and overwhelmed and flooded the rest of the lab complex down below. Enforcers and rebels alike were not discriminated against and all were washed away. Their frames clanged against the lab equipment as they drifted away.
The shaking stopped. Sentinel sighed and walked off again. "Better luck with the next batch. What an utter disaster. My own lab, ruined, and my own warframe just as nasty as the others. Bots like you really do need to be controlled."
"Oh, no, no no no. I'm not just meant for war, that's not my only purpose," Starscream moaned. He would prove himself to Sentinel, he would.
He just needed to find a way how.
Starscream stared up at the Earth. Hopefully Optimus was okay.
Optimus would know what to do, Optimus would be able to take each distressed Autobot aside and help them. But the team no longer had Optimus to help them, they just had… him. Starscream scowled at his own reflection in the synth-en sea and swiped at it with his talons.
"Aha! You're just jealous of… this," Ratchet smirked as he gestured to his orange frame.
Starscream squinted at him. "Jealous of… what?"
Ratchet scowled. "Jealous of thissss!" He gestured to his frame more wildly.
Starscream dragged his talons down his faceplate. "Ratchet, there is nothing there for me to be jealous of."
"There are a lot of things here for you to be jealous of!"
"Okay, okay, calm down, hotshot!"
"'Ambulatory' hotshot, don't forget the fact that I am an emergency vehicle—'"
"You're an ambulatory pain, how about that?"
"Pah!"
"Well, now that I have your attention, I hope to keep it."
"Mhmmphf, and what do you want now?" Ratchet sighed. His field was still thick with arrogance, but there was something else there now too.
Starscream gulped. "You're just pretending to be exasperated with me."
Ratchet's faceplate fell.
"You… you still remember what happened in that storage closet between us. You starved and so did I."
Ratchet took a shaky vent in and let it out. "Yes, we did have that… moment. I wanted to talk with you about it back on Earth, but. But."
"But now the Earth is in danger," Starscream said softly as he looked back up at the planet ignorant of the danger now on its own moon.
No, there was no way Megatron would make the entire Earth burn. But part of it would burn and all it took to destroy Starscream was to watch just a part of Cybertron burn.
Vos, spires once so tall now reduced to piles of rubble, bright gleaming Vos that will never shine again—
He took a deep vent. Maybe a forest would blow up, maybe some vast uninhabited stretch of land nobody would notice nor care if it went up in flames.
Or maybe an entire city would burn, Vos all over again, except with fleshies instead of Seekers.
"Look," Megatron had whispered so so softly as he had tightly grabbed ahold of Starscream's helm and pointed it so that he could look at the human city lights that had been far down below. "Look upon my next target," Megatron had then laughed, voice oily slick and oh so very pleased with himself.
No. He clenched his talons into fists. He was going to ensure that there would never be another Vos incident ever again.
"...Starscream?"
"I know how to get rid of the synth."
Ratchet blinked. "Should I punch Megatron again? Is that how?"
"No! I just… okay, we cannot blow up the lab, right? So what if we just made all of the synth-en evaporate from the lab? That way Megatron can't abuse it!"
"But what if he has the formula saved? What's stopping him from just making more of it?"
Starscream looked up at the stars he knew Cybertron was in. "Soundwave won't let him. He destroyed the first lab, Ratchet. I saw him there with my own optics. His hatred for it runs almost as deep as mine."
Ratchet just stared at him. And stared. And stared.
"You have very intimate knowledge of how the synth-en works."
Starscream took a deep vent. It seems like he'd been having more and more of these moments lately, moments in which he had no choice but to just let the truth burst out. Primus, he's been more honest in these past months than in entire centuries.
"I, ah, may or may not have… okay, I absolutely did invent the synth-en."
"You mean you created the formula and everything? I thought you just assisted with it! Wha—but why?!"
"For the same reasons as you! I wanted to keep everybody fed. But then Sentinel found out and got interested. I knew the synth was dangerous, yes, but Sentinel threatened somebody I cared about, and…"
"The shuttle?"
"The shuttle, right, and he was like, 'well, I need to test it out on somebody!'" Starscream laughed bitterly and wiped a tear away from his optic. "So, eheheh, I was the test subject."
"I thought your troubles began with Megatron. I had no idea you had gone through so much. Had I known…"
"You didn't know, so don't beat yourself up over it. Primus knows you do that enough already." Starscream sighed and pointed at the distant reactor tower. "See that? I'm familiar with those kinds of towers and how they operate, I worked in bases like this before. There are multiple stations—for redundancy, of course, just in case some harebrained-bot decided to melt the tower down—and they all need to be activated in order to make the reactor melt. Blowing up the lab will hurt Earth, yes, but melting the synth in the lab won't activate whatever bombs Megatron has placed up there. "
Ratchet glanced down at the distant and colorful figures of the team far below. "And I'm assuming we'll have to split up?"
Starscream nodded sharply. "Yes. So, some of us will be alone."
Ratchet put his servo on his shoulder. "I'll stay with you and we can help melt the reactor down together."
Starscream grimaced.
"What?! Do you not feel safe with your dispatched ambulance?"
"I want to dispatch my ambulance somewhere else, how about that?"
Ratchet just stared at him. And then laughed.
"Ah, but no, seriously, I…" Starscream sighed and fluttered his wing agitatedly. "I don't want to be seen as weak, some bot who needs a caretaker."
"You are forcing yourself to relive your worst memories in order to help destroy the dangerous substance that you created. Wanting to have company throughout this ordeal doesn't make you weak, it just makes you even stronger."
Starscream looked up at Earth. "Thank you, Ratchet. Thank you."
"Bulkhead, for the last time, I don't want to see any more weird rocks," Arcee sighed.
"This one looks like Miko!" Bulkhead shouted.
Bumblebee hummed as he stared at it. "Looks more like a scraplet to me."
Bulkhead clapped his servos together. "See? Seeeee? Weird."
Ratchet and Starscream walked up and over the lunar hills and both looked down at the frustrated rest of the team gathered around an oddly-shaped rock down below.
"That is a rather strange geologic formation," Starscream humed.
Ratchet scowled and lightly punched him with his elbow. "Focus!"
Starscream hissed at the medic and then walked forward. His spark began to pulse faster and faster in his chestplates with each step he took closer to the team. He'd participated their plans before, but to come up to them and present them with his own plan? No, it should be Optimus there with them and with a plan, not him, not the Seeker who is indirectly responsible for this entire mess in the first place—
"Listen," Ratchet said softly as he grabbed onto Starscream's talon. Starscream's optics widened and he realized he had stopped walking halfway between Ratchet and the team.
