Chapter 1 - Broken, Blue, and How-do-you-do?

"You'll be staying in here," Airlock said, gesturing at the new quarters. Thundercracker blinked, then frowned. The surgery he'd undergone hadn't even been finished two hours ago, and already he was being shuffled around like a class of sparklings.

Airlock rattled off a list of things Thundercracker needed to know about the room and his expectations. Thundercracker wasn't really listening, which Airlock must have realized. He shoved a datapad under Thundercracker's nose. "The docs told me you'd be out of it," the space shuttle said, with a shake of his head. "But still. You don't hear of seekers leaving their trines too often these days."

Thundercracker could only nod. With another pitying shake of his head, Airlock left the quarters, leaving Thundercracker alone with his room, his baggage, and the personal items he'd chosen to take with him.

He'd spent nearly a decade with his trine. They'd gravitated together because they were all good at reading others and interacting with them. They'd had similar tastes, similar senses of humor, similar routines, hell, even similar frame types, even before they'd changed their armor to match. They had seemed like a trine created by Primus himself.

'Well that's all gone to slag now,' Thundercracker thought, feeling the strangely hollow ring to his thoughts. He found that he didn't particularly like the sensation. He felt groggy and unfocused, and certainly not in any particular command over himself.

It was several hours before he managed to get off his berth and will his legs to carry him to the cantina. Apparently, to his chagrin, he'd picked the prime time for when young seekers went to mingle, so the refueling station was packed with more people than he felt capable of dealing with.

The Academy on Vos was where all seekers were raised and taught. As sparklings, they lived and learned together in groups, usually under a single trine, with one member being their primary mentor. As the sparklings got older and learned self-sufficiency, they were placed in dorms with two other roommates, to prepare them for when they would be spending their days with their trine. Three years before seekers officially came of age, they lived in single dorms and structured their time as they saw fit. It was a lesson in individuality, a chance for seekers to take a good hard look at who they were and what they wanted from life before they made the choice of who their trine-mates were going to be.

Thundercracker remembered those three years very well. One of his previous trine members had been in his graduating year, and another had been a year behind them. By law, Thundercracker and his partner had had to wait for their third member to catch up. Trine-less seekers were allowed to live in the academy after they'd graduated, but no mech was allowed to leave without having lived those three years on his own. The three years symbolized the trine, and the three core principles behind the idea of the trine: cooperation, competition, and individuality. Most mechs waited a few years after graduation to form their trines. In hindsight, Thundercracker wished he'd been among them.

Now, staring at the young seekers - both in their three year final stretch and beyond - running here and there, socializing, forming the relationships that would eventually lead to the all-important trine, Thundercracker wished it more than ever.

He probably wasn't the oldest untrined mech on the premises. Most mechs isolated from their trine, either by death or choice, returned to the academy as their haven. All un-bonded seekers under the legal Cybertronian age of fifty years were welcome there. Still, Thundercracker was willing to bet that he was probably the last choice any seeker would make as an addition to a trine. After all, what sane, healthy mech abandoned their trine after ten years of dedication? While it wasn't unheard of, leaving one's trine had that stigma of mental instability – there had to be something wrong with a mech if he wasn't willing to work it out with his trine.

Thundercracker surveyed the room, scanning for empty seats, when he noticed something odd. Despite how crowded the large dining area was, there was a table in the back that had only one occupant sitting at it. 'The reject table,' Thundercracker thought. 'Guess I just found where I belong.'

He approached the table, cube in hand, when the occupant - a thin, scrappy-looking seeker - snarled at him, wings flaring out in hostility. "I don't want to talk or be friends" he snapped at Thundercracker. "Just move along and leave me alone."

Thundercracker stared at him. He could probably take the guy in a fight, but he didn't want it to come to that. He didn't want to small-talk with the other mechs in the cantina either, and this all-but-empty table in the farthest corner of the room seemed like the perfect safe spot for him.

Well then. Decision made.

"Good," Thundercracker said, and set his cube down. He'd decided he was going to be honest with this particular mech. Hopefully it would get the guy to shut up and leave him alone faster. When the other mech looked startled and about to protest, Thundercracker explained: "I left my trine this morning. I don't want to talk about it, and I don't want to deal with a bunch of air-headed glitches about to come of age. So you refuel over there, I'll refuel over here, and we can ignore each other until one of us leaves. Deal?"

The stranger appraised Thundercracker, a trace of suspicion in his optics. "What kind of mentally deranged mech leaves his trine?" he asked, a mean sneer appearing on his face.

"What kind of socially deficient mech repels people so much that he gets a table all to himself at the height of refuel time?"

The scrawny mech said something, insulted him probably, but quickly settled back down when it was clear that Thundercracker wasn't paying attention. Thundercracker's head was still ringing from the echoing silence inside his cranium. He didn't realize it was possible for his processor to feel both too small and too big at the same time, but it was.

The other mech was the first to leave, and Thundercracker made sure not to acknowledge his departure. He just wanted to refuel and collapse in his berth, and saying goodbye to such a rude glitch felt like more effort than he was currently capable of. He finished his own cube shortly after, knowing others would more than likely come to ask to join him now that the guy who radiated sheer hostility was gone.

