Ch. 171
Starscream cursed under his breath and hissed when he clipped the tip of his digit on a small clamp. The view was obscured by his chestplate momentarily, the red Decepticon sigil noticeably dented and scuffed. With a small 'ah ha!' of triumph, the seeker finally pulled back and-
Optimus paused the file. He hurt more seeing that smile, that first smile in the video, than he thought possible. He knew he would see him laugh, find embarrassment and even anger, but that smile...
"Oh, Starscream," the Prime murmured, "I am so sorry..."
Optimus needed to watch the video, no matter how much it hurt. He had to see that confident, reawakened mech, the one who had turned to him in his moments of strength and weakness. He needed to help him. He needed to bring him back. With a final sigh, the Prime started the video again.
-smiled in a smug fashion, leaning back to sit in one of the lab chairs.
"Well, a thought came to me soon after all of this..." his red optics frowned and he looked up, his servo rolling lightly as he tried to find the right word, "... hm, I guess it's just 'all of this', started to happen. So, ah, today is I believe event number..." he scowled and searched the messy desk he was at for a data pad, "I have it logged somewhere..." the mech muttered and huffed when he couldn't find what he was looking for and stopped, shaking his helm, "You know what? Doesn't matter. I'm sure whoever is watching this will get the picture... so... um..." he coughed, "Let's see, I think I might as well get on with this," Starscream shrugged, "no one really believes these things anyway, so I suppose this is more for my records than anyone else... Ah, I just finished collecting the Phase Shifter, so I figured I'd have more than enough time to gather up the last of these relics. That means that the next event I should be worrying about will be this Unicron awakening in a few days," he grimaced and set down a datapad, "You know, I'm really rethinking being a part of that, but it causes so many problems down the line..." he set the pad aside, "just going to clean that up... Um... After that comes... a lot. Maybe I should be making this for someone else and not so much for me? I mean, why leave a message for no one?"
Starscream muttered huffed words as he settled his datapads and scowled when he knocked over some lab tools, "Ah ffff... mmm..." he sighed, "Well, that's why I can do this, none of this stuff is really mine..." his optics glanced at the screen and he frowned, "I'll edit this later- So, moving on! The Unicron awakening... I'm not supposed to be present for that but whatever the Autobots and Megatron do down there doesn't exactly 'fix' the problem for good, so perhaps a rethink on that as well..."
He coughed trying to put on a smug smile, "Well, to a part I was supposed to be there for: I had been tracking the Nemesis to stage an energon raid and then I get on the ship and there's Optimus thinking his name is Orion Pax! Good thing I had that information at the time, not that Ratchet was thankful for it. But the Autobots use what I do know to get to the space bridge and find a way to get 'Optimus' back, and I think that was the end of that portion... About a week after all that insanity, MECH lures Bumblebee to a secluded location and steals his T-cog and since I'm in the area and have no factions because everyone is horrible, I'm just thinking to myself, 'well, they're smaller than you. If they don't like it, you can just step on them, so join up'. It really doesn't do yourself justice when a really simple thought like that just canNOT be put into practice. MECH is far too dangerous to be underestimated and Silas is a freak..." he picked up a datapad and hummed lightly as he tapped, "Next chance I have, I'm going to toss him into the air and see how far he goes... putting that on the list of things I could do to kill him... juuuust below 'deep sea fishing'..." the seeker suddenly stopped typing to laugh loudly, whether at his own thought or something he read, and started typing again, "Oh, that's another good one! Death by deep sea pressure! Maybe I can tie him to a whale's back and-" Starscream had to set the pad down as he laughed harder and covered his faceplates with a servo, "No! Primus, I can't! Sometimes..." he started to calm down, intaking heavily and smiling wide, "sometimes these just really help in getting through the day..." his optics widened, "Slag, I'm still recording-"
His servo flew up to cover the camera lens and the seeker's voice grumbled, "This is why you should have paid attention to Soundwave when it came to video editing... we'll figure it out later," the servo moved and the video refocused, the seeker's unimpressed faceplates trying to take on a more serious look, "Back to the MECH thing. They fragging stole my T-cog, the little fraggers. That left me pretty much in a slag heap, but I still managed. I did a lot of walking and started making my way back to the Harbinger, this part of the Harbinger, which wasn't easy on these gorgeous peds, I can promise you... Um, after that, my check into records saaaaays..." he went back to his datapad, nodding, "Ah, yes, Dreadwing shows up and goes after the Autobots. Wasn't there for that, don't care... Ok, you know what? Dreadwing is a total aft. I can't believe the kind of slagger he is, walking around saying he's the one who replaced me?! I mean, I don't care now, but maybe a little, but I mean, what the frag?! No decency, none at all, he gets what he gets and records state the Autobots gave it to him, so tiny smile for me," he gave a tiny smile, then glared, "Aaaafter that, Airachnid kills Breakdown after Megatron sends Dreadwing and Breakdown to kill her. So, Breakdown, if you are the one watching this, you were dumb before. Or not yet. Still not sure how this works... But I end up running into an Insecticon while searching for energon, which is so much more awful than you would believe. Go. Go and try mining yourself, with these glorious servos," he held up his servos for emphasis, "That is not what they're used for... So the Insecticon gets its mind bent by Airachnid's creepy insect-powers and she tries to use it to kill me! How rude is that?! I gave her a perfectly good plan to lure Megatron to her and use the Insecticon to kill him! Well, I got injured and had to call the Autobots for help. That's at least something they could be relied upon for. I decided to try and kill three birds with one Insecticon and that did not work at all. I ended up saving Arcee from Airachnid! ... I don't think the trade off was really worth it. ... I meddle a lot, even before all... this, um... Airachnid escapes, Autobots were fine, Megatron slunk away, that event was done..."