"I know…" Ratchet grumbled. "I know that you are indirectly responsible for this mess, okay? But we can clean this mess up together. And hey, this old cog is responsible for this mess as well! So. Just… let's fix this."
Starscream nodded and approached the team. "Ah, yes, hello, it's me?"
The rest of the team just looked at him.
"I have a plan, and…" his voice trailed off as his spark pulsed harder. It should be Optimus here, not him, Optimus Optimus Optimus—
"We'll go through with it," Bumblebee said suddenly.
Starscream leaned back in surprise. "You don't even know what it is yet!"
"You're right, I don't. But we can all tell that you know how this stuff really works. I can see it in your optics. So if you have a plan, then I'm all for it."
Bulkhead and Arcee stood behind the scout and nodded slightly more hesitantly.
Starscream let out a deep vent. "Okay, so here it is…"
He wondered what Skyfire was up to right now.
Was the shuttle in recharge? In flight? In a state of deep worry? Hopefully not all three.
Starscream sat on the rugged surface of Cybertron's moon and looked up at Cybertron high above his helm. If he squinted he could make out the distance shiny spires of Vos high in the distance.
The ground rumbled and he flinched. The massive lab complex loomed behind him, but he was not going to let it ruin this one moment of peace and quiet he had to himself.
He lifted up his servo and stared into his own reflection. Red optics, not green. For now, at least.
Pedesteps came from behind him and a servo fell over his shoulder.
Starscream shrieked and twisted around to face Sentinel. He stepped into view out of the shadows of the lab complex and—
Starscream's wings shot up in shock. Deep worrylines marred the Prime's normally calm and smooth faceplate. His plating shook imperceptibly. His field shuddered around him in great heaves as if it were on the verge of collapse.
"They got another," Sentinel grit out as he glared at Cybertron below. Their homeworld looked peaceful from above, but they both knew better. "Unrest stirs underneath the surface of our fair home and will soon erupt and burn Cybertron away. I will not allow that to happen."
"What happened? I'm sure that whatever happened, you still did a great job!" Starscream laughed nervously because if he could not soothe the situation then he could at least soothe Sentinel's ego.
"The wretched gladiator and his followers stole another mine for themselves down there. They went after the mine and soon they will go after the cities, the streets, the common bots, and then—"
Sentinel's optics shone with fear. "Me," he said softly.
Starscream remained silent. The Prime was always at his most dangerous when in a creative mood.
"I have a solution, though. When they come for me, ohoho, I will be ready." He reached into his plating and pulled out a small vial of something.
He held the synth-en up high and smiled up at it as it sloshed around. He then looked at Starscream and relished the look of fear on Starscream's faceplate as he took the synth-en up in his servo and chugged it.
The vial collapsed and shattered in a spray of glass. Starscream flinched backward and look up with wide optics. Hundreds of miniature cuts from the glass were now scratched all over Sentinel's frame. He stared at his cut-up and sliced frame with wide and now-green optics.
"Where is it?" he said softly as his frame began to tremor. His massive and normally overwhelming field faintly flickered around him and his optics grew dim as his plating drooped.
"Eh," Starscream said as he began to back away. "Where is… what?"
Sentinel lunged forward and snatched onto Starscream's talon and pulled the Seeker near to him as his frame began to shudder.
"Did you do something to the synth-en?!"
"No, no, you took the same stuff I did!"
"Yours made you strong! Yours made you mighty! So then why does mine just make me feel…" Sentinel trailed off as his field fizzled around him.
Sentinel collapsed to his knees and stared up at the bright sphere of Cybertron above their helms.
"It was supposed to make me feel better," he mumbled. Starscream looked at Sentinel and actually really saw him for the first time.
Where there was once an unwavering will there was now just uncertainty and where there was once a deadly Prime there was now just a very confused mech.
Starscream took a deep vent and stepped up to the knelt Prime. He loomed over him as Sentinel looked up at him with wide green optics.
"I... " Starscream snarled. "I can't believe that this is who you really are. To think that I was ever scared of the likes of you."
"I am not weak!" Sentinel shouted as he rose to his pedes again and towered over the Seeker. "The synth-en just hasn't kicked in yet!"
"Oh, it has," Starscream laughed bitterly. "It has, and it's revealed you for the pathetic weakling you really are. What are you underneath that Matrix? Nothing! You thought the Matrix would bring out some deep hidden strength within you and all it did was bring out how pathetic you are—"
Sentinel slashed outward with his sword and Starscream narrowly dodged it. He jumped to his pedes and transformed before he then flew away l at full speed.
He heard Sentinel transform and rev his engine as he drove after him. He swerved rapidly as he flew after the Seeker and clanged into the rocks over and over again.
All he had to do to escape the mad Prime was just gun his engines and leave him in his wake, but something held Starscream back. He flew on and on, just quickly enough to be out of Sentinel's reach, but just slow enough to be high above his helm.
"I am not weak!" Sentinel laughed maniacally. Sentinel revved his engine again and drove towards a ramplike curve of rock while at full speed. He sped up the rock and into the air and for a single second both Starscream and Sentinel were airborne.
Sentinel transformed and reached a servo out to Starscream, the tips of his digits scratched the edge of Starscream's wing—
And then Sentinel plummeted and fell to the ground with a clang and a crunch.
Starscream swallowed the fear in his throat cabling and flew in lazy circles over the fallen Prime's frame. Sentinel stared up with dim green optics as synth-en gurgled out of his throat cabling.
"Hah! How the mighty have fallen—"
"Come here," Sentinel whispered weakly from below.
Starscream felt silent and glanced between the fallen Prime and Cybertron far above. He wasn't sure why but he felt compelled to land and transform. Synth-en sloshed around his pedes as he landed and he looked up at where it poured out from Sentinel's frame.
"Are you dying? Is that what this is? You just not wanting to be alone?"
Sentinel coughed. "Not… quite. I'll live on. I always do. I just—" He trailed off and his faceplate spasmed.
"You don't even know why you wanted me to land, do you?"
Sentinel remained silent and just offlined his optics as his vents wheezed.
"You just keep proving me right without even trying to. You claim warframes and bots like me aren't needed, but you do need me. You want me, you need me, and you don't even know why! Well, I know why. Your entire identity revolves around oppressing mechs, so without somebody to oppress… well, that would make you nothing. And you want to be something. Even if that means being an oppressor."
Sentinel opened his optics again and glared at Starscream, but then turned his sight to Cybertron and glared at the distant world even harder.
"Go find somebody else to oppress," Starscream snarled. He transformed and flew away from the fallen Prime.
"We will see each other again one day, Starscream. And I-I'll prove to you that I don't need you!"
