Time ran out for Starscream. Tarn flew into the room, humming a song. He pulled Starscream off the berth and plopped him into his wheel chair. He patted his helm and pushed him down the halls. He hummed all the way, walking at a near skip. All Starscream could do was not cry, and he barely accomplished that.
"Today's the day, Starscream," Tarn said as he parked the Seeker in front of a large array of knives, tools, prods...Tox-En laid, smoking slightly, at the end of the table, a small hammer resting beside it. Starscream recoiled and tried to shrink back in his chair, but Tarn wheeled him a little closer. "What'll it be? Stabbing? Poisoning? Infection? Or my favorite..." Tarn, apparently immune, lifted the Tox-En and purred. "Death by Tox-En!"
Starscream lowered his helm. He had hung on for weeks after the medic came to him and spoke to him about giving him the sky. For weeks, he gave Tarn secrets, told Tarn made-up stories on a whim, all for what? To die weeks later? Starscream felt cheated, betrayed... He felt defeated.
Tarn tutted and lifted a small knife, running his thumb over the blade. "How about a new game...how about we go from smallest to biggest, never skipping and never stopping until this-" he poked his chest "-spark-" he poked it again "-stops-" again, harder this time "-beating! Deal?"
Another deal...Starscream looked Tarn in the optic...and he nodded.
"Oh, I knew you would agree. You're such an agreeable mech, Starscream." He held the knife ready, smiled a little at Starscream, and carved into the mech's arm. Starscream tilted his helm back and let it happen, a small, cruel smile twisting his faceplates.
ooo
Tarn stepped back to look at what he had created, his servos sticky with Energon. Starscream sat in front of him, a ghost of a smirk on his lips, his arms carved into, his chest completely open to reveal his rapidly pulsing spark, his innards spilling out down his front...it was a lovely sight. All that remained were his legs, and for those, he saved the bigger tools...
Starscream was fading in and out of consciousness, and that was no good. Tarn commed for a medic, and he watched the delicate little femme walk in. "There you are, Starburst..."
The femme caught sight of the Seeker and she gagged, her optics wide and watering. She stared at Tarn. "You're killing him."
"Yeah, that was the point." He got up from carving his legs open in a pretty design. He touched her cheek with his Energon-wet servo. "I need you to keep him alive. An Energon transfusion. Can you do that?"
"He's losing too much Energon. The transfusion will kill us...both..." She blinked wearily at Tarn. "Okay..."
"Keep the blue flowing, love," he purred as he knelt back down. Another cut severed a vein. "Better hurry. He's fading fast."
"Okay, okay!" Starburst opened her supplies and lifted a thin tube with needles on both ends. She inserted one into Starscream's wrist, then did the same to her own wrist. She stood beside the mech while her Energon dripped into Starscream, keeping him just barely alive.
While Tarn worked on him, she stroked his helm. "I was going to give you the sky, but it seems we'll be in a different realm soon..."
Starscream looked at her slowly. "Starburst?" He frowned at the name. He remembered it, vaguely.
"Yeah," she whispered. She picked at her arm, sighing. "Yeah...Mama thought it was cute."
Starscream's helm lolled, his optics dim as he watched her. She knelt so they could look into each other's optics, her arm still raised so her Energon seeped into his systems and out onto the floor. "Like the candy..."
"Yeah," she laughed. She covered her mouth with her other servo, shaking her helm. "Mama...thought it was cute," she repeated, not knowing what else to say.
"Very...cute," Starscream rasped, wincing. Tarn cut behind his knee and he hissed through his denta. "And...familiar...I..."
"Starscream, hush...you really shouldn't be talking."
"Oh, let him talk, Starburst!" Tarn swatted her thigh, leaving a servo-print. Starburst shuddered.
"I know you," he said softly. He winced again and this time cried out. Tarn smirked down at the mess he was making of the Seeker.
"Probably," she whispered. "You knew me a long time ago, back when I was tiny..."
The dream floated back to him, the face of the femme becoming clearer and more familiar each time he racked his processor for the memories. He knew who these femmes were, but his processor was blanking on him, throwing him down dead-ends and giving him false clues until he finally caught up. He gasped, but this time it wasn't from the pain. He grabbed at the femme, hard. His remaining claws on his left servo curled around her wrist.
