Chapter 7 – Obsolete
A/N: This chapter is up a little later than usual because I am dying from acute finals. It's very serious, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it.
Also, quick formatting note: Anything in italics and ' ' (i.e. 'Starscream is annoying.') is a thought, and thus also something that will get communicated via trinebond. Anything in italics and [[ ]] (i.e. [[Starscream is annoying.]]) is communicated over private comm.
Next update is Dec. 20. I guarantee you this one will be on time. As always, many thinks for the follows and the favorites. Thank you also for the comments, I treasure them all so much. And of course, special thanks to Jideni, who suffers so much for this with me, and a bonus thank-you to Red_Seraphim for tweaking some particularly problematic phrasing for me when I was about ready to have a breakdown from stress.
Love you all. Until next time.
There are two basic layouts for a trine's personal quarters at the Vosian Academy. The first - and considerably more popular - layout consists of a common area, and a large bedroom. As per government regulation, each mech is provided with standard amenities, including work desks, simple furniture, storage space, energon warmers, and the saddest, oldest computers the Academy can spare. The bedrooms are fitted with three berths, which the trinemates can arrange to suit their preferences.
The second layout - while hosting the same amenities - features a smaller common area, allowing for separate personal rooms. The grand majority of trines tend to favor the communal bedroom, as it is a symbolic representation of their unity. Among older generations, this tradition was regarded more as an actual rule, as trining was more or less synonymous with bonding. As time went on, however, the younger generations began to have more liberally minded ideals. Despite the changing times, however, most seekers preferred the conventional shared bedroom.
Nobody ever really expected Starscream's trine to be conventional.
Surprisingly however, the decision to get separate rooms was not pushed by Starscream alone. Skywarp had been nearly as adamant about having his own space as Starscream had been, although he'd been far less forceful about it. And far less…shouty.
Regardless of the room's design, all adult, trined seekers had one feature in common for their quarters: a take-off balcony. Skywarp was ecstatic.
"-please please please can we TC? I've never gotten to fly outside of the practice area, and it's so much fun, I've always wanted to do it for real TC come on please can we?"
Skywarp bounded around his trinemates as he delivered his request, his face bright. Thundercracker still had Starscream draped over his arm, the latter looking equal parts gray and exhausted.
"I'm going to bed," Starscream mumbled, his swearing long ago having subsided to a few choice words every ten minutes or so. He disentangled himself from Thundercracker and stumbled towards one of the dorms.
"That one's mine!" Skywarp piped up. His voice had a strange edge."That one's yours," he said, pointing to a different door off the common area.
"And which one is TC's?" Starscream asked sweetly.
Skywarp pointed again.
"Correction: I'm going to TC's bed," he said, staggering towards the door. "Wake me if somebody dies. I could use a pick-me-up." The door hissed closed behind him, and within moment's Starscream's vitals began dropping into recharge patterns. A quiet sleep-stream hummed in the back of their minds.
Thundercracker vented and collapsed on the couch, rubbing his faceplates. Exhaustion slowed his movements, and he was hard pressed not to just fall asleep right there. He and Starscream had about crawled back from the clinic. Going that slowly had been torture for a seeker who had grown used to just flying wherever he needed to go. Compounded with the recent surgery - and the fact that he'd practically carried Starscream of all people - and he was two spark pulses away from passing out.
"So can we, TC? I know Star's asleep, but we can go always go for a flight, right? The balcony is right there, just a small flight, just to fly outside the practice arena." Skywarp had joined him on the couch and was tugging at his shoulder, Skywarp's movements sharp with barely contained giddiness. He seemed to be trying not to whine, but a combination of anticipation and excitement was making it rather difficult for him.
"Skywarp," Thundercracker said groaning. He turned slightly to grab Skywarp's servos, partially to stop him from yanking on his arm any more (he had a remarkably strong grip, and Thundercracker was afraid he'd tug it right out of its socket) and partially to command his attention. Skywarp looked into his optics and Thundercracker realized he was smiling despite himself. "Skywarp," he repeated, "Starscream's not feeling up to flying right now." Thundercracker had just spent the last two hours listening to how thoroughly Starscream was not up to flying, in generous detail. "How'd you feel if we went flying for our first time without you?"
Skywarp drooped a little at that. "But we could still - " he tried to protest.
"Warp, it's illegal if Starscream isn't with us. Imagine...I don't know, imagine if the weather got bad, or if somebody spotted us flying without a complete trine. We'd be in pretty bad shape."
Skywarp's disappointment was palpable. Thundercracker felt like a criminal.
"Tell you what, though," Thundercracker said, clapping him on the back. "Soon as he's feeling better, we'll go out for a fly first thing. We won't even wait to reformat our armor to match. Sound good?"
"Sounds great," Skywarp answered, good mood recovered.
"Awesome," Thundercracker said, Skywarp's smile encouraging a sleepy grin of his own. The couch underneath him was warm. Distantly, he realized that some of his more extraneous systems were shutting off as involuntary recharge engaged. "I'm gonna, erm, gonna go to sleep now." His optics were half-shuttered. "M'little tired."
Skywarp shot him a puzzled look. "Starscream's sleeping in your berth though. I can see it right here on my HUD," he said, pointing to his own optics as though Thundercracker could somehow see it too.
"I know," Thundercracker said. He tried to pat Skywarp reassuringly, and managed a gentle whack. Close enough. "That's why we have the couch. It's nice. I'm gonna, uh..." Words were evading him. "Mm, gonna nap on it, m'sorry. Walk was long."
Skywarp nodded, and slid onto the floor as Thundercracker spread out on the couch and shut off his optics.
Not two nanoclicks had gone by before he felt Skywarp poking his shoulder.
"What, Warp?" Thundercracker asked, exasperated.
"Uh, well, um," He seemed to be struggling with something. "It's just, you guys were gone a long time."
"Yes. That's what happens when you walk instead of fly," Thundercracker mumbled. "May I sleep now?"
"What? Oh…yeah, sure. Sorry."
A few moments of silence passed.
"TC?"
"What, Warp?" Thundercracker asked again. Was this annoyance? This was annoyance. He was getting annoyed.
"Well, um, it's just that you were gone so long, and I kinda missed you guys even though I could talk to you guys in your heads, and so I was just kinda wondering if um…can I uh…" Thundercracker unshuttered an optic. Skywarp was fidgeting, his wings hiked, hesitant. Finally, he shook his head."No, never mind, it's stupid, forget I asked."