Starscream circled around in the sky like a bird of prey waiting for an animal to die. "Or maybe I'll prove that I don't need you."
He flew off and did not look back.
The tunnels shook around them again and Ratchet and Starscream clung to each other as they rode out the intense vibrations. The windows all along the hall shattered in glittery clouds of glass and their shards slowly fell down in the moon's weak gravity. Ratchet plunged ahead and swept the shards out of the way as he bolted forward.
"It's here, it's near, here, finally," Ratchet laughed as they ran into the reactor room. A massive computer console outfitted with dozens of screens leered down at them, old and ancient and brought to life with the sickly green glow of the synth-en.
Ratchet ran his servos all over it. "The switch, where is it, where?"
Starscream flipped a cover up and glared down at a large switch. "Just one flip is all it takes to bring that monstrosity down."
The vast and tall silhouette of the reactor tower shone on the horizon like a second green sun and rose up from the ground like a fake twisted metal mountain.
Ratchet wrapped his servo around the switch, took a deep vent, and—
He froze.
His servo trembled as held the switch in his servo. His optics darted back and forth between the tall reactor in the distance and the so tiny yet so important switch in his grasp.
"Why aren't you pressing down on it?" Starscream asked. The urge to snap at the medic's impatience was strong, yet there was something slow and sad about Ratchet's field that gave the Seeker pause.
"I just…"
Starscream offlined his optics and held his servo to his abdomen. He was full, yes, but the remembered pain of starvation was never far from his memory. "You will go back to being hungry, yes."
Ratchet laughed bitterly and wiped coolant from his optics. "So reassuring!"
"It would be cruel of me to lie to you. It would be cruel of me to try and reassure you and say things like 'oh, we'll create nice and safe synth-en,' or 'oh, maybe we'll find a big mine that can feed us all and then some,' oh, no. I won't try to reassure you and tell you one of those things might happen because I don't think either of those things will ever happen. You're going to go back to being hungry."
Ratchet hunched over the console and let out a wet laugh that shook his entire shaky frame. "I want it to stay! This wretched moon and its sickly green seas, I want it to stay here for good, I want to know that I never have to worry about going hungry again! But I am going to go hungry again, and again, and as many times as I need to in order to ensure that they don't have to go hungry."
Starscream gently grabbed onto Ratchet's shoulder and turned the medic so they were faceplate-to-faceplate. "Well, then we will just be hungry together. Who said that you were the only mech who had to ration their energon?"
Ratchet's optics widened. Starscream expected shock, panic, or maybe even fear, but he most certainly did not expect Ratchet to feel—
"What is wrong with you?!"
—angry.
Starscream flinched back. "What?! What did I do wrong?!"
"No, no, I'm not angry with you, I'm just…" Ratchet took a rattly vent as his optics flickered between blue and green over and over again. "I'm angry that this good side of you has been oppressed and hidden under Megatron for so long. I'm angry that you, the patient, feels the need to help care for your caretaker. Well, I won't let you!"
Ratchet slammed down on the lever. The floor rumbled beneath their pedes and they both felt the vibration rip outward and to the distant reactor tower.
The rest of the team should have pressed down on their switches by now, the entire synth-en sea should be nothing more than a vast cloud on its way to space now.
But the sea was still there. Green waves still lapped gently at lunar shores and still perfectly reflected the Earth above.
Starscream squinted and saw the reactor shudder slightly in the distance as curls of green steam began to drift away from the synth-sea. Everything was still mostly fine. Too fine.
They both ran to the computer console and opened up the security feed surveillance.
"Where is the rest of the team?!" Starscream panicked. "Why didn't they press their switches, why—"
The surveillance feed from each reactor station loaded onto the screens and took his breath away.
On one screen they saw footage of Bulkhead in a battle with several drones, a wide snarly smile on his faceplate and his optics sickly green as he swung around and around with his wrecking ball. On another screen they saw footage of Arcee as she slowly circled around a hurt and bloodied drone on the floor, her own blaster shaky as she pointed it right at him and her optics bright bright green. On the final screen they saw Bumblebee, so normally calm and self-assured and now so panicked as he stared down at the fallen form of a drone he had probably killed, horror wrought large on his wide-opticed faceplate.
Starscream let out a keen. "They're relapsing," he shook out. "All over again! I thought we reached out to them, I thought I reached out to them and helped them..."
Ratchet just stared at him, but said nothing.
"But I didn't," Starscream gasped. "Everytime I had an opportunity to help one of them all I did was flee like a coward. And now is not the time for cowardice."
He spun on his pede and ran to the door as Ratchet chased after him.
"Wait, wait, where are you off to?!"
"I need to help them, slaggit!"
"But how?"
Starscream took a deep vent as he ran faster and faster. "By… by opening up."
"Stop doing that."
Ratchet blinked. "Stop doing what?"
Starscream's plating flared. "Stop just staring at me! It's freaky."
"You've changed," Ratchet said gently as they ran along. "But in a good way."
Starscream's optics widened. "I—"
They turned the corner into the next reactor room and froze. The entire room was littered with the fallen frames of a dozen drones, each one with a crushed in faceplate or chestplate that was seemingly caved in by a wrecking ball. A large hole had been pounded into the opposite wall and waves of green synth-en flowed through it and into the room.
They both ran up to the hole and squinted at the vast expanse of the lunar plane before them. Trails of tiretracks, one significantly larger than the others, led away from the hole and off over the horizon.
"Find him," Starscream snapped at Ratchet.
Ratchet gave a single firm nod and transformed and roared off across the planes with his siren on. Starscream grunted and ran out of the room and followed the tiretracks himself. His sharp pedes sank into the synth and he swore as each step made it splash more and more onto him.
A large splash of it splattered onto his vent and he froze. No, there was no way he could afford to ingest this stuff and lose himself too, or else the entire mission would be lost.
Starscream froze again. The entire mission really did rely on him. He had been so paranoid and thought himself to be the last bot who could ever uphold the Autobot legacy—
But now he was the last bot left who could actually uphold it.
He summoned up a strength from that seemingly endless and hidden source of it he found within himself and continued to march on. Ratchet's sirens grew more and more distant and Starscream found himself alone.
"Get down here!"
Starscream blinked and looked around for the source of the voice. He yelped as a large servo grabbed onto his ankle and gently pulled him down into a crater. He found himself in a large pair of arms and looked up at Bulkhead's twitchy faceplate.
Here was the moment of his big speech, the speech he'd make to rescue Bulkhead from himself—!
"Um?" Starscream mumbled before he then mentally groaned. Fantastic start, just great.
Bulkhead let him down and the two of them crouched down and up against the inner wall of the crater. Bulkhead's green optics shone like two suns in the darkness.
