Seeker In Crisis.
Chapter Five: Starscream's New Dawn.
A/N: It looks like Sanjuno's universe has filtered into this story too, albeit in a slightly diluted form…:)
For Sam Witwicky and Bumblebee, calm suddenly turned into chaos.
One moment they were driving along the road, just having gone out for the heck of it, the day being sunny and bright. All Bumblebee's windows were open, and Bumblebee's speakers were cranked up and blasting out Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" and Sam had been singing along.
Later they would reflect that maybe the volume of both the car speakers and the human were too loud. That perhaps it was why the first warning they got that things were about to get difficult was when a pair of very large Seeker feet crashed to the road in front of them, cracking the tarmac and blocking the road. Looking up through the windshield, Sam saw Starscream, strange carvings dripping viscous pink fluid covering his body, his optics glowing a hellish red, bending down towards them.
Bumblebee, his reactions faster than any human's, slammed on the brakes before they collided, and tried to turn one hundred and eighty degrees. He knew he could not outrun the Seeker if he took to the air again, but he intended to try. However, before the Autobot scout could even start moving again, a clawed hand caught him on the side, the digit-tips hooking in the open windows, and flipped him side-over-side onto the edge of the road.
Bumblebee flicked open his doors and threw Sam clear, and began to transform as he rolled. In car form he was far too vulnerable. However, as he stood, powering his cannon up and dropping his battle mask, he heard Sam cry out, and looked up in time to see Starscream's big hand scoop the human up, the fist closing on the human's fragile form.
Bumblebee almost fired then, but noticed that Starscream was not crushing the human, but lifting him up to his optic level to look at him. He also noticed the self-inflicted carvings on Starscream's hide, and knew the meanings.
"So, fleshling, now I have you in my grasp, in my power," the Seeker said, looking at the frightened human. Sam's struggles ceased as he realised they were futile against the metal fist that was currently holding him tight enough to confine, but not so tight it was crushing him.
"I-um, yeah, I guess you do." Sam said. "I guess you're kinda pissed at me, right? I mean, I'd be pissed at me if I were you." He blinked, he himself noticing the markings on Starscream's hide were actually scratched on. "What have you done to yourself? Those look like they'd kinda hurt." He touched Starscream's hand edge with a gentleness that surprised the Seeker. "I mean, scratches like that would hurt on a human, and when some punk scratched 'Bee's side with a rock, he said that hurt him. They look kinda deep." He reached out as if to touch one with his one free arm.
"Don't, Sam, energon is corrosive to humans." Bumblebee said, lowering his cannon, not wanting to do anything that might provoke Starscream into squeezing his friend. Sam didn't pull his hand back, but stopped short of touching one of the gouges.
Starscream regarded him with a look of surprise.
"That sounds almost as if you care, human. What does it matter to you if I am injured, or in pain?"
"I do care," Sam stated. "I don't like to think of anybody in pain."
"Even an enemy, one who has tried to kill you? One who still may wish to?" Starscream asked. "Why do you care for someone who does not care for you?"
Sam shrugged, unable to put his reasons into a few simple words.
"I can't say why, I'm, not really sure of the why, I just do. I care about other people's pain. I guess it's just human."
Sam cried out as Starscream's hand abruptly tightened around him, but had barely finished his cry before the Seeker loosened his grip. Sam looked to see Bumblebee tensing, and shook his head. The clench had been painful but not tight enough to break bones: it was more of a caution or a warning than an honest attempt to harm him.
"Don't be such a speciesist," Starscream said. "Humans are not the only ones who care about others, even when such concern is illogical and even dangerous. It does not matter, we are both going to die, such concerns are not ours to worry about."
"What?" Sam asked. "I was kinda expecting you to threaten to kill me, but why are you to die? If you tell me why, I might be able to help you somehow, so you won't die." It was, Sam realised, a slender straw he grabbed at, for if Starscream was somehow terminally ill, there would be nothing he could do. It seemed Starscream thought so as well.
"You, help me? No, fleshling, there is nothing you or anyone else can do for me," Starscream told him. "All that is to be decided is the manner of your death, and the manner of mine."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked. "If the manner of your death is of your choosing, there may be a chance to avert it."
"Sam, Ratchet contacted me earlier," Bumblebee said quietly. Starscream looked at the scout but did not stop or interrupt him.
