Chapter 15: No Rest For No One
A/N: Heaaaadacheeee. So many typo's to correct XP I think I overdid Red Alert character in the last chapter oo I was reading fanfics, and I knew something was missing from mine, but I had no idea what it was. It was something important, something that almost all fanfics have, and it usually appears early on in a fanfic. I kept on forgetting what it was…
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"Now with Starscream gone, -I- shall be the new second-in-command of the Decepticons! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA-OW! C'mon TC, that hurts…"
Skywarp rubbed his sides as his wingmate strode away from the crowd to observe them, chattering aimlessly in the middle of the desert. Today they were offered another exercise geared at team efficiency, without the guidance of their aerial commander. Thundercracker would be the first to act as Starscream's substitute, grouping the seekers into a loose circle without the crass arrogance the femme con generously offered. Breaking his patience was the purple jet's favourite job, making a poor imitation at Starscream's bid to replace his superior. Poking his nosecone where it was not wanted, Ramjet bellowed for some Autobots to thrash here and now, and Dirge's attitude did not help Thrust, who was situated between an overzealous conehead and a depressed conehead.
In other words, without Starscream, the odd number of jets resembled a group of dysfunctional children.
The pride of the Decepticon army.
"Starscream, I wanna go home! I hate this! Even TC's actin' like Dirge! Can we go back, huh? Can we? Can we? Pleeease?" Skywarp's childishly pleaded to his communicator in his arm, desperate to win Starscream's clemency. "I promise I won't say anything about your hot legs for like, a week! No, no! A MONTH! Starting today, yeah?"
"Shut up 'Warp, she's turned off her communications system. She always does that (when she's with Megatron who knows what-)"
"Sheddehp 'Wheerph! Meh meh meh meh meh---!!!" The purple jet razzed back at the blue seeker with a falsetto voice, moving his fingers in a rapid stapling motion. "Maybe if you hadn't slagged her off today, we wouldn't be doing this lousy exercise! We oughta' give you a new paint job! How 'bout the colour STUPID?!"
"I heard the fleshlings dump tar on their loser friends and add feathers to them…" Ramjet offered his insight on human culture.
"Go 'ram jet' yourself into a cliff, you-" Thundercracker's mutterings turned into a Cybertronian dialect.
"…Why are we all consumed by our own weaknesses…is it because of the fear…?" Thrust reply was to make a face at the dejected blue conehead.
"Um, Dirge? Can you, just, keep quiet? (you creepy freak)..."
Perched on a stray branch, Laserbeak continued surveillance on the five aerial cons.
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A pair of tired ruby optics watched her wingmates and the coneheads on a single monitor, demonstrating catastrophic consequences when left without guidance from their superiors. Starscream slapped her forehead with a blue hand and dragged said hand down, trying to pull her entire face to the floor.
"(…Not enough cerebral circuits between them to fill a human plate…)" she muttered and paced back to her leader, having seen enough disorganised idiocy.
"What was that?" Megatron looked away from the various monitors in front of him.
"Without me, your aerial force would be in shambles."
"And with you, it still is," the grey Transformer corrected his subordinate in a matter-of-fact tone. Starscream grunted and grimaced at Megatron.
"If you continue contorting your face like that, you might lose your 'Prettiest-In-The-Universe' title."
"Anything to make us look like a matching couple, oh mighty Megatron…" the red seeker dragged her last comment.
"How droll Starscream, but I did not call you here to have such a 'delightful' conversation. As you know, our energon reserves have almost reached its limit. Now is the time to draw out our new plans to get rid of the Autobots."
"And I suppose you want to build a giant death-ray of some sort to blast them all to slag, my lord?"
"Very clever, Starscream."
"And I owe it all to your leadership."
"Shut up and listen."
"Yes, my lord."
Watching Megatron clench and unclench his black fists told Starscream that she had just about drained her leader's patience. She knew goading him was a fool's game, but after admitting to themselves that they were an 'item', the aerial commander found some twisted satisfaction in testing Megatron's tolerance to her insults. The Decepticon leader was not shy to raise his hand or throw a fist at her, having relished this habit for many vorns, and knowing well that sometimes, Starscream asked for it. If he impetuously swung a backhand at her face, he would look predictable. If he held his hand he would look predictable. So he decided to surprised her today with an affectionate gesture.
Starscream's optics widened when Megatron smiled at her, and felt her lower lip being sucked further into her mouth when he reached over to place a soft kiss on her cheek. The Decepticon leader then leaned back looking quite appeased at his second-in-command, who was trying and losing at suppressing an embarrassed face. The femme con mentally kicked herself for not being used to this rare brand of manipulative treatment, and hurried herself to recover from the trepid surge that jolted through her systems. Megatron grinned wider when she pouted in defeat.
"...I hate you."
"Get used to it." He waved a hand at her and drew their attention to the next monitor, displaying blue prints of a factory of some sort.
"…If the next energon raid is successful, we will not have to worry about the Autobots, anymore!"
"Because we'll build a powerful weapon on Earth-?"
"Not Earth, Starscream…" Megatron snarled. "But Cybertron…"
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If, the next energon raid was successful.
"Decepticons…RETREEEAAAAAAT!!!!"
Starscream's head popped out of the sand as soon as she heard those familiar words ring into her audios. Leaping nimbly to her feet, the aerial commander doubled over and plunged head first back into the dry sand when a sharp pain shot through her systems.