"Aha, the 'Cons, ohhh, they don't see me as a threat, so I smashed 'em up and proved 'em wrong! And then more came and when they saw the state their buddies were in they turned tailgate and just ripped away across the planes. So I chased, I chased and chased and then…" He trailed off and his intake opened and closed wordlessly.
Starscream frowned. "How do you feel?"
"Like I just proved myself! Which I did!" Bulkhead scoffed as his optic twitched again. "I feel fine!"
Starscream looked closer at him and sighed. "No, you don't. I am the master of hiding true emotions, okay, and you are bottling yours up. You thought chasing the drones down would make everything better."
"It did!"
"It did not! Now you feel no better than before." Starscream's wing fell and his voice grew softer. "You feel empty, don't you?"
"I, uh, no?"
"Don't lie. For once, just don't lie. I know the strong desire to prove one's self and the resulting emptiness that you feel when you finally realize that… that in your attempt to prove yourself all you did was just change yourself. And not for the better."
Bulkhead shuddered. "Oh, Star…"
Starscream hissed as he curled up in on himself. He had had to force out each word from within himself and he felt as if each wretched yet painfully true sentence had been ripped out from within him. A part of him just wanted to curl up in the shadows of the crater and rest there forever.
"You don't want that, I know you don't. You want the musty base back and your favorite Prime back as well."
"I do," Starscream said softly. "And I want… to help you, but then that means that I also need to…"
Bulkhead cut in. "Help yourself?"
"Well, er, that's not how I wanted to phrase it—"
"But that is the truth of it. I catch onto more things than most bots realize. You're on the verge of having another one of your little devastating yet ultimately good life-shattering moments, huh? Gosh, I wish I had those. I tried so hard to prove to the Council that I'm not a brainless clod, and yet…"
Starscream stayed silent and watched Bulkhead's frame twitch more and more erratically.
"I didn't," Bulkhead breathed. "The Council said, 'oh, heavy frames aren't smart and can't plan, oh, heavy frames can't build anything, oh, heavy frames can't be calm and lead,' but now look at me! I suck at coming up with plans, I constantly accidentally destroy Ratch's stuff, and I'm the last to take command back at base."
Starscream took a deep vent as his own spark spun faster and faster in its chamber. "Listen, Skyfire—"
Bulkhead's optics widened.
"No, no no no, I did not mean to say that, forget that!"
"...Am I acting like him again?"
"No, well, yes, but please don't be offended—"
Bulkhead blinked at him. "I'm not. I wish I could have learned more about him in, er, better circumstances, but… I like the guy and I'm honored you think I am like him. I wish I could have proved myself the same way he did. He broke society's stereotypes so so so hard."
"He really did," Starscream's voice cracked. He took a deep vent because here it was, here was the one sentence he'd have to try the hardest to rip free from his spark—
"He proved himself in a way I never managed to."
Bulkhead just stared at him and his field was more confused than ever before. Now was the time to act and just speak, speak speak speak before his own anxieties swallowed his words right back up.
"Don't idolize me, don't! I lied, okay?! I did not prove the Council wrong, I am the reason Sentinel made the restrictions on warframes even tighter, b-because they just took one look at me and just how awful I was and said, 'aha, oh, look at this poor warmonger Seeker, he's walking evidence t-that bots like him don't deserve rights,' and, and, this war sprung up as a result of their harsher restrictions on w-warframes and Megatron started the war to end those restrictions that I got created in the first place—"
Bulkhead moved so that he was in front of the panicked Seeker and cautiously held his servos out.
"What?! No, you went in and proved the stereotype that warframes are only good at destroying things is wrong!"
Starscream took a deep vent and offline his optics. He thought of Skyfire, of a small and cramped Iaconian lab, and most importantly of Bulkhead, who was so similar and yet so different to that old shuttle.
"No," Starscream said softly. "I… I made the synth-en."
Bulkhead blinked down at him and frowned. "Uh, can you repeat that?"
"I said I…" Starscream trailed off again as his spark began to pulse erratically.
Bulkhead leaned down. "Just a skosh more volume—"
"I created the synth-en! I made this destructive substance ruining everything!"
Bulkhead recoiled at Starscream's volume. "Wow, wow, now I know how you got your designation! Wait… did you just say that you created the synth-en?"
Starscream looked off to the side and bit his lip. Bulkhead's green optics bore into him and his field prickled with expectancy. Starscream began to shake harder and harder and clenched his plating so tightly that he felt he was about to implode on himself.
"I thought Ratchet invented it," Bulkhead said.
"I didn't," Ratchet said. The two of them looked up at Ratchet who stood upon the crater. His frame blocked out the stars and his field hung heavy and thick all around them. He slid down into the crater with a grunt and shook his helm. "No, he is telling the truth. I used his and his old lab partner's formulas to make the synth, remember? The ones you wrote down."
Bulkhead's jaw dropped and he stared at Starscream again. "Oh…"
Starscream continued to stare off at the rocky crater wall and ignored Bulkhead right in front of him. He would not have a mental break down, here came Bulkhead's inevitable anger, he would not break down, Bulkhead would be so so angry at him, he would not break down in front of the Wrecker—
Bulkhead lunged forward and Starscream's frame flinched with the expectancy of a strike. A warm pair of large arms closed around him instead and he found himself being pushed into green armor.
And Starscream broke.
He let out a high keen as Bulkhead stroked his back with his servo. "Hey, hey hey hey, it's fine, it's all good!"
"No, it's not! Nothing about this is fine!"
"Er, well. Okay, but listen, I'm fine, aren't I?"
"You're having a mental breakdown because of the synth-en that I invented!"
"No," Bulkhead said firmly. Starscream felt the grounder's engine rumble underneath him. "I did not have a mental breakdown because of the synth-en you invented. I had a breakdown because Megatron abused the synth-en you invented, okay? And I know why ya made it. For the same reasons as Ratchet did, right? To make bot's lives better."
"It just made everything worseeee!" Starscream wailed.
"Uh, okay, yes, it kinda did, but you know what? Now we can make everything better and we can move past this! We moved past my awkward, er, mental rot I had a while back there, and we're going to move past this, too."
"No, frag it, just no," Starscream hiccuped. "We did not move past your mental rot episode! We are still dealing with the trauma of that!"
"We are not. Remember how you tried to distance yourself from me after it happened because you were convinced you were a no-good and chaotic little jet scraplet who could create nothing but chaos?"
"Ah, well, I didn't use those exact words to describe myself, but sure, I remember," Starscream squirmed in Bulkhead's hold, but the Wrecker just held onto him even tighter.
