Divergence

Chapter 1

"Seeker of Asylum"


Sharp pains.

Not physically, not anymore. Knock Out had seen to that, sobered and quiet. Possibly angry, his silence a harbinger of checked temper. Of course, the medic who'd had his dirty secrets involuntarily outed by the Seeker's memories would be angry with him. He deserved it, didn't he?

The Seeker shuddered and tried to arrange his wings more comfortably against the berth. Echoes of both numbness and outrage filled him as memories of the earlier interrogation rocketed around inside his brain. Outrage scattered and leaderless, directed every which way—some at Autobots, some at Knock Out, some at circumstances, but most of all at himself. Everything had been his fault; he was to blame, he had done it to himself.

Hadn't he?

But the trouble was, though his spark was self-deprecating, his mind knew there was one party he was leaving suspiciously blameless. Megatron.

His optics squeezed shut several times tight enough to send dizzying flares of phantom light across his vision when he reopened them. Cortical psychic patches had never been used this way before, to his knowledge. Soundwave had used his quick, rudimentary, and non-intrusive method to sneak a look into the memories of the unconscious before—as befit an expert in the extremes of espionage—but this was new. This reminded him of horror stories the vehicon soldiers whispered to each other. Stories about dark chambers for torture and "reeducation sessions" when clones and non-clones alike were individualistic or rebellious. Considering the rumors were centered on Shockwave Starscream found them plausible. But Megatron did not delve into matters of the mind, not since the war began. It was jarring to think he'd thrust himself inside Starscream's head to tell him he was a failure, a traitor, and nearing the end of his pitiful usefulness. Taking over the Decepticons from within had been an ambitious goal that he had always aimed for, though once Dark Energon became involved most of the faction's focus had been lost and the battles were little more than resource-centric, rabid scuffles. His focus, too, had been lost with the pull of the substance.

Unicron was suppressed for the time, and so his Blood's influence quieted. Starscream had now just one dark voice to contend with. One that Megatron's mental flogging had made louder.

The Seeker snarled, sitting stark upright, flinging aside a thermal cover. Those had become necessary and not just because of Megatron's orders that heating should be kept to minimum standards. He felt unnaturally cold. He stalked to the computer terminal, shivering. Once he managed to keep his talons steady enough he began to maneuver through his files.

His sigh blasted the dust that had gathered in his absence into a small cloud; there was a lot of data here. His cranial unit wasn't fit to hold onto them reliably right now. Besides, he had a wall of terror to climb over before he felt ready to do what he was now scheming.

There was no mistaking what Megatron had done. After centuries he was ready to admit it. It was abuse. It was mindflaying. Forcible indoctrination through horrendous means. Attacking by way of the self-esteem; the humans called the sinister tactic "gaslighting". Among other things.

He readied the brachial data unit in his left hand, sliding one of the outer plates of his right arm back and revealing darker, more elastic substances crawling with red-glowing neural circuits. Two brackets flipped out, prepared to accept this unit. Everything he'd learned about the Decepticon's resource net, capabilities, and tactics since he'd entered into the organization—hidden on this tiny black rectangle, tucked inside an unsuspicious spot on his forearm. Including the codes to all of the Nemesis's storage vaults where the all-important keys were kept. Grim-faced, he snapped the plating back into place. The peace offering had failed to make peace here, on the cruel Decepticon master—perhaps it would work better on the more reasonable Autobots on Earth.

Would it be enough? That was the real question. As much as he'd done damage to the Decepticons through double-agent work, he'd done as much to the Autobot cause. Perhaps more, despite his original scheme to strike an early deal with those very same mechs. Like most plans, it had fallen through. Maybe only partially; if this data was enough to buy his survival.


The soldier on sentry duty on the Nemesis's flight deck did not question him at any point that morning. Starscream had worked on keeping a low, sour mood specifically so he would be unapproachable. The cloud cover was heavy and great mists of it sloughed across the top deck in cold, damp sprays. Distantly beneath them thunder snarled. Not conditions that any flight-capable mech would fancy cruising into. He allowed himself a grim smirk; not conditions that he could be easily followed in.

"Open the deck shield," he grumbled to the bot operating the flight deck controls. The mech nodded and flicked up two switches in succession. A safety notice blared up yellow, then blue and then white as one of the outer plates slid upwards and allowed the cold rush of rain in. The vehicon shielded his visor.

