Chapter 8 - Closing Ceremonies
A/N: Warning: There will be vaguely irresponsible alcohol consumption in this chapter - just because they're binge-drinking in a bar, it doesn't make it any more responsible than when they're doing it in their rooms. As always I want to thank everyone so, so much for the comments, favs, and follows. Seriously, without you guys, this would be a much more painful process. Also, I want to thank my editor/co-conspirator Jideni for their tireless help. There is one more chapter of this nonsense that will be going up on Jan. 16th - the epilogue - and then part one will be over. :O
That being said, THIS IS NOT THE END. This is part 1 of a very long work in progress Jideni and I have been working on (the overarching title being 'Triangulations and Orientations'). Part one is important for establishing character and laying the groundwork for the infinitely larger body that will be part 2 of TnO, which we have titled 'Facing Your Fear'. Part 2 will start to deal more directly with the autobot government, functionalism, racism, and classism, particularly as they pertain to higher education. Part 2 will also introduce an important character into what will be these three's relatively more stable trine dynamics. I don't want to give too much else away, but I'm fairly certain everyone who's familiar with any of the original transformers show will have a pretty good idea of who this new character will be. Another important thing to know about part 2 is that it will take place ten years after the end of 'Rejects'.
When we started posting Part 1, I had actually finished writing about 85% of the work. I gave Jideni and myself a month between postings so that we would have enough time in between classes, schoolwork, and college friends to actually edit the thing so that it would be vaguely presentable. I would like to do the same with 'Fear'. Unfortunately, as 'Fear' is going to be quite a bit larger than 'Rejects', it's going to take me some time to write enough of it to start being comfortable enough to post. This means that after the epilogue, TnO will be on hiatus, probably until sometime in the summer. However, for those of you who don't know yet, Jideni and I have made a convenient blog ( .com) where you can ask questions of our versions of TC, Star, and Warp, and where you can ask questions of us about our writing styles/habits and the worldbuilding we're doing. We'll be letting you guys via the blog when we thing we're close to posting again, and then once we've actually posted our first chapter of 'Fear'.
I think that's everything that needs saying for now. I hope you all have a wonderful time over the winter holidays/breaks with your families and friends, and that the New Year brings you joy and happiness, cause you all deserve to be happy dammit. Once more, we'll be uploading the epilogue on Jan. 16, 2015. Until then.
"No, you idiot, we can't put plating there."
"Well why not? The curve of the lines makes it more aerodynamically stable. You wanted to be fast, right? This is fast, that's what fast looks like!"
"Because your precious Thundercracker will overheat with a solid panel there, you dolt. And you'll spontaneously combust."
A huff of air. "Fine. But I still say breaking up that plate is gonna create too much drag."
"I'm sorry that I count your continued survival above complete lack of drag. Work around it."
"I'm trying," Skywarp grumbled. "But unless it's flush with the protoform beneath, there's no way I can - "
Thundercracker walked into their shared rooms to find Starscream and Skywarp seated at the table, which they had dragged to the middle of the space. The couch and easy-chairs were pushed up against a wall, and the floor was littered with datapads. "Do I even want to know?" Thundercracker asked as he took in the disarray.
"We're designing our armor," Starscream said by way of explanation. He was stooped over a datapad and scribbling on it as fast as he could.
"We're trying to make it match," Skywarp added, twisting in his chair to shoot a brilliant smile at Thundercracker. His smile faded as he added "But Star's too small and we're having problems."
"Hey," Starscream snapped, looking up briefly to glare at Skywarp. "I am not too small. Plenty of seekers are my size. You two are just freakishly ginormous." He curved back over his datapad as he explained to Thundercracker "Bigger engine, bigger chance of overheat. I want our frames to be stylistically similar, but I have to account for your resistance to temperature flux."
"And your lack of resistance," Skywarp reminded him.
"Hush." Starscream didn't even look up from his writing.
Thundercracker bent down to pick a datapad off the floor. "Touch that," Starscream snarled, "and I will make your death quite painful."
Thundercracker rolled his optics, but stood up raising his hands in surrender. "Fine. Not touching. See? This is me not touching."
Starscream made a vague growling sound, but said nothing further. Within minutes, the two engineers were arguing again, and Thundercracker carefully picked his way across the common area towards his own bedroom. He'd just come back to fetch a dapad he needed to return to the library. He hadn't expected to come home to a minefield and a cranky Starscream. He briefly wondered how Skywarp managed to stay so chipper despite Starscream's perpetual derision - or how he managed to stay functioning at all, for that matter.
Thundercracker glanced back at them. They were hunched together on the couch, bickering and pointing out trouble areas on the sketchpads, completely engrossed in their work. He smiled and retrieved his datapad.
He was halfway out the door when it occurred to him that maybe, as their third trinemate, he should help with the redesigns.
"No," Starscream spat. "Absolutely not. Let the smart guys handle things. You'd probably bust a circuit trying to figure this slag out."
"Oh yeah? And why's that?"
"We're the geniuses. You're the poetry guy. Go off and read something sad or political or whatever it is that you do."
Thundercracker leaned over to glance at Starscream's scribblings. "Hey 'genius', you misspelled 'ventilation'," he said, pointing at the word in question.
Thundercracker dodged Starscream's smack, cackling as he did so. "Would you just leave already?" Starscream yelled, and Thundercracker ducked out of the room, still laughing.
When the two finally agreed on a design, they sent it to the clinic responsible for reformatting trine armor. Like the shared bedroom, matching armor was symbolic, a visual marker that proudly proclaimed three seekers as part of a trine. Traditionally, trine armor had been identical in paint and shape, a way of enforcing the idea that all three trinemates were extensions of one another, bonded by body and spark. With fewer and fewer trinemates sparkbonding, and with more young mechs seeking autonomy and individuality, varying paint jobs were becoming increasingly popular.
Starscream had been rather adamant about having individual paint schemes. The surgeon couldn't quite believe that such a dysfunctional trine would want to make that particular statement at first, and and had dismissed it as some kind of practical joke. Thundercracker had to assure him - while simultaneously dealing with an angry, loud Starscream - that they were indeed serious.
His trine-mates did a good job, he decided, when he came back around from the aesthesia. The armor highlighted his mass, but it also felt lighter than his previous armor, sleeker somehow.
"So, um, do you…like it, TC?" Skywarp asked from his own hospital berth. Starscream said nothing, but Thundercracker saw his optics slide lazily over in his direction.
Thundercracker saw himself mirrored in the two beds next to his. Skwarp - who was nearly as tall as Thundercracker himself, and far bulkier - had always looked unwieldy, as if he shouldn't be able to fly with all those angles. Now, those angles had been rounded, armor streamlined to his body, and he looked not just capable of flight, but of bursting through a steel wall unfazed. It was strong, menacing, and Thundercracker found himself gazing a bit longer than what was perhaps appropriate. He tore his optics away to glance at Starscream.
Starscream too looked much cleaner, less like an undersized mech in danger of rattling apart, and more like a sleek, sharp flier, his large white wings predatory instead of awkward. Thundercracker imagined him doing those mid-air transformations he was so fond of; while Starscream was already quite adept at those tricks, the new armor would make him look like a ribbon of fluid weaving through air currents.
He couldn't stop smiling. "You - I, I love it. You two look amazing."
"See? I told you he'd love it. Fifty shanix to me." Starscream said, sneering triumphantly at Skywarp before slipping off the medical berth and waving off a protesting nurse.