Starscream pulled out a couple more datapads and set them aside, "Ahem... From what the reports say, MECH was really experimenting with MY T-cog! MINE! ... They built an anti-Optimus Prime and had it running around attacking military bases or something. As far as I know, the Autobots handled it and Silas was badly wounded. I don't think much excitement happened until I finally," his red optics brightened, a big smile on his faceplates, "finally made it to the Harbinger. I thought I would find energon there, but I ended up finding a clone lab. I have to say, I never really had much interaction with clones in general, but I didn't think that they could be so... like you. Not like you-you, like the clones of me were me... but more than me? ... In any case, having them die was tortuous. I felt every blast, every hit..." he frowned, "... Wondering if that was normal...? But my plan to clone myself and send them off to kill Megatron didn't work. Whatever happened, it wasn't pretty. What I was able to find in the archives didn't give me details on my clones, but the event did coincide with the arrival of the horde of Insecticons that Airachnid found. I think the Autobots jumped on that, too," he chuckled, "Arcee traps that spider in a stasis pod. We, the Decepticons, end up with the pod a while after that, but not that early..."
The seeker sighed and leaned up against the computer console he was filming at, his optics shuttering, "I had to kill one of my clones that came back to slag me. It wasn't exactly cathartic, it was... disturbing..." he sat up, shuddering, "I don't like thinking about that moment. Anyway, a lot of damage was done inside the Nemesis. Apparently, Bulkhead had been picked up with an energon shipment from one of the mines. He destroyed a pretty crucial component in the ship's engine room. Or, at least, that's what the basic report detailed. And then Megatron had the bright idea to give the ship dark energon. Of all the dumbest- look, that idiot has been a part of some very bad plans. Take me for example," he gestured to himself, then just nodded, "yeah, after all that I've done and he still kept me alive. I can't even fathom why anymore. After every 'you've failed me for the last time' and 'you will rue plotting against me', he never just..." he huffed as he pinched his digits together, "never, he just never clipped the bud? Is that it? Well, he never did that... No, nipped it in the bud. Because... buds need nipping? Dumb human phrase... Well, the Nemesis gains consciousness and become sentient. It hijacks the Iacon database and decodes four locations while simultaneously rendering the ship's crew immobile," he smirked, "Knockout told me he woke up to the human children crawling around all over the place. Then Ratchet came and punched him out," he clapped lightly, "I would've loved to see that. So with four locations decoded, everyone started scrambling to get the relics. Arcee and Bumblebee locked horns with Knockout and an Insecticon. Ratchet and Wheeljack teamed up against Soundwave. Bulkhead fought against a team of Insecticons led by this bug Hardshell and-" he paused, a frown on his faceplates.