"Ratchet asked for certain mechs with certain skills, but did not explain why, only told me I could not as my job was to guard you. He said something about Starscream. Maybe the two are connected?" He looked at Starscream quizzically. "What I don't understand is this insistence and acceptance of your death. The Starscream I am familiar with from Autobot files will do almost anything to preserve his own Spark."
Starscream laughed bitterly. "What does it matter any more? You won't understand, and you will die with me or just before, so you have nobody to tell." He looked away from Bumblebee again to the human in his hand.
"My will to live left me the moment I felt my wingbrothers, Thundercracker and Skywarp, die, their Sparks snuffed out, gone from this world and from my reach forever." He noted Sam's confused but concerned expression, and nodded.
"No, I do not expect you to understand, human, what it is for a Cybertronian to lose any sort of bond-mate, you cannot know." The Seeker shuttered his optics. "Although not as strong as a mate-bond, a trine-bond is powerful, and I have lost both of my trine-members. It hurts." He unshuttered his optics, looked at Sam, and shutter-blinked briefly.
"Fleshling, why do you leak?"
"It's called 'crying'. Sam explained, using his free hand to wipe at the tears the pain in Starscream's voice had elicited. "I weep for your loss, Starscream. I have lost grandparents and friends, and that hurts badly enough. I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose somebody that close, or even two somebodies. You're right, Starscream, I cannot know what your pain is like, but I can still remember my lesser losses, and know it must hurt. You plan to kill yourself, don't you?"
"I must," Starscream said softly. "I told my wingbrothers I would. Only then can we all rest in peace. A trine should be together."
"Wouldn't your wingbrothers want you to live on and bear their memories, and speak their names so they're not forgotten?" Sam asked.
That gave Starscream pause for thought, but the moment he stopped to think of it, he heard his wingbrothers speaking again.
"You said you'd join us. Dispense with the fleshy quickly, and come into oblivion with us." Thundercracker's voice echoed loudly in his head.
"You said you would join us. Delay no longer." Skywarp said. Starscream nodded.
"Yes, yes I will, but give me a moment," he said. He looked at Sam.
"You will bear our names for us, in memory of us. Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp. You will speak them so we are not forgotten, but the trine belongs together. Seekers live in groups of three, I have no new wingmates who could help me bear this pain."
Stooping, he placed Sam's feet back on the ground.
"I give back to you your life, that of you and your Autobot friend. To him, I give my fondest memories of our trine." The Seeker's optics dimmed than flared again, and Sam saw Bumblebee's optics flare, and the scout nodded.
"Accepted, Starscream. I will be your memory-keeper and keep your memories alive. Please release Sam, and accept my condolences on your loss. My thoughts will be with you." Bumblebee's voice resonated with a sympathetic empathy. Starscream nodded.
"Vengeance will give me no satisfaction, there are others who will rejoice in killing you," Starscream said. "For now, I let you live for my own purposes, so do not ascribe any softer emotions to my reason to allow your continued existence. I leave the task of killing you to other Decepticons. A temporary reprieve only, human, do not think you are let off that lightly. You are just not worth the effort of killing. Nothing except dying is worth any effort from me any more."
With that, the Seeker uncurled his fist from around Sam and drew his hand away. At least, he tried to, but he suddenly found his hand too heavy to move, as if it were glued to the ground. Sam, too, found himself unable to move from the spot he was stood in. His ears were buzzing and his head was swimming, and then his world was blotted out by a shining light and a presence in his head.
Starscream was vainly trying to pull his hand away, but it just would not budge.
"What fleshy trickery is this?" he asked shrilly. He looked at Sam. "Release me!"
As he watched, the human abruptly went rigid, and then Starscream was aware of nothing.
It was Bumblebee who was the last to be affected. At Starscream's cry, he turned to see the Seeker struggling to stand, seemingly unable to take his hand from where he had opened it close to where Sam was standing. As he watched, Starscream's optics went dark, and he sagged to his knees. Scared the Seeker would collapse and fall on his human friend, Bumblebee moved forwards, but as his hand reached out to catch the Seeker's arm, he found himself unable to move any further.
A blue-white glow suddenly haloed Sam, jumped from Sam's rigid form to draw a glowing line about the form of Starscream, and from Starscream it spread to cover the yellow scout.
Had anyone been present to observe, they would have seen the two non-flyers swell and begin to change.
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
Starscream's optics came back online, and his internal chronometer told him that only a few seconds had passed since he had lost consciousness for some inexplicable reason.