'Seriously,' Thundercracker told them silently, finding words at that moment difficult. 'You're both gorgeous.'
'Naturally,' Starscream shot back, haughty. 'We haven't slipped into so many berths on charm alone, my dear TC.'
Thundercracker laid back and drank in the site of his trine, overwhelmed. Skywarp was sitting upright on his berth, black wings flicking back and forth in calculated, carefully measured intervals. His face was calm, content, and the numbers were quiet. Somewhere on his left, Starscream and a nurse were arguing about whether or not Starscream should be up so soon after a surgery.
It was official. Finally, well and truly, for all the world to see, official: They were a trine.
"Starscream, want to go out for a-"
"No."
"It's been a week."
"Get out of my room and go away."
"Maybe later we c-"
"NO, and for the last time, Skywarp!" Starscream yelled, grating. "Leave. Me. Alone!"
"I. Fine." Skywarp backed out of Starscream's room, half annoyed, half hurt. Behind him, Starscream continued typing, surrounded by glowing screens and virtual data sets. The Academy computer and his own, self-made computer were both dominating his desk, humming bright and loud. Datapads littered the area around his chair.
As Starscream's door swooshed shut, Thundercracker spoke up from where he was reading on the couch. "Kicked you out again?"
"Yeah," Skywarp said morosely, slumping down next to him.
Thundercracker hummed. "Maybe you should get a hobby." He idly flicked a finger across the datapad. "It'd help distract you, get you out of the suite, keep you busy."
Skywarp shrugged, hands tucked under his legs. "You don't leave the suite," he pointed out.
"Sure I do. I make runs to the library for more datapads, and to return Screamers', because Primus knows he won't. And I help Cloudhaven grade her tests sometimes."
"Isn't that the sociology professor?"
"Yup."
"Hnn. Never had her. Is she nice?"
"Nice enough."
Silence.
"TC…am I bothering you?"
Thundercracker looked up from his datapad, somewhat startled. "What? No, Warp, never, I'm just, I need to catch up on my reading is all."
Skywarp slumped even lower in his chair and sighed so dramatically Thundercracker laughed. "You guys are boring," he concluded. "So boring. You never want to do anything with me, just read, read, read."
Thundercracker vented, put down his book. "Look," he began, moving to put his hand on Skywarp's shoulder. "Starscream's studying for his finals, it's really stressing him out." Under his breath, he muttered "Despite the fact that they're not for six months."
'I heard that,' Starscream snapped from within his room.
'Go eat a datapad, Screamer.'
Next to him, Skywarp sighed. "I didn't get like that about finals," he muttered.
Thundercracker smiled. About a year ago, Skywarp had graduated, and with fair marks to boot. More than a few of his classmates had expressed surprised and accused him of cheating, which had riled up Thundercracker and Starscream, the latter much more vocally. During the tests, Thundercracker and Starscream had both been lightly sedated so that Skywarp couldn't communicate with his trinemates, thus robbing him of an unfair advantage. (Starscream had not enjoyed that.)
"No, you're right, you didn't get that way." Thundercracker said. "But you don't really worry about much of anything, Warp. You're more of a 'deal with it as it happens' kind of guy." He squeezed Skywarp's shoulder, their wings brushing. "It's part of what I l...uh, like most about you."
That was an almost horribly embarrassing slip of the tongue.
Skywarp drooped. "I just hate that's he's always so busy."
"Well," Thundercracker said, playing Fallen's advocate, "he also wants to try testing into Iacon Academy after he graduates. He's studying for both tests. At the same time. Both tests." Thundercracker shook his head at that, disapproving. "He's manic about it."
Skywarp flicked his wings, considering. "Are we applying to Iacon too?"
"I am." Thundercracker said. "You could probably get in, if you wanted to. It'll be hard - grounders don't really like us Vosians all that much, but I bet once they see you're a genius they'll-"
"No."
"Huh?"
"No thanks. Not doing it. Nope. Not applying." Skywarp's tone was firm. "School may be your thing - and Starscream's, he lives for this stuff - but I don't think I want to spend any more time in a classroom getting yelled at for not doing my homework right. I got enough of that here." The numbers increased, and for a moment Thundercracker saw static. It faded almost immediately. "I'll find something else to do."
"Yeah," Thundercracker mused. "I guess that makes sense. Iacon's a big place - you'll definitely find something."
A sigh. "I hope so."
"Great," Thundercracker said, giving Skywarp's shoulder another squeeze. He gestured at the datapad in his lap. "Um, I sort of need to get back to reading though. I'm also studying for Iacon's entrance exams."
"Oh," Skywarp deflated. "I was bothering you."
"No, no you were not," Thundercracker said, holding Skywarp's hand briefly. Skywarp looked down at their intertwined servos. Abruptly, he looked away and stood up.
"I'm gonna go."
"Wait, Warp, I just said-"
"-that it's a hard test, I know. So I'm going to go." He walked towards the door. 'I'm not upset, Tee. I'm leaving 'cause I know you're busy, and 'cause I'm bored.' He waved cheerily at Thundercracker, almost out of the room. "Let me know when you're done," he said, and was gone.
Thundercracker stared after him. 'Primus, I hope he stays out of trouble,' he thought finally, before reluctantly returning to his reading. Soon, he immersed once more.
Tile tile tile #C2B280 REPEATING boring tile light levels receding .04%/sec tile scuff marks wow those need cleaning tile tile approaching C45 on MAP903 associations: loud dull unpleasant this place has literally nothing for me to do, incredible tile tile tile NOT TILE analysis subroutines engaged at 82% consistent withhh is that-?
To his right SELF=origin: 10x 0y 9z there was a faded, badly-buffed out .003-.8 cm average lateral variations engraving taking up a good portion of the wall, probably graffiti from the first-year science students. He fixated on it, tracing the outline of barely-there glyphs. An idea formed.
He grinned.
It started out innocently enough. Skywarp swapped the labels on the energon flavorings. He changed the typeface on Thundercracker's datapads. He lowered the max levels of the ceiling lights, flipped the furniture to face a different wall, filled the floor with perfectly spaced, full energon cubes, and changed their ringtone to a clip of Starscream yelling. On one memorable occasion, he cut through the legs of Starscream's desk chair with a laser scalpel, so that when the seeker went to sit, he spilled across the floor. He even figured out how to change the passcodes on Thundercracker's door, which he did just to see Thundercracker's wings twitch in annoyance. It was cute.
(He tried changing Starscream's passcodes - once. Starscream had yelled for a solid hour.)
Then, for one blessed week, there was nothing. Skywarp shut himself up in his room, the room that neither Starscream nor Thundercracker had ever seen the inside of, and they thought it was the end of things.
That was until Thundercracker went to the library to return some datapads and found the place in chaos. Apparently, someone had replaced every single datapad in the library with extraordinarily badly crafted replicas – they were little more than thin sheets of metal with the screen and buttons carved on the surface. And they'd done it in the middle of the night, somehow managing to get into the locked library without anyone noticing and without showing up on the hallway's security cameras. Thundercracker had a sneaking suspicion he knew who the culprit was.
More of these pranks started cropping up, one happening every week or so. Minor pranks happened more frequently as the rest of the student body started catching trouble-making fever. Most of them were minor affairs that Thundercracker wrote off as being done by just about anyone. And then there were the others. Like the day all of the administrative staff found their doors welded shut, leaving them confined to their rooms for a whole day. Classes had been canceled. Odd that it coincided with a test Starscream had declared impossible to pass, because it was on a subject the professor hadn't bothered to teach them yet. Odder still was how, that selfsame day, Starscream had found a datapad buried in the mess of his room, containing a score of questions suspiciously similar to what a teacher might put on a test.