Thundercracker was just in the middle of draining the last of his cube when he felt a servo tap his shoulder.

"I sit there," came a deep, warm-sounding voice.

Thundercracker turned around and looked at the seeker who'd spoken to him. "Oh, er, sorry, I was just leaving."

"Okay yeah, but I sit there. I always sit is my is when I sit here."

"Er, I'm leaving, I'm leaving," Thundercracker said, getting out of the chair."Calm down, it's fine, see? Have your seat back."

The mech didn't sit down, though; he stood facing Thundercracker a little longer. "I come here, and sit here now. This is my time to sit here. I don't want you sitting here at my time again."

"Easy buddy," Thundercracker said, smiling to try and show the mech he'd meant no harm. "I didn't know this was your seat, but I do now, so I won't sit here again. Okay?"

The mech stared at him suspiciously. "Promise?"

"I promise. Why don't you sit down and enjoy your energon? It'll probably be way more enjoyable than talking to me."

The mech gave Thundercracker one last distrustful look, but then did as Thundercracker suggested. As soon as he sat down, he seemed to completely forget that Thundercracker was there.

'Well thank Primus for that,' Thundercracker thought, making his way through the thinning cantina towards the door and to his sweet, sweet berth. 'Weirdo.'

For quite some time, Thundercracker didn't feel like himself. He went through the motions, smiled at the right times, nodded his head and said 'good morning' when he was supposed to, but it was exhausting. People were exhausting.

He supposed it was a side effect of the surgery. His head, once filled with the racket of two brash, loud trinemates, was now empty, desolate, barren. The silence in his head was crushing, an oppressive force that had a presence of its own, and every time he went to talk with others, he was struck by the lack of running commentary in the back of his head, the solitude.

The first few days, he searched for company, hoping that the interactions with other people would make the loneliness a bit less overbearing. He shortly revised his decision. The other Academy seekers were young, inexperienced, social. Their smiles were searching, their inquiries personal, and their conversations inevitably looped back to the subject of trines. To the subject of his trine. His past trine.

Thundercracker didn't really want to talk about it.

So he locked his doors, sat at his desk, and studied. He found articles and read them, found textpads and annotated them, found professional compilations on democracy and social change and government and memorized them, smothering the silence at the back of his mind with information. His head still echoed, but that was okay. He was distracted.

Find that he was stuck with himself once more, Thundercracker began to return to an old goal he'd had; it seemed far more likely to happen now that he was on his own.

Before they'd broken up, Thundercracker's trine had bounded between jobs. as with most young seekers, they'd had more of an interest in having fun and out-flying other trines than they'd had with being productive members of society. Still, they'd taken odd jobs as dock workers, energon refiners, data imputers, and they'd even done a brief stint as store clerks.

Now though, Thundercracker was unencumbered by two knowledge-phobic flyboys. When he was younger, Thundercracker had had a dream of graduating from the University of Iacon. It was the most prestigious university on Cybertron, and it was virtually unheard of for seekers to graduate from it. Now, with no one weighing him down, it would be easier to apply and get in. 'Besides,' whispered a particularly dark corner of his mind, 'It'll give you somewhere to go if you never trine again.'Thundercracker ignored the voice as best he could. It helped to bury himself in literature from his core interests - psychology, sociology, diplomacy.

When he wasn't reading, he was either sleeping or refueling. One of the side effects of this decision, however, was that whenever he had to go to the cantina, he inevitably ended up sitting at the desolate table in the back. Usually when Thundercracker showed up, it was empty. As a general rule, he didn't like to stick to a specific schedule every day, and so occasionally he would show up and find the small, angry seeker sitting at the table. They'd bicker before falling into hostile silence to refuel, and then one of them would leave. At first, he'd thought these interactions would grate on him, but to his surprise he found himself looking forward to the arguments. It was clear that neither of them took their insults seriously, and when he wasn't being an aft, the other mech was surprisingly witty.

At other times, he'd run into the deep-voiced mech. The weird one. Both seekers had more of a schedule than Thundercracker himself, but the bigger guy adhered to his much more could never really think of anything to say when in the presence of the big seeker, and so they normally just sat across from each other in a sort of awkward silence. At least, it was awkward for Thundercracker. He had no idea if the bigger mech thought so as well.

About once a week, a gaggle of seekers would join the big seeker. Thundercracker had no idea that this happened until he came to the cantina and found his usual table overrun with strangers. It had not been a pleasant day for him, and he'd had to make the choice between food or peace and quiet. He'd opted to wait to refuel until the table had cleared again. It had taken two and a half hours, and he had been very ticked off by the time he'd actually managed to get a table all to himself.

"Why do you always sit here?" the small mech snapped one day, breaking the silence that had become the norm. "Do I attract mopey morons, or something? And I a loser magnet now?"

Thundercracker took a casual sip of his energon before answering calmly "I'm not the only loser sitting at this table."

