Chapter 9: Schadenfreude : Of Hawks and Eagles
A/N: Just to warn y'all, this chapter is about a thousand words longer than the rest, wasn't keeping track of how much I've written :P
"Three-and-a-half breems left, Constructicons. We have to get the C.R. chamber ready and waiting for it's coming." Green and purple limbs followed Scrapper's command, as the gestalt team worked their quickest to assemble the tube in a specially reserved corner of the medical bay, out of harms way from the other patients. Fortunately, the Decepticon troops have not encountered any battles outside their headquarters, and the skirmishes within their ranks were kept to a minimum under Megatron's totalitarian rule. Any bouts in the past used to be small matters of no importance, but now their leader has stretched the troops wavering patience for one another, and for two good reasons. The first was the need to conserve his troops for any 'unsuspected' arrivals. The second reason was to halt any more conflicts that would drive their leader insane, especially when there is a certain femme con, sitting in the driver's seat of his misery. It was easier for his Decepticons to quell the opinions of their peers with violent solutions, but Megatron's orders were absolute. If his soldiers weren't going to dance to the tune he's playing, they can dance to the laser fire from his fusion cannon.
And here she comes, the mother of his child, being chivalrously carried in his own arms.
Scrapper's visors reflected his leader's flurried stomping in his direction, and the gestalt leader involuntarily motioned to his team mates inside the med bay, giving away an even greater sense of urgency to come.
"Hurry! Megatron's coming with Star-" Megatron's shoulder silenced the Constructicon leader with a brutish shove, and the silver tyrant continued barking orders to the gestalt team half-gawking stupidly at the seeker in his arms.
"What are you waiting for, FOOLS? GET THE EQUIPMENT READY!"
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As Megatron's second-in-command, this was a rare moment when Starscream was not being yelled at first. A sardonic comment would have been offered by the female, if she wasn't unconscious and bathing in her own energon, unreservedly spilling out of every open orifice in her body.
Approximately two hours ago, Megatron inwardly sulked at the security brimmed around the new power plant. The humans with their primitive minds did not build the new plant in that location without his troops in mind, no; they had external help from those accursed Autobots, perusing the new location as additional security. Basic tactics were not enough to collect results from this station, but he will find a way. His enemies always had a glaring weakness that he could exploit, and they all came in small, soft bipedal forms, no taller than his knee. A fleeting shadow on the ground reminded the dictator that another one of his Decepticon seekers was casually gliding the skies, as he raised his head to spot a jet dancing in the light of the moon. Whipping the clouds into odd shapes, Starscream playfully rolled her wings into the clear, to catch the stars spotting the dark blanket over the Earth. Taking notice of her lord's scrutiny of her own being, the female gradually touched the same earth he was standing on, composing herself into her root mode.
"Having fun?" he quipped. Megatron thought he saw a kind face on his aerial commander, and confirmed it when she shrugged lazily.
"Yes…and feeling a little tired as usual. Have you taken the nearby village into account?" she sauntered in small circles. "The Autobots might be there too."
"Don't take me for some short-sighted fool, Starscream," Megatron harrumphed. "Judging by the size and the scarcity of humans, I don't think they would be visiting it anytime soon, so there would be minimal Autobot threats from that place."
"So confident, my leader. Let's go see. I bet there are Autobots rolling around on that part of this infernal mud ball." A kick start from their anti-gravitational thrusters sent the couple from one site to the other. Standing poised over a cliff face, the tyrant and his consort looked down on the humbly lit settlement, sorely lacking in Autobot protection.
"…I told you there were no Autobots."
"I know. I just wanted to look at the pretty lights." Starscream took a few more steps to gaze at the small town in quiet contemplation. Resting her finger next to her pouted lip, the maroon seeker mulled herself to a straightforward conclusion.
"This place sucks."
"And how. Humans and their primitive devolvement in the galaxy that surrounds them. If only-what are you doing?" Megatron's optics followed to the F-15 taking to the sky, which lanced back into the forest behind them. "Starscream!"