The fidgeting the seeker couldn't seem to stop indicated that this was another moment he pained to relive but was doing so anyway, "... Do you ever feel like you could stop a moment while you're in a moment and just... try? Try harder and just move on but nothing seems to go right and then..." he shrugged and kept his gaze away from the camera, "The last location pitted Optimus against Dreadwing against... me... I shouldn't have been there, but the Harbinger had all these locations popping up and I... wanted to be a part of something again... I wanted to know that if something happened, at least someone would be sent to find me or help me... The Autobots didn't want me. After Arcee found out about Cliffjumper, she tried to kill me. Looking back now, I could've handled it better. Could have, but didn't. I think pride has something to do with it... and I really have nothing else. When bots think 'Starscream' they don't think about any great war stories. They think about how they were cheated and lied to... ... Maybe that's all I ever really had..." he shook his helm, "But I showed up there anyway, Dreadwing captured me as a prisoner and Optimus... kind of saved me? ... I just wanted to get back to the Harbinger. But he didn't trust me and led me around with a blaster at my back until we found the relic and I ended up with it. I felt... strong for once. The Apex Armor is nothing to snuff at. You can't shoot or fly in it, but it'll protect you from anything... and for once I didn't..." he frowned again and shrugged, "... I can't believe I'm still recording this..."
He scowled and muttered something before looking back into the camera, "There is so much I'm going to edit out of this... So Bulkhead was very badly injured because the location he was sent to had ToxEn in the relic pod. He recovered, but it took a while. Then Autobots got a rookie that fell out of the sky, Smokescreen," Starscream scoffed, "Little brat, I never liked him and I never will. If I could make him disappear I would. Such a pest. You try to take out the competition and he ruins it for you, seriously... He stops me from making off with a large batch of red energon and he takes my Apex Armor! Like I said: brat! AND a total Prime fan-bot. Ugh... Well, after that fiasco, MECH manages to combine Breakdown's chassis with Silas's dying body. It's really gross. He calls himself... oh, wait, it's... Cybernetic Life Augmented by... Symbiosis... Or C.Y.L.A.S. So clever. He offers Megatron a laser satellite and the Autobots stop him. Boom, Megatron marks him for experimentation," he smiled, "It was actually very funny. It doesn't sound like it, but it was. Because sometimes Knockout would let me pick the experiments, but that comes later. So..." the seeker deferred back to his datapad, checking down the list, "ok, ToxEn, Smoke-brat, laser satellite... Ah, the Star Saber! Megatron wants it but can't get it and sends the Autobots on a run around that ultimately ends with him losing the Star Saber anyway. Wish I could've seen that, too. Megatron upset, but not at you, is very humorous... He makes weird faces."
Starscream reached over the camera to take hold of something, which turned out to be a small cube of energon, and he sipped lightly at it as he continued, "It got more complicated and hectic after that. Looking back, I can't believe that was possible, but it was. All of a sudden, everyone's scrambling to get these relics called the Omega Keys, which are very important, and Megatron has the arm of a Prime grafted onto him so he can wield Prime relics. Like I said, more complicated. So, everyone is running all over the place looking for these keys and Smokescreen turned out to be the vessel that was harboring one of the relics. Soundwave caught him but Smokescreen escaped and took the keys the Decepticons had back to the Autobot base. Then I called up and used red energon to sneak through a bridge into the Bot base to take the keys for myself... I probably should have just left well alone regarding all that but I didn't. I ended up with all four Omega Keys and snuck aboard the Nemesis trying to buy my way back into the Decepticons. Megatron used a cortical psychic patch to link our minds and it was..." he sighed, gripping his cube tightly, "i-it wasn't something I wanted. I felt violated. But he let me come back, Knockout gave me a T-cog and then Dreadwing tried to kill me. Megatron killed him in turn..." the seeker shook his helm, "I look back... how did it all devolve so quickly? How did it come to all that in the span of..." he glanced at a datapad and shook his helm again, "Whatever... The Decepticons... we use our space bridge to get to Cybertron after Knockout and I discover a map in the keys. It leads to a structure called the Omega Lock and we activate it after a skirmish with the Autobots. We had to use the human children as bartering chips to exchange for the keys and relics they took back and had..." he scoffed, "And then in classic idiot Megatron fashion, that slagger opens a space bridge and starts terraforming Earth! He fixed one building on our home and then to torment Optimus, says he's going after Earth, too. So what does the Prime do? He destroys the lock. He destroyed it. If Megatron hadn't been such a total AFT, we could have fixed our home and been done with it. But no, he had to play the 'being a glitch' card. Fragger..." he sighed, "Well, we go back to Earth since there's really nothing left for us on Cybertron. We blow up the Autobot base which was somewhat bitter-sweet. A victory like that after fighting so long is almost hollow when you've lived a life of war. And when the enemy is gone, it's just..."