"Warp." Thundercracker said, torn between irritation and concern."You're just going to try and ask me again in another five minutes. So just ask now."
Skywarp stayed silent, head bowed. For a moment, Thundercracker didn't realize what Skywarp was waiting for. Then it dawned on him.
Whenever he'd gotten frustrated with his old trine, Thundercracker had always clamped down hard on his end of the bond, blocking out everything about his trinemates. It had happened most often in the last year before they'd broken up, becoming a second-nature reaction to anything remotely stressful. Thundercracker realized that between all the noise the other two had been making, at some point during the long walk, he'd done it again, absently shutting down the bond as completely as possible in hopes of relieving his headache. He hadn't loosened it at all since walking through the door.
He opened the bond, and immediately Skywarp's thoughts flowed into his, peppered with bursts of numbers and an influx of ongoing observations about anything and everything. At the forefront of his thoughts, louder and bolder than the flow of background information, was a picture. It stood vivid, apart from the undercurrent of data, an obstinate focus.
The picture was of Thundercracker and Skywarp, asleep together on the couch.
'this 01110100 is 01101111 embarrassing 01100111 and 01100101 childish 01110100 he'll 01101000 just 01100101 laugh 01110010 at 01100011 me 01101100 and 01101111 get 01110011 mad 01100101 and 01101000 leave 01100001 like 01110000 everybody 01110000 else 01111001'
Thundercracker just grinned and shook his head, even as he turned off his optics again. From his reclined position on the couch, he spread his arms wide. "Come here then," he said, venting a little in resignation as he did.
There was a moment where nothing happened, and then he felt Skywarp's considerable bulk pressing into him. For some reason, Skywarp's engines ran warmer most mechs, making him the loose equivalent of hugging a furnace. Skywarp pressed his wings as flat against himself as he could so Thundercracker could get closer.
Thundercracker's grin stayed in place as he listened to Skywarp's thoughts whirring very quickly, first in joy and delight at how Thundercracker seemed to have read his mind, personal chastisement as he realized that was silly, of course he had, they were trine-mates now, Primus what an idiot, stupid stupid. Then his thoughts split and diverged, blending words and numbers, noticing everything all at once, although they kept returning to the fact that Thundercracker's chassis hummed louder than anyone else's Skywarp had ever met.
'He's like a lullaby,' Skywarp mused at one point, a thought that lifted Thundercracker's spark inexplicably.
Thundercracker fell asleep on that couch, spark and armor pleasantly warm, as Skywarp realized he was still hungry and should have probably prepared some snacks.
It only took a week and a half for Starscream's nausea to clear up, which - considering the fact that he never ate or slept, despite Thundercracker's best efforts - actually seemed like a rather remarkable recovery.
Every time Thundercracker had gone into his own room (which Starscream had, unsurprisingly, commandeered) to see if Starscream needed anything, he'd been accused of smothering Starscream by the mech himself. He couldn't even sleep in his own berth without risking a snark-off session, and had been resigned to sleeping on the couch. Starscream was, after all, in too delicate a state to be moved, frail thing that he was. When Thundercracker had said as much to Starscream's face, Starscream had pointedly walked into his own room just to show that he could. The next evening found him back in Thundercracker's berth, passed out after a night of sleeplessness.
Luckily, the nausea did subside (albeit it had taken quite a few threats to visit Stabilizer's med bay before the nausea had completely died down). Starscream had waltzed out of Thundercracker's room one evening and pronounced himself cured ("No thanks to you lazy louts," he'd sneered, and Thundercracker had thrown protests right back at him) and that tomorrow they were to go for their first flight around Vos.
"Our dear, wizened old Thundercracker can show us the sights," he said, smirking at the two mechs who had draped themselves in odd positions on the furniture in order to play quattra. Skywarp was steadily working towards his fifth win in a row, which made no sense to Thundercracker given Skywarp's complete inability to retain the rules. "Provided his ancient spark doesn't give out on us, that is," he added.
Thundercracker was going to calmly issue an insult back, but was distracted by Skywarp launching himself off the sofa to tackle hug Starscream, yelling. Thundercracker thought Skywarp was saying words - something to the effect of "WE'RE GOING TO FLY WE'RE GOING TO FLY WE'RE GOING TO FLY" - but the mech was too excited and speaking too quickly for him to be certain.
Starscream started yelling as well, matching Skywarp's volume and cursing as he tried to disentangle himself.
Thundercracker cleaned up the quattra and the few scattered datapads, carrying them back into his room, thank you very much, letting Starscream and Skywarp work out that squabble on their own.
Thundercracker wasn't quite sure how it happened, but when he returned from his room, Starscream had apparently subdued Skywarp and was sitting on him.
"How…no, you know what, I don't want to know," Thundercracker immediately said, holding up a hand to stall Starscream's inevitable outburst. "Starscream, get off Skywarp - unless you don't want to go out and try flying as a trine."
"FLY-" Skywarp started to say, but Starscream thumped him on the head and he shut up.
"I'm not flying if he's going to shriek that every time one of us says it," Starscream growled.
"Right, okay. Skywarp, Starscream promises to stop sitting on you if you keep your excitement to a reasonable volume." He didn't bother asking Starscream if he agreed, because insults and snide banter would ensue, and Thundercracker wanted to get back before dark. "That sound good?"
Skywarp nodded, and Starscream stood. The smile he shot Thundercracker was sickeningly sweet. "Now I know why I've always been told to respect my elders - they're just ever so wise."
"Shut up," Thundercracker growled at him and brushed past, crossing the common area to the doors of the take-off balcony.
"No really, you are!" Starscream said, bounding after Thundercracker in a passable imitation of Skywarp's boisterousness, still gushing compliments.
[[Hey Warp?]] Thundercracker asked via private comm-link: It was one of the few convenient ways to communicate with only one trine-mate at a time.
Skywarp didn't respond verbally, but replied with a questioning ping.
[[How did Starscream manage to pin you? You're way bigger than he is.]]
[[Yeah, er, well...m'afraid of hurting him.]]
[[You're what?]]
[[He's always so cranky! If I accidentally hurt him, he'd probably get worse. Get really mad or something.]]
[[Heh. That's a good point.]]
