Ch. 217

Starscream stumbled into a quiet room in the lower part of the Ark, his claws scratching at the silver on his frame in trembling agony. He'd had paint once, brilliant and shining, but it was removed due to Megatron's anger. Paint was a distraction; it was better to be nothing but the bare metal you had been cast with. But now it only became the glint out of the corner of his optic that tortured him with the presence of the tyrant, the silver the same tone as the warlord's: cold, sharp, bitter... If Starscream could hardly bear to think of Megatron, how was he to look at himself when his image had been molded to look so similarly to the one who had tortured him?

"I can't be like this," he tried to reason with himself, sitting on a storage container as he put his helm in his servos and rocked himself back and forth, "I have to be stronger... like them! They came after me, Optimus walked onto the fragging battlefield for me! I have to be like them! I am like them, aren't I? I earned that! I'm an Autobot, that's what got me through everything he did to-"

Something choked him at the back of his throat. He didn't have anyone to fight against anymore, not with these bots and not on this ship. What else could he do now that he didn't have to fight so hard? Now that his main opponent was gone, all he had to fight with anymore was himself.

Starscream snarled and stood, digging his peds into the floor, "Don't do this," he ordered himself, "You're better than this! You're not him! You're your own-"

As he raised his arms to prove this fact to himself, the silver stuck out in his mind and sent him stumbling back. He tripped over the storage container and curled himself up into a ball. Memories of that silver towering over him for eons, before this new brand of torment, were starting to give way. He had once been molded to match, as a second to the pair that made up the largest Decepticon heads. Would it have only been a matter of time before this issue reared its ugly helm? Bulkhead had mentioned it some time before...

"... For me," Starscream hissed, shaking as he stood, "It wouldn't be for anyone else but me. I... need to finalize this..."

He looked about the room and shook his helm when he realized what he needed wasn't there. The seeker carefully reached up and took hold of his own shoulder, squeezing in that gentle way Optimus did for him, before standing taller and walking out of the room into the corridor. He followed a painted sign on one of the walls that read 'Docking Bay' and picked up the pace whenever one of the many windows that the Ark was cursedly-blessed with made his silver armor shine. He wanted to have confidence in what he was doing, redesigning himself to fit this new life he had created out of the lackluster that was his previous collection of mistakes. While the term wasn't entirely gentle to use, to him it felt fitting: he was effectively killing off the last part of himself that Megatron had dared to force upon him.

"I have a new place to live," Starscream said in a way he hoped matched the way Optimus spoke to him, "I have friends and they adore me; they've put their trust and lives on the line for me. I have a new faction," he went through the Docking Bay door and took in a long, deep intake, "and my optics have only been a half of this transformation. I need to finish this..."

The tightness in the bay was generally made up of old storage containers and the two ships, Ultra Magnus's bulk of a vehicle and Wheeljack's Jackhammer, but off to the side with its own space to do its work was what the seeker was looking for.

"These blue optics do not fit with my... lack of a paint job," Starscream affirmed to himself, "and I can't ever give myself an excuse when I see my own reflection."

He squeezed passed the two ships and slipped onto an elevated panel that magnetically locked his peds into place before a holo-panel popped up in front of him. A glass seal came down from above and bottled him in with hanging attachments above him.

But the seeker didn't move to activate anything, "... I am me," he said quietly, shuttering his optics, "I have always been me. It was this same 'me' that held out on that wretched ship. And made all of these decisions that got all of us here this far. I am the 'me' that has done so very much with the information I had... when I could have easily done nothing at all..." he reached a servo up to touch the holo-panel, effectively telling the machine he wished to continue, "but this 'me' needs to let go of him-... I need to let go of the last thing... Megatron... held over me. I am Starscream," he snarled, "the fastest seeker ever sparked, betrayer of the Decepticons and fighter for the Autobot cause. I am not his to command ever again... So... what colors best tell that ugly fragger that? Something new?" he scrolled through his options as the machine scanned his form, "Something that will make me unrecognizable? Or... something from a time before all of this slag had ever happened?"

The machine beeped to alert that its scan was complete and Starscream smiled, wiping fluid from his optics, "Ah, I know what would be perfect..."

The soon-not-to-be silver mech began tapping onto the panel, choosing his palette and adjusting the placement of the paint that would soon grace his frame.