Starscream swallowed down the last of his cube and grumbled, "I don't care anymore, editing would be too hard... We had Wheeljack in our possession and he wouldn't talk. He's a tough brute, but don't tell him I said that. But maybe if he's the one watching, then frag off, you heard nothing... hm... Well, then the slag really hits the turbines..." a growl slowly emanated from the seeker's throat and he scowled, "It wasn't enough for anyone that I had changed, that I had come back to serve the cause that had originally taken me in. It wasn't enough that I was giving everything I had," he began to seethe, "It wasn't FRAGGING enough that I had endured and suffered and was still willing to return to the ones who had betrayed me, left me for scrap! And then Shockwave shows up and I'm sidelined again?! Megatron treated him like he hadn't been gone and out of communication for all those years! He treated him like- like some kind of friend! And what was I?! Just a momentary necessity?!" he glared darkly, snarling now, "He gave him everything he wanted! Not like he earned it, but that one-optic freak just waved a servo and it was done! And then you had Megatron, sitting on his aft like I had done NOTHING! The only reason why that fragger had ANYTHING was because of ME and he did nothing to repay the act of loyalty I decided to bestow upon him!" he panted and huffed, his emotions starting to quell, "I could've gone to the Autobots. Really, I should have. But they had all the right reasons to be wary of my intentions at the time- actually, any time..." his optics gently shuttered before onlining with that burning rage again, "but how does that excuse that fat aft from replacing me with Shockwave and his-" Starscream silenced himself quickly, his frame going rigid.
It took him a long time, his intakes expanding and contracting his chest plate barely visible on the screen before he was able to speak again.
"... Shockwave did a bad thing making what he did," the seeker murmured.
His optics were empty as they stared out at nothing and he spoke as though he were trying to relay what he experienced without being there all.
Starscream curled tightly in his seat and shuddered, trying to speak without being in the moment, "What he did defied a morale code. What becomes extinct should remain extinct... I'll be the first to admit it, I'm not strong enough to say this creature's name, but if someone is watching this and needs to know what happened at this point, I can tell them a P-" the seeker winced, his servos grabbing at his chestplate, "... Shockwave made a Pr... Predacon..."
A terrible tremble overtook the mech and he fanned himself lightly with a servo to dry the tears welling in his optics, "I, uh... I don't want to talk about that too much... but the P-Predacon caused a lot of problems for both sides... especially when he revealed he was sentient and could transform later on... Um..." he clenched his servos tightly, trying to get back on point, "S-so, Optimus gets an upgrade to the point where he could fly... Ultra Magnus shows up, too. ... Megatron liked having a giant, flying, fire-breathing weapon around, so he ordered Shockwave to make more and I was forced to help find Predacon remains to extract CNA from... The Autobots intervened a lot, which I wasn't too against considering it put a damper on Shockwave's projects... I think Megatron was a little too happy to punish me by putting me in charge of making the Pr... Predacon more manageable... I wasn't very good at it... Then... I found myself on the Nemesis a little bit more than I wanted to. Knockout went on a mission to retrieve a Predacon remnant and almost brought back Agent Fowler and Jack's mother, too... ..."
The more Starscream sat and thought and told his story, the more his voice seemed to abandon him; he cleared his throat loudly, "I-I was actually grateful when I was able to spend time with Knockout and just complain, even if he didn't say much. The gossiping, the venting, it was the only thing keeping me going then. He and I fragged up an experiment by mixing broken synthetic energon with dark energon. We injected it into C.Y.L.A.S. and turned the Nemesis into a set for a horror film. Knockout and I managed to clean the mess up, Soundwave sent an escaped Airachnid and the Insecticons away and C.Y.L.A.S. was killed... Knockout had to relinquish his tests to Shockwave. ... I was beaten again by Megatron..." a sick look flashed on his faceplates and his mouth twisted into a grimace, "Why am I the only one he's laid a servo on? Never Knockout or Breakdown. Certainly not Shockwave or Soundwave. When someone messes up, it doesn't have to be me for me to receive the brunt of that anger... And I never understood-" he paused and set his empty cube down, crossing his arms as his optics kept their gaze away from the screen, "The Predacon revealed sentience around then. I had been telling Megatron that the Predacon army would be a fiasco and it only took seeing the beast transform for him to finally admit I was right. He didn't say it that way, but it felt nice... So I was finally listened to when I said 'lead the Autobots to the Predacon project, let them destroy it'. We set up a lure and the Autobots destroyed it. It made the Predacon angry and he further pledged his loyalty to Megatron... It was discovered that the Predacon CNA combined in the explosion with synthetic energon created raw cyber matter. It wasn't quite stable, but Shockwave had a beginning to the creation of a new Omega Lock. Soundwave was captured by the Autobots when he went out to gather supplies. After Laserbeak found him and reactivated him, Soundwave came back with Ratchet as a prisoner..."
