TITLE: Random Intervals
SERIES: Imperfection
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money
Author's Voice of Warning (aka Author's Note):
English is not my first language; it's German. This is the best I can do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are...
FEEDBACK: Loved
BETA: okamimyrrhibis
Tackling another Decepticon, so to speak...
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He had come home.
Home to a world he no longer recognized. Home to ruins and his people struggling to survive each day.
Starscream stood on an outcropping of metal that had once been the Academy, a place where he had learned to handle his abilities, develop his talents, and become who he was today – just like so many other mechs before him.
Around him was a wasteland.
The proud buildings of before had crumbled. The awe-inspiring Spirals were nothing but shards of their former glory. They no longer reflected the sun, or the stars throughout the night. The mosaics on the ground had disappeared. The housing structures had been flattened. Some were just craters.
Starscream felt something inside his spark break at the devastation.
All the time he had spent flying home, crossing hostile space, barren vistas of lifeless planets, moons and asteroid fields, he had envisioned coming home to the glory of Cybertron, but part of him had known it was an illusion. Without the Allspark there was no life. They could independently power parts of the planet, but the energon needed was no longer there. The war had eaten away at their society, their planet, and them.
Megatron was dead. The Allspark destroyed.
And Cybertron was dead.
He jumped off the outcropping and transformed, flying through the ruins, looking for life. He had met only one soul so far, an old mech who bore no insignia. He had scrounged around the former Academy, looking for any kind of scraps. From him Starscream had learned that many had fled, had dispersed all over the universe. The Cybertronians had become homeless. There were rumors of the last Decepticon battle ship leaving their world several cycles ago. Some even believed Megatron had returned to take those worthy of him away and start a new empire.
Starscream had scoffed at that.
Megatron was dead. An empty shell, his spark annihilated by the Allspark. The humans had done him a favor, ridding him of the powerful Decepticon leader, as well as those morons he had had to put up with in his search for the Allspark.
The Autobots, well, four of them anyway, were on Earth, far away from Cybertron. Starscream had seen no threat in them. He had planned on coming home, taking over where Megatron had left off, and rule their world. He had wanted to restore the planet to its glorious past self.
Now he saw the sheer immensity of the war.
He had never seen it before.
Landing near their old headquarters, the flyer winced inwardly. It looked like half of it had burned so hot, it had turned into a molten heap. Debris crunched under his feet.
There was movement to one side and he reacted instinctively, bringing up his gun.
"Starscream?"
The voice was familiar and the ID code sent via private Decepticon channels was for real. Still, he didn't lower his weapon.
"Thundercracker?" he asked warily.
The mech that stepped out into the open looked like Thundercracker, but he had seen better days. His paint job was sloppy, his armor in bad need of repair, and apparently he had switched off the self-repair in favor of other functions.
"You're back," Thundercracker stated evenly.
"Looks like it. Where are the others?"
A shrug. "Skywarp's disappeared. Just like Soundwave and some of the others. There were rumors about Megatron's return…"
"Megatron's dead!" Starscream spat. "He died on some forsaken Pit of a planet! I saw his spark extinguished!"
Thundercracker didn't react to his furious outbreak. "Dirge saw a ship take off. He said Megatron was supposedly on board."
"He's off line! He perished!" the former Decepticon second-in-command repeated, voice rising. "Those are stupid rumors! But I'm back and I'm going to rebuild Cybertron to even greater glory than ever before!"
That got Starscream a chuckle. "With what? The Allspark sustained us. It's gone. We're dying here, Starscream. All of us. Many have already died. Some of us still struggle, some have given up."
Starscream's optics flared red. "We will rise again!" he declared. "Under my leadership! You will see! A better Cybertron than before!"
Thundercracker smiled tiredly. "Sure. For now I'll just find myself some energon to live a little longer."
With that he transformed and shot off.
Starscream watched him disappear, shaking with fury.
"I will rebuild this world!" he whispered to himself. "Better than before! More glorious than even Megatron would have imagined! You just watch and see!"
His voice echoed through the ruins. He got no reply. Everything was eerily silent. Lost and forgotten.
Starscream launched himself into the sky, then transformed and followed Thundercracker's still faint trail. He would gather all surviving Decepticons, reclaim his home, rebuild it, shape their future!