"Starburst..."
She watched his servo.
"I know you." He smiled at an uncovered memory of a little sparkling curled on his chest, one servo in her mouth, her big red optics watching him. Tears crusted on her face and she waved her injured servo at him, whimpering. He had kissed it. She had laughed and curled tighter into him. He bit her, Starscream remembered and he looked at her, then at her left servo. He released her wrist in favor of her servo, raising it to his optics and squinting hard at the metal.
There, a thin half-circle defining sharp denta he had given to one of his Seekerlings, a son, stood out, silver on black between her thumb and index digit.
"Brothers suck," she whispered and she pulled her servo back, sighing. She avoided his optics.
"He didn't mean it," Starscream purred. He reached out and stroked her helm in a familiar way, his optics dimming. Her Energon wasn't coming to him fast enough, wasn't replacing the Energon he was losing. He whined and let his helm slump as the darkness crept into his vision. He fought it hard, struggling to stay awake. Beside him, Starburst shook his shoulder and cried his name.
He swore he heard Vector Prime call his name louder.
ooo
Tarn sat back on his heels. "That's depressing. We didn't even get to the Tox-En."
Starburst rounded on him. "You killed him!"
"Surprise," he said as he got up, looking at his servos and the mess he made. "Mind doing a little clean up, darling?"
"I hate you," she spat. "He was my sire."
"Wow, I'm shocked." He walked to the lone sink in the corner of the room. "Color me unimpressed."
Starburst went back to shaking Starscream. "Sire? Sire! Starscream, come on, please..." She bit her lip and hugged his neck. "But...we were so close..." She nuzzled his helm. "So very close...to getting you the sky...and you were going to be happy and safe and...what am I going to tell Mama?"
Tarn snorted as he cleaned his servos. "Tell her he died a coward. She'd love to hear that."
Starburst spotted the Tox-En and she made a grab for it, but Tarn was already on her, impossibly fast. He knocked her on her back and stepped on her wing, crushing the framework within. She cried out.
"You dare try to kill me? Who do you think I am?"
Starburst remained quiet and still, but a voice close to his audio snapped the silence in two. He smirked.
"I think you're a sorry mech looking to get his aft whipped."
Tarn laughed, shaking his helm. He could take on three bots at once. He had nothing to worry about. He placed all his Energon cubes on it being the whelp's carrier standing lone in the room with a weapon pointed at him.
He was only right on it being the carrier.
"Mama!"
The fuming black and purple carrier wasn't standing alone. Behind her, a dozen Seekers bristled angrily, war-hungry. He recognized Jetwing, Sonicshriek, Skywarp, Thundercracker, and her first-born trine, but the rest were a mystery to him.
"So, Tarn." The femme tilted her helm. "Feeling ready to take on the King's Army?"
The mech laughed and got off the younger femme, letting the whelp rush to her carrier. "You're all in way over your helms..." And he rushed towards the femme, the Seekers all pouncing on his back. and dragging him down.
He fought hard, breaking a few wings and arms and a leg or two, but then the number of Seekers overwhelmed him and the only thing he could do was struggle while the King's Army protected their King.
Starburst and her carrier looked Starscream over. Starburst watched as her carrier leaned her helm into Starscream's, her optics dimming and slowly closing before she sighed. "He held on way too long...we should have come sooner."
"Mama...we tried..."
She looked at her only daughter and gave a weary smile, opening her arm to accept an embrace. She hugged her close while, behind her, her brothers and sons and friends all took their turns attacking Tarn. Somewhere along, tools rapidly began disappearing off the table as Skywarp and Thundercracker collected them and plunged them deep into Tarn's arms, face, abdomen. Starburst and her carrier were uninterested.
When her carrier released her, Starburst went back to her sire, touching his neck and lifting his helm. She stroked his helm delicately, sighing. "I thought we would be together again...free and flying...he never got to teach me how to fly..."
She looked down at the needle still buried in Starscream's wrist. She sighed and pulled it out, flinching when her carrier waved her servos.
"Wait, wait, wait..."
"What?"
"Put it back in...watch his face."
Starburst, bewildered, did as she was told, and blinked as Starscream's face...changed. He winced as the needle slid back into his wrist.
"He's alive!"