The self-inflicted scratches on his hide were no longer hurting, he could only feel a cool, soothing sensation, and glancing over to one shoulder he noticed that the incised glyphs were filled with the blue-white light of the AllSpark's energy. As he watched, the energy receded, leaving nothing behind but unbroken armour. Then his optics went dark again.
His attention was diverted from his hide by a sensation that began to grow in his processors. It was the awareness of another, quickly joined by yet another, and they both strengthened and began to grow. At they did, he felt the pain of his loss transmit itself through the new bond to the two new presences, felt them recoil from it and then accept it, hurting as they did. He felt the pain of the two new presences, felt them feel, as he had, what it was like to feel two bonded to him die.
He felt their minds and Sparks flinch from the pain, then felt them mentally embrace him. Their presence did not replace the two he had lost, but he found himself finding the pain easier to bear. The accusing voices of Thundercracker and Skywarp receded, fading until they were no longer there. Instead, the two new minds were in their place, boiling with confusion.
Awareness of his body came back to him as a choked sob, partly of relief and partly of release, escaped his vocaliser. He could feel that he was not alone, arms were pressed around him, hands stroked him, wings brushed against armour, a face nuzzled his own. He put his own hands out and felt wings that were not his own.
His optics onlined again at that moment and as his hands grasped at the other wings wonderingly, stroking and feeling, he looked up into a silver face not unlike his own, with the most intense blue optics he'd seen possessed by any other mech except Optimus Prime. Looking the other way he found himself looking into a face both familiar but odd. The blue optics and rounded face were familiar to him, but it was the first time he'd seen Bumblebee with a mouth instead of a microphone, and surmounting the body of a yellow and black Seeker-form.
That explained the confusion, he realised, as he worked out that somehow the AllSpark, which must have been hiding in Sam, had converted the human and the scout into Seeker forms. There was only one reason he could see it would do that, for not only was he automatically bonded with them, but neither of them had suffered physical damage sufficient enough to require a change to survive. The only explanation had to be that the AllSpark had intervened to fulfil his own strict criteria, that any potential new bondmates had to be winged. Wonderingly, he realised that the AllSpark wanted him to live.
He reached out with his own mind, going from comforted to comforter, trying to soothe both minds, one - Sam's he guessed - being in a greater turmoil than the other, which he supposed made sense. Bumblebee had merely been converted from groundling to Seeker, only doubling in height, but Sam had changed species entirely, and was now about six times taller than he was used to.
He reached back out, putting one arm about each new Seeker, reassuring them both simultaneously, promising he would not put them through the pain of losing one who was bonded to them, that he would not now kill himself. For they needed him, he realised, to learn how to fly, and live, and interact in their new forms. If he killed himself, he would be inflicting a link-break on them, and Sam at least didn't even have a theoretical concept of that. They were, in many ways, like new winglets, he realised, and as such, he knew he had to care for and look after them.
He smiled ironically as he held them both against him, reassuring with words, feelings, thoughts and strokes. The AllSpark had given him another reason to live - no, two more reasons - even as he felt it reverse the madness the link-breakage had inflicted on him, felt it showing him that his survivor-guilt was not logical. Although they were adult in form, both were new to the air, and Sam was a winglet both in age and experience, adult body or not!
He finally managed to soothe them both, answering Sam and Bumblebee's barrage of questions about what had happened and why as best as he could. When he had finished, Sam spoke - or tried to.
It took him three attempts, but he finally found out how his vocaliser worked, a good sign, Starscream thought, that he would be able to learn other essential functions with little difficulty.
"Your wingbrothers." he managed to rasp out. "We should retrieve their bodies, and save their memory chips. We can keep their memories alive, we could, and should, do that."
Starscream nodded. "Not now, Sam. We need to get to somewhere you can rest, recover, and discuss what has happened to you as soon as we can," he explained. "I think I know of a place we can go." He shook free two data link leads from his wrists, dangling them in front of the optics of his new charges.
"We can, as you say, retrieve the bodies of my first wingbrothers." he stated. "It is only fair and right. Although you are here, I will never forget them, and my grief will never completely go. Both of you can ease that and make it bearable, but you serve as new wingbrothers, not as replacements for the original two." He smiled and patted them both, to show that he did not mean this cruelly. Then he spoke again.
"However, before we do anything else, you two have to recharge, and then learn how to fly." He gave a smile of irony.
"It looks like I am to be your tutor in this."