There was the time every single locked janitor's closet ended up filled to the brim with dead scraplets, causing mass-panic in the school the first time one of them was opened. The whole day, if anyone wanted to get into a closet, they had to wade through a pile of scraplets.
Then there was the day when one hallway was covered in cubes of energon. They'd been welded to the floor, making it impossible for anyone to pick them up, and impossible to cross the hallway without stepping in a cube. Mechs had to take detours or, if they were late, took to switching to alt mode to fly over them, causing a few near accidents and a lot of frustration. There was a bit of an energon shortage in the school that day, and mechs had to dip into their reserves.
At one point, the public wash-racks had solvent switched out with some kind of purple goo that stuck to everything it touched. People without wash racks in their own rooms had to use their friends' to get the gunk off. A few members of the staff, including Stabilizer, also ended up having their wash racks rigged up with the stuff. Nobody knew where it had come from.
Three nights later, Thundercracker saw Starscream taking most of his beakers into their private washrooms to clean the purple out of them. Thundercracker suspected Starscream had traded the use of his chemistry skills for Skywarp's ability to get in locked rooms - the places where tests, say, get kept. He contemplated scolding, and decided it wasn't worth the fight. 'At least they're working together', he thought, before punching in his passcode. It beeped negative. He sighed.
The lull between pranks never stretched beyond two weeks, and the longer the break, the more time the staff had to spend doing damage control for it. The Academy was in complete chaos right up until the week before finals. Everyone seemed to be on edge, waiting for the next big prank to happen, but it never did. Finals came and went, Thundercracker and Skywarp had to be sedated so Starscream could take the tests without the unfair advantage of having a trine. Interesting, though, how Starscream had loudly commented to no one in particular while in their common area that should anything happen during finals week, or even the week before, Starscream would find the culprit and tear their wings off. The prankster must have heard him and decided he was serious.
Thundercracker and Skywarp made their way to two convenient seats in the middle of the 'friends and family' section. It was mostly empty except for them.
The weather was fine, perfect for a seeker graduation ceremony. A stage had been erected at the edges of the badlands, and a particular section in front of the stage had been marked off as the speaker's box; nearly invisible microphones had been hung to catch whatever was said in the square, and speakers hidden beneath the stage would amplify those words across the crowd of spectators.
The academy was split into three sub-sections of students – the primary students, who were sparklings and needed to be tended by care-givers. Then there were the secondary students who were roomed with two other random seekers to get them used to the system of three. Finally, there were the tertiary students, those who were currently or had ever lived on their own for three years and were still in attendance at the school. There were certain classes associated with each level of schooling, and certain expectations and responsibilities with every level.
All tertiary students were required to witness the graduation ceremonies, as they'd then know what to expect once they too were set free from the school. Apart from the tertiary students, friends and trine-mates of the seekers graduating were also allowed to attend. So, naturally, there weren't many mechs in the audience.
The simple fact was, most mechs looked for trine-mates in their own year. Occasionally, a member of a trine would be a year or two ahead or behind their partners, but it was the norm that all three be the same age. Most young mechs rarely left the academy, and if they did, it wasn't to make friends with older seekers who would no doubt treat them like children. And students who befriended younger seekers within the academy was simply asking for ridicule.
Added to all that a seeker's natural lack of patience and general low-attention span, and not many mechs were willing to subject themselves to the ceremony, regardless of how short the administration tried to keep it. Honestly, the only reason Skywarp hadn't taken off yet was that Thundercracker was keeping him entertained by sending jokes and pictures to him over their trine connection. That, and Starscream had threatened bodily harm to Skywarp if he missed the ceremony.
The assembly of young mechs quieted as Freefall stepped onto the stage. Thundercracker felt a chill down his spinal struts at the sight of that calm, composed face. He distracted himself by continuing to keep Skywarp entertained and tried not to look too long at that unnervingly immobile face.
Freefall stepped into the square that marked off the range of the amplifiers and smiled at his audience. Thundercracker wondered how many of the mechs present would see that his smile didn't touch his optics. "Greetings, my dear seekers," Freefall began. As always, his voice was quiet and polite, lacking any emotional investment in what he was saying. "Another stellar cycle has passed, and another group of seekers is about to join the ranks of adulthood." A cool breeze brushed past Thundercracker as he idly started deconstructing Freefall's word choice.
'Oh by the cogs of Primus, can't you stop being a boring little glitch for three seconds?' Starscream demanded.
'Why, you trying to listen to the speech?' Thundercracker shot back.
'Well it's still more interesting than "I wonder if he used to be in the military because of where he pauses in a sentence".'
'I do NOT sound like that, Starscream!'
'Quit arguing, today's supposed to be a happy day. Also, TC? I still don't get that joke about the turbo-chicken. How is it even a joke? It doesn't make any sense!'
Thundercracker vented, and then began explaining the connection behind a hypothetical mechanical, anti-humor, and subverted expectations, and missed a good portion of Freefall's speech. However, he snapped back to attention when Freefall said "But by now I am certain you are all ready for the moment of truth."
Freefall paused a moment as he made sure all eyes were on him. Then he continued. "As you all know, our beloved academy is host to a tradition as old as the school itself. Our demands for academic excellence are continually justified as our students rise above and beyond what we ask of them. Today, three mechs will be given the recognition that they deserve for their excellence. Today, three mechs will be given the chance to compete for the honor of being the head of their class, their holographic image projected on the wall of trophies along with every other head of class that has ever been. This mech will be the face of this year's class as we archive their exploits."
Freefall paused again, presumably to get the results of the top three students of the year from his trine-mate Vertigo.
"The three mechs who have achieved the greatest academic success during their collective time here are as follows: Stormbreaker, with perfect marks in flying, chemistry, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, and engineering, good marks in every other subject." Roars of applause as Stormbreaker took to the stage behind Freefall. Thundercracker, curious, went into Skywarp's headspace to get the intel on Stormbreaker. He was apparently an incredibly charismatic mech, well-liked and seemingly a natural in every subject. According to rumor he had his trine picked out already, and was the favorite for the year's face. He was the golden boy of the academy, and had an unofficial feud with Starscream.
'Hey Star, how come you never told us about this guy?' Thundercracker asked.
'Because he's an arrogant glitchweasel who needs to get melted down for slag, that's why.'
'Wow, high praise coming from you.'
'And what is THAT supposed to mean?'
'Well considering you're pretty much the king of arrogant glitchweasels - '
'You know what? You can go stick your unused interfacing cords into a trash compactor.'
A burst of alarmed static. 'Don't, that would hurt him.'
'That's the point, Warp.'
More numbers, visual snow, before finally, 'You're weird, you're both weird.'
Thundercracker smiled and bumped Skywarp's wing, before focusing back on Freefall. His own wings twitched with anticipation.
The graduating class was currently behind the stage, obligated to attend the ceremony in case they were called on as one of the three top contestants. Even if they were certain their marks weren't good enough to qualify, they still had to be there. It was one of the many small bureaucratic tortures the school liked to inflict on its subjects. As Freefall called the name of the second highest achieving mech and listed their accomplishments, the mech in question came up to the front of the stage to stand next to Stormbreaker. He smiled at his companion, and they shook hands, congratulating one another.
Next to him, Skywarp hummed, pensive. 'That's Windfall. He's one of Stormbreaker's future trine-mates.'