"Well, you said you'd always distance yourself from me for good. But look! You're letting me hold you and I am letting you near me. The moon hasn't exploded. You've done nothing wrong and Megs has done everything wrong. So don't you dare try and distance yourself from me ever again, alright? Because it didn't work, there's no good reason to, and we're only stronger when we're together. Okay?"
Starscream said nothing and just let Bulkhead hold him.
"Do you understand?" Bulkhead repeated.
Starscream sighed. "I… do. Yes, I really do. Are you going to let me go now?"
"Nope. Few more minutes."
"Oh, fineeee."
"You're enjoying it!" Bulkhead laughed. He walked out of the crater with Starscream in his arms and walked back to the lab with Ratchet right behind.
"I thought you'd be mad with me," Starscream moaned. "I thought you'd be so so angry…"
"Nah. Well, there is one thing I'm angry about…"
"And what's that?" Starscream mumbled into the folds of Bulkhead's armor.
"I am angry that you did not come to me with your insecurities regarding the synth-en even sooner. C'mon, everybody knows I'm your number-two bot to go to when you're havin' a crisis!"
Starscream snorted. "Am I really that obvious?"
"Sure am. But that's okay, 'cause you're so used to living in an environment in which you had to hide away your desire for help. Now you live in an environment in which it's okay to reach out for help."
Starscream shifted around in Bulkhead's grasp and looked the Wrecker in the optic. "Now, listen. You can also reach out for help. Are you that good at coming up with plans? No. But are you a genius when it comes to seeing how bots really feel and seeing how they really think? Absolutely! Are you good at building things? Ah, not really. But you are brilliant at destroying things, and that is perfectly okay because you use your demolition skills to destroy the horrendous things Megatron builds. Then we can come in and build better things in their place."
Bulkhead's jaw dropped. "Star…"
"Eh eh eh! I'm on a roll here! Are you a good leader? Also no. But that's okay because being a leader high up in command is very stressful and you should be glad that you will not have the responsibility of being responsible for other's wellbeings. You're a follower at your core and that is okay, because the followers of the army make up the bedrock that hold the leaders up."
Bulkhead blinked coolant away. "Jeez, Star, you're… you're…"
Starscream squirmed free of Bulkhead's grip and sprinted back to the tunnels. "Nope! Nope! This entire situation has already gotten far too emotional already!"
"But maybe I wanna be emotional," Bulkhead laughed wetly as the three of them clambered back into the reactor room. The computer console with the switch that would activate the meltdown of the reactor was right in front of them.
Ratchet frowned. "You are certain that activating all three of the switches will burn my wretched creation away?"
"I am certain, I have… experience… with this technique." Starscream nodded once at Bulkhead. The Wrecker cracked his knuckles and slammed down on the switch.
All three of them looked up as the lab began to ominously shake and tremble around them. Emergency alarms began to blare and the synth-en puddled around their pedes grew somewhat warmer.
"Whoo," Ratchet sighed. "Two more to go."
"I really hope she's not shooting more stuff, that was just insane," Ratchet grumbled as they ran to the next reactor station.
Arcee's voice echoed through the halls. "Just, just, shut up! Shut up!" Her voice was loud, but there was a hint of distress in there that made Starscream's spark flare in his chestplates.
They both skid around a corner and ran into the room Arcee was in. A drone was laid down onto the floor and Arcee was sat right on his chest. She had both blasters trained upon his chestplates. Just one shot from just one of them would be enough to reduce the panicked drone into a lifeless husk in less than a second.
Her optics were wide and green and her blasters shook more and more with each second. The drone's visor was bright red with the special kind of panic only Autobots could incite.
"Do not kill me, please—"
"Quiet!" Arcee shouted desperately. "I'm deciding, okay?!"
"Please decide not to!"
"I don't…" Arcee bowed her helm and took in a shaky vent as her winglets fell. "I honestly don't know what to do."
The entire room shook around them and the computer console flashed and flared hot green. They looked out the window and watched as a giant plume of synth-en burst out of the surface of the moon and arced into the air.
"The synth-en just gets bigger and bigger and the war just gets worse and worse," Arcee moaned.
The room shake and emergency lights flashed all around them.
"Okay, what's the dilemma here?" Ratchet said.
She took a shaky vent. "If I shoot him, I can help end the war. But if I shoot him, then…"
Starscream sighed. "Then you just prove to everybody and to yourself that you're just a 'Con killer."
Arcee took a deep vent and nodded. "Why am I even talking to you? I hate you!"
"I hate me, too."
Her helm shot up and she stared at Starscream. Starscream flinched and looked between Ratchet, Bulkhead, and Arcee's shocked faceplates. "Uh—ignore what I said!"
"We are not going to ignore that," Ratchet said.
"Ohhhh, Starry," Bulkhead moaned.
"Yes, please, just ignore me," the drone under Arcee's pedes whimpered.
Starscream took a deep vent and knelt down so that he was closer to the drone's frightened visor.
The drone gasped. "Commander?"
Starscream flinched back. "I am not that anymore! I'm an Autobot!"
"I see that. I never thought…"
"You never thought I'd decide I'd had enough of violence?"
The drone nodded meekly.
Starscream ignored Arcee and Ratchet and sat cross-legged by the drone. "Ah, shoot, what would Prime say? Mhmmph. I decided I wanted no more violence and I am going to convince you to do the same."
"What?!"
"We're going to let you live," Starscream said as the other three Autobots glanced at each other.
The drone paused. "But why? I mean, thanks! But… why?"
"I'm going to convince you to not tell Megatron that we are here. Because… because he has you stuck in a cycle of violence. You're dead inside. You just do what he tells you to do and even when you do it right you sometimes still get hurt by him."
The drone went silent. "Please just let me go."
"No, no, listen, I needed to hear this and so do you, you fragger! So shut up and let me talk to you!"
"Ah, taking the gentle approach, I see," Ratchet snorted.
Starscream hissed at the medic. "Shush!" He turned his attention back to the drone. "If you go and tell Megatron that we are here then you will receive no credit, no praise, and you will instead receive his anger. He will get mad at you for not stopping us."
The drone sighed. "How do you know I won't try to stop you all when you let me go?"
"Because Megatron ordered you drones not to harm us and if you do try to stop us you will still get in trouble. Either way, you lose. So I have created a third option for you: stay silent. Go home to… wherever home is for you."
"But Soundwave—!"
"Already knows that we are here," Starscream said as he glared up into the shadows of the ceiling. He couldn't see the cameras there, but oh were they there. They always were. "He destroyed the first lab and wants to see this one go away as well."
The drone's visor flickered and flashed and his field flared in confusion. "I don't understand."
"No. You do understand just how unfair things are under Megatron and have understood that for a long long time now. You just don't understand why you didn't understand and realize how cruel he was from the beginning."