Scanning the flora behind him, Megatron's head snapped to the red blur shooting towards the settlement. What could she do to that town with no weaponry on her? The tyrant felt a small niggling concern etching itself in the back of his mind, if the seeker planned a kamikaze attack; he would not know until she swooped past a few buildings. Opening her compartment on the underside, the jet scattered a colourful array of organic debris collected from before, to rain upon a few prominent buildings with her nefarious cackling. This in turn produced a deep guffaw from the back of her leader's throat, as the pitiable humans ran amok for what was left of their shelter from the elements. The duo laughed even harder when she returned, admiring the cruel joke played on the tinier creatures, scurrying like frantic ants in the rain.
"There! MUCH better!" she sniggered. Megatron's optics flickered in genuine delight at the scene below him, mentally recalling his air commanders particular flight path. "S-Starscream! W-! Were you aiming at any specific building, or was it just a hilariously random attack?"
Pointing a blue finger to what used to be the tallest structure, Starscream noted for her leader. "That one is a religious building."
"Hmph. Their gods are no match for ours," Comparing the religious edifice to the smaller, uninspiring dwelling, Megatron's wordless questions did not remain unanswered by his second-in-command.
"And that one over there (that ugly, stupid low-looking one), is an orphanage."
"Unwanted pests," Megatron grunted.
"Schadenfreude," she prated.
"What does that mean?"
"It means a good feeling for us," she lowered her crowing to a soft croon. "Although, I still think it needs more lights…I even dropped a few rocks on that gas station, but it didn't-"
Before Starscream could finish her sentence, it was Megatron's turn to be youthfully impatient. Throwing his body into the air, the gun immediately took aim and deftly shot a blast at the human's habitat, creating a recipe for instant disaster. A heavy explosion violently tore into the gas station and the buildings closest to it, creating a domino effect of chaos. Bathing in the amber glow of the self-created bonfire, the couple felt pleasingly good inside.
"Well," Megatron stomped back onto the shared vantage point in his root mode, his chest puffed out in pride. "There goes the orphanage!"
"It's beautiful…" the femme con admired the creation of such devastatingly picturesque scenery. "I love it. All those little humans on fire…It just makes me feel all warm and tingly inside…"
"Literally," Megatron added. "We should be leaving very soon anyway. I don't need a bunch of Earth-loving idiots taking shots at my creation."
"Hnn," she murmured to herself. Enjoying the catastrophe slowly unpeeling itself right before their optics, the couple stayed their feet from retreating to a more discreet position. Lacking proper exposure since her spark's existence, Starscream felt a perverted elation at the charred scent of human calamity, wafting in the air; she didn't know her olfactory senses were so acutely tuned to her surroundings. Making a keen visual scan of his surroundings, Megatron surmised the Autobots possible reaction to what's left of the human's habitat. When the Autobots arrive, their first priority would be to evacuate the living humans from joining their lifeless counterparts. For the warlord's comfort, here was no harm lingering another astrosecond or two, to contemplate a possible future with his air commander.
"Who would have thought, that a seeker from the slums of Cybertron could bear the spark of a king?" Starscream shot a defensive look at her leader, louring as she hissed bitterly at his condescending tenor. "So I grew up in a land of garbage. Do I look like a Junkion to you?"
"Far from that, female," Starscream's initial reaction pricked the side of Megatron's lips to a cavalier smile. "Rich soil breeds rich individuals."
"I guess that makes you the richest, oh wise and, NOBLE leader." The tyrant curtly grunted at her comment. "Most of the time. It's hard to find such prized individuals such as you. To lose something, or shall I say, someone precious is a different matter, don't you think so, my little seeker?"
"Shut up, you jerk. If you're talking about Thundercracker, you of all Transformers should know that I've already lost him twice. It's bad enough that the only guy who loved you back, dies like any other brainless grunt in war. But when he comes back to life remembering nothing but his love for you, and you've moved on …" she paused. There was no use explaining an aspect of her life, which he already knew from their initial connections.
"I don't 'swing' that way, so I wouldn't know," Megatron scoffed. "But now that he's completely devoid of any maudlin feelings for you, I see no problem."