'What do you think of him?' Thundercracker asked.
Skywarp shrugged, optics fixed on the stage. 'Decent enough mech. Pretty polite if he thinks you're not smarter than him. Kinda lousy in the berth, though…'
'Okay, thanks you can stop now,' Thundercracker thought quickly, not wanting Skywarp to start visualizing the details and sharing them across their neural network.
Starscream's voice was unbearably smug. 'Our Thundercracker's a delicate little mech, with a fragile mind,' He sneered. 'It can be broken at the merest mention of interfacing.'
'Oh shut up, Starscream. Unless you want Skywarp to start imagining all his conquests. Do you want to compare notes on who you've both 'faced?'
'Oooh, cyber-kitten has claws after all,' Starscream shot back.
'Shut up and pay attention to Freefall, unless you want to miss your cue.'
Sure enough, Freefall, after a significant pause, said "And finally, our last finalist: Starscream." Thundercracker noticed that Stormbreaker's fists clenched at that, and both he and Windfall shot Starscream murderous looks over their shoulders as they watched him strut proudly onto the stage. "With perfect marks in chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, geology, cyber-biology, astrology, xenobiology, and coding, good marks in the most of the rest, and…" a sadistic curve played at Freefall's lips, "passable marks in flying."
Snickering rose through the audience at that, and the other two contestants shared a smug look. Flight training was mandatory for both safety and health reasons. Being able to attain flight without injuring oneself or flight partners was crucial to getting licensed to fly in public airspace. Not only that, but seekers - unlike other flight-based Cybertronians - had a biological drive to fly, a need that, if left unsatisfied, could lead to deteriorated health, persistent software errors, and even insanity. A flightless seeker was a failed seeker, a useless seeker, a dead seeker. And Starscream was a prodigiously clumsy flier, which was barely one step above a seeker who couldn't fly at all.
Stormbreaker grinned nastily at Starscream, and Windfall didn't bother hiding his laughter. Normally, Starscream would have blustered and started yelling angrily. Instead, he looked calm and a knowing smirk was playing across his lipplates. He leaned over and said something to Windfall, and Stormbreaker had to hold the mech back from launching himself at Starscream, who was laughing.
Freefall was, apparently, oblivious to all of this. "As it appears that our three contestants do not belong to the same trine, we will follow the age-old tradition of determining the face of this year's class…with a race."
The audience cheered at that, because races - especially school sanctioned races - were perhaps one of the most quintessential sports Vos was known for. With flight being so integral to seeker life, what better way to decide who most deserved to be the face of the graduating class?
"You're going down, Shorty," Windfall growled at Starscream, who refused to do anything but stand there and smile infuriatingly.
"Calm down, Windfall," Stormbreaker said, holding his friend back. "Starscream's not worth getting kicked out out of the running."
"Yeah," Starscream said, sneering at them both. "Listen to your little friend. You wouldn't want to get kicked out of the competition before I have a chance to leave you in the dust."
Stormbreaker pushed Windfall behind him and stood in Starscream's space. He was average height for a seeker, but compared to Starscream, he looked larger. "Starscream, you have consistently placed last in every flying exam we've ever had together. You may have a trine, but that means nothing when you're in the air without them. You are going to lose. It's going to be humiliating. It's better for you if you just drop out of the running now, while you still have a chance to hold on to your dignity."
"Keep dreaming, you badly-coded slag-jockey," Starscream muttered back. His face was placid, confident, but his wings were at a tense angle. "The only humiliated afthead here is going to be you. All your groveling isn't going to mean anything when you're sharing airspace with me. Your wealthy benefactors won't mean scrap once you're eating my vapor trails."
"That's pretty big talk coming from a whiny little runt like you," Stormbreaker shot back. "You think you're such hot stuff, but in the end, you only placed third in academic achievement. And you want to know why? Because you can't fly. You can crunch numbers and play with chemicals all day, but the minute you need to deal with reality and get in the sky, you fail. You talk a big game, but in the end, you'll only ever be third-rate, Starscream."
Starscream just smirked. "Funny. Flyaway never complained about my skills."
"You tiny insignificant- " Stormbreaker went for Starscream's throat and Windfall had to hold him back.
"Breaky, he's not worth it," Windfall hissed, and it was that moment that Freefall turned around, finished with his final words. He cocked an optic ridge at Stormbreaker straining against Windfall's grasp.
"My my my," he said blandly, and Stormbreaker snapped back to attention. "Having a little trouble, are we boys?"
"No sir," Stormbreaker said, and Windfall said "We're fine" at the same time.
Starscream examined the tips of his servos.
Freefall looked over each of the three seekers carefully. "I take it you all know the rules, but I will explain them again regardless," he said. "You three will race along a pre-programmed course that I will be sending to you presently. First across the finish line wins, anyone who lands for any reason before will be officially disqualified. Leave the prescribed flight-path, and you will be disqualified. Any weapons use, and you will be disqualified." He smiled benignly. "I trust you three will make this race…interesting." Freefall moved away from the three of them to address the crowd again.
"This will be an interesting race indeed," Stormbreaker growled, shooting a dark glance at Starscream.
"Oh I'm sorry – still getting over the whole Flyaway thing? I hadn't realized you were still mad about her 'facing me over you."
Stormbreaker refused to look at Starscream, just vented, his optics shuttered off, apparently ignoring the infuriating mech. Windfall leaned around him and snarled "You didn't even like her, you fragger. You just used her and dumped her!"
Starscream was stone-faced, unreadable. "She tell you that?"
"No, but it don't take a genius to figure it out," Windfall said.
Starscream just made a displeased humming sound. He scanned the crowd and found his trine, catching Skywarp's optics. 'Skywarp, if you screw this up for me, I will personally remove your head from your body.'
'Don't tell him that, you know he takes those kinds of things seriously when you say them,' Thundercracker protested.
'Good. He should.' He cycled air, tried to grin. 'Let's you and I leave these two choking on exhaust fumes, eh Warp? Let's show 'em what we'rereally made of.'
Skywarp nodded once. He seemed nervous, but he had a determined look about him. He was ready to show off what he could do, even if it was Starscream who was going to be in the pilot's seat.
"If our contestants could move themselves to the take-off strip?" Freefall asked. The three mechs dismounted the stage and walked towards a path that had been cleared on the burnt rock for jets to take off from, Stormbreaker and Windfall shooting Starscream dirty looks as they walked over to the makeshift tarmac.
"Mechs, please transform and initiate thruster sequences." Dutifully, Stormbreaker and Windfall transformed into alt mode and there was an audible whine as their engines idled. Starscream did nothing, instead adopting a casual stance. Freefall raised an optic ridge. "Starscream, would you please transform so I can send you the flight-path?" Freefall said.
"I can receive it in bipedal mode just as well as alt," Starscream yelled over the thundering of engines.
"Very well then," Freefall said. Many members of the audience chuckled. What, was Starscream planning on walking the whole way?
A map of the flight plan appeared on Starscream's HUD, and he heard a derisive snort from within his head. 'Sloppy. Look at this, what is this? These distances are all out of scale with one another. What did he do, slap this together two seconds ago?'
'Not everyone's as good with maps as you are, Skywarp,' Thundercracker reminded him gently.
'Yeah, but it doesn't mean they're not still idiots.'
Starscream could only imagine Thundercracker's shocked expression as he said 'You have been spending WAY too much time around Starscream.'