The drone fell silent. "Please let me go."
Starscream looked to Arcee. "Let him go."
She glanced between the drone, Starscream, and the shadows of the ceiling before she cautiously walked off his chest. He leaped to his pedes and took one last look at Starscream before he scrambled down the hall. The three of them listened to the drone's panicked retreat down the hall for a few seconds.
"You failed," Starscream said.
Arcee blinked. "What?"
"You failed my test!" Starscream flared his wing and put his servos on his hips.
Ratchet sputtered. "Bah—you wanted Arcee to intervene and kill him? Is that what you wanted? She failed your test?!"
"No," Starscream said as he turned to face her. "She passed. If you are really the warmonger you fear that you are then you would have shot him point-blank in the chest. You would have never hesitated to kill him and you would especially not have let me negotiated with him and let him go."
"Primus," Arcee breathed as she stared off into the shadows where the drone dashed off to.
"You see, Arcee? That's what we're going to do. We'll end the war Optimus's way—by talking to the Decepticons and helping them see the truth. Okay, okay, what would Optimus say next here? Uhh… if you truly only wanted to prolong the war just because it gave you a sense of purpose then you would have never joined the Autobots at all."
Arcee looked down at her badge and frowned. "Well..."
"Ah ah ah, I am in Primely advice dispense mode! I'm not done yet! You would have been a Decepticon beside me on the Nemesis from the beginning if you really are nothing more than a warmonger. A bot whose only purpose is to fight wouldn't take the time out of her day to help drive a human child home. A bot whose only purpose is to fight wouldn't take the time out of her day to listen to Optimus Prime talk about morality. A bot whose only purpose is to fight wouldn't care about doing the right thing."
She scoffed. "So you finally admit that you're a warmonger yourself?"
"You're right!" Starscream laughed bitterly as his optics began to sting with coolant again. "I wouldn't—I wouldn't have driven a human child home, or cared about doing the right thing, or listened to Optimus give one of his speeches because I was, and still am, a bad bot. Okay?! Can't you just be glad that you're better than me?!"
Arcee leaned back as Starscream began to laugh shrilly. "Please stop," she said softly.
"You win! You finally fragging win our pathetic feud, you've proven yourself to be my superior, so just take you victory, stop torturing yourself, and help me. Just flip the switch." Starscream walked off into the shadows of the room and stared at the wall.
The only sound came from the distant alarms out in the hall and from the rumbles of the lab around them.
Soft pedesteps echoed behind him.
Starscream whirled around and faced Arcee again. "Oh, you want more? I'll give you more! You win, I lose, you're the better bot—"
"Stop."
He fell silent. She was so much smaller than him and yet still managed to somehow loom over him.
"You… I don't like you. Still don't. Probably never will. But I like you slightly better now, okay? Because you were a warmonger, but you no longer are. You are now the kind of bot who would drive a child home, who does listen to Optimus's speeches, and who does care about doing the right thing. You're better too, you know."
Starscream just offlined his optics and sighed.
"You know… I don't know what I'll do with myself when the war ends. It will end, by the way, and you and I will help that happen. You'll be confused on what to also do with yourself when the war ends. So will I, so we'll figure out our lives. Together. Okay?"
The two of them just stared at each other. Ratchet grunted behind them, Bulkhead clapped his servos, and Arcee turned and ran over to the switch. She pressed down on it with all her weight. The alarms began to blare even louder and the computer console flashed red as the distant reactor began to shake even more.
"Let's get out of here," she said as they ran down the hall.
"Oh, no, no no no..."
Starscream winced at the strained tone of Bumblebee's voice as they turned the corner. The switch to the reactor was right in front of him, but there was a dead drone on top of it that blocked it. Smoke curled away from a singed hole in its chest. He looked over and saw Bumblebee in the shadows, his green optics wide and bright as he stared at the dead drone.
He saw Starscream and stumbled away from him. "He snuck up on me and I panicked, how can I be better than Megatron when my first instinct is to also just shoot and kill?"
"No!" Starscream gasped. "You are nothing like Megatron! We established this, okay? That's… that's the thing about war, okay? You kill bots and it's awful, but it's what you need to do."
Bumblebee snorted as his field twisted viciously around him. "Is that so?"
The Autobots all leaned back at the sheer contempt in Bumblebee's voice as the scout encroached upon them. No, the contempt wasn't aimed at Starscream, he could tell that much—but if Bumblebee wasn't upset with Starscream, then who was he upset with?
A clang rang out from the corridor and Arcee glared into its shadows. "Bulk and I will watch the hall."
Bumblebee made a choked noise. "You said 'oh, you kill bots, it's what you need to do,' but did I really need to kill that now-dead drone right there?" Bumblebee pointed at the drone's husk of a frame with a shaky servo. "Did I really need to kill Skyquake as brutally as I did?"
Starscream took a deep breath and kept his optics wide open for two reasons: one, he needed to keep an optic on him to make sure Bumblebee didn't do anything rash, and two, he feared what images would rise up from the depths of his memories if he did close them.
Red and horned and smiling, red and horned and smiling, no clue he was about to die—
"We… we can figure this out at base, okay? But in the meantime we need to get rid of the synth and save the moon and the Earth."
Ratchet just sighed.
Bumblebee stared up at the sphere of the earth as if he'd somehow be able to see Optimus up there. "Optimus would have known what to do," he beeped so so softly. "He would have found a less gruesome way to kill Skyquake. Maybe he would have even found a way to not have to kill him at all."
It would be so easy and yet so hard to just open his intake and share his grief over Cliffjumper's death, but would it really solve anything? Starscream clenched his talons into fists as a voice that sounded like Optimus in his helm loudly said yes. It was the solution. He just didn't want it to be.
Bumblebee turned around and continued to stare at the fallen drone's burnt-out frame. "I am no Megatron."
"Oh, but you are," Megatron chuckled.
Bulkhead collapsed in the doorway and Arcee was thrown to the wall and slid to the floor. "We couldn't stop him, we tried to, we really did!"
Starscream and Bumblebee froze and looked to each other before they slowly turned around to face the doorway. Megatron's enormous and sharp silhouette completely blocked the doorway as he jaggedly smiled down at the two of them.
"I must admit," he said slowly as he circled around them, "that I have never known you that well, Bumblebee, despite my foray into your helm a while back. To me, you have just always been that pathetic little yellow scout who screamed and screamed and then who could scream no more as I took his voice. But now…"
Starscream snarled and pointed a shaky digy at Megatron. "Stay out of this and get away from us!"
"I just had no idea you were a future warlord in the making!" Megatron laughed and laughed and laughed. "It takes one to know one."
