Ch. 91

A gasp.

That was what woke him. But he could see nothing.

Starscream gulped quietly. Was he standing? Or floating? He didn't feel cold, so he wasn't in the water- ... Was he dead?

The seeker growled, "Oh, frag it all!" he snarled, pacing in this new, black realm, "I went through all that for this?! To die WAY before my time and leave the universe with a far more deranged Megatron?! Is that what this is?!"

"Well, not exactly what you were hoping for, was it?"

Starscream's wings perked and he spun around, staring into his own frowning face, "What- who are you?!"

His double glared and crossed his arms, "Oh, for Primus' sake, who do you think? To be forgotten so readily after we jumped together?"

Starscream snorted, "Blue? My clone? Is this where you ended up?"

Blue shrugged, still annoyed, and gestured around, "Yes, we all did."

The silver mech looked around and spotted the rest of his clones, looking bored and unenthused about the situation. Starscream sighed.

"So. Now we are all in this purgatory..."

"Ha!" Yellow shouted, "You all may be in here with me, but I choose to ignore this!"

Green frowned, "You can't ignore this! A dark realm where we've been sitting around? Until we figure out how to get out or move on..."

Starscream grumbled, "How did it come to this?"

"Easy," Red scoffed, "we, and I say 'we' because I mean 'you', did too much. You know, collecting the relics and just killing everyone would have been far more ideal."

Starscream glared, "They always won. It never mattered what I did or the Decepticons did, the Autobots always won. And who would I have removed first? The Decepticons? Autobots prepare for their eventual demise. The Autobots? Megatron takes credit then prepares for my attack. There was no other way!"

Orange pecked a servo annoyingly at Yellow, dodging away from a swipe, "You could have left entirely and you know it."

That was true. With the seeker's vast knowledge, he could have recovered plenty of resources and a proper ship to escape Earth all together. He could have abandoned it all. He could have left.

Starscream sighed and shook his helm, "Yes, well... I didn't, did I? And now we are here..."

"You know? The worst part?" Red mused lightly, laying back on an unseen ground with his servos behind his helm, "Megatron."

All the seekers, Starscream included, groaned loudly in annoyance.

"He got so weird!" Blue hissed.

Orange scowled, "He had me around the throat! He touched me! It was horrible!"

"He shot me in the chest plate!"

"Me too!"

"Enough!" Starscream snarled, "Yes, Megatron's gotten a little more ruthlessly possessive-"

"I don't know if we should be flattered at all by MECH's attention," Yellow near giggled, "but it's nice to know they appreciate true Cybertronian biology and creation."

Starscream blinked in amusement, "Well, that is a bit more horrifying than flattering-"

"Miko is such a manipulator," Green smirked, "most of the Autotbots are though, really. It must be easier to get compliments out of them when you're not firing down on them."

Starscream scowled, "I said enough and I meant it! Primus, the lot of you are all over the place..."

"There's a lot to remember," Blue mused, "a lot to think about. You were given a second chance to fix it all and then things spiraled out of control."

The seeker sighed, "True... Is that why we're all here? To simply reflect before moving on?"

Each seeker looked around. Was the answer that simple?

Green laughed loudly, "Nothing is ever that easy! And where do we even begin? Remembering from the start of what? Our creation day? Fat chance, that's so far back..."

Yellow frowned, "No, maybe we should begin at our second beginning?"

"What about at Cliffjumper?" Orange thought allowed.

Starscream huffed, "Not at Cliffjumper... But..." the silver mech rubbed at the back of his helm, staring down at the nonexistent floor into the black void, "Something has been bothering me for a time."

Red hummed lightly, "What this is."

Blue nodded, "What all this is."

Yellow growled, "What is all this?!"

Starscream looked back up, "What this ability, this power is. Perhaps before we reflect on all the poor, and yet mostly heroic, choices I made, we should pull together and figure out what this power truly is..."