Starscream's claws began to nervously tap at the side of his arm, "Megatron convinced Ratchet to help stabilize the synthetic energon formula to rebuild our home, which he accepted. But after he figured out the formula, he tried to keep it from us. Once Megatron had what he wanted, he threw Ratchet to the Predacon and the medic told him what had actually happened to the other Predacons, how the Autobots were lured in to destroy them... The Predacon went after Megatron then. I saved him, I saved that idiot and was thanked by being shoved aside... ... And then the Autobots stormed the Nemesis... It was nothing but blaster fire and chaos and Soundwave was trapped in between two bridge portals, which sounds horrifying because it was. Knockout tried to side with the Bots, which got him captured. Optimus and Megatron fought... but Bumblebee killed Megatron. Shockwave and I escaped into a pod which jettisoned after the Nemesis space bridged to Cybertron."
Starscream stopped, and started intaking deeply. His frame was shaking terribly and his optics were streaming tears, even if he didn't want them to.
"Shockwave convinced me to help build a new, more responsive Predacon army in memory of Megatron. We made two and they soon abandoned us once the first Predacon showed up again. Megatron came back, too, possessed by the remainder of what was left of Unicron. The Autobots intervened, again. They won, again. They got rid of Unicron and Megatron was... They... I couldn't..." he covered his faceplates with a servo, his sobbing more evident, "He looked me in the optic after everything I had done for him. All that I sacrificed, all that I had endured. All that I had become to make him happy. After all the beatings, the unkind words, the torment and ridicule because I wasn't good enough... he told me that oppression was wrong... that what he had done to others was wrong. Not what he had done to me, what he had forced me to become, that was fine to him because now my view on everything was wrong and I was my own entity now... and he just left. Oppression is wrong, Starscream, but frag you, you deserve what you got... A-and then..."
His voice faltered and he hung his helm heavily. The sound of his raspy, tear-filled intakes were all that could be heard, soft and delicate, before he finally yelled loudly.
"I WAS KILLED! The Predacons cornered me and tore me to pieces! The first one put his claws into my chest and then I ended up here, back near the beginning of all this fragging torment and I HATE IT! I HATE IT ALL! At the end of all this, I know I will only be faced with torment and death, so what does it matter?! I don't have anyone! I didn't then, why am I deluding myself to thinking Knockout or Breakdown or Soundwave will stand by me?! They won't! They didn't then, why the frag would they now?! It's only a matter of time before- ... before it all... before..."
Starscream sunk into his chair. His defeated optics looked just to the side of the camera, his chassis tired and worn.
"... Oppression is wrong... that's where I'll be left again. I'll be in a moment where I think everything is going to be ok again and then it'll be gone. I'll have no one to stand beside me, I'll have nothing to call my own..." a few, shaky intakes escaped him before his optics made it back to the camera, "I don't want to admit this... but now that I intend for no one to see this, I can readily say this file was meant for no one... just me... Some of the changes I've made, some of the risks I took and this whole debacle, just all of it... I noticed the way everyone looks at me a little bit more... Knockout and Breakdown seem eager to talk to me. Sometimes they sound like they worry. Soundwave too. Megatron has been a little odd, but we'll see how long that lasts... Even the Autobots. But I think the most noticeable change has to be in Optimus Prime."
Optimus paused the video, blinking. It only had a handful of seconds left and what the seeker had to say was about him? The Prime had made it this far, he wasn't about to stop now.
Optimus hesitated as he pressed play once more, listening carefully as Starscream spoke, "He smiles, really smiles at me. I see it every time now. A part of me worries that he wants something from me, information, team up, whatever... but I've never seen an expression so genuine... It's like... he knows how hard I'm trying. He knows that I have a plan hidden away and he still trusts me... He talks to me with respect and care and... even after all that I've done to change things now, to prevent certain events, Optimus almost seems to like me..." he sighed gently, fidgeting in his seat, "But maybe that's just me trying to see a friend in someone. I'm probably reading too much into it... and since I really did make this video for no one, I guess that proves I really don't have anyone at all..."
The video stopped, the screen shutting down. Optimus's wide, blue optics stayed locked on where the seeker had just been. Information swirled around in his processor and a deep, heavy intake finally escaped him. As much as the video had been useful, he didn't care about the events that had transpired or what could be coming next. The Prime did just want to see the seeker again, smiling, confident, perhaps a little cocky yet playful. He wanted him to be safe. Optimus wanted to find Starscream, rescue him, and let him know that his video was indeed made for someone.