"If you two lovebirds are done flirting." Starscream had beaten Thundercracker to the doors and was standing on the threshold, half-bowed elegantly. He'd clearly figured out they were comm-ing one another. "I believe we have some air to test."
Thundercracker just shook his head as Skywarp darted past him, eager to be the first one out on the balcony.
Thundercracker really never had Skywarp pegged as the gentle giant type, but he was right – Starscream would kill anyone who dared lay a finger on him.
"So, um, how are we going to do this?" Thundercracker asked, joining his trine out on the balcony.
"What do you mean?" Starscream asked. He had his arms open and his wings flared out to feel the breeze on their upper story balcony. Skywarp was happily shifting from pede to pede, fists clenching and opening, unable to stay still in the face of imminent unsupervised flight.
"Well, last time you tried to fly, you kind of crashed into a rock and nearly died. I figured we'd wanna be a little more careful this time around."
"Get slagged."
"Actually, no, that's what we want to avoid this time."
Starscream turned to face him, wings angled high in irritation. Then he blinked, straightened, smiled, relaxing into an open pose. "Well, that's what a trine is supposed to be for, right?" Still with that sugary smile in place, he said "Warp, c'mere a minute?"
"Yeah?" Skywarp asked, immediately bounding over to his slighter trinemate.
"I want to show you something," Starscream said, still smiling. It was only beginning to occur to Thundercracker that this was perhaps not the best of signs when the red seeker leaned over the edge and pointed, inviting Skywarp to do the same.
"Skywarp, I don't think you should -" Thundercracker began, surging forward to stop Starscream. Surely the mech wasn't about to actually do what Thundercracker thought-
Skywarp wasn't there.
Skywarp wasn't standing there.
Skywarp wasn't standing next to Starscream, and Thundercracker couldn't exactly hear properly, couldn't see properly, because it was still registering that Starscream was a completely, totally, utterly glitched fleck of rusted hardware that had not only dropped out of the bowels of Unicron's innermost workings, but had fallen into the acidic pits of Kaon, stewing for a millennia or two in his own stench, Primus damn the fragging hellspawn slagsucker.
Thundercracker heard a mech saying all these things out loud, and felt a rage and panic well up inside himself as though they belonged to the spark of another mech, separate from him. He felt detached from that anger, from that fear, which he supposed - even as he ran to the edge of the balcony - was very, very lucky for Starscream. Because once that anger caught up to him, once he regained his bearings and really got a grip on that total malfunction of a mech, he was going to clock Starscream so hard the scrappy, half-formed child would be feeling the pain from his hit for decades to come.
As he scrambled, his mind created visions of Skywarp falling, unable to right himself, unable to coordinate enough to transform into his alt-mode while in rapid freefall. He thought of Skywarp broken on the ground below, bleeding, cracked and dead. His spark felt like it was going to blow out.
What his mind conjured and what his optics told him were two vastly different things. Just as Thundercracker got to the edge of the balcony, he saw Skywarp twist awkwardly to transform into jet-mode, activate his thrusters, and shakily gain altitude. He hit a comfortable speed and began flying in lazy circles. 'So are you two gonna come up here, or what?' he asked via the trine bond.
Thundercracker just stared at the black jet. 'You're…you…he's - '
'I think you broke TC, Warp,' Starscream thought with a chuckle to his mental voice. His arms were crossed and he was smirking at Thundercracker.
Thundercracker whirled on Starscream and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him roughly. "YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HIM," he roared. Inside his chest, his spark flared and spun, pained. He felt shaky. "YOU HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING HE COULD TRANSFORM MID-AIR!"
Starscream shoved him off contemptuously. "Except that it's part of basic flight training," he said slowly, as though Thundercracker were a very small child and incapable of grasping this concept. "They teach us mid-air transformations in case we, say, fall off a cliff. Or a balcony. And as we both know, he got the best marks in flight because he's a freak."
'D'you really think I'm a freak?' Skywarp worried at them.
'Yes, but you're MY freak, which means you're not one of those useless freaks you sometimes hear about. Like Stabilizer.' Starscream was smug as he thought this.
Skywarp did a little loop-de-loop, careful and precise. 'I. Okay.' He began flying in tight circles.
"Yes, but they don't make us actually fall off a balcony!" Thundercracker's voice had lost its desperate edge, and he no longer felt like killing Starscream, but he still wanted to shake the mech until he started seeing sense. His chest continued to ache. "The practice falls they make us do are a hellofa lot shorter than a three-hundred story fall, you fragging idiot."
'He could've panicked and not been able to transform his attention span isn't that great if he started panicking he wouldn't have been able to do it, what would we have done if he'd DIED we wouldn't be a trine we - '
Skywarp interrupted Thundercracker's flow of panicky thoughts. 'TC, I had well over a hundred and thirty two point seven meters before attempting to pull out would lead to an inevitable crash. At my weight and current velocity I easily had thirteen point six two seconds to spare, even after correcting my position for optimal thrust after transformation. Even if I did crash, my speed wasn't enough to sustain permanent injuries from this height.'
Thundercracker and Starscream both just looked at him. Throughout Skywarp's speech ran an undercurrent of numbers, algorithms, raw data. It was one thing to be aware of that constant stream of information, and quite another to hear Skywarp actually using it. It left Thundercracker feeling a bit winded.
Starscream recovered from the surprise first. "See? Perfectly fine. Stop worrying so much, or you'll blow out your circuits."
And then Starscream proceeded to do something that made Thundercracker want to kill him even more. Starscream was standing with his back to the edge of the balcony, and he casually leaned back, farther and farther and farther, until he was gone, plummeting head-first towards the rocks below.
Thundercracker almost shrieked at that, and his voice did hit an uncomfortable pitch as he yelled at Skywarp to grab Starscream before he hit the ground.
Instead, Skywarp continued flying in calm little circles, and as Thundercracker watched, Starscream gracefully slid from what looked more like a swan-dive than actual free-fall into his alt mode. A scant few meters above the ground, Starscream's thrusters kicked into overdrive, and he roared past the building up to Skywarp's altitude with very little room to spare.
'Cool,' Skywarp said appreciatively, and even airborne, Starscream radiated smugness.
Thundercracker was venting heavily through this entire ludicrous exercise, even after it was apparent that both his trine-mates were safe, sound, and whole.
'Your turn, TC,' Starscream crooned, the trine-bond now the easiest way to communicate since his voice-box was muffled under layers of armor and redirecting the words to external speakers took more effort than sending a comm. 'Show us your smooth moves, oh ancient one.'