This didn't seem to faze the other. "No, seriously; what kind of loser leaves his trine and comes crawling back to this hellhole? Wasn't there somewhere better for you to go?"

Thundercracker felt his wings tense. He raised an eyebrow, hoping to affect indifference. "I don't understand why you'd care, but any fool knows that seekers can't fly without their trine. And if you can't fly, what are you?"

Normally, Scrappy (as Thundercracker was privately calling the mech) would've snapped back with "Are you calling me a fool?" if he followed the normal structure that their conversations usually took. But he didn't. Instead, he continued pressing the point. "So you're saying that seekers are nothing if they can't fly. Which, by extension, means that seekers are nothing without their trine. Is that what you're saying? I think that's what you're saying." Scrappy leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "So how come you left them then, if you're nothing without your trine?"

Thundercracker froze, startled. Then his wings flared up angrily. "Who do you think you are, asking me about my private business?"

"Oh, no one," Scrappy said sarcastically, rolling his optics for good measure. "Just the mech you've been eating dinner with for months. The mech who's personal space you violated without so much as a 'hi, my name is', and who let you sit here anyway. The mech who already openly dislikes you, and so doesn't really give a damn about you one way or the other."

Thundercracker's wings were twitching, as they tended to do when he was mildly surprised. Had he really not introduced himself when he'd first sat at the table? He quickly regained his hostile posture, and bristled. "Well it's not like you gave me a chance," he snapped back. "I couldn't even sit down before you started biting my head off!"

Scrappy scoffed and waved a hand dismissively. "You think that was me biting your head off? You need to toughen up."

Thundercracker clenched his hands under the table so that Scrappy wouldn't see how upset he was. "That was," he bit out, "My first informal social interaction after I'd undergone major processor surgery. And you not only made me feel thoroughly unwelcome, but like I was scum. You think I need to toughen up? I think maybe you need to get your processor checked."

Scrappy stared at Thundercracker in amusement. "You do that well," he said, sneering. "You sound totally calm. But the twitchy wings tell me a different story." He drummed his servos on the table. "Speaking of stories, are you going to tell me yours, or am I going to have to guess?" He grinned broadly, and it was not a kind smile.

Thundercracker stared him down from across the table and refused to answer.

"Guessing it is then," Scrappy said merrily and examined his servos as though he were thinking. His optics flicked up to Thundercracker abruptly and he said "They dumped you for being so lame."

Thundercracker rolled his optics. "I don't have to take this," he said, and moved to grab his energon cube. Scrappy was a lot faster than Thundercracker, though, because he snatched it up before Thundercracker could lay a servo on it.

"Uh uh uh," Scrappy said delightedly, sloshing the cube enticingly. "You're not going anywhere with this until I've had my fun."

Thundercracker glared at Scrappy. "You do realize that I can just go and get myself another cube, right?"

Scrappy chuckled. "Yeah, you can. You can wait in that line over there," he said gesturing with his head toward the energon dispensers. It was prime refuel time, and nearly everyone was in the cantina, and at least half of them were in line for energon. "And after that, you get to pay shanix for taking more fuel than you need. Oooor," he said, his voice taking on a playful tone, "you can sit pretty until I get bored of asking you questions and give you your meal back." That shit eating grin of his reappeared. "Your choice."

Thundercracker's wings twitched down slightly in annoyance. "Fine." He crossed his arms. "But you're kidding yourself if you think I'm gonna answer any of your questions."

Scrappy shrugged, smirking at him. He drummed his servos on the rim of Thundercracker's cube possessively. "Let's begin then, shall we? What's the story? Was it them?" he asked, cocking his head slightly. "The two twits who decided you weren't worth their time, who decided you were too useless to be a member of their trine, did they think you were holding them back?" His optics bore into Thundercracker, but Thundercracker just kept his arms crossed. "No? Were they holding you back, these big dumb hulking brutes of yours?" Thundercracker was about to interrupt, but thought better of it. If he let Scrappy run himself down, it'd all be over quickly.

The other mech paused, tapping the cube deliberately a few times, lips pursed in concentration. "Bad fliers were they? Nooo…hm. They weren't actually stupid, were they? A pair of idiotic deadbeats that – oh, there we go." It suddenly occurred to Thundercracker that Scrappy wasn't staring at him, but at his wings. He quickly flattened the offensive appendages and glared.

"You nosy little glitch, you've been looking at my wings!"

"Um, yeah?" Scrappy said like it should have been absolutely obvious. "Why ask you a question you're not going to answer when your wings are so much more forthcoming? Seekers lie. Their wings don't."

Thundercracker felt like his privacy was being violated somehow. He stood up. He was willing to put up with a silly line and a little fine if it meant he didn't have to put up with the utter child sitting across from him.

"Oh sit down," Scrappy said, and the way he said it suggested he expected compliance. He twirled Thundercracker's cube between his hands. "You know, this would be ever so much easier if you just told me your story instead of making me guess it."

"Get fragged," Thundercracker seethed. He could feel himself shaking slightly from his anger. He managed to keep most of himself in check, but his damn traitorous wings were quivering.

