The first rehearsal. Starscream was to report to Blitzwing's room in only one mega-cycle, and already he felt very uncomfortable, like he had consumed a little too much energon. All the songs were written, as was the script, and now they just needed to practice until they got it right.
Even rehearsal struck fear in Starscream's spark. He would need to practice dancing, lines (which he would have to memorize, too), and singing. His vocal processor couldn't be damaged forever. Since he had a part in writing the music, he had fixed it so that he only had a small singing part, but he had to sing somewhere. And he knew it would end up completely horrible.
What would Spaceflower think if her musical was ruined? Starscream knew that would destroy any chances of him ever being able to be her boyfriend, especially because he knew Blitzwing would probably perform almost as well as she did.
One mega-cycle later, feeling like he was going to blow a gasket, Starscream arrived in Blitzwing's room, where Megatron, Lugnut, Blitzwing and Spaceflower were all waiting. Everyone was holding a copy of the script. Spaceflower excitedly ran over to Starscream and gave him one, too.
Starscream smiled weakly and looked at the cover of their musical (which was now entitled The Decepticon Cause). He looked around. Blitzwing was practicing his dancing. Megatron was turning through the pages of the script, with Lugnut interestedly reading over his shoulder, even though he had his own copy. After she had led Starscream to the bed next to Megatron and Lugnut, Spaceflower stood in front of everyone.
"Now, we've decided that we'll try and memorize our lines, the talking part I mean, first, and then we can start working on the songs," Spaceflower told everyone. "We thought it would just make everything so much easier."
"All right," Megatron said, standing up. "My line is the first line." He looked through the script and started to speak loudly and clearly.
"For many stellar cycles now, the Decepticons have been oppressed by the Autobots, forced to live in remote sectors by the Autobot scum!" He continued his speech with great enthusiasm, until finally it was finished and it was Spaceflower and Starscream's first scene. Starscream was pretending to be an "oppressive" Autobot, while Spaceflower was the Decepticon.
"I am just a regular, happy Decepticon, minding my own business," Spaceflower declared, wandering about the room.
"Aha!" Starscream yelled, jumping onstage and grabbing Spaceflower's arm. "It's off to the stockade with you, Decepticon scum!"
"But I didn't do anything!" Spaceflower protested.
"Too bad!" Starscream pulled Spaceflower offstage, to the "stockade", then Spaceflower looked at her script. "Okay, Starscream, you have a short song here…let's go to the next scene…Lugnut? Megatron? This is your scene."
Lugnut jumped up enthusiastically, and Megatron reluctantly followed.
"Another Decepticon, sent to the stockade!" Lugnut cried, looking down at his script. "Oh great and glorious Leader, what can we do?"
"As long as I am still online, we will not allow any more Decepticons to be sent to the stockade!" Megatron declared. "We must go rescue everyone who is locked up."
"How?"
"With my fusion cannon," Megatron replied. "Not my swords, since I still don't know what happened to them…but at least I have my cannon, so I can blast them out!"
"Victory will be ours!" Lugnut hollered, waving his servos back and forth.
"Cut!" Spaceflower said. "You guys have a song here, so let's switch to the stockade scene."
Blitzwing joined Spaceflower on the "stage". Spaceflower pretended to be behind the bars of the stockade, glancing down at her foot. (During the actual musical, she was going to have a metal ball and chain attached, but she didn't need it for rehearsal.)
"I am but a humble, innocent Decepticon," she announced, sounding convincingly miserable. "Yet I am locked in the stockade. Why did the Autobots lock me up?"
"They are oppressive, my dear," Blitzwing's "Icy" face replied as he walked over to her. "They did not even give us a chance!"
"It's terrible!" Spaceflower cried, then burst into fake tears.
"Don't worry! We will get out somehow!" Blitzwing cried, taking her servos in his. "I would never let anything happen to you, fellow Decepticon!"
"Why?"