'Sorry to interrupt Skywarp's accurate observations, but if we could please focus here? I have a rather important race to win,' Starscream interjected, wings twitching in anticipation as he waited for Freefall to give the signal.
'Sorry, Star. I'm ready.'
'Better be,' he growled.
For once, Thundercracker had nothing to say about Starscream's tone. Instead, voice encouraging, he said 'Blow 'em outta the sky, Screamer.'
'That's the plan, if you two'd stop yammering at me.'
'Sorry, Star.'
'Just shut up already and start coordinating flight data!'
Skywarp did as he was told. Starscream could feel the headache settling in as Skywarp borrowed memory and processor power to calculate the necessary data. For a moment, his vision fuzzed white. Primus, he hoped that his brain wasn't going to hurt every time Skywarp had to program flights for him from the ground. That would suck.
"Seekers," Freefall said, holding every mech's attention for a moment. He let the anticipation build up before finally saying "Let the race begin!"
Stormbreaker took off down the runway, his landing gear making strained sounds as he roared across the rock. Windfall wasn't far behind him, his greater mass slowing him down somewhat.
Starscream ran down the runway, his lanky legs carrying him easily across the packed dirt. With one well-practiced jump, he was airborne, his heel-thrusters giving him a little extra lift, and he transformed dangerously close to the ground. Thundercracker heard a few surprised gasps, and couldn't help smirking at his show-off of a trine-mate. Starscream's thrusters roared to full power, and the mech shot through the air, passing over the heads of the two mechs taking off normally, before leveling out high above the rock formations.
Starscream's radio pinged him, and he allowed the transmission from Stormbreaker to come through. [[Starscream, you're going too fast.]]
[[And that's why I'm going to win, you piece of scrap.]]
[[Starscream, if you back out of the race now, I promise you, no one will get hurt.]]
[[Oh I'm sorry, was that a threat? Are you threatening me, Stormbreaker?]]
[[Take it as a friendly word of warning.]]
[[Hmph. Well you can take your 'friendly word of warning' and shove it up your afterburners.]]
[[Suit yourself, Starscream. Don't say I didn't warn you.]]
The comm cut out abruptly. Behind him, Stormbreaker and Windfall pushed hard to catch up to him.
[[Boys, boys, boys,]] Starscream chided them. [[You're going to strain something. Either that, or you'll blow all your energy for this little race in the first few minutes. Best to pace yourselves.]]
[[Get slagged, Starscream!]] Windfall snarled back.
Starscream picked up their encrypted comm transmissions from behind him. Because Skywarp was handling all the tricky stuff, he could concentrate on decoding what they were saying to one another: [[…like we planned. Bank right, we'll box him in.]]
Windfall did as Stormbreaker had instructed, and took Starscream's right flank. Stormbreaker took his left. They were in the classic V formation, both mechs trying to take advantage of Starscream's drag. With their greater bulk, they'd never catch him in a straight chase. By having him take the brunt of wind resistance and then riding his air streams, they could not only conserve their energy, but exhaust him and catch up. 'Let them try,' Starscream thought, and abruptly took a nosedive.
[[Stay on him!]] Stormbreaker snapped. [[Windfall, you follow him, I'll fly over him and force him lower if he tries to come back up.]]
'See, this is the problem with not being trined,' Starscream thought. 'Absolutely no privacy whatsoever. I know exactly what you two half-wits are planning.'
He let Stormbreaker line up over him, let the seeker think he was going to succeed in forcing Starscream to the ground. Starscream sharply ascended at an angle from the other two, using his smaller, more maneuverable frame to his advantage.
[[Dammit!]] Stormbreaker snarled. [[We had him!]]
[[We need a new plan,]] Windfall said, sounding a little tired already. [[He's too slippery!]]
[[We can get him,]] Stormbreaker snapped back. [[We just need to get close enough for one of us to clip one of his wings. You know how he is, he'll go down like a rock.]]
Starscream, hearing this, led them on a merry chase through the air, weaving and diving at unexpected moments, the two other seekers scrambling every time to make up ground against him.
[[What the hell? Why can't we catch him? You said this was going to be easy!]] Windfall accused Stormbreaker.
[[I don't know what happened between the finals and now,]] Stormbreaker growled, [[but I will NOT be beaten by that pompous midget.]]
[[You know,]] Starscream said conversationally as he dodged and weaved in the air, [[I wouldn't keep going on about size if I were you. Sure, I'm short, but you're HARDLY the biggest seeker out there. I mean, have you MET my trine-mates?]]
[[Scrap,]] Windfall swore. [[He's been hacking our comms!]]
[[No way, that's not possible. He can't hack our comms – he's got to be spending too much focus on keeping us off his tail.]]
[[Then how is he in our comm, Stormbreaker? Explain that, if you're so smart!]]
[[Is that dissent among the ranks, I smell, Stormbreaker?]] Starscream asked with a delighted laugh. [[Is the little trine-to-be not as happy as everyone thinks it is?]]
[[Shut UP,]] Stormbreaker yelled.
'Primus, he sounds like you, TC,' Starscream grumbled as he flew towards a large rock. At the last moment, he tilted vertically and banked past it easily. The two seekers on his tail followed. Neither was able to execute the maneuver with half as much grace, Windfall almost clipping his wing.
[[Slaggit! Stormbreaker, we gotta bring him down NOW! If this keeps up, neither of us are gonna stay in the air very long!]]
[[YOU might not,]] Stormbreaker said. [[Especially if you aren't more careful!]]
Starscream tuned out their bickering as he continued pulling risky maneuvers with the help of the data Skywarp was sending him. He did notice, however, that their bickering was particularly mean-spirited. TC might lecture Starscream at every available moment, but at least Starscream never felt attacked. These two seemed very intent on making the other feel small.
'They remind me of the end stages of my old trine,' Thundercracker thought. 'They are going to make each other absolutely miserable if they actually end up together.'
'Can you shut up and let us focus here?' Starscream demanded.
'Oh, right, because playing with these poor fools takes THAT much concentration,' Thundercracker quipped back.
'You can play trine-maker AFTER Warp and I have finished this.'
After a moment, Thundercracker said 'Thank you. For including Warp. For…admitting that he's as much reason you're going to win as your own skills.'
'If either one of you says ANYTHING about it to ANYONE,' Starscream growled at him, but Thundercracker just laughed. 'As far as anyone else is concerned, I am the reason I won this race.'
'Yeah yeah yeah,' Thundercracker said. 'Stop distracting our Warp and show us what you've got,' he added.
'Way ahead of you,' Starscream said, and arced up and around, looping over before finally settling behind the two mechs who'd been chasing him.
[[Wha - ]] Windfall gaped.
[[Don't just gawk, now's our chance,]] Stormbreaker snapped. [[Get him!]]
As the two mechs pressed in on Starscream, he imagined what he wanted to do next. 'Tell me you have the math for it,' Starscream snapped. Anger was much easier to deal with than panic. He was uncomfortably aware of just how close the other two were getting, and kicked himself for not prompting Skywarp sooner.
'Pfff,' Skywarp said dismissively. 'Easy.'
'Okay, awesome, good, great, if you're done patting yourself on the back, I need that data right now, like immediately-'
'Calm down. Here.' Skywarp said, passing along the information.
Oh thank Primus, the maneuver wasn't going to kill him, because if he hadn't been able to do it, the two seekers bearing down on him definitely would have. Starscream revved up his thrusters and aimed his nose straight for the two mechs.
