Chapter 3 : Original Mode / Catch-22

A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I don't know how long the civil war started, so I made it up: 9 million years. Oh, by the way…..the title for Chapter 2 is so original!!!! OMGROTFLLOLZ!!! …Just kidding (Oh man, its so early in the morning ;)) Back to Starscream! Poor sod...

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Starscream craned her head to look into a mirror next to the recharge bed. To easily mistaken her own reflection for someone else was bad enough, but to forget her original form?

The red jet hung her jaw like a stupefied cow. It was like looking into the past, when Starscream spent the first few human weeks as a female. She was young and carefree with the youthful pride of being alive. Everything seemed so perfect. Thrusters set to full, she would shoot her body into the clear space of Cybertron before zipping past any floating debris or other aerial Transformers. Everything seemed so perfect for the intelligent femme con literally pulsating with life. Her creator taught her everything there was to know until she could repeat and recycle his teachings.

She wanted to know more.

But right now, she wanted to know why.

"SHEAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Temper, temper."

Optics darted left and right in the dark room, searching for the original source of Megatron's voice.

"There's no need to shout, my little femme con."

No…NO!

Starscream clumsily clambered off the bed and scampered back first into the nearest corner she could find. But she knew what was coming for her. She was a femme con. Femme cons were supposed to rear new Decepticons and upkeep the house. Femme cons were to vacuously cheer for their male counterparts as they thrust themselves into the frontlines of war, with promises of a happy return when, or if they came back. Femme cons were to strictly remain submissive, obedient, and quiet. Starscream was not quiet. Starscream was a femme con, who participated in the civil war for nine million years.

And she broke the law. As solid as the Decepticon laws are, so is the punishment met for violating it. So the rules have changed, but that made no difference. She bit her lip and shouted at the room she was in.

"I know what you're trying to do Megatron! I-!" the red seeker paused. She even almost forgot the sound of her old voice, until she screeched. A little more feminine, but it had the Starscream trait nonetheless. She swallowed some air before continuing. There was no one there. She was talking to herself…until a small gruff chuckle escaped the darkness.

"…I-…I'm a femme con! So WHAT! I-" she paused. Before fear came panic, but the end result was a justified anger. There was little rational thought running through her circuits, but Starscream instinctively knew what to say.

"…I fought for the Decepticon cause…" she stood up to her full height, and swung a violent hand at the air. "…I RISKED MY LIFE FOR THE DECEPTICON CAUSE AND IT'S LEADER!!!!"

"No one is saying you didn't, little Starscream."

"I'm not little!"

The grey Decepticon leader finally emerged from the darkness with a simple flick of the light switch, arresting Starscream's attention to the opposite side of the room. The imposing Transformer was eagerly waiting for Starscream to awake, and was more than happy at the jet's initial reaction, much to Starscream's chagrin.

"Take a closer look."

The femme con followed the direction the large black hand was pointing to, leading to the mirror she had previously mistaken for another Transformer. Lightly stepping into its view and fretful of her leader's intentions, she had a good glance at her original form. The colour scheme never changed, for each individual seeker has their own…until they were terminated, and the next newly created seeker would inherit it. Starscream's was slightly unique, of course. She still maintained her original height, but her arms and legs had a more feminine curve to it, and her head was marginally smaller. The seeker was furtively happy to know that they did not replace her faceplate to some senseless looking suctioned faced femme con. To accommodate her original mode, it altered itself to fit her head size and encompassed a more smooth effeminate touch for a seekers face, making her look-

"Cute."

The seeker turned her attention to Megatron and his derisive comment. "…Whatever."

"What's wrong, woman? Not screaming for mercy anymore?"

As womanly as she was, Starscream could not break old habits and let out a coarse grunt in response.

"I know I'm not in trouble anymore Megatron." Her arms slid into a cross over her chest and rudely turned to look away from Megatron.

'Still the same old Starscream.'

The seeker turned her attentions to her waiting leader, and they both could guess what the latter was thinking. Knowing each other for too long a time had its 'bonuses', and the seeker only narrowed her optics to small red slits.

"I suppose you want to know why I joined the Decepticon army by disguising as a man."

"You've already answered that question Starscream. Even without your meagre presence, any Transformer with common sense would know why."

"My, you're clever. No wonder you're the leader."

"Sarcastic as usual Starscream. When did this start?"

The jet just looked condescendingly from her shoulder with a raised optic.

'Great. My leader wants to have a little bonding session with me now. Fantastic. Why didn't he just bring Soundwave and his little midgets to record it all? In fact, let's announce it over the P.A.! One Decepticon chick, coming right up, DING!!!' Her thoughts were interrupted by a dangerously low growl.

