A Captured Beast Within a Human Skin

By Uniasus

Chapter 10 – Water and Ice are the Same Thing

(Takes place shortly after 6, so in the beginning of Sam's time with the Swiss)

The Law of Conservation. The Law of Equality. The Law of Equivalent Exchange. The Law of Balance. The Law of Rejuvenation. The Energy Cycle. Recycling. The Natural Balance. Transformation.

Different planets, different cultures, had different names for it, but most sentients discovered this rule of the universe. Energy doesn't just disappear, it changes, converts, but it's always there. But there was one type that never changed too much, was relatively constant.

Spark energy.

There was nothing quite like it in the universe, just like there would never be a Seeker quite like him. When a spark extinguished it went to the Well of Sparks; the energy of that spark may be dispersed to mix with other spark energy, or it may remain together, but it never became anything else then spark energy.

So it only made sense that the All Spark would follow those same rules. After all, what was it but a channel to the Well? Spark energy itself that directed energy in the Well into bodies and vice versa.

So Starscream was sure the All Spark still existed. Its form may have changed yes, its signal could be suppressed, but it was out there. Or rather, on there. Because he was sure it was still on Earth, if it left its energy signature would have been picked up.

He had a feeling the Autobots knew where it was, they were in league with the nation with the largest army, a rather Deception move to ally with those with power as opposed to morals, but Starscream figured convenience factored in too. The United States of America was where they crashed, where those most hated of meatbags lived, where the All Spark had been kept, and his leader too. It was a good military move, something the Autobots picked up from war.

But it meant that the All Spark was surely still being kept on American soil, being kept tabs on. And the military defense net had been so amateurish, so primitive. It shouldn't be any problem to penetrate it again, albeit more subtly than Frenzy was capable of.

But what he was looking for wasn't there.

He tried searching for All Spark, and as expected there was no information on its present location. The humans didn't know the name of what they held and called the artifact but the very imaginative name "The Cube". Although his kind used a similar term, if only to describe the All Spark's current form. It had been many things before.

A search query with the meatbag term had been more successful, but all the files were old, on ghost servers Sector 7 had control of. They described the experiments that had been done with the All Spark radiation, but Starscream learned nothing new. Nothing he found was less than six years old, all of it being prior to Egypt.

If the military knew anything, they were being smart, hiding information from all Cybertronians. He wondered if Prime knew; probably not, too trusting in weak alliances with the natives. How such a species survived escaped him, they were fragile. Very squishy. His second favorite type of victim, his first was those that crunched when stepped on.

If the defense network was useless, maybe the intelligence network would be useful.

It was, not much, but enough to make a difference. The fleshbag who had taken out Megatron, only to fail to do it again was living under a new name, a new address. And he had been given his own acronym, HCH 01, by a science division of the FBI. Not as catchy as NBE, but it held so much more potential.

Human Cybertronian Hybrid.

It was theorized, not proven, that the human was such a thing, had absorbed the All Spark. But records of him, from accelerated learning and degree achievement to daily habits, were kept. It was enough to suggest the possibility, but nothing more.

A possibility was all he needed, was all that kept him going. It was possible that his next attempt at defeating Megatron would work, it was possible that they would win the war. And knowing a possibility, acting on one, would increase the chance of certainty, in either direction. At the moment, Sam Witwicky was and wasn't what he was looking for, and Starscream needed to find out one-way or another.

The address he flew too was empty. Had been for days. There were piles of paper in the driveway and a scan of the interior had revealed food past the expiration date. Which meant he had to scare up information from an Autobot. One easy to corner, one who had difficultly telling a lie, who knew about the All Spark. And considering those on Earth, two possibilities entered his processor: Kickback and Wheeljack.

It ended up being Wheeljack. Kickback was traveling with Long Arm towards the East Coast, and he didn't want to bother with a second Autobot. Yes, the engineer hid out in the Autobot's base, but he couldn't stay there forever. Everyone got leave, went out to explore the nearby city. Something as populated as Las Vegas was sure to entice Wheeljack out.

Starscream jumped him on the barren road leading to base as Wheeljack was on his way back, just out of range from the NEST base. He fell from the sky, the engineer managing to roll out of the way and transform just in time to prevent a thruster landing on his hood.

"Starscream!"

The seeker mimicked the declaration in his processor. Of course it was him! No need to state the obvious. He pointed a null ray at the engineer. Wheeljack stopped unsubspacing his own weapon and froze.

"Where's the All Spark? I know you guys know where he is!"

Wheeljack shuttered his optics and then sent a questioning look at him.

"He? Starscream, the All Spark isn't sentient enough to pick a gender."

Autobots, always so insolent. Starscream sneered and decided to deliver a good old fashioned attack; he punched the engineer in face. Wheeljack gave into the strike with a roll, bringing up his rocket launcher and firing a shot off. Starscream avoided it, diving to the side and transforming to fly straight into the engineer and then returning to his root mode to straddle Wheeljack and deliver another punch. He stood up, pointing both of his charged null rays at the Autobot's chest.

"Don't lie Autobot. Even this country's government knows about that human's absorption of All Spark. Where. Is. He?" He shot the ground next to Wheeljack's head, delighting in the wince on the engineer's face at the heat and debris.

"I'm not telling you a thing about Sam!"

"Doesn't matter, I'll find him eventually. I was just hopping you could speed the process along."

The sound of jets in the distance put him on high alert, backup for the Autoscum at his feet. Starscream fired his weapons, the engineer going slack underneath him. He could stay and fight, show the lousy meat pilots what a seeker was truly capable of, but it lacked a point. He and the humans already knew he was a better flyer. Plus he was nowhere near completing his goal, or the task Megatron sent him back to the planet for in the first place. With one last sneer at Wheeljack, he transformed and flew away.

Wheeljack watched him go, confused at why Starscream thought Sam was the All Spark. It had affected him, sure, Ratchet had run so many tests to cover what exactly it was doing to the boy. But nothing damaging, nothing reminiscent of the All Spark itself. Just knowledge, no ability at all similar to what the All Spark was capable of doing.

But knowing that Starscream was looking for Sam sent him on edge. He had thought the human was being used as a bargaining chip for the Decepticons, Sam for information Prime wasn't giving out. Apparently that wasn't true, which meant he had been taken for something else. Starscream pretty much confirmed that the government was in on it, that they knew something, but Sideswipe hadn't been able to find anything in the military network. And now, Sam wasn't even in the country, he had been taken by another.

There was the distinct sound of a transformation and Wheeljack found himself looking into Jolt's worried faceplates.

"Wheeljack! Are you okay?"

::Starscream got me with his null rays, both of them:: He was frozen, unable to move.

"Got in a couple of punches too by the looks of things. Did you get him back?"

::No, unfortunately::

"Well, it'll wear off soon enough and then we can head back to base."

Wheeljack here the sound of jeeps and jets returning to the base, a single squad of soldiers staying behind for back up if it was needed.

::Think you can get a message to Prime::

"Sure, once we get back. Did Starscream say something?"

::He knows something, something about Sam, that we don't. But the US government and who ever took him knows too. Sideswipe needs to check out other networks::

Jolt frowned, but nodded. "We can't do much else anyway, not until we know where Sam was taken. I hope he's alight."

::Me too::

A/N: I'm sure several of you pretty much died of shock when you saw updates for this in your inboxes. I figured my own troubles with editing should really hamper your reading of this, especially as the fic is finished. So, I'll be posting new chapters up, but will also eventually repost an edited version of this story. Hope you enjoyed these two new chapters! (I replaced 9, in case you missed that)