Bumblebee froze and rapidly glanced between the dead drone he'd killed and Megatron's massive frame.
"Ignore him," Ratchet scowled as he blocked Bumblebee from Megatron. "He incites fear and division and plays upon your worst fears. Ignore him!"
Bumblebee let out a low warble. "But I think I am him!"
"I could not believe my audials when I heard of Skyquake's gruesome demise. I had wished I had executed that kill myself. The sheer violence of it was worthy of the Pits of Kaon! Oh, how his death would have made the crowds roar with delight!"
Starscream slashed out at Megatron with his talons. Megatron blinked and looked down at the five new bloody slashes that crossed over his abdomen.
Hot acidic fear instantly flooded Starscream's field and he stumbled back as the weight of what he had just done fell upon him.
"I see," Megatron said slowly as he looked at his own spilt energon smattered across Starscream's talons. "He who was built to be beaten has decided to try and beat me back. Watch and learn, future Megatron. I am about to show you how to deal with a mech who is inferior to you!"
Ratchet lunged in front of Starscream but was swatted away by Megatron's sword. He stomped up to Starscream and loomed over the frozen and terrified Seeker.
Starscream offlined his optics and prepared himself to feel the sharp hot pain of a sword being stabbed into him, at any moment now, any moment—
A drone cried out in pain and energon splattered across the back of Starscream's helm. He turned around with a gasp and looked up at a drone with a sword embedded into his chest. He looked up the hilt of the sword and—
It was Megatron's.
He stared right at Bumblebee as he shoved his own sword deeper and deeper into his own soldier. "Take notes, Autobot. You need them. Notice how I struck at his soft abdomen."
Megatron let the drone slide off his sword with a wet thunk and then stomped over to the wall. He effortlessly pried off a jagged portion of the wall's plating and then tossed it at Bumblebee. It clattered across the floor and Bumblebee jumped back from it as if it had burnt him.
Starscream just stared up at Megatron. "You could have stabbed me," he said hoarsely. "But you didn't. Why?!"
"Are you disappointed?"
"No, no, I—" Starscream cut himself off with a whimper and rose to his pedes. Bumblebee was backed into a corner and his field was a panicked mess and Megatron loomed over them. The other three groaned and rose to their pedes.
"You are just like me, Bumblebee. Grab the sword and strike out at my abdomen—see, see?" Megatron laughed as he stretched his frame and exposed his undermesh to the scout.
"Don't give in!" Arcee said.
"Defend yourself!" Ratchet shouted. "Grab the sword and just stab at him, 'Bee!"
Bumblebee beeped in distress. "If I kill him the same way he killed that poor drone, then I'm no better than him!"
"See?! You cannot defend yourself without resorting to my own methods!" Megatron said.
Bulkhead charged at Megatron with a roar and grunted as Megatron solidly punched him in his faceplate.
Starscream ran up to Bumblebee and kicked the jagged piece of metal away. He gently grabbed Bumblebee's helm in his talons and turned his faceplate so that they were optic-to-optic. Wide green ones met calm red ones.
"Look at me, not at him. Look at me. You are no Megatron. You know how I know that?"
"I…"
"There are times when I also fear that I have become like my old master. But after joining the Autobots those fears melted away. Do you know why?"
"Because?"
"Because if I were truly and genuinely like Megatron then I would never question my actions or decisions ever at all. The fact that you developed a fear that you're acting tyrannical like Megatron is proof enough that you are also nothing like him at all."
"But—but—"
"If you really were just a smaller and yellower version of Megatron then you would be having zero second thoughts about the manner of Skyquake's death and zero regrets for it. I won't lie to you and say that what you did was okay. You had to kill him, yes, but the way you chose to do so was wrong."
Bumblebee whimpered. "See?! So—"
Starscream interrupted him. "So the fact that you recognize that what you did was wrong is what makes you a good mech. Because all bots, both good and bad, do wrong things, but only good bots actually make an effort to not do wrong things again in the future. And look at you! You only ever fought since then as kindly as possible."
Megatron snarled and stomped over to them. "Quiet your glossa you wretch and stop sinking barbed lies into his processor. The strong dominate the weak and you dominated that weakling Skyquake. That is why you and I are brethren, Bumblebee!"
Ratchet and Arcee lunged at Megatron. "Somebody dialed 911!" Ratchet shouted.
He sent the warlord back into the wall with a large punch loud enough to make Bumblebee and Starscream flinch. The three of them began to grapple and wrestle with each other as Starscream steered Bumblebee away from the fight and continued to speak to the scout.
"You were right to kill Skyquake, you just did so in the wrong way. I…" Starscream took a deep vent.
Red and horned and smiling for the last time—
He continued. "I was wrong to kill Cliffjumper and I did so in the wrong way. I was quick about it, but… he was not at peace when he died. It was painful. I understand precisely what you are going through. You killed Skyquake the wrong way, but never doubt that his death was necessary whereas Cliffjumper's wasn't. You can console yourself by telling yourself that. Don't you get that?" Starscream offlined his optics and envisioned Cliffjumper. "You're a much better mech than I am."
"And you're a much better mech than Megatron," Bumblebee finished. He offlined his optics as he let his regret finally spill out and into his field. Starscream nearly balked at the sheer intensity of it but remained on his pedes.
"See?" Starscream laughed weakly. "Megatron doesn't feel regret! He just doesn't. You kill bots only in order to stop them from killing other bots and living things. Megatron kills bots just because he likes killing and killing and killing."
Ratchet laughed from across the room as he used his newfound strength to ram into Megatron again. "Somebody better get me a defibrillator because Megatron needs a shock to his systems! Hooooah!"
"Oh, stop already!" Arcee groaned as she dodged a swipe of Megatron's sword.
Bumblebee let out a weak laugh of his own. "Does… does he really regret nothing?"
Starscream sighed as the fight raged on behind them. "Mhmm, there are a few things here and there he feels some remorse for. But he only ever feels regret for passing up opportunities to cause more pain. So unless you get high on dark energon or strap yourself up with a fusion cannon, then I suppose you have nothing to worry about. Why is your official title still just 'scout'? You've proven yourself a worthy warrior time and time again."
"I just…" Bumblebee shrugged. "I never felt ready for it. I figured, 'only a good Autobot who isn't brutal deserves to get the title of warrior, and I horrifically killed Skyquake, and no good Autobot warrior would ever do that,' so that's how I justified not giving myself the time."
"You're ready for it," Starscream nodded. "You really really are."
Bumblebee laughed wetly as Megatron roared off in the distance. "Is it bad that I still don't want it even after our talk just now? I'm scared to accept it."