'Yeah TC,' Skywarp bubbled at him. 'Come join us. It's a lot of fun!'
'Fun. You think it's fun. You think that thing you did, that you both did, that - you think it was fun.' His engine was running even louder than normal, armor hot from alarm. 'Give me a minute to reset some systems.' His chest didn't hurt as much anymore, but some of shakiness remained. 'Also, I may need to kill Starscream when this is over. Just a heads up.'
'If you can catch me,' Starscream taunted. 'Which is never gonna happen, considering you're afraid of the sound of your own thrusters when it comes to powered flight, you undersized transport shuttle.'
'Don't call me that,' Thundercracker snapped.
'Come up here and make me stop, TRANSPORT SHUTTLE.'
Thundercracker gritted his denta, but initiated his transformation sequence, pointedly staying on the balcony. He was a sensible mech, thank you very much, and he'd be damned if he was going to play Starscream's suicidal game of falling off the sides of buildings.
'Boooooring!' Starscream crowed.
'Shut up, Starscream. At least I didn't almost die from transforming.'
'We didn't almost DIE, you cretin. And if there's not a little risk of hurt, where's the fun?'
'The fun,' Thundercracker said, powering up his engines slowly, like they were supposed to do, running through a system's check before bringing his thrusters to full burn, 'is in the flight itself.' And with that, he rolled off the balcony. It wasn't long enough as runway to give him the kind of smooth lift-off he preferred, and he wobbled uncertainly as he suddenly dropped off of solid -ground into the Vosian atmosphere. Still, he quickly righted himself and got a respectable distance between himself and the building - both for safety, and because he knew just how loud he could be when he was in the air. He didn't want to disturb anyone sleeping or any classes with the roars of his engines.
'How tame,' Starscream said, his voice dripping criticism. 'It's like I've told you, TC, I need my mechs with a bit more EXUBERANCE in order to bed them.'
'Do you ever stop thinking about interfacing?' Thundercracker demanded, making wide turns in the air and re-acclimating himself to the feeling of wind beneath his wings.
'You tell me,' Starscream said, sounding bored. 'You're in my head now, right?'
Thundercracker playfully flew in close to Starscream, pulling away sharply to create some turbulence for the smaller flyer.
Starscream spat insults even as he adjusted to the stronger air currents Thundercracker had given him. Skywarp offered some suggestions on how he could correct himself even more smoothly, and Starscream switched to insulting the darker jet.
'Why don't we avoid the city for now?' Thundercracker finally suggested. 'There's too much air traffic there.' He worried that in the absence of a flight instructor, Starscream's antics would cause him to crash, or worse, bring down someone else with him.
Starscream must have caught some of those thoughts, because he sent Thundercracker a rather colorful animation of Thundercracker tripping over his own feet and exploding.
'Wow, I am so offended,' Thundercracker said sarcastically. 'Really, that was just so scathing, Starscream.'
Ignoring the other two, Skywarp excitedly asked, 'We'll have more room to fly out over the badlands, right?'
'Yup,' Thundercracker said. 'Plenty of room for us all to just goof off and enjoy the weather.'
'Ugh, you have no idea how incredibly old you sound when you say things like that,' Starscream complained.
'Shut up, Starscream.'
The trio flew off towards the badlands, Starscream automatically taking point. Thundercracker was about to suggest that Skywarp take point, what with his ability to make maps and rapid calculations and such. It also made more sense to him that a mech with larger mass would be able to break through the air more easily than a thin scrap of a thing like Starscream. If Skywarp took point, Thundercracker and Starscream would have to expend that much less energy in order to fly, as the stocky mech displaced more air around their formation.
But Skywarp was chittering pleasantly about how nice the symmetry of their V formation was with the small mech in front and the two larger ones behind. Thundercracker supposed it really didn't matter who was on point, especially when they were just going out for such a short trip.
'Star, you have to correct .47 degrees within the next 135.2 meters or you'll clip your wing on that outcropping.'
'I know how to fly, don't tell me what to do!' Starscream snapped.
'107.3 meters.'
'Shut up, Warp!'
'Uh, Starscream, I think he's right, you might want to - '
'Oh not you too! Primus, can't you keep your nose out of my business?'
'71.9 meters.'
'What are you, a countdown?'
'A countdown to crashing. But only if you don't adjust point - '
'I was being sarcastic, Skywarp.'
Skywarp proceeded to give what Thundercracker could only call a mental shrug, and adjusted his flight path. He then sent Thundercracker the calculations for Thundercracker to fix his own angle in order to avoid the rock.
Thundercracker, not one to question Skywarp's calculations, adjusted the amount he'd suggested. He easily cleared the rock, and he was just beginning to encourage Starscream follow the advice, when Starscream's wing clipped the rock, sending him spinning out of control with a burst of pained static.
Thundercracker immediately pulled up, arching over the rock at an angle that caused g-forces to pull uncomfortably on his wings. Once he was directly over Starscream, he cut his engines and initiated transformation back to protoform. He dropped like a stone and managed to get an arm hooked around Starscream's nosecone even as he spun wildly out of control. He reactivated his thrusters.
Warnings blossomed across his HUD, firmly informing him of his decreased maneuverability in root mode. He single-mindedly terminated the alert messages and yanked Starscream up and against his spin.
With Thundercracker fighting the spin, Starscream was not only able to regain control of his trajectory, but was also able to run a diagnostic check on his wing to be sure he didn't need to land.
As soon as Starscream's flight course was once again straight - as opposed to the downward spiral of doom it had been - Thundercracker let go of Starscream and deactivated his thrusters once more, dropping. As Starscream roared overhead, Thundercracker transformed mid-air, the motion clumsy and unsteady, and he wobbled slightly as he had to right his position once he was fully transformed. He veered left and returned to his place in their formation until his systems stopped screaming alerts at him.
The three flew in utter silence for a solid minute, nothing but Skywarp's unceasing flight protocols streaming in the background, overlapped by weather-tracking systems, his scans for radio signals, and his mapping protocols running through their heads.
'No, but what the actual frag?' Starscream finally demanded. 'What in the name of Primus's rusty transformation cog WAS that?'
'Let's land,' Thundercracker said, venting tiredly. He hated the lack of body language available to him while in alt mode.