"Because we Decepticons are good, no matter what those filthy Autobots think!" Blitzwing cried, this time with his Hothead face on. "Nothing will ever separate us!"
"You think so?" Spaceflower asked, sniffling.
"I know so," Blitzwing replied. "This will not last forever, my dear! Megatron will rule Cybertron!"
Spaceflower smiled, then glanced down at her script again. "That's where our first song starts, Blitzwing…then there's the scene where Megatron and Lugnut blast us out of the stockade…then the Cybertronian war scene. Let's try that."
Lugnut ran onto the stage, and everyone else followed him, because they all were in that scene. Megatron, Blitzwing and Spaceflower were chosen to be the Decepticons, while Starscream and Lugnut were the Autobots. (Lugnut didn't want to be an Autobot at first, but Megatron had forced him to do it.)
"DIE, Decepticons!" Starscream hollered, standing in front of the three Decepticons and pretending to fire his null-rays at them. "I hate you and all your kind."
"Oh no!" Icy cried. "Whatever shall we do?"
"We don't want to fight!" Spaceflower replied. "Please, Autobot! We come in peace!"
Starscream looked down at his script, which said he was supposed to pretend to shoot Spaceflower. Well, if he was only pretending…Starscream lifted his arms to fake-shoot his null-rays. Blitzwing, to his surprise, jumped dramatically in front of Spaceflower to take the hit, then collapsed onto the ground.
"No!" Spaceflower shrieked, then started to fake-cry again. "Why? Why?"
"It…it was for a worthy cause, my dear," Blitzwing, still in his Icy face mode, replied valiantly. "I am not afraid of going offline for the Decepticon cause."
"Please don't go offline!" Spaceflower cried. "I love you!"
"How could you do that, Autobot?" Megatron demanded, stepping in front of the two of them. "And you say we are the evil ones! Remember, I do this in self-defense only!"
Before Starscream could prepare himself, Megatron had delivered a quick punch to his chestplate and knocked him right on the ground. It actually hurt, so Starscream was laying there for one moment, cursing this musical and Megatron, who wrote the stupid thing.
Lugnut looked down at his script. "Undoubtedly you Decepticons want to rule Cybertron! Too bad, because we Autobots want it for ourselves! We will control everyone evilly and ruthlessly!"
"Why can't we all just get along?" Megatron asked.
"Sing with me, one more time," Spaceflower pleaded.
"I'll…I'll try, my dear," Blitzwing replied, pretending to be wounded.
"Cut," said Spaceflower. "Now we can skip to the end scene, which is almost entirely in song. My favorite scene!"
"I'm still being the Autobot, right?" Starscream asked, looking up from his place on the floor.
"Yes," Spaceflower replied. "Lugnut too…but you all can sing again, of course!"
"Sounds fun," Starscream replied, standing up, even though it didn't sound that fun at all. He and everyone else went to the center of the room and started their lines.
"Finally!" Megatron shouted. "We have escaped from the stockades and have rule of Cybertron!"
"Now everyone will be so happy!" Spaceflower cried.
"You said it, my dear!" Blitzwing replied, kissing her cheek. Oh for Spark's sake, Starscream thought. Why did they have to be in love onstage and in real life?
"Curse you, Decepticons!" Starscream hollered, shaking his fist at them.
"You're nothing but pure evil, Megatron!" Lugnut added, looking pained. Starscream wasn't surprised. It must have hurt him greatly to insult his wonderful leader, even if it was only in a musical.
"Now, Cybertron is mine!" Megatron concluded enthusiastically.
That was when the finale song started, though, so Spaceflower cut them off.
"Great job, everyone!" she gushed. "This musical is going to be fantastic! We're going to have a few lines-only rehearsals, and then it will be time for the actual singing and dancing. I'm going to hand each of you a copy of the songs-only script, so you can start working on it if you want."
When Spaceflower finally got to Starscream and handed him a copy, she said, "I hope your vocal processor gets fixed soon. You still want to sing, right?"