"(…I just don't like losing things, that's all…)"
A brief silence humbly returned to the air they loitered in once more. Megatron did have the experience of losing someone useful to his secondary needs, and Starscream was not the first female he tried to create a legacy with. 'But would she be the last?' he wondered. He cherish her somewhat beyond the confines of their professional relationship, but her erratic betrayal to his cause carelessly brought about some enmity between them…and it was understandable. She did not breed her selfishness alone in this petty universe, and Megatron was one of the guilty who fed the naïve creature, to become the faithless beast that resided in her spark…conveniently next to his child's own.
A light graze from a pewter wing brought Megatron's attention back to Starscream, with her arms folded over her cockpit and her hands cupping her elbows. The aspen Decepticon recalled the female using her wings, inadvertently making passing gestures to his being when they were courting in the past. It was a habitual occurrence amongst seekers who bred familiarity with one another, and that concept remained fresh even in the war. Two strangers of their kind would not casually touch wings with one another unless they were forced into a military line, and after the formalities were over they would back away in slight offence at their like-bodied comrades. This queer notion was commonly practised by the seekers and no other winged Transformer alike, but Starscream's brusque gesture was not of a doting nature.
A dark finger traced the edge of her wings, prompting the female to turn her back to her leader, grinning with unspoken intent at her direction. "Why are you being so modest, female? Or are you just being a tease so I'll let my guard down?"
"I thought that was the mech's job to lull a female into some false sense of security," she said, tilting her neck to give Megatron a glance at her shrewd smile. A small huff escaped her lips, and she leaned her head to the other side in feigned vacillation.
"Don't play games with me, Starscream. I know what you want."
"Are you just making me think what you want me to think?" Starscream placed her finger closer to her lips, while her leader brought himself closer to her. "And I thought you like playing games."
"I don't like games, woman." A large black hand grabbed her wrists, pulling the femme con abreast with its owner. "I like the chase."
"And I just don't like losing things…" her optics followed the back of his hand as it stroked her visage with a foreign gentleness, drawing to close his fingers on her chin.
"Right now, you've nothing to lose."
"…A-…Are you sure...?" The recognisable quiver of trepidation shot through her systems, which did not go unnoticed by the mech. It was something he revelled in, and they both knew what pleasures of joy that fear could bring to satiate his appetite. At such close proximity, Starscream could not hide her consternation or stop her body from shaking, so she took childlike logic to her solution and closed her eyes. Megatron bared his teeth in a hungry smile as he felt her trying to shift away from his piercing gaze, the ruby glow carving along her exterior like an invisible knife. He liked what he was looking at, and she looked helplessly pathetic. Not that he wanted to protect her in a stereotypically masculine fashion, but her defenceless state seemed to bring some unexplainable mirth to his spark.
"(…I-…I don't want to die…)" she whimpered. "(Please…please don't kill me, Megatron…I…I won't ever-…)"
Excessive begging did put him off though. Starscream had to be the wet blanket to all his personal merriments.
"You're not going to die after you give me my child, female." A sliver of light peeked from her visage, before Megatron's optics caught his aerial commander reposing herself in muted relief, but her voice still betrayed her anxiety.
"Are…you-…you're joking? I mean, you-" Starscream felt his large fingers leave her chin to pinch her cheeks, pursing her lips like a gormless fish.
"Are you thick, you one-dimensional femme con?" he gave her head a slight shake. "Why would I want to lose such a 'valuable' commodity to my cause?"
"…Idiot…" loosening his grip to give his aerial commander a more dignified expression, Megatron reverted back to his usual grimace of near indifference.
"…So…what now?" she murmured with feigned innocence.
"Why don't you shut your optics and take a guess?"
Starscream did not have to be told twice, neither did she have no qualms about following this order…until she felt a large pair of hands wrench her body away from the silver metal. The seeker's vision caught a fiery shot, whizzing past her head as the Decepticon tyrant sent a few of his own to the Autobots at the base of their viewpoint. The F-15's face now burned with livid rage at the couple below them. How DARE they-! How DARE they ruin a beautiful moment for her! The fire! The burning humans! It was all, so, PERFECT-!
"DIE AUTOBOTS-"
"…SLAGYOU, ALLLL! DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!"