Ordinarily, Starscream would have argued, but for once he complied, leading the trio in a soft descent towards the ground.
'Two kliks ahead is an area that's pretty flat, few rocks.'
'You mean like a clearing, Skywarp?' Starscream asked snidely.
'Yeah, one of those things.'
They didn't say anything more until they reached the clearing and gently settled down onto the rock floor. As soon as he touched ground, Starscream transformed and stalked over to Thundercracker and kicked him while he was still in alt mode for good measure.
'Hey!' Thundercracker protested, quickly transforming to glare at Starscream. "What in the Pit was that for?"
"What do you mean what was that for? You spend the whole week composing lists of ways for trined seekers to fly safely," Starscream snapped. This was not, strictly speaking, true – Thundercracker had merely reviewed the protocols involved when sharing airspace with two other mechs, and gone over several tricks his trine had figured out for flying before. The fact that Starscream was in his head and couldn't escape when he was reviewing these safety features was hardly something he could be blamed for. "You scream at me when Warp and I barely start messing around, and then you go and pull that stunt that puts my little take-off trick to shame!" He kicked Thundercracker again for good measure. "How dare you - "
"How dare I save your life? Again?" Thundercracker interrupted. Starscream just glared up at him.
"That was a pretty cool move, TC," Skywarp said, straightening out of his own transformation. Starscream threw his hands up in frustration and stalked off a little distance to steam. With the scariest seeker out of striking distance, Skywarp went up to clap Thundercracker on the shoulder. "How did you learn to do that? It was really cool. Can you show me?"
Thundercracker shrugged. "I mean, I wasn't really thinking about it. I just didn't want Screamer over there," he said jerking his chin towards the sulking seeker, "To get hurt any worse. His armor dents at the slightest touch - can you imagine how bad a fall from that height at that speed would hurt him?"
Skywarp grew still, optics sombre as his brain supplied the numbers for him. "Yeah. That'd be bad."
"And I mean…" He rubbed his arm nervously. He was loath to bring in up, but it was just as much a part of the stunt he'd just pulled as his own concern for his trine-mate. "Well…Flashflood was kind of a flyboy. He never looked where he was going, his flight calculations always had errors, and more often than not, he'd knock into something, or someone. Stormseeder 'n me started grabbing him before he would go down. It was a lot less expensive than taking him to the hospital every time he crashed into something."
Skywarp was quiet for a moment. "Flashflood and Stormseeder…they were your old trine, right?"
"Yeah," Thundercracker said quietly.
They stood in silence for a moment, Starscream's quiet insults coming in over their connection.
"You're not going to leave us, right?" Skywarp asked finally. He looked anxious, apprehensive, concerned.
Thundercracker forced out a laugh, but it was laced with static. "No, Skywarp," he said emphatically. "Absolutely not."
Skywarp searched his face for a moment before grabbing him in a fierce hug. He didn't say anything, and his brain was strangely quiet for once, but Thundercracker was sure that if he'd been sparkbound to Skywarp, he'd be feeling relief and affection radiating from the black seeker.
"Hey!" Starscream yelled at them from across the clearing. "How come he gets a hug, and I'm the one who's clearly been wronged here!"
Thundercracker laughed again, and this time it felt a lot less forced. He pulled away from Skywarp and gently pushed him towards Starscream. "You heard him, Warp. He wants a hug." He said it loud enough for Starscream's benefit, and Starscream's optics widened a little when he said it.
"No, no Starscream does not want a hug," he said firmly.
Thundercracker chuckled, and Skywarp was smiling. Thundercracker patted Skywarp's shoulder as he walked past the bulky seeker and made his way over to Starscream. Starscream, for his part, turned away and pointedly ignored the tall blue mech. Thundercracker crossed his arms comfortably and stared out at the red rock.
The badlands, so named for their lack of energon rivers or shelter from the atmospheric anomalies that Vos was famous for, were actually quite beautiful. It was a barren sort of beauty – wide spaces and bizarre towers of rock made it the perfect place for young seekers to learn the basics of flying, and Thundercracker had many fond memories of sneaking into the badlands on cloudless days to play with his friends. Depending on the time of day, the rocks seemed to change color. At the sun's zenith, the lands would take on a harsh, burnt orange. At dusk, the strange formations became maroon rust, and on cloudy days, the ground took on a sallow hue, sunlight no longer reflecting the highlights hidden in the rocks. Nothing but warm colors survived in the badlands. It was one of the few places on Cybertron where the ground was rocky instead of metallic, missing the energon needed to break up and redistribute the trace amounts of minerals the rocks were made up of.
Thundercracker admired the view for a little while, pointedly ignoring Starscream's fuming. Finally, he said "So how's the wing?"
"Fine," Starscream snapped.
Thundercracker let the silence stretch between them for a moment. "Do you want me to show you how to pull off that move I did?"
"Mute it and frag off," Starscream said, his voice dripping with venom.
Thundercracker shrugged, but his optics flickered over to Starscream's frame. Radiating from the edge of his left wing was a dent, sharp and pink with ruptured minor fuel lines. It looked like it probably hurt, but Starscream's assessment was right, it wasn't going to hamper his flying at all. Thundercracker's gaze swept across the rest of Starscream's wing, and he scowled, concerned. Much like Starscream's hands, his wings were peppered with dings and half-healed dents, especially the edges.
A tiny voice in the back of his brain reminded him that he shouldn't ask this when Starscream was already mad at him, but his curiosity got the better of him. It always did. "Screamer, what did you do to your wings?"
"I hit a rock," he said snidely. "I thought you'd've noticed, what with 'saving my life again', and all that."
"No, I mean…do you clip your wings on things like that a lot?"
Starscream whirled on him, furious, his face hissing as energon heated it beyond the surrounding temperature. The fact that he had no retort to that told Thundercracker that he was spot on.
Starscream took a running start and leapt into the air, transforming with only the meager altitude the jump gave him to work with. Thundercracker tried to swallow the rising panic upon watching that, but Starscream's form was nothing shy of perfect, and he thundered away, his thrusters echoing against the rocks.
Thundercracker had to admit, the mech had style. That Starscream was clumsy enough to catch his wing against a rock formation twice was rather surprising to him.
He wandered back over to Skywarp, who was fidgeting, wings flicking back and forth. "Should we go after him?" he asked Thundercracker nervously. "I mean, seekers aren't supposed to fly without their trine in the air."