"I do," he lied.
Everyone left the room, and Starscream went back to his own room. Might as well look over the song list, he thought, not knowing what else he could do. He skipped past his song for now, and skipped past Lugnut and Megatron's song, but instead looked at the song Spaceflower and Blitzwing were supposed to sing. They had three songs together in the whole musical, but the stockade one was the first song, so he looked at that one first. The song was intense and rather romantic, even, about their love continuing even though they were locked up, and how they would work together to free themselves from oppression.
Starscream hadn't written Blitzwing and Spaceflower's songs. They had helped him write the lyrics and the score to his own songs, but then he had let them write their songs on their own. Blitzwing and Spaceflower had written both the lyrics and the score to almost all the songs in the musical, and Megatron had written the script. Basically, Starscream just recited his lines and helped Spaceflower organize and direct when he could. He'd promised to help with the set, too, so he was almost like stage crew in that way.
Blitzwing and Spaceflower's second song was almost the same. She sang about how she was going to miss him so much when he went offline. For some reason, even though he was supposedly about to die, Blitzwing's character was still able to sing many verses of the song, and then—Starscream gasped with startled horror—they were supposed to kiss at the end of this song! A long, romantic kiss! And the worst part of all was that once they started singing the songs in rehearsal, he would have to watch every single time they "rehearsed" this kiss.
Starscream threw the song-script on the floor of his room and groaned. Why couldn't he be the one who got to have a wonderful singing voice and talent for dancing? Why couldn't he be the one who got to kiss Spaceflower? Why was everything going wrong?
One Earth week later…
Finally, everyone had, for the most part, memorized their lines. They were still allowed to have their scripts for now, in case they forgot something, but Spaceflower insisted they try to rely on their memory cores only.
Unfortunately, now that the talking part of the musical was down, it was time for the part Starscream dreaded the most—the singing and dancing. Blitzwing had been teaching him how to dance, and he wasn't that bad, but nobody, he knew, could turn this horrible singer into a fabulous one. Spaceflower was agreeing to skip his songs during rehearsal, since his vocal processor was still damaged, as long as he memorized the lyrics and score on his own time. Starscream agreed to this plan, but knew it would only work until opening night.
The first music rehearsal was like torture. Starscream watched Spaceflower and Blitzwing sing their stockade song, and Spaceflower was right—Blitzwing was a great singer, almost as good as she was. And the Cybertronian battle scene was even worse, because he had to watch them kiss after the song. Spaceflower took her boyfriend's face in hers and gently pressed her lips against his, like he was all she wanted in the world. He tried to remind himself that she was only acting, but still he got the feeling that she wasn'tacting at all.
Over and over again he had to do this, staying on the sidelines as the oppressive Autobot while Megatron, Blitzwing and Spaceflower played the brave, honorable Decepticons. Megatron, to his surprise, was a pretty good singer too. Lugnut was horrible, but except for his number with Megatron, he didn't have a lot of singing to do, so it was fine.
Every rehearsal went badly for Starscream and he went back to his room as quickly as possible after every one, locking the door and memorizing the cracks in the ceiling, wondering if Spaceflower could really pull his spark out and tear it into tiny little pieces. He decided she could, and did.
And what about Blitzwing? Blitzwing knew Starscream loved Spaceflower. Why did he deliberately make his musical numbers with Spaceflower as romantic as possible? Was he trying to make Starscream miserable?
Only about one week before opening night, they were faced with a new concern. They had been working so hard on the musical that they hadn't even thought about who would be their audience.
"What about the Autobots?" Blitzwing's "Icy" face suggested, waving his hand in the air. "Then maybe we could show them we are not as evil as they think we are."
Megatron appeared to be thinking for a few moments, then replied, "Fine, but we have to send someone to assure them beforehand that it is not a trap."
"I'll go," Spaceflower volunteered sweetly. "Just give me the coordinates?"