"All yours, Sir," the soldier fidgeted, casting an unsure glance towards the ugly skies before adding, "Er, at what time should Lord Megatron expect you back, Commander?"

"Mmh. 1300," he cracked his neck servos, priming his new t-cog with a few gentle revs as he strode to the edge of the ship. "If I'm not back by then, well… officer's MIA procedure."

After a few stretches popping his joints he stepped clear of the Nemesis. His heel strut met one of the wing-based stabilizers and he folded downward, long legs coiled up and spring-like. The Seeker made a fluid leap with the built-up energy, launching himself into the storm. And as his legs began to flip forward again he concentrated—a dulled whirring and mechanical shifting almost drowned out by the rain and thunder—each body zone lifted, angled, shifted apart on its axis and formed back together with armor plates extending to form the disguise—F-16, or "Fighting Falcon", the earliest sleek Earth jet alternate that he'd found truly suitable.

His nose was still pointed downward as his wings finally shifted forward and locked into position. In a steep dive, Starscream ignored his vision to some degree. Electromagnetic sensitivity, sound, and vibration were much more important tools here. A crackle, a ripple in his internal radar, heralded the formation of another lightning zone on his right; he swept by it, seconds before the power released itself down at another charged zone. The thunderheads passed their electrons back and forth in a raucous game of catch, each arc of searing heat and potentially lethal amperage missing the jet Flier by a few meters. Starscream was silent. He neither celebrated his survival nor grunted in the exertion it required. This was not something Seekers did for sport, and his headspace had to remain locked on task, especially with the memory of his troubles always threatening to knock him out of the sky like a lightning bolt.

The outer zones of the storm rushed up to meet him. Here the moisture whipping by was lessened, the lightning more sporadic. To the west the sky began to clear, fat grey clouds separating in wisps and cut into manageable chunks by wind and sun. He picked up speed, engine components whirring and his ventilation increasing to meet the cooling demands. Starscream was not a young mech, and his time on Earth had been especially detrimental to his health. He felt lucky that Knock Out had kept his anger contained enough to perform the T-cog implantation and hard reboot with professionalism; it had seemed like something the Velocitronian was capable of if he felt truly wronged—skimping on some necessary fluid pressure check in the hopes his patient got a nasty surprise later on. But then, he'd never done much to the doctor that would settle him fully into the category of "enemy". Not until today. A sigh made it into his venting cycles—the somewhat fragile rapport needed to be sacrificed. For now. And nothing was worth being connected to and brainwashed by an unrelenting bully like Megatron.

The sky was calm here, behind the storm. Crisp diamonds of sunlight sparked across the waters of a winding river below him, some 16,000 feet away. He could make out the desert mountains in the distance, darkened and hazy after experiencing their first drenching of the summer. Everything looked softer than usual—no rough dry heat, organic sessile organisms beginning to regrow and flower and colonize new soil.

Now he could start to relax; not completely, but somewhat. The electrical interference would keep his current "allies" from being able to track or sense him for a while, and now he had a precious window in which to seek out the others.

He took a quick scan around the landscape and banked sharply south. From where he flew now he only had a short way to go before he reached Jasper, Nevada.

It would be the quickest way to catch the Autobots' attention, though he knew with gritted denta that this would be touch-and-go. Their small, fragile allies inspired an instantaneous, protective response in them. Though he hoped whoever he encountered first would ask questions before shooting.

Far below and away, Jasper was waking up. Raf, still being a very young boy, did so later than most humans. He was an oddity among his peers since he was stretching and rubbing sleep from his eyes at ten in the morning… on a Saturday. And he hadn't even done it for the cartoons—being around one of his closest friends for a whole day beat cartoons by miles and miles. Bleary-eyed, he waited by an inconspicuous cul-de-sac close to home, sitting on a bench on the sidewalk with DS in hand. Modified DS—it should be noted that the tiny, normally limited device was powerful enough to play big console and PC titles with hardly a chuff, which he was doing as he waited for the sporty yellow car to cruise by.