"He needs to blow off steam," Thundercracker told him. "He'll just get even more mad at us if we follow after him." He sat down on the ground. "If I'm going to be stuck here until he decides to come back, I'm going to nap." It was a good day for it, the weather was fairly mild and, according to Skywarp's weather-mapping programs, there should be no storms for him to worry about. He patted the ground beside him. "Pull up a seat, big guy."
Skywarp made a face. "I'll get dust in my joints," he said.
Thundercracker shrugged, laced his hands behind his head and lay down. "You probably already have dust in your joints." The badlands dust was notorious for getting everywhere, and any mech that went out there for practice flights always had to hit the wash racks soon after.
Skywarp huffed, annoyed."I know," he moaned.
"So if you're already going to have to wash yourself after this, what's a little more dust?"
Skywarp looked down at Thundercracker, then back up at the sky in the direction Starscream had gone off in. He shook his head. "Maybe in a little bit," he said.
"Suit yourself," Thundercracker said. He was a little disappointed Skywarp wasn't going to cuddle with him, then immediately thrust that thought out of his mind. It was a useless thought, an unnecessary one, and one that Skywarp would surely misunderstand if he heard it.
Fortunately, Skywarp seemed completely absorbed in something else. He was standing in the clearing, focused sharply on Starscream's receding form, completely still. At first, Thundercracker thought it was just typical Skywarp, but as curiosity grew, he began listening to the interplay going on in his head.
' – adjust if you don't wanna hit that rock, Star.'
'By the light of Vector Sigma, Skywarp, what is it with you and adjusting for rocks?'
'I thought you probably wouldn't want to hit it again, that's all.'
'That is not the same rock I hit before.'
'…kinda is.'
'Oh Primus take you all! You, TC, AND this damned rock!'
Thundercracker pushed himself onto his elbows so he was at a better angle to look up at Skywarp. "How'd you know it was the same rock?"
Skywarp turned to look at Thundercracker, a little sheepishly. "I, um…I might be borrowing some of the data his optics are sending his processor," he said.
Thundercracker grinned. "Don't let Starscream know that," he said, laying down again and chuckling. "He'd probably rip your head off." He relaxed back into the dust and resumed eavesdropping, bemused.
'No, but Starscream, if you shift 3.9 degrees left, you won't have to move as much to avoid that other rock 22.53 meters ahead of you.'
'Stop with the number point number thing, it's not helping me concentrate!'
'Um, uhhh, okay, Star, if you accelerate right when you get through that arch and bank right just a little bit, you'll be able to get through that narrow rock formation by tilting vertically. It'll take loads less energy than trying to zigzag through all of these rocks.'
'…send me the flight plan,' Starscream thought, a little reluctantly. Thundercracker was certain that the only reason Starscream was giving in to Skywarp's meddling was because the maneuver Skywarp was describing would be completely flashy. Starscream didn't care about energy consumption – he cared about how good he could look flying.
"Warp?" Thundercracker mumbled, feeling left out and wanting to make conversation.
"Hold on, TC, helping Star map a maze of rocks here."
He could hear Skywarp spitting strings of numbers at Starscream, translating them into instructions moments later. Thundercracker wasn't catching much of it, but the bits and pieces he did understand, he figured that Starscream was dodging through the maze at breakneck speeds. At first he thought either Starscream or Skywarp had made a miscalculation in determining the slight seeker's velocity, because at that speed Starscream shouldn't have been able to react in time to do anything. But no, both mechs were using that figure repeatedly as they spat data back-and-forth, crunching through numbers at a dizzying pace.
Thundercracker didn't feel up to really paying attention to what they were saying – he was trying to nap, after all, and a mind preparing for a nap wasn't one that was working fast enough to follow constant streams of data. Despite his best efforts though, he couldn't bring himself to sleep, and eventually he gave up on the nap in favor of wanting to be included. He stared up at the sky, actively focusing on what was going on between his two trine-mates and their rapid-fire brains.
At first, it didn't make much sense at all, as if he'd just walked in on the middle of a conversation. However, the more he paid attention, the more he was able to build a picture of what was happening. Starscream was apparently running laps in the maze he'd found, challenging Skywarp to make flight plans for him.
Thundercracker was about to point out that even a minor mistake would send Starscream crashing into a rock at such high speeds that he'd need to see Stabilizer immediately.Then he realized that this observation would undoubtedly break their concentration and cause just that to happen.
The nice thing about the trine bond was that the more a mech concentrated on a subject, the less they focused on what the other members were thinking. If two mechs were focusing intently on one topic, the third could have passive thoughts and neither of the other two would notice– their concentration would drown such passive thoughts out, much how two people having a loud conversation will drown out someone muttering to themselves. Unless Thundercracker actively sent a thought to his trine-mates, they wouldn't really 'hear' what he was saying.
The longer he observed, the clearer the exchanges became. It appeared that Starscream was sending Skywarp his relevant data – speed, mass, approximate distance from the nearest rock. Skywarp's responding data was noticeably more detailed, accounting for Starscream's thrust capabilities, his braking power, notes on his maneuverability and agility (he was marked down as a 16? Thundercracker had no idea what that meant), his median reaction time, a wing to body ratio, and even how much fuel the mech was running on. On a basic level, Thundercracker knew that all of this was important to a seeker's ability to fly, but he'd never seen any of it actually applied to formulas in the way Skywarp was doing.
As he watched the numbers flashing, Thundercracker saw something interesting about the data Skywarp was offering to Starscream. It was subtle, so it had taken him a while, but it was there, and once he'd noticed it, it was impossible to ignore.
"Warp, can you get Star out of that maze soon? I want to talk to you," Thundercracker said.
"Yeah, one min, TC," Skywarp said, sounding harrowed.
Thundercracker waited until Starscream was just pulling out of the maze before saying, 'Hey I need to steal Skywarp's brain for a minute.'
'Take it some other time, we're busy,' Starscream said, still a little annoyed. 'Anyway, don't you think you have enough of him? Leave some for the rest of us.'
'Look, you can run your laps after I've talked to him,' Thundercracker quipped, deliberately ignoring Starscream's insinuations. After a moment, he added 'Actually, you might want to hear this too.'
'Oh my god, tell me this isn't another "TC Epiphany Moment" like at the trine clinic,' Starscream groaned.
'It might be.'