[[What is he-]]
They didn't have time to pull out of the collision, and Starscream disconnected from their comm channel so he didn't have to listen to their panicked screaming and jibbering. At the last possible moment, Starscream transformed back into bipedal mode, using a quick burst from the thrusters in his heels to somersault through the air over the two jets. For a moment, time seemed to stretch as he arced through the air over their heads. The feeling of the wind around him, gravity working with his momentum to tug him in a graceful line through space – in that one instant, he felt perfect, triumphant. This, this was what being a seeker was all about; this moment of effortless weightlessness.
The moment ended as he finished his curve and made a rapid transformation back to alt-mode, his thrusters firing up and nearly scorching the other two mechs as he raced towards the finish line. [[Told ya that you'd be eating my vapor trails, Stormbreaker,]] he yelled, loud with giddiness, before completely shutting down his comms. This was it.
Windfall was out of the running, his large frame making it impossible for him to turn around in anything other than wide arcs. Stormbreaker, sleeker and more agile, was able to make tighter turns, and was quickly going in the right direction once more. It did little to help him. Before, Starscream had been toying with them, showing off his newfound grace and aerial dexterity. Now, Starscream was giving it everything he had, his light frame and powerful thrusters giving him an obvious advantage over Stormbreaker. It was a flat race, and Stormbreaker had never been able to beat Starscream in one of them. Even before Starscream had had the confidence to push the limits of his speed, Stormbreaker had never been able to beat him.
It was no contest, and Starscream roared across the finish-line to the shocked silence of the crowd. Well, most of the crowd. Thundercracker was whooping loud enough for ten mechs. Starscream gracefully transformed mid-air and dropped neatly to the ground without bothering to run the whole course of the runway. As soon as he was safely back on the ground, Skywarp jumped up and started cheering right along with Thundercracker.
"And the winner is, apparently, Starscream," Freefall said blandly, as though he were merely reporting on the weather.
The crowd started muttering in confusion and shock, trying to work out how the most uncoordinated mech in their class had beaten out their two best fliers. Thundercracker and Skywarp jumped up and ran over to where Starscream was.
"Hug me, and I'll kill you both," Starscream said, but he was smiling, and there was no spite in his voice. He was beaming, basking in the fact that he had just beaten Stormbreaker in a race.
And of course, that moment couldn't last. "He CHEATED," Stormbreaker cried over the trine's excited yelling and the dubious mutterings of the crowd. He tried to do Starscream's midair transform and drop maneuver, but he fumbled on the landing. With a bit of a limp, he made his way over to the platform. "He cheated," Stormbreaker repeated, only marginally less hysterical. He pointed at Starscream while staring resolutely up into Freefall's face. "I don't know how, but he cheated. There is no way a mech with as lousy grades as he had in flying wins a race like that." He was venting hard, trying to cool down his systems, his fans working overtime.
Starscream smirked and put a hand on his hip. "Why can't you just accept that I'm better than you, Stormbreaker?" he asked, a sneer on his lipplates.
"Because you're not," Stormbreaker snapped, turning to glare at Starscream before turning back to look up at Freefall. "Sir, please. Just think about it for a minute. He got the lowest possible passing grades for flying. And now he's suddenly able to out-maneuver me and Windfall? Sir, even you have to agree, it makes no sense!"
Freefall's optics took on a hard glint at that last sentence, and Stormbreaker took a step back. "Even I?" Freefall asked icily, arching an optic ridge. "Is that supposed to imply something, Stormbreaker? A lack of competency, perhaps? Of understanding, of deductive reasoning?"
Stormbreaker's wings whipped down submissively as he quickly backtracked. "No, sir, that wasn't what I - "
"Enough," Freefall said. There was no anger, no harshness to his voice, and that only made it worse. Freefall turned, raised his voice, and addressed the rest of the audience. "As far as I could see, Starscream broke none of the rules. We will, of course, review the footage the surveillance drones caught whilst following them," he said. Stormbreaker opened his mouth, and Freefall fixed him with a cool gaze, daring him to interrupt. Stormbreaker looked away and took another step away from the stage. "I doubt that there will be any evidence of this alleged cheating, but if any is found, we will, of course, take appropriate action." Freefall spread his arms wide. "The winner, and face of this graduating class is…Starscream."
From behind the stage, there were groans and boos, and Stormbreaker clenched his servos into fists and gritted his denta. He stalked over to Starscream. "You cheated," he snarled, sticking a servo in Starscream's face. "I don't know how, but I'm going to prove that you did it, you third-rate, insufferable, unlikeable freak."
Skywarp, broad tall Skywarp, got between Stormbreaker and Starscream, glaring down at the merely average-sized mech. "I don't like sore losers, I don't like bullies, and I don't like people messing with my trinemates," he growled. "And if you don't walk away right now, I'm going to knock your head clean off."
Stormbreaker glared up at him for a minute. Then he tried to look around Skywarp to talk to Starscream again, but Skywarp kept blocking his way. Finally, he gave up and directed his parting comment over Skywarp's head: "You're lucky you have your idiot guard-dog here to protect you. Just you wait until you're alone, Screamer."
He turned to go, but Thundercracker stood in his way, arms crossed.
"Do you have something to say to me as well, then?" Stormbreaker snapped.
"No," Thundercracker said, just a touch of animosity in his voice. "I was just noticing how short you are."
Stormbreaker snarled, but had nothing to say to that. He stalked past Thundercracker to collect Windfall, who had landed sometime during the Dean's speech.
The assembly was officially over, and mechs were released from their captivity. They began talking as soon as they were out of their seats, speculating and making their way back to the dorms.
Starscream leapt up and grabbed Skywarp around the neck. He scrambled for a place to put his pedes, gripping with his knees when he was high enough. He propped one elbow on each of Skywarp's broad shoulders and rested his chin on Skywarp's helm. "Not bad, my guard-dogs. Not bad."
Thundercracker rolled his eyes, and Skywarp tried not to move so he wouldn't dislodge Starscream while he was in an oddly clingy mood. "I think that technically counts as a hug, what you're doing, Starscream."
"Doesn't count unless both mechs have their arms around each other," Starscream said. He hummed and pressed closer to Skywarp, enjoying the warmth. "I got bored of straining my neck looking you both in the optics, figured this was easier." He was practically giddy, and hadn't spit out a single insult for the entire time he'd been on the ground. Thundercracker wasn't sure if he should worry or enjoy the lull.
"Hey," Starscream said, slapping Skywarp on the chest. "How about we go celebrate?"
Skywarp frowned. "Celebrate? How?"
Starscream rolled his optics as though this should have been obvious to anyone involved. "Duh. We go into town - "
"Town?" Thundercracker demanded. "You hate people, why would you want to go into town?"
" – to a bar - "
"You hate high-grade," Thundercracker reminded him.
" – where I buy us all drinks."
"You told me you were broke!" Thundercracker complained.
"Primus's sparkplug, Thundercracker!" Starscream snapped. "Will you shut up and stop pointing out all the flaws in my celebration plans?"
"Your whole plan is a flaw," Thundercracker returned.
"Shut up," Starscream said casually. "If we go to a bar, we can avoid all the half-wit's cult-following accusing me of cheating. Plus, the high-grade is actual high-grade, and not the home-brewed swill people drink here."
"You don't drink high-grade," Thundercracker reminded him adamantly.
"I was getting to that," Starscream snapped. "Don't rush me. Skywarp, go over there and smack him for me."
Skywarp turned large optics on Thundercracker, considering. "Hmnnno, I don't want to," he hummed decisively.
