Did an oopsie. Oopsies are good, though, right? Right?


20 Vorns Previously.

The strange feelings began.

It wasn't long after the incident. He'd made his way back to his home and laid down, hoping all this would just go away. The memory remained stubbornly and replayed in his mind over and over again. After hours of lying there he started to feel different. He couldn't explain how different, just different. He drifted into a light recharge which soon became a deep one. This recharge was nothing like any recharge before, because as he slept, his mind, body and soul were being consumed, and all it took was this one sleep for it to happen.

Just as abruptly as he'd gone into recharge, he woke back up, only hours had passed and he didn't feel right at all. He had a killer headache and his spark chamber felt like it was on fire. Every single joint and servo in his body ached as if he'd crash landed really hard. He considered seeing Hook, as maybe the blast from the space bridge hurt him more than he thought. Groggily, he sat up. As he did, he felt extreme dizziness – so bad he almost fell off the berth. Holding on as his world spun, he took a moment to collect himself. He turned to stand, trying to shake off the ugly feeling that hounded him as he looked for the time. It was nowhere near the time he needed to be awake and he sat back down, realizing in that moment he was extremely weak and tired and more sleep would probably do a world of good. Giving the feelings time to calm and possibly go away, Starscream laid back down. He ended up going back to sleep, but the feelings never completely disappeared.

He didn't wake again until a nightmare snapped him awake. That smoke. That eerie smoke. Looking for the time, the seeker sat up, noticing that he felt a little better. The fiery sensation in him was gone, but the headache and dizziness remained.

He knew he had to see Megatron. He was supposed to bring him evidence of the space bridge functioning, but obviously that idea was scrapped. Instead, he would bring him a piece of it that he'd taken with him. He was fairly sure he would be in trouble for blowing it up, too.

When he explained what happened with the space bridge, Megatron wasn't as angry as he thought he'd be. He demanded he build a new one and continue where he'd gotten blown up. Starscream was leery of the idea, as what happened with the last one scared the slag out of him.

As he went to a lab and gathered items, he still had that headache. Wandering through the base, looking for items he would need throughout the day, he became fidgety and he wasn't entirely sure why, especially when others came near him. It was an agitation he couldn't explain, and there was a smell. What had all these mechs gotten into to smell like that? Everyone who came near him smelled like that.

"What is that?" he asked a random mech.

"What is what?"

"That smell," Starscream replied. It was almost pleasant but had a bitter undertone to it. "What did you all get into?"

The mech gave him a funny look, "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"You don't smell that?"

"No," the mech replied, going on with his own business.

As the day continued on, he found himself feeling something – almost akin to hunger. This sensation alien to himself, since when requiring energon, it didn't feel like this, yet he somehow knew it was a crave. The longer he tried to ignore it, the more persistent it became. Time went on and concerned, he'd privately asked the medic about it, but the medic told him not to worry about it and whatever it was would pass, but it did not. He'd probably end up telling him it was a virus.

By the end of the joor, Starscream knewsomething was obviously terribly wrong. He stood, staring toward the desk where parts for the new space bridge resided. He leaned forward, trying to understand. He couldn't. Was it because of that 'dream'? The sensations weren't getting any better. The smells were much more defined. Having lost his confidence in the medics after several visits, he began to simply ignore it and the subtle changes. This gave little relief and he soon found himself in pain beginning in his chest and soon throughout his body. His problems only worsened when the urges began. They were odd ones too. Urges for sustenance that did not come from seeking energon. It went on for days like this. Sometimes the pain would be so unbearable the seeker would curl up tightly and whimper to himself. Skywarp and Thundercracker told him to see a medic, but he refused, telling them that the medics had no idea what was wrong with him. They were concerned for him the more they found him like this. He hadn't told them about his dream, either.

Strangely enough, a new symptom arose. It happened when he spoke to others. His optics constantly went to their chest from a distracting small blue light that persistently stayed. It intrigued him because with different mechs, came different colors or brightness of lights. He also found those smells were different with different colors. Odd as it seemed, it was as if he could smell their very strange… It's not like sparks had a scent! He didn't notice his watching, but others did. It was as if his optics just wouldn't stay with theirs. They would drift down. From their point of view, it was that Starscream just didn't want to look them in the optic – strange, but not unusual of him, so it was passed off as nothing.

Lying awake one night, he thought about all these new sensations. The one sensation was definitely a hunger. But for what? It obviously wasn't energon. It was so frustrating! Flipping to his side, he thought about the now irresistible colors and the smells that went with them. It was a smell that drew him, and he had to make a conscious effort to not go for it. Why the pit were others' sparks glowing? Why wasn't his? And the smell that correlated with the colors. The whiter the color, the stronger the scent. He thought about asking Hook about smelling sparks, but was pretty sure Hook would call him crazy and send him on his way.


It was the irresistible scent of exposed Spark Energy that triggered him andfinally, he'd snapped. A fight had broken out and the one who'd lost the fight had taken to an alley where Starscream happened to have been. The mech had been stabbed in the chest, right where his spark was. Starscream hadn't been hiding at the time, he'd been wandering, trying to figure out what was wrong.

Starscream had no control over himself and what happened next, and since the lights were dim to begin with, no one saw the drastic change. Overcome by whatever was building, Starscream's optics had fallen on the mech. The scent and color hit him like a hot wind and he blacked out. Only, he didn't actually black out. He savagely attacked the bleeding mech, tearing at him, ripping at him until his Spark casing had cracked, and that was when he'd found it. Starscream was out of his mind. He stared hungrily at the dying Spark and he reached down and touched it. His hand contracted and something very weird happened. His optics changed drastically, and a look crossed his features of pure malice. From there he proceeded to bring the spark casing to his face and sucked all of the energy out of it.

Afterward, he came to his senses, wondering what had happened. The last he knew, he was in the alley with a mech, one that was obviously in need of a medic. He glanced around quickly, but his attention was soon brought on himself. Looking down at his chest, he saw energon spattered over him. He lifted a hand and looked at it. This energon was fresh. Frightened by it, he leaned to look down the alley for clues and that was when he saw what appeared to be the mech in a puddle of energon. He made his way to the body, feeling like he'd been hit by a starship. The closer he got, the more horrified he'd become by what he saw. There was just something wrong with how this mech looked. It was obvious he was dead, but it was nothing short of disgusting on how he'd been killed. His body was torn by what seemed to be some feral creature. His chest looked as though it had been the target of the attack. Oddly enough, the spark casing was completely removed from the body, lying further away.

Without warning, as Starscream glanced over him, he got flashes of memory, showing him what had happened to the mech. He had killed the mech. It took him a moment to grasp what he'd done, he broke down with confusion and horror. Quickly backing away and looking around himself with paranoia, he wondered… Did anyone see this? He panicked, shuffling to his feet, he took off. As fast as he could and as far as he could, he flew, wondering what he was going to do.

He'd made his way to the outskirts of the Decepticon territory, where he knew no one often went. The mech rested, slunk against a rock wall, happy to be away from where body of the mech he'd killed lay. The mech looked to this his hands once again. What washappening to him? He was well aware that the mechs he'd met were no dream and that mech had done something to him. Something terrifying.

He quickly got to his feet, stumbling over his own fear of what he had become. He had to find a way out of this!


Until next time...