Megatron gave her the coordinates to the Autobots' home base, and she left. Everyone else walked away as she turned into a jet and soared into the sky, but Starscream stared after her, his spark filled with pain and longing. He had never wanted anyone this much before. He would even give up the title "Exalted Leader of the Decepticons" for her, and he hadn't even accomplished that. Not yet, anyway.
About two solar cycles later (during which Starscream had, for the most part, moped around the base and consumed much more energon than he should have), Spaceflower finally returned, with good news.
"The Autobots say they'll watch our musical," she informed the other Decepticons happily. "Their leader, Optimus Prime, says he'll be watching to see if it's a trap, but he'll bring everyone in case it isn't. They asked me if we could stage it on their base, and I said yes. That's okay, right?"
Megatron shook his head. "As long as you convinced them."
"You're not going to attack them, are you?" Spaceflower asked. "This really isn't a trap, is it?"
"For once, this is not a trap," Hothead cut in. "It is for the musical only!"
"We need someone to be our audience, after all this work," Megatron agreed.
"I don't see it as work." Spaceflower smiled and shrugged.
Blitzwing's face switched to Random again, and he declared, "Then let's begin the last rehearsal before opening night!"
As usual, Starscream basically sat through the whole rehearsal, acting and reciting his lines only when he had to. Pretty much everything was perfected. He was dreading the end scene, though, since not only would he have to lie about his damaged vocal processor again, he would have to watch Blitzwing and Spaceflower dance with each other as they and everyone else happily sang.
Megatron had just finished singing his part of the song, and Spaceflower started dancing and singing in her beautiful voice. She couldn't sing him to sleep when singing the musical songs, but Starscream still felt a little hypnotized. Once her part was over, Blitzwing grabbed her servo and led her in an elaborate dance, singing wonderfully, as he always did. They were dancing faster and faster, looking into each others' optics. Starscream looked away, scowling.
He heard their singing, laughter and dancing, until suddenly—he wasn't quite sure how or when it happened—he heard Spaceflower and Blitzwing both scream, and then a loud CRASH!
Starscream turned around and saw Blitzwing lying on the ground, face down, not moving. Spaceflower, looking panicked, ran over to him.
"Blitzwing? Are you okay?" she cried.
Blitzwing tried to stand up, but collapsed. Spaceflower caught him just before he hit the floor again.
"I think his leg's broken!" Spaceflower cried. "Blitzwing, are you okay?"
Blitzwing opened his mouth, but nothing but a gush of air came out.
"Speak to me, Blitzwing!" Spaceflower shrieked, hugging him tight.
"I…I…my voice…" Blitzwing croaked out, and clutched his throat in pain.
"His vocal processor is broken!" Spaceflower cradled Blitzwing in her arms, looking more upset than Starscream had ever seen her. "Is he going to go offline?"
"I'll…I'll be okay…" Blitzwing whispered, barely able to choke out the words.
"But who will play his part in the musical?" Spaceflower asked, looking around worriedly. "If he can't dance, and he can't sing, then…"
Blitzwing pointed one shaking servo at Starscream. "Looks like…looks like you're going to have to handle this one, Starscream."
"But I can't—" Starscream began. He would love to have that theater kiss with Spaceflower, and all that stage time, but the thought of how much dancing and singing Blitzwing had to do made his oil tubes churn.
"Come on, I haven't heard you sing once since I arrived here," Spaceflower pleaded. "Your vocal processor can't be that damaged! You're the only one who can do it. We can have Lugnut fill in with the lines you originally had, and you can take Blitzwing's part instead. Please do it. For the musical? For me?"
Spaceflower was staring at Starscream, her optics full of sadness. She was counting on him. And he couldn't say no to her. He was going to have to sing. He might not be able to sing, but he could try.
"Okay, I'll do it," he told her, voice shaking.
"Thank you, Starscream," Spaceflower whispered. "Thank you."
"The show…must go on," Blitzwing choked, then fainted right in Spaceflower's arms.