'Yeah, thanks, I'll pass.'
'No, Starscream, you're seriously going to want to hear this one out.'
'Why?' Starscream demanded.
'If I'm right, we might just have the coolest trine on Vos.'
'Define "cool",' Starscream said suspiciously.
'We'd be the best flying trio Vos has ever seen.'
There was a moment of silence as Starscream considered that. 'I'll be over in five.'
It took him three point seven minutes exactly.
"So what's this big grand epiphany?" Starscream demanded, dropping from jet mode to protoform while he was still a fair distance in the air, landing gracefully on his pedes. while still fairly high up, landing gracefully on his pedes. Thundercracker squashed a small shoot of jealousy. Being so small meant he could pull off stunts like that without risk of injury. If Thundercracker tried it, his superior mass would make him crack a leg strut on the dismount from such a height.
Thundercracker had gotten to his own pedes a long while ago, and he turned to look at Skywarp. "You were feeding Starscream data so that he didn't crash."
"Yeah," Skywarp said. "So?"
"So you were giving him data like you were right up there in the air with him, Skywarp. You presented it exactly the same as if you did when we flew here."
Skywarp shrugged.
"Do you have a point, or are you just admiring what the pretty boy can do?" Starscream asked, crossing his arms and cocking a hip.
"Shut up, Starscream," Thundercracker said. "It'll take longer if you keep interrupting."
"I thought you wanted me to hear this," Starscream complained.
"Hear, yes. Comment on, no."
Starscream rolled his optics, but growled out "Fine. I'll be a good little sparkling and do as mentor TC says. For now," he amended quickly.
Thundercracker rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Skywarp. "Warp, when you were guiding Starscream through that maze, did you have a map of it?"
"Nope," Skywarp said. "Nobody's ever made a real map of the place. 'Sides, it's too far out for anybody to really care about it."
"But you kept feeding Starscream new data about his surroundings," Thundercracker pressed. "Data he hadn't given you. You must have been getting it from somewhere."
"Well yeah. It was easy," Skywarp said. "All I had to do was borrow the inconsequential data Starscream's secondary sensors were sending to his processor - "
"You did WHAT? That was personal data from my personal - "
"Starscream, shut up and let him finish," Thundercracker said with exasperation.
"But he - "
"Shut up, and after he's finished you can decide if you don't want him to do it again!"
Starscream grumbled, but didn't speak up again, and Thundercracker said "Go on, Skywarp. You borrowed data from his secondary sensors…?"
"Oh yeah," Skywarp said. "Well, taking data from primary sensors seemed like going too far into Star's space, so I didn't look at that." Thundercracker shot Starscream look of chastisement for jumping to conclusions. Starscream huffed in response and and refused to meet Thundercracker's optics, crossing his arms over his chassis. "But using that data was easy. Starscream's frame is so thin, it reacts really well to even the littlest vibrations in the air, so I was able to get a sense of how far rock formations were by how quickly vibrations from his thrusters bounced off the rocks around him and returned to shake his frame more than just his engine normally does. Then I just applied everything I learned about him when we flew over here into a number of algorithms I've written. I had to adjust them a few times, cause he's way faster than I thought he'd be."
"Damn straight," Starscream said proudly.
"He's just got that problem with his wings, so I wrote another algorithm to help correct - "
"Whoa whoa wait back up," Thundercracker said, cutting his trine-mate off. "Okay, first of all: I understood literally nothing. You did what with his secondary sensors?"
Skywarp pulled in a large portion of air, impatient with Thundercracker's inability to keep up."I used the vibrations from his thrusters to calculate the approximate distance between Star and the surrounding rocks." He looked between his two trinemates who were just staring. "I had to!" he said defensively. "Star just kept giving me data about the stuff that was right in front of him! That wasn't helpful at all!"
"So...lemme get this straight," Thundercracker said. "You used, you, you used echolocation-" he said it like it was a magic spell, "using Starscream's thrusters and armor to map out the maze?"
"Yes," Skywarp said, sounding relieved that Thundercracker finally understood.
Starscream just threw up his hands. "Why do I even bother? That's not possible. TC, that shouldn't be possible, HOW CAN SKYWARP DO THAT WHEN IT ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE POSSIBLE?"
"I don't know, Star - "
"How does he not just, I don't know, explode? How are you not exploding? WHY?" Starscream demanded.
"Okay," Thundercracker vented. He pushed aside the fact that Skywarp was actually terrifyingly resourceful, and said "Secondly: You got data from Starscream when we flew over here? What kind of data?"
Skywarp shrugged. "Your normal stuff, really. How much fuel he was flying with, his overall mass, top thruster speed, braking times, agility, stuff like that. You can handle a lot of g-force, TC."
"Yeah, I'm aware," Thundercracker mused. He was trying not to completely freak out like Starscream was doing. He gave himself full points."And thirdly: Starscream has a wing problem?"
"No - " Starscream tried to say, but Skywarp was already talking quickly.
"Oh yeah. He's already small, and his wings are the wrong ratio for his body. Just a little too big for him, not so you'd really even notice, except that it makes him look even bittier than he is. He'd notice, though. I mean come on, that extra length is gonna add some added drag along his x-axis, and his thrusters and body mass are skimpy enough that he's gonna have to fight twice as hard against it as anyone else with that wingspan. Not to mention the extra weight of the wings themselves, which'll throw off all his most basic calculations."
Off to the side, Starscream's wings hiked higher and higher, his face clouded with embarrassed anger. Skywarp continued, unaware.
"Oh, and it means he's constantly catching them on things and knocking stuff over, 'cause all his movements are coded for somebody bigger than him." Thundercracker had noticed that Starscream knocked over a surprising number of energon cubes for someone who normally had such grace. "So when he was in the maze, I had to write an algorithm for him to fix it." He turned to Starscream. "You want it? It'd really help."
Starscream just stared at Skywarp, steely-eyed. Skywarp, excited and energetic a minute ago, took a nervous step back. Thundercracker came up behind him and put his hands comfortingly on his shoulders. "Starscream," he said warningly, but the red mech ignored him.
"Listen here, you little twerp," Starscream said, jerking a finger in Skywarp's face. "I do not have a problem with my wings. I don't bump into things."
"Except for that rock just now," Thundercracker said, quirking an optic ridge at Starscream challengingly, draping his arms protectively over Skywarp's shoulders. "Or the energon dispenser yesterday. And it was the bookshelf the day before that. You got the doorframe on your way to the wash racks last week - "
"Oh shut up, TC," Starscream spat.