"I don't see why you're getting so upset with me," Scrappy sounded indignant, like he hadn't just gone prying into Thundercracker's personal life. "I was just talking. You were the one who's wings twitched every time I said something about your ex-trine. Besides, if you left them, I don't understand why you're so upset about-"

"Because, you stupid little glitch-head," Thundercracker hissed at him, finally losing his cool. "Just because nobody likes you, doesn't mean other people can't like each other. You have no idea what happened between us, you have no business knowing, and if you think you can bully me into talking about my own personal slag, you've got another thing coming. I only sat with you because your presence is so repulsive that no one will come near you, and it was convenient for me to avoid people until I was ready to go looking for a new trine. You can rust to death for all I care, you miserable, pathetic antisocial excuse for a seeker. I never want to see your horrible face again. Just leave me alone. Do us all a favor, and just leave us all alone. You're clearly not wanted here. Get lost."

Thundercracker turned on his heel and stormed out of the cantina, energon be damned. He'd come back later when he'd cooled off, and top off his fuel reserves when he didn't feel like strangling everyone who so much as looked at him.

For several weeks, Thundercracker avoided the main mess hall as much as he could. He'd eat at odd hours, and usually wouldn't linger any more than absolutely necessary. He didn't want to take the chance that Scrappy might change his schedule just to continue his harassment of Thundercracker, so he picked the hours he knew no one in their right processor would be out of their berths.

So it was some time before he heard the news.

Thundercracker was still getting used to leaving of his rooms and socializing again. He could really only handle it in small bursts, but he was trying again. It was a step in the right direction.

A few weeks after the fight, he happened to pass by the large mech. The purple one. The weirdo. The mech slowed down and stared hard at Thundercracker, squinting slightly.

Thundercracker stopped as well, frowning in confusion. "Um…can I help you?"

The big mech nodded. "Chair thief."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"You stole my chair."

"Er…yeah," Thundercracker said uncomfortably. "I've sat with you sometimes too, though. Um, that is, when your friends weren't hanging out with you."

He nodded solemnly, and Thundercracker fidgeted.

"Uh…was there, erm…was there something you wanted…?" He realized that he didn't know the mech's name. "Hey, what's your name, anyway?"

"Skywarp," the big mech responded.

"Thundercracker," Thundercracker answered, extending a hand.

Skywarp looked at the hand like he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Slowly, almost uncertainly, he also extended his hand, mirroring Thundercracker's gesture. Thundercracker grabbed Skywarp's hand in a handshake. "It's nice to officially meet you," Thundercracker told him.

"We've met," Skywarp assured Thundercracker, as thought Thundercracker had forgotten this fact.

"Er…right." Thundercracker removed his hand. "So…yeah, did you need something from me?"

"Hm? Oh…" Skywarp stared off into space scowling in deep concentration. His face suddenly lit up. "No, I don't need anything."

"O…kay…" Thundercracker said. He felt like the conversation was done, but Skywarp just kept smiling at him. "Um…so why were you staring at me just now?"

"Was I?" Skywarp asked.

Primus,Thundercracker thought. This mech is missing more than a few screws."Yeah, you were," he said out loud.

"Huh. I probably was trying to remember where I know you from."

Oh for the love of- "Dinner," Thundercracker said, the patience in his voice growing thinner even as he said it. "We eat dinner together sometimes."

"Oh yeah!" Skywarp said, grinning brightly. "You're that weirdo who sits with Starscream."

'WEIR - you cannot be serious,'Thundercracker thought before he could stop himself. Luckily it stayed safely in his processor, and didn't come out to offend Skywarp. Also, "Starscream?"

"Yeah. The guy you sit with. The angry little guy."

The afthead glitch. 'His name is Starscream?' "Yeah, I guess I've sat with him a few times."

"You wouldn't happen to know where he is, would you?"

Thundercracker frowned. "No. Why, should I?"

Misreading his expression, Skywarp took a step back. "Sorry, didn't mean to make you angry. 'S just that no one's really seen him in a while."

"No, I'm not - " Primus, this guy was took a deep vent to calm and center himself. "I'm not angry, Skywarp," he said, adding a reassuring smile to prove it. Skywarp smiled back. "It's just that we weren't really…close, Starscream and me."

"Oh." Now Skywarp frowned. "But you guys were always sitting together."

"'Always' is a bit of a stretch," Thundercracker informed him dryly.

Skywarp shrugged. "Okay." He turned to continue on his way up the corridor.

"Er, wait!" Thundercracker called. When Skywarp turned and looked at him inquisitively, head cocked to the side, Thundercracker felt foolish. He'd called out because Skywarp hadn't bothered to initiate any of the parting pleasantries that usually preceded a mech leaving a conversation, and it had thrown him off guard. He now scrambled for something to say. "Um, h-how long has Starscream been gone?"

Again Skywarp shrugged. "Few days maybe? Friend of mine said she saw him heading for the take-off areas after we got some of ours scores back. She said he was going for a hike."

Thundercracker frowned more deeply this time. Skywarp's friend had probably said Starscream should take a hike and Skywarp had merely misinterpreted it. "He's been gone a few days you said? Has anyone seen him since your friend?"

