Disclaimer: I own nothing – at least nothing Transformers related.
AN: Short and hopefully at least a little bit funny. I was a little bit at a loss what to do with this prompt.
Thanks to mdnytryder for correcting this chapter.
21/28 Turned On (G1)
The wind howled like a banshee and flicked almost painfully against his wings and ailerons.
Thick hailstones pinged off of his metallic skin, leaving dents and tiny, but annoyingly painful, scratches.
Icy water poured from the dark violet and pitch-black clouds all around him, switching direction every moment with the roaring winds, finding any nook and cranny, every gap in his usually so-sturdy armor.
While his canopy was frozen over from the chilly atmosphere above him – already fragile ice flowers showed all over the yellow glass, filling every little chip and crack - his undercarriage was almost damp from the warm air rising beneath him, which was causing the slagging tempest Starscream flew through.
He would name the fragging storm Skywarp, he decided.
Starscream was the best flyer that had ever been sparked, that was common knowledge, even if only grudgingly admitted by some mechs, but he hated storms of all kinds with a passion and avoided them whenever he could.
He suspected that his little phobia had been spawned by one certain incident millions of vorns ago, in which he had lost his best friend, his reputation, his life as he had known it and perhaps, even some part of himself.
Snowstorms were the worst, but thunderstorms ranked right up there in second place.
He tried to tighten his cables and connections when another gust of wind shoved him playfully around, pushing against his wings as if trying to flip him over in midair.
The panels of his wings groaned lowly in protest, but gave no sign of giving out or ripping anytime soon.
Good, one worry less for poor, old Screamer.
He really didn't want to fall right now.
If his wings decided they had taken enough abuse in this damn, fragging storm, he would never reach land in time.
Beneath him was the Pacific Ocean and land was… somewhere... (He took one long sensor sweep in all directions.) in the distance....
Starscream muttered a silent curse under his breath.
He knew he should have waited the typhoon out – but nooooo….
Starscream, prince of the skies, tyrant of the firmament, ruler of the winds and lord of the clouds could take a little bit of wind and rain.
He had almost reached his destination, the Nemesis after all, and there would be questions if he arrived too late.
Questions he couldn't answer without being ridiculed in the process.
Who ever heard of a Seeker fearing the skies?
As Air Commander, he had to be able to conquer any little storm standing in his way.
Starscream cursed again and entertained himself with the nasty little image of how Megatron would fare in this lovely typhoon, with all its hail and rain and wind and – WOAHHH!!!
Starscream's sensors exploded in white hot nothingness for one split second, then they flickered back to life again, leaving the jet reeling and disorientated.
If he had been in robot mode, he would have tried to shake his head to clear it, but in his alternate shape he could only wait for his systems to reboot and finish their check up before he finally could think about what exactly had happened.
If he remembered correctly, he had been thinking about Megatron screaming like a little girl and taking an ice cold bath in the ocean below, then – YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!
Starscream screeched as yet another flash of lightning hit him, surging through all of his systems, leaving him tumbling head over heels into the next cloudbank.
Sparkling electricity flickered over his plating, tingling and leaving a definitely pleasant feeling.
Starscream only had time to wonder about what had hit him THIS time, when the next thunderbolt hit the tip of one wing, wandered through his frame and left his machinery through the other wing.
Ohhh….
He should fly in thunderstorms more often.
Definitely.
It tingled so wonderfully and suddenly all of his systems reported that his tank and Energon lines were full and his inner workings were running on maximum capacity.
He giggled and aimed for the next flash of crackling light right before him.
That was fun and good and Skywarp would just love this, but Starscream wouldn't tell him ("nana nana nanaaanaaa"), this was his private storm, and he had named the storm Skywarp anyway and he didn't make any sense, but look, there was the next lightning and – look at all those stars and colors, sooooo pretty.
Somehow, in some part of his processor, Starscream groggily registered that he was absolutely and utterly high.
And he loved every second of it.
Electricity tingled in his system, the formerly painful wind caressed his wings and frame, the rain turned into a myriad of tiny pinpricks of sensation on his sensor net, emphasized by the slightly harder touch of the hail, the coldness of the atmosphere above him and the wonderful warmth beneath him and the water inside his plating conducted all the energy of the lightning just so wonderfully and again the white, hot, crackling light blinding all his sensors with sweet oblivion and ohhhhhh….
Megatron actually looked at Soundwave for an explanation when his SIC, instead of reporting in from his mission, ran past him with a speed Megatron hadn't thought possible shouting "No time! Report later!"
Starscream vanished down the hallways of the Nemesis, all hyper and grinning and obviously in quite a hurry to get to his personal quarters for some alone time, if his energy field was anything to go by.
Soundwave only blinked behind his visor, replayed the whole scene, saving it to his memory banks – then he shrugged….
Every time I read a Transformer story in which some mech or the other is hit by a flash of lightning, it injures them or something like this.
I changed this concept, obviously.
The Cybertronians actually live on energy and lightning is just that, pure energy.
It would make no sense if their systems could convert all kinds of fuel into some sort of Energon, but raw Energy would injure them.
On the other hand, in all their millennia as living, fighting and highly conductive robots, they should have found a way to ensure that they don't short a fuse or something like that when struck by lightning.
nana nana nanaaanaaa: A sound made by children living in my part of the world when having something the other has not and wants. A sign of pure schadenfreude. I don't know, if this sound exit in English, if not, please tell me and I will simply erase it.