The distant sound of a circling jet keeping just barely subsonic made him perk up. The sound faded for a moment before rumbling back to full volume. Yes, it was definitely circling the town. Not unusual behavior for a U.S. fighter pilot undergoing training, but a bit odd for its closeness to Jasper. He saved his game and activated a different part of his heavily decked-out game console; a dark coding screen took his commands and brightened up into a complex display overlaid on a topographical map. A little small, but helpful. Various gray bleeps popped up briefly before being dismissed by the programming he'd laid down. Raf ignored them—those were signals likely to be ordinary, non-living machines. Something showed up blue for a moment on the edges of its range, flickering grey as the machine's sensors struggled to determine what the signal was. The boy squinted, leaned into the display, and toggled the d-pad in a few precise flicks. The screen tracked the odd dot for a few seconds.

Three things happened at once:

First, the indecisive signal blazed up an alarming red color, triggering a quick series of warning bleeps from the DS.

Then the jet noise roared to a greater intensity than ever; the red dot zoomed right towards where Raf was sat on the map.

And third, as the child put it all together that something very not ordinary and most likely not friendly was heading straight at him, Raf let out a squeak of fright.

At the same moment, Starscream slowed to the most ponderous crawl he could while remaining mobile, seeking the source of the strange, Cybertronian-aided tech that had been pinging off big, obvious EM signals. Certainly human—a Cybertronian would have known to have the signals encoded or shielded. He peered down the last few thousand feet to the ground into an opening in stately neighborhood trees, spotting a spiky, reddish head on a small figure and knowing instantly who it was. He swept up and turned sharply back on himself, making ready to stall out right in the gap and land before the youngster could get away.

Raf flinched from the heavy breeze striking him in the wake of the fighter jet passing so close overhead. He heard the warble of it banking and screaming back towards him and jumped up from the bench, clinging to the radar for dear life and making a frantic leg for the nearest tree. At least this way he wouldn't be landed on. He threw himself behind the trunk and panted for breath, edging the DS back into view and checking to make sure it hadn't broken.

The tell-tale whirring of a transformer shifting into their true, bipedal form made him hold his breath. A heavy thud rattled through the ground as the giant alien mech landed with great force. The boy hoped the keys were silent as he tapped the d-pad in code to send an emergency message to the Autobot base… and he hoped he wouldn't be in trouble later. He wasn't supposed to have that kind of capability on anything but his cell phone, but as heavy clanking footfalls began to shake the ground closer to him he put aside those thoughts. As it seemed now, there may not be a "later" for him to worry about.

Starscream touched down and immediately caused a spiderweb of shatter lines to spring out from under his toes. He huffed sharply, glancing around with a cold, grim focus. The boy had hidden, but hadn't had time to hide well—adding to the fact that the humans tended to forget that Cybertronians had a strong olfactory sense, plus Raf's be-sneakered feet were easy to distinguish popping out from behind the base of a tree. He stalked over, claws gripping the trunk as he loomed over the trembling kid. He debated softening his approach, but ultimately decided he did not care so much about alleviating the boy's terror as he did about making sure he was met by Autobots before his disappearance was noted.

"E-eep!" Raf felt the hot reddish glare on his back before he looked up and found the Seeker's optics. He flipped over, clutching a small device. Scream's gaze flicked to it, then back to the boy's widened eyes. A talon jabbed towards the DS.

"You will call the Autobots and tell them to come here," he growled. Raf trembled against the ground. He stammered a moment, swallowing against a dry throat before forcing a fear-induced smile.

"I-I, uh, already…" The Seeker's brow raised slightly, surprised—and impressed.

"You've already alerted them." His mouthplate twitched with a brief smirk, a look that appeared somewhat cruel given his advantageous position. Were he in another state of mind he might have grabbed the child up and held him hostage. But now he did not care about that. Survival was always a plus, but he was so numb he did not bother to ensure his own as he would in the past. He knew what could happen, and perhaps it would be more likely now that he'd menaced their human companion. What was worse is, with a sinking cold in his chest, he knew they would not be completely wrong for shooting him on sight.

"Stay where you are," he warned, stepping back with optics narrowing, releasing his claws' grip on the tree trunk in a shower of small bark pieces. "I will be very upset if you try to run."