Megatron halted his lines as his partner screamed the same words back at their enemies, but with more wanton passion than a legion of battle-hungry troops. Wasting no time with feminine etiquette, the femme con spanned her elegant arms around as many trees as she could accommodate, and with profound strength born from fury, uprooted them all single-handedly from the ground they take nourishment from. The tyrant almost paused his cannon when she used said trees to bombard the equally stunned Autobots, taking cover from her temper unleashed. Finding advantage in the confusion, Megatron transformed into Starscream's eagerly waiting hands. Holding the greatest living weapon on Earth after months of being unarmed, Starscream tightened her knuckle joints and fired unreservedly at the fleeing Autobots, taking her last shot at the cliff. Loosening the soil to send forth a devastating landslide, Starscream glided into the air in small triumph, until she felt her leader tremble in her hands.
The Decepticon ruler nimbly twisted back into his original form to seize the femme con for his fitting reward, drifting above the carnival of perfected pandemonium. He thieved her body as she clutched his before, to crush her in a vice and commit their own vices. Both Transformers liberated each other of the air in their mouths like wolverines to their own carnality, clawing and biting to slake their desires. Her slim frame wilted in his solid arms after a moment that felt longer than it would, her head sliding from his chin to rest on his shoulder. Megatron loosened his embrace of the female when her frame sunk in his grip. Starscream's thrusters weren't carrying her own weight in the air anymore, and her optics faded to black.
"Th-…the spark, it-…it-" Megatron swiftly threw her legs over his free arm, taking cue from her declining power. "(…It wants out…)"
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Which brings the tyrant back to the base, covered in energon not of his own. The mad rush back to the Nemesis would have taken longer, if Starscream's personal entourage was not present to defend their leader. 'Those flesh-loving Autobots always come back with reinforcements when they've been temporarily cured from their pacifism' he cursed. 'If only they can realise OUR birth-right, to rule and conquer inferior beings!'
Zealous limbs in panicked symphony laboured feverishly on the supine seeker, plugging and pulling an array of tubes being stabbed and reconnected into the female's system. The Constructicons were the Decepticons general medical team by default since their entry to Earth, and no one under the energy scalpel doubted their technical knowledge. They are qualified in Transformer anatomy in academics and experience, but to put facts straight, they weren't midwives. Creations were either factory or hand made, and only an island of seasoned veterans of life have seen a naturally created spark; the spiritual and functional synchrony of two different life forms to grow a new independent life form, was an ultimately different matter.
Megatron had rare chances to make that achievement, and his spark was now destroying the host it resided in. The sound of a shattered cockpit broke the mania, before melting into the erratic light with the searing red metal. A shrill cry broke from Starscream's wet vocal chords, prompting one of he Constructicons to force her head to the side, in case the seeker choked on her own energon and clogged her ventilation system.
"Why isn't the spark in the C.R. chamber yet?" the green gestalt team did not respond to their leaders bellow. "SCRAPPER!"
Scrapper almost missed his leader's voice if Megatron was not standing in front of him as he ran by. "My lord, the spark was not able to find an alternate source of energy to develop it's core processing unit, so it's assimilating itself into Starscream!"
The Constructicon leader switched glances between his rushing team and the angry glow from the tyrant. "Megatron, their systems are incompatible! Both Starscream and the child are going to destroy each other if we don't get it out in time!"
"…WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?" Scrapper leapt at his leader's words being spat onto his face.
"We've going to try and force the spark to take it's place in the C.R. chamber!" Scrapper stopped activating his vocal component when Megatron leaned over his frame, rapping their foreheads together.
"YOU ARE NOT GOING TO 'TRY', SCRAPPER! YOU ARE GOING TO DO IT, OR FORFEIT YOUR LIVES IN THE PROCESS!"
"Scrapper! The connection is complete!" Hook quickly interjected into Megatron's death threat, before the silver Decepticon decided to list the names of their gestalt team mates. Starscream's body leapt to the high voltage charge clawing through her system, but her mind was already in stasis lock. By sending a bout of stinging jolts through the red seeker, the Constructicons were hoping that the spark, unable to withstand the pain, would dash from it's mother to the C.R. chamber, using the connection bridged between them to take residence in its proper place. Refusing to abdicate from the female's body, the tiny life snapped jarringly at the Constructicons, caving in a larger hole within Starscream's chassis to sustain it's own life. This was the first time Megatron disliked to see his second-in-command undergo torture of such a high degree.