"It's only like thirty centimeters out of proportion on either side," Skywarp assured Starscream hurridly. "It's barely even noticeable!"
"It's barely noticeable because it doesn't exist!" Starscream hissed, and he went to grab Skywarp. Thundercracker, still draped over the purple and black seeker, swatted Starscream away.
"Be nice, Screamer, he's trying to help you," Thundercracker chided.
Starscream snarled a few choice barbs at Thundercracker. Normally, he would have taken a swipe at the blue seeker, mass difference or no, but he was draped around Skywarp. Even Starscream wasn't crazy enough to think he could take on both his rather large trine-mates.
While they'd been talking, Thundercracker had been thinking, and he'd kept these thoughts very much to himself. In the middle of Starscream's barrage of insults, Thundercracker murmured quietly in Skywarp's audial fin, "Hey Warp, can you do me a favor?"
Under his arms, Thundercracker realized that Skywarp's engine, already hot to begin with, was humming even louder than usual. Thundercracker frowned in concern and stopped leaning against the mech. "Hey, you feeling okay?"
Starscream stopped yelling, and crossed his arms. He quirked an optic ridge. "Yeah, Skywarp. Something the matter? Go on, you can tell Thundercracker."
"I'm…um, I'm fine," Skywarp said, his faceplates hissing as his energon warmed them. He turned to face Thundercracker and Starscream, but refused to meet either of their optics. "Uh…what, um…what was the thing…um, TC, that you…?"
"You sure you're okay?" Thundercracker asked. "Cause we can take you to Stabilizer if you - "
"Oh for Primus's sake," Starscream snapped. "I swear, you two mention that mech every other minute. You'd think you were both in love…with him."
Thundercracker shot him a quick look. "Excuse us if we're concerned about the welfare of our trine," he snapped at Starscream.
The glitchhead just smiled knowingly at him.
Thundercracker turned to Skywarp. "Okay, you see that rock over there? The one that Starscream nearly crashed on?"
"I did not - "
"Sure TC," Skywarp said, still not meeting Thundercracker's optics.
"Think you can triangulate it's coordinates from here?"
Starscream started to protest, pointing out it was triangulate, not uniangulate, when Skywarp said "Sure, TC." He turned to look at the rock. He narrowed his optics at it, and for about five minutes just stood there looking at it. Starscream kept trying to interrupt to say this was stupid, but Thundercracker just shushed him. Finally, Skywarp turned back towards them and blasted them with the data they needed. All of the data, as though the three of them had been in the air.
At a miraculous loss for words, Starscream slowly sat down on the dusty ground. "That. You. That is not possible. That. Is not possible," he said quietly.
"And yet," Thundercracker said equally quietly.
In the silence that followed, Skywarp shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "Um…TC?" he asked uncertainly. "Are you…are you okay?"
"Yeah, Warp," Thundercracker said, his voice sounding strangely calm to him, considering what he'd just proven. "Warp, um…did you…did you realize that you didn't need a trine to be legally licensed to fly within the city's limits?"
Skywarp frowned at that. "TC, I can't fly in the city without a trine. That's the rule. You know that!"
Thundercracker vented and thought 'Primus give me strength,' forgetting for a moment that Skywarp and Starscream could hear him. Starscream snickered slightly, despite his shock. "Skywarp," Thundercracker said, "that law is in place because mechs need to be able to quickly process in-flight data when they're in the city. That's easily done with three brains."
Skywarp nodded. "Yeah. Makes sense," he agreed.
"Okay," Thundercracker said. "But I don't think you need two more brains to process that information. I think you just need your brain." He glanced at Starscream and hesitantly added, "Frankly, if you wait for us to give you our data, we'd…well, we'd probably be slowing you down, actually."
After a moment, and what could only be the hand of Primus descending to work a miracle, Starscream silently nodded once in agreement.
Skywarp considered that for a moment. "So…" He seemed to be struggling with that a bit. "That means…"
"It means you're a freak and a genius," Starscream snapped, irritated that this underdeveloped lout had left hi speechless for a moment. He stood up, dusting himself off as best he could. He stalked over to Skywarp, getting into his face. Skywarp, broad and tall, cowered away from the tiny seeker. "It means you don't need us! You never needed us, you idiot!"
Skywarp's face was stricken. He looked quickly at Thundercracker. "TC, it's not true, it isn't…"
"That's okay, Warp," Thundercracker tried to reassure him, but Skywarp shook his head vehemently.
"It...it isn't t-true!" Skywarp insisted, sounding desperate now. His engine hiccupped as he tried to keep static from his voice. "I won't leave you, I don't want to leave either of you - "
"Wait, slow down, no one said anything about leaving - " Thundercracker said quickly, turning to shoot a glare at Starscream.
But Skywarp wasn't listening, the static built up in his voice-box. "TC, I need you, I need you and Star both." His armor was burning hot, his systems running harder than usual. Extraneous data spilled over the bond, making Thundercracker and Starscream wince. "I-I'm useless without you. I'm not special without you." He cycled air, trying to keep his systems cool, and finally gave in, sinking to his knees. His fans stuttered, unable to coordinate properly, keening and spitting static.
"You're an aft," Thundercracker hissed at Starscream as he brushed past him to collect Skywarp in a hug.
Starscream rolled his optics and scowled, but watched as Thundercracker rocked the mech, holding him and making calming noises. Skywarp was clinging to Thundercracker's armor like his very spark depended on it, his optics shuttered and head bowed. Starscream observed them, and slowly, he relaxed, fondness in his spark. Thundercracker obviously cared very deeply for Skywarp. He was devoted to him almost. And Skywarp trusted Thundercracker completely.
This trine thing? It was going to be okay.
"Starscream, will you please apologize?" Thundercracker demanded with annoyance. "Explain to him that you didn't mean we were going to leave him!"
"Yeeaah, see, about that...no can do," Starscream said, examining the tips of his servos idly.
Thundercracker shot him a look that nearly made his paint-job peel off.
"Hey, you knew I was an unrepentant aft going into this," Starscream said coolly. "It's not my fault you decided to trinebond with me anyway."
Thundercracker gritted his denta but turned back to comforting Skywarp. Starscream was right, after all, and he had nothing to say to that.