Raf panted, sitting up with a deeply puzzled look on his face still pale with fear. Why hadn't Starscream grabbed him, or attacked him? He didn't dare move yet. Even just a child, confronted with this towering clawed menace in his own neighborhood, he tried to breathe deeply and run through his options. The Autobots were already on their way to respond to his distress signal; the Seeker had for reasons unknown given him a personal bubble; he still had his tech. Bumblebee would probably show up first. A horrible thought struck him: Bumblebee had likely left the base already, long before his distress signal had been sent. When Bee arrived, would he be ready for the danger that was pacing in dull metallic footsteps across the asphalt?

The DS bleeped. Starscream peered back over his shoulder in a squint at the noise. Autobots' responding to the boy's call for help? Raf cringed and half-hid the little device, waiting until the massive bot turned back towards the road before sneaking a peek.

Along the main road, just blocks from the turn-off into the cul-de-sac, was a bright yellow dot. The bright yellow dot he'd specifically programmed to stand in for Bee, and the child let out a shudder as he noted the relaxed, cruising speed his guardian was approaching at. Bee didn't know yet—otherwise he would surely be shrieking down the blacktop and shattering every known speed limit to help him.

The Seeker growled softly to himself, cocking his head towards a hillside as he caught on to the sounds of an approaching engine. He cared very little at this point about being witnessed by human eyes; it would be easy to frighten bystanders off anyhow. He did worry that if the rest of the Autobots' little fleshling friends were arriving it would up the challenge of having the mechs who responded listen to him. As the vehicle in question rounded the hillside the noise increased. Starscream's optics widened in recognition; the yellow scout—the youngest one and the one who always was with this Raf boy.

The sporty yellow car jolted to a sudden, surprised halt. Tire screech and a harsh, Cybertronian curse in code melded together. Seconds later Bumblebee had flipped upright and aimed his cannons dead-center on the oddly-apathetic Seeker's chestplate.

"Just one of you?" The silver jet gave a low snort, brows dropping into an even deeper scowl than normal. He eyed the cannons' fully charged lights in an eerie stare. "I'm shocked."

Bumblebee shook off his unease, jabbing the cannons forward and demanding to know what the Decepticon had done with Raf.

"Unless he has fled by now, you should be able to find him there," A single talon flicked towards the shade tree nearest the bench. "Go on. I'll wait."

The mute mech's optics whirred and dilated sharply. He fixed the Seeker with a suspicious glare, keeping his cannons locked as he stepped around Starscream to where Raf was crouching. The boy was, though reservedly with the Seeker so close by, overjoyed to have his giant companion here to protect him.

"I-I'm okay, really, Bee!" Raf had to pipe up to be heard over the frantic beeping as the mech hovered over him. "I don't know why he's here, but he just showed up a few minutes ago. H-he made me call base."

Bee glared in the direction of the jet's back, chirping something low. Raf patted the edge of the Autobot's ped.

"No… other than freaking me out he didn't hurt me." Raf blinked sharply, "Or anyone else… I think."

"Are the two of you done?"

Energon cannons clicked and refocused their aim, a sharp blaat of warning coming from Bee as the Seeker turned to face them again. Starscream ignored the curse; it did not matter now, and besides, what Bumblebee had called him was very accurate to his recent history.

"Well, I was hoping to have attracted the attention of at least the usual compliment…" The jet stalked a step closer, one arm tucked behind his back, under the lower attachment of his wings, and the other gesturing outwards. At where he would have imagined several more Autobots surrounding him with guns, swords, and other weapons drawn. "But I suppose alone you're more than capable of giving me what I came for."

Bee muttered in muffled code for Raf to step back. As the boy scuttled back a safe distance and hid partway behind a larger tree Bumblebee focused fully on the 'Con stepping towards the barrel of his cannons. He then asked (or rather, demanded) what it was 'Scream came for.

"I came to offer something valuable to the Autobot cause." His trademark, slippery smirk reappeared, "And detrimental to the Decepticon plan of conquest."

Bee could not help but snarl, which his unprocessed voice let out in the form of a bestial churrl. He squinted and wondered out loud how someone like Starscream could ever decide to give up something like that without some string attached.

Starscream smiled. It was not a happy smile, or a gloating smile, but a half-sneering, broken one. It set Bee's circuits on end and put him off-balance.

"You're a smart youngster." He laughed, shaking his head and sliding his other arm behind his back, clasping wrists. "There is another condition to this offer. Though I don't think you or your comrades will object strongly to it."