Starscream rolled his optics again. "Fine, I'll do it myself once I'm bored of riding around on the back of my guard-dog. Forgot I was talking to Thunderstruck over here," he added under his breath.
"Who?" Skywarp asked, craning his head back to peer at Starscream.
Thundercracker's faceplates heated, and Starscream could hear their sizzling, but he ignored Thundercracker in favor of affectionately flicking Skywarp on the nose. "You are, my dear steed."
Skywarp frowned. "That makes no sense," he protested. "Did you hit your head or something?"
Starscream vented. "Fine, never mind. My point is that I haven't had high-grade around you two. But that doesn't mean I don't drink high-grade."
Thundercracker frowned. "Why wouldn't you drink with us? I mean…we're your trine, aren't we?" He couldn't help the bit of hurt that crept into his voice.
"Primus, it's like I'm surrounded by children," Starscream growled. "We haven't drunk any high-grade since we've trined, you idiot!"
Thundercracker thought back over the year they'd been trined. Oddly, he couldn't actually recall drinking anything. Probably because it did nothing for Skywarp, and Starscream had shown no interest in it before – and it really wasn't much fun getting overcharged alone. "Huh. I guess we haven't."
"I didn't know how far I could trust you two morons before we trined, so I never got overcharged with you," Starscream explained, flippantly examining the tips of his fingers. "I've had some rather dubious drinking buddies, you see."
He didn't elaborate further, but because he shared a mind with Thundercracker and Skywarp, they got a few flashes here and there as he remembered some of the events that had happened when he'd been overcharged. Skywarp's face clouded.
"But hey, we're a trine now," Starscream said brightly. "I say it's about time we all drank together."
"Okay," Thundercracker said, not at all sure how to feel about Starscream's complete avoidance of that topic, but willing to respect it nonetheless. "But that still leaves us with the problem of you being broke."
"I am only broke when it involves me having to run out and buy you an extra energon cube," Starscream said, smirking cheekily.
"You little digi-ferret, I knew you - "
"Warp!" Starscream said suddenly, wrapping his arms around Skywarp's neck and holding tighter with his knees. "You did your little thing with Thundercracker. I think it's only fair that I finally get to see what warping is like too."
"But I teleported you and TC at the same time," Skywarp protested. "It wasn't just me 'n TC."
Starscream smacked him lightly on the chest again. "Yes, but I was unconscious at the time, wasn't I? It didn't really count. So, how about you be a good little steed and warp me up to our rooms so I can get some shanix?"
Skywarp hesitated and shot a questioning look at Thundercracker.
The blue mech smiled. "It's fine, Warp. Go ahead. Everybody's cleared out by now anyway." They had – the desert was bare of any activity. Only the trine, the stage, and the rows of collapsible chairs remained, and the assembly materials weren't due to be cleared away by the cleaning staff until later that day.
"What are you asking him for?" Starscream demanded. "He's not our mentor – we can do what we want! Now do as I tell you and warp, dammit!"
"Okay," Skywarp said, still a little reservedly, but he disappeared with a distinctive vomp sound and a band of pressure around Thundercracker's head. He blinked static out of his vision.
When Skywarp re-appeared about eight minutes later, he was holding Starscream in his arms, who was groaning and looking ominously gray.
Thundercracker snickered. "Not as much fun as it sounds, is it Screamer?"
"Get fragged," Starscream croaked.
"You know, I'm sure we could convince Skywarp to teleport us to the bar, if you - "
"NO!" Starscream said quickly. "We're flying." His fans hiccupped. "Just gimme a second."
"The mighty Starscream, face of his graduating class, vanquisher of Stormbreaker, bane of Stabilizer's med-bay, defeated by a tiny bought of nausea?" Thundercracker asked sweetly.
"I officially hate you," Starscream moaned.
"Don't hate TC," Skywarp quickly said. "I wouldn't be able to choose which of you I'd stay with if you two broke up the bond."
Both Starscream and Thundercracker turned shocked expressions Skywarp's way. He shrugged self-consciously. "It's the truth," he explained.
Starscream just shook his head. "Unbelievable," he muttered. "You two are unbelievable."
"No, we're your trine," Skywarp corrected, beaming at this proclamation.
Thundercracker rubbed his optics then went to pat Skywarp on the shoulder. "Warp, buddy, you're brilliant, but we need to work on how literally you take everything."
"Okay," Skywarp said, then looked down at the mech in his arms. "Can we go get high-grade now?"
"Ugh," Starscream groaned, flinging an arm across his optics. "Give me two more minutes. And then we're walking."
"Aaw," Skywarp groaned dejectedly, drooping a bit at this discovery.
"Don't worry Warp," Thundercracker said. "We'll only walk part of the way there."
Starscream growled at him, but said nothing.
Thundercracker leaned over and whispered dramatically in Skywarp's ear "That means he agrees with me."
Starscream's arm flew off his optics and he struggled to sit up, snapping "I do not - " He cut himself off as he saw Skywarp's beaming face and Thundercracker's self-assured smirk. These two idiots were his trine. They'd gotten him through this day, a day that he'd always dreaded as being one of humiliation, to one of complete and utter triumph. He leaned back in Skywarp's arms, totally trusting the big guy to not drop him. "Fine," he hissed. "But we walk until we hit metal streets!" he yelled over Skywarp's cheer of triumph.
The sun had long since set when they all came wobbling back from the bar, most of them too far gone to fly safely. Starscream had been done half-way into his second cube, and Thundercracker cut him off so they wouldn't have to drag his blacked out carcass back home. Starscream was, apparently, a rather clingy drunk, and he kept holding onto Thundercracker or Skywarp the whole night. His vocabulary gradually devolved into general obscenities, and at one point during the night, he thought it would be a great idea to get up onto a table and lead the rest of the bar in song. Despite his vocal damage (which Thundercracker decided he needed to ask about at some point), Starscream had a fine tenor voice when he remembered the words to what he was singing. Whenever he couldn't remember the words, he made something up that vaguely rhymed, usually with a lot of swearing or unnecessary insults thrown in. To Thundercracker's mortification, Starscream had insisted upon holding his hand throughout all of it, and just shouted even more loudly at him when Thundercracker tried to pull away to hide from embarrassment. He'd downed at least two cubes during that particular part of the adventure.
Skywarp was surprisingly popular, something Thundercracker had yet to completely wrap his processor around. Something about the combination of being able to hold his high-grade and the fact that he was apparently the one seeker on Vos who didn't feel the need to dominate the conversation, Thundercracker supposed. Skywarp was always talking to some seeker or other, and Thundercracker had had to drag him away from more than a few mechs who were trying to get him back to their place. Starscream almost got into a fist-fight at one point, which Thundercracker of course broke up, before patiently attempting to explain to a drunk Starscream that he was 1) maybe half the size of the mech he'd been provoking and 2) even if he wasn't, Starscream's armor was too thin to take the guy, even if he was stronger than he looked. After Starscream, dragging Skywarp along by the servo, had whacked his wing against a waiter-drone and sent it crashing to the ground, Thundercracker decided it was time for them all to go home.
What with all the damage control he'd been running, Thundercracker didn't know how he'd managed to get as buzzed as he had. It wasn't until they'd walked out of the bar and Skywarp commented on his swaying that Thundercracker admitted to himself that he was probably a bit tipsy.