Skywarp thought about that for a very long time. "No," he finally said. "I think one of the flight instructors said something about throwing a party for him, though. Dunno why. He usually doesn't get the greatest marks in anything that ain't science."

Thundercracker took a deep ventilation to prevent himself from yelling at Skywarp and shaking the mech to get him to think faster. "Okay, Skywarp? This is really important: Was the party your instructor was talking about a search party?"

Again, it took Skywarp an agonizing eternity to come to a conclusion. "You know, I think it was," he said brightly.

Slag. Slaggitall, dammit. Thundercracker had said some rather nasty things to the mech. Starscream didn't seem to have very many friends (and what a surprise that was, wow) so it probably hadn't helped much that Thundercracker had told him that no one liked him. On top of that, if he'd gotten bad marks, that might be enough to make him want to leave…

Thundercracker's wings started twitching, and they didn't stop. Skywarp eyed the movement, concern glinting in his optics.

"You okay?" Skywarp asked, putting a hand on Thundercracker's shoulder.

"No," Thundercracker said with a bitter laugh. "I…I said some mean things to Starscream the last time I saw him. I'm worried that I'm the reason, or part of it anyway, that he's missing. And that's, I mean, I guess . . . I need to set this right."

"I'll help you," Skywarp instantly piped up.

"Er, you do realize that he's probably outside the academy somewhere?"

"Oh." Skywarp scowled, thinking. "But he shouldn't be there. You have to fly to get around the city, and people aren't supposed to fly without a trine."

"Right," Thundercracker said. "So I'm thinking he's probably not in the city. He'd stand out too much and get sent straight back here." He vented heavily and drew a servo across his faceplates. "Right, I'm gonna need to grab a spare energon cube and probably a map of the surrounding badlands. If you wanna help, you can start by getting me those things."

Skywarp nodded and, much to Thundercracker's surprise, grabbed him by the servo and started towing him along the corridor.

"Wait, what are you - "

"Starscream's mean," Skywarp interrupted, pulling Thundercracker at high speed around corners and down passageways, knocking into more than a few mechs in the process. "But he shouldn't be out in the badlands. It's dangerous out there." He glanced back at Thundercracker. "You're smart. You know where to find him, so we can bring him back and he can be safe."

Thundercracker was about to protest that he had no idea where they were even supposed to start looking for the mech in question, but just then he was nearly slammed into another person as Skywarp took a corner, and Thundercracker instead found himself half-shouting apologies to the mech he'd nearly ploughed over. After that, he focused strictly on keeping up with Skywarp and not killing people by accident as they ran through the halls.

Skywarp came to an abrupt stop and, not anticipating it, Thundercracker skidded halfway down the hallway before he was able to stop properly. By the time he'd come back, Skywarp was pressing a cube of energon into his servos. "Okay. Now what?"

Boy, this mech wasn't one for messing around, was he? "Now," Thundercracker said, storing the energon cube carefully in a subspace compartment, "I need a map. And…don't you have, I dunno, class or something?"

"Yeah," Skywarp said, shrugging. "But I kinda thought Starscream being in trouble was kinda more important than that."

Thundercracker shot him a quizzical look. "I'm sorry…have I missed something? Are you two friends?"

Skywarp shook his head vigorously. "Nope. We're not friends. He's mean. He doesn't like me. Said so himself. But he's in trouble, right? So we gotta help him."

For a moment, Thundercracker could only stare in amazement at Skywarp. Who was this mech that he was willing to just drop everything to rescue a mech he didn't particularly like? Was he just that stupid? Thundercracker shook himself free of his musings. If Starscream had been missing for days, he was probably on the brink of offlining due to lack of fuel. They had to find him fast. "Okay Skywarp, do you have a map for me too?"

"Oh yeah, right," Skywarp said and promptly pinged Thundercracker a request to use his private communication system.

"Um, Skywarp?" Thundercracker asked tentatively.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"Sending you the map, of course."

"Er…right." He hesitated a moment. The last time he'd let someone onto his personal comm frequency had been a member of his trine. He pushed that thought aside – it wasn't going to help anybody. He granted the request, and Skywarp sent Thundercracker a condensed file.

Thundercracker opened and whistled. The map Skywarp had sent him was an unbelievably detailed overview of the city of Vos and the entire surrounding geography within a hundred kilometers. "This is really impressive, Skywarp. Where'd you get it?"

Skywarp cocked his head. "Get it?"

"Yeah. What datapad did you upload it from?" he asked a little distractedly. He'd found out that not only was the map incredibly detailed, but he was able to zoom in and out on any location he selected. This was some remarkably high-tech stuff for an unbound, legally minor seeker to have his servos on. Thundercracker was willing to bet shanix that Skywarp had gotten it illicitly, for all that seemed unlikely by his disarming naivety.

"Didn't upload it," Skywarp said, with some confusion. "Made it."

Thundercracker stopped playing with the map, stopped moving period. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "But it sounded like you just said that you made this map."