Bee rolled his optics and begged to differ. After the stunt with the Omega Keys, nothing Starscream would want to wheedle out of them could possibly be so easy to accept—

"I surrender."

"What?" Raf, from his hiding spot, echoed the English word Bee's burst of code translated to. Starscream blinked, almost lazily.

"I submit myself to whatever term of imprisonment or punishment you Autobots have to offer," he elaborated. Bumblebee took a shocked step backwards as the blank-faced mech thrust his paired wrists forward, ready to accept a set of energon cuffs.

The yellow bot blinked in a rapid flurry, cannons going slack for a moment before straightening up and growing more suspicious. No, Starscream didn't surrender without a fight. Starscream, the most notoriously wily Air Commander of the Autobot-Decepticon War, slippery enough to evade capture and vigilante attackers for millennia, and a fierce enough warrior to hold his own in a field of heftier, more heavily-equipped 'Bots—he was not a figure who would give himself up. Rumors and jabs from the youngest and rowdiest Autobot recruits be damned, Bee knew better that Starscream could take him on in single combat and through sheer skill and experience was likely to win. His intakes hissed faster with nerves; this didn't make sense. The Seeker Commander was in full health again, fully armed and not at all helpless. He shouldn't be giving up and especially not to a lone neophyte like him!

"No cuffs, hm." Starscream's head tilted, he chewed at his lower mouthplate in a watered-down disappointment. "No matter. I'm docile enough. I can wait for your backup to restrain me and be no trouble."

The youngster scoffed, finding the idea of Starscream being "no trouble" laughable at best. And an insult to him at worst—did the Seeker think he was so gullible?

"I don't require your trust, kid." Starscream growled, optics half-shuttering, "Nor do I expect it. Watch me as closely as you like until your backup arrives."

"Umm…" Raf peered out from behind a tree far behind his protector, puzzlement twisting his young face at the morose confidence of the 'Con. Bee's energon cannons had a sporadic shake to them, and Raf winced; he was nervous. More nervous than even the mostly-helpless child. He could do nothing about it—which only magnified the helpless sink.

Until a soft warning bleep tugged his gaze down to the DS in his hands. A Groundbridge indicator. Backup was seconds away.

Bumblebee solidified his stance and kept cannons at the ready as the turquoise rift swirled open not ten meters behind the Seeker. Starscream, senses dulled, blinked and began to turn slowly to face whomever was exiting the Groundbridge first.

CHANK..! A mighty impact from a swift blue blur took him down, flank first, which whiplashed his heavy chest and shoulders into the cracked asphalt shortly after. The air had been kicked straight out of him; the first thing he managed from his splayed position was a harsh wheeze. More footfalls, heavier ones, missed his dizzied notice as two others issued from the portal less speedily.

"Stay exactly where you are," a cold voice. Starscream flinched. He'd recognized that mech by the agonizing point of her toe digit slamming into him already. Straining his vision one optic could barely make out the glow of Arcee's guns pressed up close to his helm. "Because if you don't I will be happy to use this."

"Oh, I believe it…" he muttered, trying to stifle a cough and groan and failing. That he hadn't meant to happen. Capture, yes, of course. Battery beforehand, no. Though he could not summon the will to do much more than glare in her general direction; retaliation was certainly not something he deserved to consider anymore. Especially not to her.

"You alright, Bee?" Ratchet's voice, replied to with the yellow mech's shaky code. "What about Raf?"

"R-Raf's—er, well, I'm okay!" The boy piped up, stepping further from behind the shade tree. Ratchet's armor joints audibly loosened, though he refused to let that relief carry into his voice.

"Thank Primus." The Seeker on the ground caught the medic shooting him a steely look as he murmured further, "I was really dreading all the lost limbs this summons might involve… Either you're getting rusty or you've got something up your brachial compartments."

"Both are—urrk!"

Starscream had been going to rasp out "Both are partially true," in reference to being taken off guard so easily and his data offering hidden exactly where Ratchet had unknowingly pinpointed. He'd been interrupted by Arcee's rage. More directly, her ped smashing against his faceplate.

"Arcee..!" The third backup mech uttered the surprised gasp. Bulkhead, though armed with maces currently, was staring at the smaller scout. His optics flicked to the small spatter of energon on her shin plating.