Starscream was clinging to Thundercracker's back by the time they all trudged back to the academy. Thundercracker wasn't entirely sure how he'd been talked into doing that by a mech who was manifestly more drunk than he was, but he was sure there had been some logic involved. Something about smaller pedes and weight distribution or something. It had all been very technical and scientific, and Thundercracker hadn't been able to bring himself to question it.
They'd reached the edge of the city, the sheet metal under their pedes turning abruptly to the orange dust of the badlands, their color turned to umber in the absence of the sun. Thundercracker walked in the lead, Starscream muttering in his audial fin periodically.
"Warp," Thundercracker said, stopping abruptly, fans working hard to flush cool evening air into his systems from the exertion. "We've been walking a long time."
"Yup we have, TC," Skywarp said, smiling and standing there patiently, just looking at Thundercracker.
Thundercracker tried to remember why that was important, what he'd been meaning to say next. He cast for words, searching. "Uuh…oh, um, shouldn't we have maybe reached the academy by now?"
"Oh yeah. Ages ago," Skywarp said brightly.
"So…why haven't we?" Thundercracker asked.
Skywarp shrugged. "You seemed like you really wanted to go this way. I dunno why you decided to lead us away from the academy."
Thundercracker vented and unceremoniously dumped Starscream on a rock. The mech yelped. "Slagging fields of the never-ending Pit, what was that for?" he demanded hotly.
"I'm tired," Thundercracker snapped back with annoyance. "I want a break before I haul you back to your scraplet-infested room."
"I don't have scraplets in my room, you putrid, leaking, malformed cretin!"
Skywarp shifted uncomfortably. "I…may have stored a few scraplet bodies in there until I was ready to stick them in the closets," he mumbled.
Starscream's helm whipped around to glare at him. "You what?" he shrieked.
"They were dead!" Skywarp assured him quickly. "And I didn't think you'd notice! You've got so much other junk in there- "
"I have told you before, you smoldering lump, my room is off limits!"
"You should probably stay out of there," Thundercracker told Skywarp, on his back, servos crossed behind his helm, optics off. "I'm pretty sure Unicron would die if he went in there."
"No one asked you, you blue tart," Starscream growled.
"Is it just me," Thundercracker asked idly, "or does he come up with better insults when he's drunk?"
"Shut up, TC," Starscream snarled.
Thundercracker onlined his optics, about to retort, but the response caught in his voice-box as he saw the stars burning far, far away. For a moment, he just stared. He'd seen the stars before, but they were such little things, easily forgotten in the chaos that was living with Skywarp and Starscream. It wasn't until he saw them that he remembered once again how breathtaking they were.
"Hey Warp?" Thundercracker said.
"Yeah, TC?"
"C'mere," Thundercracker said, raising an arm.
"In the dust?" Skywarp's voice was decidedly unenthusiastic. He really did hate getting grit in his joints.
"Yeah, in the dust. Just c'mere," Thundercracker said, tired and tipsy, and in no mood to talk Skywarp out of his trepidation.
Reluctantly, Skywarp squatted down beside Thundercracker. "I'm here," he said. "Why do you want me to be closer to the dirt?"
Thundercracker vented, slightly frustrated, but ran his servo in small, soothing circles on Skywarp's back. "Look up, Warp."
Skywarp turned his optics towards the sky. "I don't get it," he said after a moment's pause. "What am I looking for?"
"You're not looking for," Thundercracker quietly explained, his circles not stopping. Skywarp looked down at Thundercracker, his optics lighting up his face in the complete darkness. "You're looking at. The stars are beautiful, aren't they?"
"Yeah," Skywarp said, still sounding confused. "But they're there pretty much every single night. They don't look any different tonight than they did yesterday."
"Well, okay, yeah," Thundercracker said, a little tersely. "But I wasn't looking at them in the middle of nowhere with my trine last night."
Skywarp looked up again. "I still don't get it," he admitted.
Thundercracker vented once more, incredibly frustrated. "Just…oh never mind. I wanted to look at the stars while holding somebody I care about. Forget it."
There was a pause, and then Skywarp sent an image to Thundercracker using their neural network: It was the one he'd sent Thundercracker when he'd wanted to ask if he could cuddle with him on the couch. "You mean like this?"
"Yeah. Exactly like that," Thundercracker said. "Or…more or less."
"Oh. Well ya shoulda said something then!" Skywarp declared.
"I - " Thundercracker began, ready to shoot out something annoyed-sounding. But Skywarp had sunk to the ground and wrapped his servos around Thundercracker's midriff.
"Good?" Skywarp asked, his engine warm against Thundercracker's armor-plating.
"Good," Thundercracker agreed, and he draped one arm across Skywarp's shoulders, his servo reaching down to trace small circles on the mech's back once more. His other servo somehow managed to find its way to Skywarp's, and they lay in peaceful silence for several calm moments, Thundercracker's optics taking in the skies.
The moment was completely ruined as a shrill voice cut through the still night: "I AM BEING IGNORED!"
"FOR THE LOVE OF PRIMUS, STARSCREAM," Thundercracker roared back, Skywarp flinching away from the sudden, unexpected volume coming from the normally soft-spoken mech. "WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP?"
It ended the stargazing, as Starscream and Thundercracker promptly got into a drunken shouting match, with Skywarp desperately trying to calm them both down, and completely failing. As usual, he didn't understand the vast majority of what either of the two were saying to each other, he just wanted them to stop yelling so angrily.
The match ended when Starscream, in the middle of a barrage of insults, abruptly announced "AND I'M TIRED" before promptly sitting down crosslegged, arms folded, for all intents ending the conversation. This was a source of great confusion for Skywarp, but caused Thundercracker to erupt in a fit of giggles, and Skywarp was terribly afraid his trine had gone mad.
After he'd gotten over his fit of giggles, Thundercracker assured Skywarp that he was still perfectly sane. He then scooped up Starscream in his arms and told Skywarp to lead the way back to the academy.
"I'll just get lost," he said with an easy smile when Skywarp insisted that he should lead. Skywarp still had some reservations about being the one leading, but Thundercracker's smile had made his spark clench in ways that were not altogether unpleasant.
Together, the two walked across the barren landscape, the chill Vosian wind sweeping the dust aimlessly across the rocks, creating sweeping designs across the plains, and Thundercracker's mind turned to the Academy, to the short squat buildings of the city and the wide streets and powdered red canyons surrounding them and the vast, painfully open sky.
This was Vos. This was their home. It was a strange, isolated place, walled up and separate from the Autobot central government, independent and steeped in eons-old tradition and an ageless, wholly exclusive culture. Vos was home to all manner of villains and knaves, and the tiny, sovereign city-state was the best home any seeker could ever ask for. In Vos, seekers weren't understood: They were celebrated. Everything that differentiated a seeker from just a mech with wings was lauded and pushed to its outermost limits. And unlike the Functionist-dominated culture of Autobot-owned cities and towns, the alt-mode-determined hell of Tarn or the segregated neighborhoods of Iacon , in Vos, trine was sacred above all.
That was what they had always been taught. The trine fights, it pulls and pushes in ways one wouldn't expect. It makes one a better mech, completes them, fulfills them. But none of them, not Skywarp, not Starscream, not even Thundercracker, the veteran of the trine, none had ever expected that the "sacred bond of the trine" could be quite like this. What they had failed to realize - what Vos had failed so utterly in explaining - was that a trine will love you. They will die for you, and they will live for you. They are the family seekers are born without, what they spend their whole lives searching for.
The three misfits made their tired way home to their warm, safe berths. They were no longer searching. They had found what they needed. They were going home.