"Starscream…"

"I did it long before the civil war even started, oh great leader." She hissed. "There were many strict gender biased laws that prevented a female from doing anything outside domestic work (if you've forgotten), and I don't believe a femme con such as I needed to waste her natural talents on cleaning micro dust off an energon cooker. I know most femmes were already built to be one dimensional, but I guess the Transformers forgot to cater to those who weren't."

"…Happy?"

"Oh yes…" a small raspy chuckle escaped Megatron's vocals, but Starscream was not finished.

"Now I have some questions for you, Megatron."

"Is a femme con allowed to ask questions directly to her leader?"

"I don't CARE!!!" the jet untwined her arms with a venomous grace to her sides and stamped her foot on the bleak floor. "What I'd like to know is why on Earth would you rebuild me in my original form? What's the POINT?! You could have terminated me when I was in stasis lock! What are you trying to do?!!" a blue trembling finger lanced the air at Megatron's direction, but the leader only widened his smirk.

"A good seeker is hard to come by nowadays. And one that is my second-in-command, to have earned that rank requires the 'natural talents' that you have exhibited in the many vorns under the Decepticon flag. Even if you are a back-stabbing dolt, anyone can see that your merits have scarcely outweighed your faults."

A small forced huff escaped the irate seeker's lips in denial of what is being fed through her audios, and she faced the wall once again.

"Despite your deviancy, you shall remain as my second-in-command in the Decepticon army, and continue serving your leader."

"Consider yourself extremely lucky, Starscream."

If Starscream opened her optics any wider, the glass protectors would have fallen out. Her mind raced at Megatron's composed level-headed reaction to her previous predicament. There was no angry cannon firing, no raised vocals to put the red seeker back in place…All she heard was the doors to the repair bay shucking open to let Megatron out of this miserable hull within the Nemesis.

"Wait a minute."

The Decepticon leader stopped to listen.

"There's a catch, isn't there?"

Megatron mentally shrugged it off. "No, not really."

"YES THERE IS!"

A sudden startle from the aerial commander was enough proof that they both knew each other much too well. A pair of boorish feet stomped towards Megatron, but he only replied to Starscream's mannerisms by facing the femme con with the look of a blameless Transformer. The seeker cocked her head slightly to look at her bullet-headed leader in the optics.

"Changing overnight is not going to be all, 'peaches and cream' Megatron!"

"Picking up fleshling lingo I see?"

"I'm going to have to reformat my social relationships with the other Decepticons who've known me as the 'male' Starscream! Decepticons! Who haven't seen a female in four million years!!!!"

"We were in stasis lock, so it won't matter much. And femme cons aren't so rare."

"If you think the male to female Decepticon ratio being sixty thousand nine hundred and eighty five toONE isn't RARE!!!"

"Hmm." Megatron looked thoughtful. "I didn't know that. Interesting."

"YOU DID THIS ONE PURPOSE MEGATRON!!!!"

"Look Starscream." Megatron leaned over the femme con, dangerously close to her face. "I never asked your creator to make you a woman."

Starscream shut her optics in defence, but squeaked one open to find Megatron smiling gaily.

"Now, I have more important matters to attend to." The Decepticon leader proceeded out of the door. "Have fun, Starscream."

The red seeker stood in her spot, flabbergasted at the entrance. This wasn't happening. This was not supposed to happen! Of all the punishments Megatron had met out for her disobedience! This! This-

"Eh…I wonder if 'Screamer's okay, TC."

"The sooner we get to the 'Screamer the better-"

"Oh, hi Starscrea-AAEEEEYAYIIIII!!!!!"

The purple seeker Skywarp managed to withhold his incoherent holler next to Thundercracker, who adopted the same look Starscream was wearing a few astroseconds ago. Two pairs of widened scarlet optics were dead focused on their 'new' aerial commander, now looking more tired and older than ever.

"…Oh Primus…" Skywarp whispered.

"…A Deceptichick!"

Starscream slapped her head at the purple jet's limitless idiocy.

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A/N: Eh, kinda weird but I'm getting somewhere! When Starscream, um, screams, at the beginning of the chapter, I was referring to Simon Furman's old school writing style i.e. 'Furmanisms'. :) Yeah, still read the old comics. To answer Lady Dementia's question in full, Starscream did it before she became a scientist, and in the first episode with Starscream and Sky/Jetfire you see the normal Starscream jetting off with him. She is sneaky:D