"Disgusting flying Autobot!" Starscream yelled to no one and rubbed her smoking rear end, agitating the flecks of paint that crinkled off her dented aft. Instinctively looking up, the red seeker watched the majority of the Decepticon army shrink into purple blue specks in the sky. Her temper soared to violent extremes when she saw a light blue F-15 pair himself with his purple counterpart, and humbly followed the Decepticon troop back to headquarters.
'Stupid fool!' Starscream's thoughts raced feverishly through her circuits. 'Thundercracker did not follow my orders on purpose! Megatron's going to take out more than my thrusters when I get back! …I have to get my word in first before that stupid headache does!' she got up and swung her fists at the air.
"SLAGGING IDIOT!!!"
Starscream's optics darted to her surroundings when a bush trembled on its own accord. Whenever the Decepticon femme got shot out of the sky (reasons being that she was surrounded by incapable maladroit buffoons), she would deliberately aim for a safe distance away from the battlefield to crash, so she could hastily recover her senses and rejoin the fight (or retreat) when her body could afford it. Unfortunately, she was not alone in the dense flora she stumbled into, and Starscream remained almost statuesque to detect any hostile Transformer signals in her surroundings.
"'Someone get hit in the badonkadonk?"
Two black ear appendages impishly peeked out from the talking shrub, and Starscream relaxed her joints.
"…Very funny Jazz." The Autobot saboteur kneeled up to greet her when the same 'flying Autobot' that grounded Starscream flew into view, and fired a warning shot to distance the red seeker from his comrade.
"Jazz man, watch out!" Sideswipe mauled the Decepticon female. Taken back by the red Autobot's underhand tactics when he shot her from (and her) behind, Starscream was incited to pummel the Lamborghini if he did not do it first, spontaneously activating his pile driver arms, alarming the Decepticon femme con with the deadly palpitating force he possessed.
'Useless Autobot boyfriend, do something-!'
A painful thud and the sound of scraping Autobot parts scratched the combatants audios, distracting Sideswipe from the red seeker. Starscream literally grabbed the opportunity and dug her hands into the Lamborghini's shoulders before hurling him backwards. Sitting up from her supine position, Starscream's widened optics spotted the Porsche being swung by the leg like a disorientated cat. Gyrating the helpless Autobot overhead before tossing him aside like yesterday's slag, Megatron plucked his attention from Jazz to Starscream, who was clambering from her feet to meet her leader. The femme con was addled at the Decepticon leader personally coming back to retrieve his second-in-command, but pushed those thoughts aside when Megatron's cannon whined in anticipation. Nimbly twirling herself around, Starscream leaned on her leader and facilely propped his cannon arm on her right shoulder, blasting Sideswipe away from the duo.
When both Autobot's were properly dealt with, Megatron wasted no time lifting him and his aerial commander away from the scene. If the Decepticon femme wasn't already abashed when she left the ground without activating her own thrusters, Megatron's large hand around her waist did, and she curtly pushed him away by folding herself into her alt mode.
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That's not it.
'That's not it!'
'(…That's not it…)', she whispered in her mind, afraid that if she thought too loud, someone might hear it, even if their talents weren't the same as the clairvoyant Soundwave.
'Megatron would not come back. A retreat is a retreat. Maybe a goodbye missile aimed at the Autobots wouldn't hurt, but…' the red jet paced around her room, perplexed by her leader's change of routine. 'He would never come back. Never. Any Decepticon left behind should know that you either pick yourself up or choose to be left behind.'
And he didn't. This in mind, Starscream grew more agitated by the astrosecond. Her emotions raced from simple anger to secret elation at the same time when she recalled the Decepticon leader personally 'retrieving' her from battle. Angry, because in all the millennia they lived together in the Decepticon army, Megatron always abandoned her to her fate, and her comrades knowing their routine, stopped asking why the red seeker was left behind. To grace her with his own special attention today made her happy, having broken the cycle of neglect and desertion towards her being. And back to anger.
Because she was not any weakling Decepticon. She was Starscream, second-in-command, aerial commander and prodigy of the Decepticon war academy.
Only to be saved by Megatron, because she was falling behind.
Making her look weak.
The femme con raked her hands across her head in pure frustration. 'No, no one saw that, only the Autobots! And their opinions don't matter! Jazz…WHAT THE-!' She swatted the air beside her head, trying to physically distant a brief reflection of the Porsche from her train of thought like a nuisance. Placing her head back in her waiting hands, Starscream gently settled her newly painted rear on her recharge bed. The Constructicons had more than a good heckle at her damaged aft as soon as she placed herself belly down on the beds in the medical bay. In fact, every Decepticon in the med bay had a good laugh at her expense, forgetting their wounds and their exposed circuits, until she screeched and barked a raspy threat at the next laughing mouth, enforcing her words with a pair of charged null rays. From then on, the green and purple gestalt team repaired her without interruption, save for the usual grumbling hubbub in the room.
"Starscream. Come in, Starscream."
Fantastic. Just…great. Starscream opened her internal communications link.
"You require my service, oh mighty Megatron." Even her usual sarcastic zest was watered down by today's episode.
"Report to the war room immediately to brief Thundercracker and Skywarp for the next energon raid."
"…Fine."
"Now."
Click.
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Copyright: Transformers and all it's characters belong to Hasbro, Takara and/or all the people who own it. I don't claim I own them, except for the one's I made up, if I make any up.
A/N: There, that should have been put at the beginning. Doesn't Dirge remind you of Eeyore:D I just recently found out what a beta reader is. So I thank my sister for being one for the first few chapters, 'cause I was not really that confident to be honest. Now that I have grown some (cough)balls(cough) I thank you all again for supporting me. I'm sorry for being so slow with the chapters, please bear with me!