The next surge forced the Transformers within the room to shut their optics from the searing light, and the tyrant saw it. Buckling under the strain, the female awoke to greet the agony pulsating through her body, and stared with muted shock at the face of her child's father. Her defeated gaze sent a strange sentiment through the aspen Decepticon, and in response, he steeled his own countenance at her piteous state. The weak gleam from her optics flickered off when the next jerk raked through her body, and all hands stopped the operation. Looking up from his aerial commander, Megatron found the cause of the gestalt team's halted motion. The same aquatic light that tormented its creator, stretched new wires into a recognisable frame that would become a nervous system in due time. Occupying a small area in the cryogenic tube, the spark shuddered in small protest at the previous maltreatment, bathing in the liquid that would also be it's source of nourishment.
"…It…it is done, lord Megatron." Hook spoke in a tone, lacking his usual condescendence. All optics gradually shifted from the spark to their leader, and for a rare moment, Megatron had no further orders to bark at his troops. The gestalt team followed Megatron's blank gaze from the spark to the wet mess below him, all optics aimed at the still female. Megatron broke the silent scrutiny, when he espied the dry energon drip connected to Starscream's fuel pump.
"…What's keeping her alive?"
The Constructicons stared dumbly at their leader, transfixed at his sharpened optics seething into a white glow. Sending a black fist into the nearest wall, Megatron reactivated the team into a hectic blur. The Decepticon leader relaxed his glare when the seeker's condition was amended, as Scrapper announced.
"Starscream's weak, but she's stable. We'll monitor her systems personally before her body can be placed into a C.R. chamber."
"…(Good)."
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'M-….my spark…my-…'
"…Spark…?"
A small light glazed her tired body with a warm sheen, floating in the darkness. Blue fingers twitched, noting the slight discomfort raking her internal systems, her body shell sticky from the dry energon. Even lying motionless made the room spin, with the small glint being the centre of focus. She had to get up…see her spark. One pale foot shifted groggily before its twin followed suit, crumbling towards her creation. Starscream's hands made a satisfying click when she rested the flat of her palms onto the lucent glass, separating the female from her newborn. Unable to support herself vertically on the C.R. chamber, Starscream's knees plunged to the ground, obeisant to the vessel like a worshipper to its god.
"…Spark…sph-…uh…" she staggered, straining to enkindle the red vigour in her optics. After managing to turn her optics online, she saw the same serene luminosity tan her face. Recognising Starscream's presence, the spark drifted nonchalantly to swim downwards, meeting her fatigued expression. With her head swaying cumbersomely and her body throbbing gallingly, the femme con concluded that she must have been severely shocked some breems ago, addled by the involuntary twitching. She was not sure, but then her arms started taking a life of its own, rising above her head to pluck her hands away from the glass. Starscream mouthed a soundless objection, what with a new pair of hands carrying her body away from the floor to the recharge berth. Starscream cast a childish smile on her face when she lay back, identifying the stranger's silhouette outlined by the lambent brilliance of her creation.
"(Rest now, Starscream)."
'I…go through…hours of pa-…pain…and that's all you say-…uh…' Starscream stopped her mental griping when his hand brushed the side of her helmet, caressing her cheek.
"The spark will be transferred to my personal quarters in the later part of the day, for security purposes. For now, I want you to concentrate on your recovery."
The mech paused from leaving the room, when he felt a slim hand cup his fingers.
"…(D-…don't… leave me)…" she pleaded. "…(Stay a while)…"
"There is a raid to be conducted in three astroseconds, Starscream," he stated flatly.
"…(Okay)…" her voice fell to a sad whimper, before he sealed her lips with his own. Megatron raised his head when she half-coughed, half-chuckled.
"(Back then…when we were looking at…that village… you made me pop a spark…)" she whispered. "(…That was one…knock-out kiss…!)"
"(Huh)…silly female…" Starscream lingered back into stasis lock, when the exit faded to a thin white line.
A/N: Congratulations! It's an alien death killing machine! I would have posted this fanfic up a few days ago if my sister proof-read it earlier…but thanks again! Goin' on holiday, coming back on the 11th…don't expect any updates soon!