"Yup," Skywarp said. "It was kinda tricky, not having actually seen any of it before. And some of the sources I had to use were a little out of date." Skywarp wrung his hands, his wings fluttering nervously. "Can you use it?"

"Use it?" Thundercracker said with a laugh. "This is better than anything I could have hoped for! Remind me to do something really really nice for you in the very near future." Skywarp was probably just confused again. When he had time, Thundercracker was going to figure out where the slow mech had gotten his servos on such a thing. Thundercracker scanned the map, zooming in on the areas closest to the most likely door Starscream had taken to leave based on Skywarp's descriptions. "Okay, looks like the most likely places he could be are in the northeast by eastern areas, so let's start looking there. We should probably start with caves, overhangs, anything that'd give him cover and make it harder for him to be spotted."

Together, the two seekers bolted out of the academy's compound. Skywarp slowed as he approached the hangar, but Thundercracker bolted across the floor at full speed. Once in the hanger, he transformed mid-stride, and barrelled down the runway - he achieved take-off speed in record time.

It was the first time he'd flown since disconnecting with his trine, and he felt shaky and unbalanced. There was nothing there to hold onto, no supplementary information, no one to watch his back and verify his position. He felt fragile and small, like the slightest breeze would blow him easily off course.

Thundercracker heard the ping as Skywarp requested the use of his comms.

[[I don't think we're supposed to be out here unsupervised,]] Skywarp said with uncertainty.

[[Well we can't find Starscream if we aren't out here, now can we?]] Thundercracker explained patiently. [[Besides, I'm a legal adult. I'm technically supervision.]] This seemed to satisfy Skywarp a bit.

[[Should we split up? We might find him faster that way.]]

[[We might, or we might get lost, and then we'd be way back at square one. I'd rather not risk it.]]

[[Don't worry. I won't get lost.]]

[[Sure, sure,]] Thundercracker said dismissively, not completely believing him. The air-head would probably get lost the second Thundercracker took his eyes off him.

The two flew for hours, criss-crossing the open plains in what they hoped was an organized manner. Of the two, Thundercracker was more used to seeing the world from above, and didn't feel the need to gawk like Skywarp was. And the more time they spent in the air, the more comfortable Thundercracker found he was without his trine to back him up. He was certainly a far more cautious flier than he'd ever been before in his life, but as the hours dragged on he could feel the shakiness in his flight patterns start to smooth out.

Occasionally Skywarp would attempt to start up conversation, but it was inane chatter, an attempt to break the quiet. Thundercracker would draw his attention back to scanning the ground for Scrappy. Starscream. Whatever.

'How much fuel did he have before he came all the way out here?' Thundercracker wondered as his gaze swept back and forth across the barren, red-orange landscape. 'And how did he travel? Skywarp said he went out the hangar, but I hope not. That would've taken so much energy out of him, energy he just doesn't have to spare. It's entirely possible that we're too late if he flew all the way out here. Primus, I hope we're not too late.'

As he was about to suggest to Skywarp that they change course and start circling back to see if they'd missed anything, he noticed the sun glancing off something off to his right.

[[Skywarp! I think I see something!]]

He gave Skywarp the rough coordinates of where he'd seen the flash, and they flew over to get a better look.

Half-hidden behind a small cliff was the small, hunched body of Starscream. He seemed unconscious, but still alive, thankfully. Thundercracker let out a small vent of relief and a silent prayer of thanks to Primus. Then he bent down to examine Starscream more closely.

There were dents on his armor that were consistent with falling out of the sky. Every seeker knew the look of those dents from their younger days. Off to their left, there was a row of tall columned stones that stuck up like fingers straight into the air. Starscream had probably clipped that going at full speed and had landed on the patch of ground where he was still slumped. Grit was caked on him, with only sections of his armor peeking through. Thundercracker didn't see any energon pooling around him, but that didn't mean anything - he could easily have internal injuries. The thought scared him.

"Hey, Starscream," Thundercracker said soothingly, pulling the energon cube out of subspace and started trying to coax the energon down the downed seeker's throat. To Skywarp, he spoke through their comms so Starscream, if he was still conscious, wouldn't get freaked.

[[I think he's okay for the most part. I don't see any energon on the ground, but I'm worried he might be hurt inside.]]

"Okay," Skywarp said out loud.

Thundercracker was about suggest that Skywarp only use the comms, but then thought better of it. He could try and explain the idea behind not stressing Starscream out, but that would take too much time, and Starscream wasn't waking up. Giving up on the energon - nothing was making it down anyways - he reached out and gently shook Starscream, calling his name. Starscream remained motionless.

"Okay, he's not responding to anything." He rocked back on his heels. He was really starting to panic now, but he was determined to remain calm in the face of Starscream and Skywarp. "He probably hit his head in that fall. We…we need to get him back to the academy so they can fix him, but I don't think we should move him." He rubbed his face. "Slaggit, I don't want to leave him alone. One of us needs to stay with him." He nibbled on his lipplates. "Do you think you'd be able find your way back here if you went for help?" He didn't particularly trust Skywarp with the task of staying with Starscream, or with being able to find his way back. Thundercracker knew how very easy it was to become disoriented without your trine. On the other hand, there was that delightful little map, so he hoping Skywarp could manage to navigate without him.

