Ch. 92

Starscream had his clones stand in a circle so they were all facing each other, his optics looking around warily at each, "Alright," he said slowly, "we'll take this easy and delicately. I'm not sure what we'll uncover..."

"Spiritual transcendence?"

"A vast expansion upon all known and unknown universal secrets?"

"The meaning of life."

Starscream frowned, "Sure, of course, any of those things. My point is is that I'm basically revealing, through way of my own separated life energies, how I... we got here. Back from where we came OR," he emphasized, "or if what happened before was simply a dream that led me-us, led us, to changing things..."

Yellow tapped his chin in thought, "A spark transference..."

Orange crossed his arms, "An extended vision to the future?"

Blue waved his servo lightly, "And the hiccup! We can't ignore that hiccup!"

Starscream nodded. Yes, his little life-saving hiccup. That would be a nice topic of discussion.

"So where should we start?" Green grumbled, "The beginning of all this is where we were confused before."

Starscream nodded, "We start with that. The confusion. When I woke up, I knew who I was. But shortly before that it was as if... almost as if I didn't even know myself."

Red tapped a ped impatiently, "You know what really irks me is the emptiness that ran alongside that. Pushing what you do remember," Starscream shrugged, "and I'm going to use 'you' from now on, since you continued to change slag in our absence, did you connect with any of the visuals and feelings you had leading up to that point?"

Starscream sighed, "I recollect various feelings. Not so much visual as... imagined? Perhaps remembered. But they felt detached, not like mine but someone else's."

Blue nodded, "There was a weightless air to them. Like it didn't matter whose they were and it wasn't for you to burden over anymore."

Starscream made a sad, amused noise, "Yes, that was well and truly dead, wasn't it? And now we're stuck in this Primus awful place..."

"It's not all bad," Yellow smirked, "String a few lights and that'll make it better."

Green nudged him, "Moving on..."

Starscream nodded, "Alright, so I'm admitting to most likely having had a post-death experience with my memories. But does that admit to the spark transference through time or receding back from a dream like state?"

"You know what would have been even remotely helpful?" Orange grumbled, "Delving into either Knockout's or Soundwave's little theory journals on all this."

Blue chuckled, "Like those two could hide the fact that they were theorizing all this from us... Perhaps even Ratchet was culminating his own thoughts on the matter."

Starscream waved a servo, pressing against the side of his helm briefly, "No, ahh... wait, wait, I think Knockout tried to talk to me about it and I told him I didn't give a flying frag. Well, I certainly didn't think I would have to read it over."

Red frowned, "So we start from scratch. Predaking kills you. Then what?"

Starscream thought hard, "... My helm feels hazy. I say 'my helm' and I don't even know if it's actually there. I guess my mind is hazy. I feel like I'm all over the place and then in no direction whatsoever... Then those feelings come up."

"Great, we have progress," Yellow mused, "What is the first thought you have on all this?"

"The first?" Starscream hummed, "... Literally the word 'nothing'."

Yellow chuckled then slowly went quiet. He seemed to be on his own train of thought. Green went to nudge him again then squealed when his arm went through him, Yellow's chassis becoming transparent and immaterial. The rest of the seekers made a similar noise and Starscream gasped, Yellow locking optics with his in worry and horror. The fading seeker yelped as he suddenly disappeared and Starscream went rigid, a loud thought invading his helm.

'Nothing' was exactly what he was supposed to remember because at that moment he was being given a journey of lesson, not remembrance. The memories were indeed his at one time but for his spark it was simply instruction before the next stage of moving on. Yellow seemed to have concluded this. And now, his manifestation was gone.

Starscream trembled lightly as he viewed the rest of his clones around him, speaking firmly yet gently, "Alright... I think I'm beginning to get a sense of what all this is... And each time one of us makes a realization, it will bring us closer to escaping this purgatory..."