Starscream snorted. "Accept the title whenever you're ready. Just know that you are worthy of it and can claim it anytime you please."
"If only you could follow your own advice!"
Starscream tilted his helm. "Eh, what?"
"You continue to insist that you're not a worthy Autobot, yet you've proven that you are worthy of the title and can claim it anytime you please."
"Oh, frag. I hate it when you turn the tables on me like that."
"You gave good advice! Huh. In fact, you sound like…" Bumblebee trailed off as Ratchet chucked Megatron into a distant wall.
"A mess? Oh, I know!" Starscream scoffed.
"Like Optimus," Ratchet broke in suddenly. He glanced back and forth between the two mechs before he cleared his intake and let his gaze settle on the frozen Seeker. "Just like him."
Megatron stood at the other end of the room, his vents heavy and labored and his optics wide and bright. "Fool!"
Bumblebee marched over to the console switch, kicked the drone off of it, and slammed down on the switch. The entire room began to rumble and shake so hard that it forced everybody down to their knees. Bumblebee glared at Megatron all the while as everything shook around them.
"I am absolutely nothing like you. I see that now. Go back to the crater you came out of."
The emergency lights flared red as the three Autobots ran out the door and left Megatron behind. Megatron lunged after Bumblebee right as the scout reached down and picked up the jagged piece of metal Megatron had torn out of the wall from earlier.
"Optimus stole away what matters to me so now I will steal away what matters to him—"
Bumblebee slashed at Megatron's abdomen with the shard of metal and let it clang and fall to the shaky floor as Megatron fell to his knees. He stared down at the slashes in his chestplate and the deep slash in his abdomen with raw shock.
"Goodbye, Megatron." He turned and ran after the rest of the team into the tunnels as the reactor's meltdown got worse.
They all ran outside and squinted at the bright light of the distant Earth and sun. The moon shook and rumbled stronger than ever before. Massive waves reared up from the synth-en sea in large swells and crashed and frothed in a cacophony of noise and synth-en.
A large wave slammed into Starscream and he coughed the synth out of his intake. No, no, he could not afford to ingest anymore synth-en ever again, especially not now.
Another wave came right at him and he braced himself—
Somebody threw their frame between him and the synth-en wave and lessened the blow of it against him. He rubbed the green liquid out of his optics and squinted over at who had shielded him. Bulkhead, most likely, or perhaps even Bumblebee.
He blinked the last of the synth away and looked right into the green optics of Ratchet.
"Um?" Ratchet grumbled awkwardly. "I did not jump to defend you. Or anything like that. I just..."
"Thank you," Starscream said. "Thank you, again."
Ratchet's intake opened and closed. He snapped it shut and then settled with a nod as they ran along. "All we need to do is comm Optimus—"
"And then get the heck out of Dodge?" Bulkhead shouted from behind.
Ratchet scowled. "Yes, yes, whatever—"
The ground exploded near them in a shower of rocks and synth. A shape rose up from the green liquidy mass and smoothly glided to the surface. Soundwave emerged from a hidden tunnel, his frame completely green and his single exposed optic completely narrowed.
"No, frag, no, shoo!" Ratchet waved his servos at Soundwave. "Just slink off!"
"HE'S COMING," Soundwave intoned. His voice was flat but his field was just as wild as the turbulent sea around them.
The reactor shined white-hot as it melted down into pure slag and into the sea. The synth-en evaporated rapidly. It whisked off into the sky in the form of giant green cumulus clouds that loomed up like mountains as they floated off and were sucked into the high void of space.
Soundwave's red optic glowed brightly amongst the green smog as it began to cover everything. "HE. IS. COMING."
The synth clouds rolled in around them and completely obscured their view of the surrounding plains, the lab, and even the Earth itself. Starscream watched the Earth shine brightly one last time before it vanished behind a cloud of synth.
Megatron's distant roar echoed in the fog. "Where did they go? Where did he go?!"
"Why are you warning us?" Arcee scowled at Soundwave.
"I AM NOT WARNING YOU. I AM WARNING MYSELF," Soundwave said. His normally still and emotionless voice wavered slightly as he turned and began to walk away.
"Soundwave, you wretch! You should have stopped them! You will pay for this!"
Megatron's sharp silhouette appeared amidst the green fog, his optics red and bright like searchlights as he scanned the clouds for any sign of his enemies.
"Bridge!" Bumblebee trilled. "I'll comm Optimus!"
"No," Ratchet shouted suddenly.
"What?!" Starscream squawked. "Now is not the time to sight-see, now is the time to see to our rapid departure!"
"Look," Ratchet gasped as he tightly gripped Starscream's upper arm and pointed at something with a shaky servo.
Starscream looked at whatever had caught Ratchet's attention. His spark sank.
Megatron stomped forward with one last vial of synth-en clutched in his talon. He gripped onto it so tightly that the tips of his digits pierced the glass and made small spiderwebs of cracks spread across its smooth surface.
"Flee, flee all you want you fools. The moment you leave I will rebuild my synth-en stronger and faster than ever before! Soon the pathetic fleshlings of Earth will look up and behold a green moon."
"He has one last sample?!" Arcee hissed.
"He'll just rebuild the entire lab with it. We need to destroy it!" Bulkhead nodded as he punched his fist into his other servo. "Uh, Star?"
Starscream stood there and shook silently as he keeps his vents tightly shut. If he opened them just the slightest bit, the slightest hint, the synth-en would flood into him and—and—
Ratchet placed his servos on his shaky pauldrons. "Do not let the synth-en enter you. We will take care of this."
"None of you are a match for Megatron," Starscream whined. "He'll destroy you, you all only just managed to barely hold him off back there!"
Ratchet rose up to his full height and frowned. "We have to try."
The Autobots minus Starscream all turned around and charged at Megatron as Starscream fell to his knees amongst the green smog. He just sat there and watched as the fight began, green fog everywhere, blaster bolts bright in the air, Megatron's sword bright and deadly—
The fog shifted as if it wanted to flee. He looked behind him and up at the distant and silent silhouette of Soundwave.
"Stop this! You know they'll fail to stop him and you know that he'll rebuild the synth sea and make it bigger and worse than before if that vial does not get destroyed."
Soundwave's distant figure began to shake as his cables rose up around him. He stalked forward to Megatron and stood between the fight and Starscream.
Megatron laughed in glee as he held the vial of synth up above the Autobot's grasps. Soundwave reached out with a cable—
And smacked Starscream with it. He tumbled down the rim of a deep crater and slid into the dark green foggy depths below. The last thing he saw was Soundwave's wide red optic locked right onto him.
Starscream opened his vents in his panic and breathed in a ventful of the synth-en.
Everything went green.