"Uh, yeah, I could do that, but - "

"Good." He knelt down and wrapped his arms around his knees protectively. "You should hurry. I don't…I don't know how badly he's hurt."

Out of the corner of his optic, Skywarp started to shift a little. "If you want us to hurry, I've, um, I've got a better idea."

Thundercracker frowned. Skywarp had an idea? "Uh…what is it?"

"We won't have to move Starscream, but, um…I've, um…I've never really…done this with other people before." He shrugged. "Should be fine, though." Quickly, he knelt down next to Thundercracker and grabbed his arm.

"Hey, what are you - " But Thundercracker was cut off by his entire world suddenly going black. Colors swirled behind his optics as he felt like he was being squeezed through a tight little tube.

He had no idea how long the weird hallucinations lasted, but his processor was pounding when they cleared up. His fuel tank was sloshing uncomfortably, too. "What…what the…"

Thundercracker was on his hands and knees on the ground, venting heavily, trying to force his processor and tank to settle. Near him, he could hear Skywarp venting hard too.

"It's…not usually…that hard…"

After Thundercracker was venting normally again, he managed to look up at Skywarp. He did a double-take, though, when he saw what was behind Skywarp.

They were on the front lawn of the academy.

Thundercracker turned wide optics on Skywarp. "Are…are you saying that…you…you can teleport?"

Skywarp nodded. "Yeah."

Thundercracker sat heavily on the ground. "And you didn't tell me about this before, because…?"

Skywarp shrugged. "Because you didn't ask."

Thundercracker couldn't help himself; he had to laugh at that. "Yeah…I guess I didn't." It was such a ridiculous thing to ask anyone, that even thinking about it made Thundercracker grin. Warping was a rare ability, almost completely unheard of.

He laughed even harder. "Oh Primus. Skywarp."

"What?"

"No, it's…your name."

"Um…yeah. It is."

"Yeah. I just…your name has the word 'warp' in it. I should've…it probably should have occurred to me. To ask, I mean."

Skywarp shrugged. "Didn't occur to anyone else."

Thundercracker chuckled again. He glanced around once more and saw the reason they were even talking about this in the first place. Starscream. Thundercracker got to his pedes with a slight groan. "One of us should go inside and get the doc."

Skywarp started getting to his pedes, but Thundercracker put a servo on his shoulder. "You stay here and watch 'im." He smiled. "You've done enough. Just…just rest here and keep an optic on him."

Skywarp sat down gratefully. "That was…that was really hard. Like…harder than normal."

Thundercracker didn't respond, though, because he was too busy running full out into the building where he'd spent the majority of his life. He knew every hallway of the academy better than he knew the insides of his ex- trine-mates' minds, and he knew the absolute fastest way to get to the office of the medical ward.

It took very little time to reach the medbay, and soon Thundercracker found himself skidding to a stop outside the entrance to the room he most desperately needed to get into.

He stuck his head in the doorway, and saw a few of the medical staff milling about. "Skywarp and I found Starscream," he said as quickly as he could. "He's not waking up."

Most of the mechs in the room froze, processing this, but the head of medicine began barking orders. "Where is he?"

"Outside."

"Show me."

Thundercracker lead the doctor through the corridors of the academy. As they ran the doctor, Stabilizer, started peppering him with questions about how they'd found him. Obviously, he'd known Starscream had been missing for a few days, and he wanted as much information on the state they'd found Starscream in.

"How did you get him here?" Stabilizer asked. "Please Primus tell me you didn't drag him all the way back here. If he has cranial damage, that is the absolute last thing you should have done."

"Er…" Thundercracker knew he should be completely honest with the doc, but Skywarps particular talent was pretty rare. If the doctor didn't know about it, he didn't want to be the one to out Skywarp. People tended to take advantage of mechs with peculiar abilities, particularly when said mechs were as unattached and as unintelligent as Skywarp was. "It wasn't that far…and we were really careful. We hardly even had to move him at all."

The doctor pursed his lipplates together like he didn't quite believe Thundercracker, but he let the issue lie. Instead, he started spouting off rapid-fire questions about Starscream's symptoms, most of which Thundercracker didn't know how to answer. He was relieved when they finally came upon the unconscious body of Starscream and the doctor dropped to the ground and immediately began examining him.

Thundercracker helped Skywarp, who still seemed utterly wiped, to his pedes. They both stood a little ways off and watched as Stabilizer tended to the downed seeker. Soon, a few of the other on-site medical staff came to assist him, bringing a gurney and medical supplies. One of them told Thundercracker and Skywarp that there was nothing they could do and that they should probably move along. Reluctantly, the two seekers trudged tiredly back inside.

They wandered into the cantina, neither wanting to go back to their respective rooms, and Skywarp not wanting to go to his classes. They grabbed their regular table in the back of the room.