The source of that blue blood trickled down from the border of Scream's left optic. He took a shuddering intake, the physical pain dragging out the demons a little further. His glare fell; he found he just couldn't struggle. No, why should he? He very much deserved this. From her it would be appropriate—

Justice, some might call it.

"Take it easy—what are you doing?" Ratchet's tone was as mystified as Bulkhead's though with an added note of fury. One servo gripped her shoulder housing and tugged her a bit further from the sitting target, "There's no need now that he's down."

"Just a little insurance," Ice. Complete ice as she relented, stepping back as the medic bade her. "I know he was going to pull something. Let's see him try it now."

Bee's optics had widened. If Arcee had accomplished anything, it was completely distracting the youngest of the team—startling him into silence. It had not been that long ago since he had caught her amid exacting a bloody revenge on Scream, and the scene here was hauntingly familiar. Hadn't she learned from that day? Hadn't she at least listened to Optimus?

"I-I think we should leave grudges for later, 'Cee," Bulkhead stammered, plodding a few steps forward to complete the ring of mechs surrounding the subdued Seeker. Starscream's optics rolled slowly towards the maces hovering overhead. The blank look made the big bot uneasy, but he pressed forward. "So just what were you up to, Screamers?"

He coughed as he tried to form the first words. Bulkhead tried hard not to look at the pale droplets of energon it had left on the ground. He tried once more, finding a weedy-thin and even raspier form of his voice:

"I was just… surrendering to your… first responder here." Starscream heaved a deep intake, finally clearing all the loose blood Arcee'd knocked into his ventilation systems. "Though in return, I have something else to offer."

"Wait wait wait—what?" Ratchet was the quickest to balk this time, tilting a brow to a dangerous angle. "In return? Offering what in exchange for what?" He stepped around to Bulk's side with a clang, bewilderment and anger both tinging his aged features and causing even the massive green mech to take a step back out of instinct. "Back up a bit! You're not making any sense! What do you actually want?!"

The Seeker blinked. He opened his mouth but shut up as Arcee chimed in with her two cents' worth of suspicion:

"He wants in," her voice made the simple suggestion sound accusatory, which was obviously a tone she meant as she continued. "He wants to infiltrate us, get really friendly and then take everything we can manage to cling onto from us. It's always the same with him. He reeks traitor."

Bumblebee pointed out they had the right and good sense to be skeptical of Starscream, but with a waver of hesitance to his vocal coding he noted they shouldn't jump to conclusions. Arcee scowled deeper.

"Nobody's jumping to conclusions here. He proved it himself over and over," at mention of the mech she jabbed out a spear-like digit. He flinched at the same time Bumblebee's door-winglets sunk down sharply.

"So then… what do you propose we do with him?" Ratchet growled. 'Scream could tell the medic was glaring holes into the back of his head. He turned his gaze back to the ground with a stifled cough.

Arcee paused for a long moment, the hatred seething in her optics making it clear how she really wanted to answer. Bulkhead glanced between Ratchet and the enraged scout, denta clenched.

It was then that Bee asked if any of them had happened to bring handcuffs or restraints. Of course, he neglected to include the more uncomfortable thought that if he didn't intervene soon the others might do something regrettable…

"Got it covered." Bulkhead seemed both pleased and relieved to grab and yank Starscream's wrists forward and clamp a pair of energon cuffs around them. That done, he let the Seeker slump down again, weaponry now restricted and useless. Ratchet grumbled and bit the edge of his lip.

"I'm not bringing him through the Bridge conscious."

Bumblebee shot a wary glance towards Arcee, in case she might decide to "help out" Ratchet by rendering the Decepticon unconscious herself. Thankfully, she seemed content to simmer in place, pistol barrel still tensed and trained on Starscream's torso.

"Before you knock me out," the Seeker murmured, bloodied face turned slightly to the oldest mech, "You need to know that the database I'm offering you is hidden under my interior brachial plate of my left arm."

Ratchet blinked, stopping halfway through priming an injection. How to know the advice was sincere, and what was hidden in the spot genuine. He made a mental note to thoroughly screen the "gift" for viral elements twice over before any decompiling could happen. With a gruff gesture, the medic convinced Starscream to limply outstretch his bound arms, exposing the tubing seams at the elbow for the needle.