"So…have you ever done that with other people before?" Thundercracker asked tentatively. He was pretty sure Skywarp had said something to that effect at least once during the day.

"Nope," Skywarp admitted.

"So how did you know it would work?"

Skywarp shrugged. "I didn't." Thundercracker felt belated panic grip his spark. They could have died, and Skywarp didn't seem to be too concerned about that fact. It was as though that particular fact hadn't occurred to Skywarp, which was entirely likely.

"Well," Thundercracker said, nervously changing the subject. "Um, h-how long have you been able to warp then?"

Skywarp thought about that for quite some time. "Dunno."

"Well…when was the first time that you…you know?"

"When was the first time that I what?"

Thundercracker vented. Skywarp really did need everything spelled out for him, didn't he? "When was the first time you warped?" he amended, trying not to be frustrated with Skywarp. The mech really did mean well, after all.

"Oh." Again, he really had to think about that. "Dunno for sure. I mean…I figured out how to do it quite a while ago. It's actually really really simple. I could show you how to do it if you wanted. I've always wanted to show somebody how to do it, nobody around here seems to be able to." He seemed so excited by the idea of sharing his talent with somebody else that Thundercracker really didn't have the spark to tell the poor guy that it was probably impossible for him to learn. These kinds of talents were rare, and Thundercracker was pretty sure they were innate, spark-borne gifts.

"Uh, yeah. Sure. Maybe later, after we find out how Starscream's doing."

"Oh. Yeah." Skywarp looked down. "I'd forgotten about him. What with the excitement and all."

Thundercracker resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands. Skywarp's capacity to get distracted by the smallest things was nothing short of amazing.

They sat in silence for a while. Thundercracker pulled up Skywarp's incredible map and started to fiddle with it some more. He tried to see how it was coded, but it all looked like a bunch of nonsensical gibberish to him. "Hey Skywarp?"

"Yeah?"

"Where did you say you got this thing again?" Thundercracker asked.

"I didn't 'get it'," Skywarp said a little indignantly.

"Okay, well then how do you have it? Did someone give it to you?" Skywarp shook his head. "Did you find it somewhere?" Again Skywarp shook his head. "Did you…did you steal it?"

Skywarp frowned. "Of course I didn't." he said. "Why would I steal a map when I can just make one myself?" He seemed only mildly offended by this accusation, but not nearly as much as Thundercracker was expecting him to be.

"Look, Skywarp, it's okay if you stole it. This is a really cool map, I probably would too if I knew I could get away with it." He probably wouldn't, but he wasn't going to say no to stolen goods when they were as magnificently detailed as this map.

"But I didn't steal it!" Skywarp protested.

"Okay, okay, fine, have it your way." He wasn't going to argue with Skywarp if Skywarp was determined to keep up the charade. Hopefully, Skywarp would eventually trust him enough to tell him the truth.

They moved on from the subject of warping and maps. "Hey, didn't you say you had a class today? Why haven't you gone to that?"

Skywarp shrugged. "I don't like the class. I don't get a lot of what's going on in it."

Thundercracker laughed. "Well missing classes isn't going to help with that." He'd had more than enough experience with hating classes and ditching them.

Skywarp drooped a little. "Yeah. I know." He'd probably heard this from more than one source in the past.

Thundercracker had to smile ruefully at that. "But in my experience, I didn't use half of the crap I learned in my classes anyway. Most of it is just pointless anyway, I say."

Skywarp caught his optic and a slow smile spread across his face. "Hey…you know that you look a little like Starscream when you smile like that?"

Thundercracker was taken aback by this. He wasn't sure if it was a compliment or not, so he just said "Um…okay?"

They continued to talk for several hours about whatever came to mind. Eventually, one of the medical staff found them. "There you are," he said. "We've been looking all over for you. Stabilizer said you're the ones who brought him in?"

Thundercracker nodded, rising. "Is he awake?"

"No," the nurse said. "We got him stable, but he's resting now. The doctor needs to see you both in his office."

Thundercracker took a look at Skywarp. He didn't particularly like the sound of that. Skywarp, as usual, didn't seem too concerned. That just meant Thundercracker would do the worrying for both of them then. From what Thundercracker could tell, he was already doing a pretty good job of it. 'I hope he's not dead,'Thundercracker thought as they were hustled down the hallway. Then, a bit of anger flaring, he realize it would be so like that insufferable mech to go and get himself accidentally killed just to make Thundercracker feel guilty. Which, naturally, only made him feel guiltier for thinking.

Then, a bit of anger flaring, he realize it would be so like that insufferable mech to go and get himself accidentally killed just to make Thundercracker feel guilty.

Twit.

A/N: Hey all. I just wanted to let you know that I do have a plan for updating this monster of a thing - every two weeks you'll be getting a chapter. That means Aug 9 is when I post chapter 2. I also just wanted to give you a heads up that I will be more or less sticking to G1. So if there are certain characters whose deaths bother you, you might want to stop after part 2. Just saying. Enjoy. Have fun. Thank you for the follows, favorites, and reviews, and a massive thank-you to my editor and co-conspirator, without whom this thing wouldn't have been born.