We want to deeply thank Fire Redhead for the amazing drawing she did for this story. Look for it in deviantart as "Fleshling for Taipan" and join us drooling. She caught Starscream's anger and humiliation perfectly.
Many many many hugs to you, Lady Succubot!
Chapter 6
We're for dogs
Starscream folded his arms across his chest. His face was red from pure fury; it seemed that his organic eyes would begin to shoot laser beams at any moment.
Skywarp was making immense efforts to remain serious as he recorded every astro second of the scene before him. The twisted grimace on Starscream's face and the vein that could be noticed on his forehead were priceless footage for future teasing purposes.
"You did this on purpose…" Starscream said in low pitched but rancorous voice.
"Eh? What do you mean?" Skywarp asked with all the innocence he could portray.
Starscream didn't reply, but pointed toward the piece of clothing that was hanging from the index finger of his kneeling wingmate.
"Do I really have to explain it to you, you idiot? Haven't you spent enough time on this muddy planet to know that that is a dress?!"
Skywarp looked with fake ingeniousness at the small piece of white textile decorated with drawings of tiny red and pink flowers.
"Dress?"
"Don't play the fool with me, Skywarp! That is something female humans wear, and don't you dare tell me you didn't know!"
From his place, conveniently away from the scene, Thundercracker shook his head slightly. He couldn't help but blame himself, nevertheless. He should have known that Skywarp was not reliable enough to actually obtain proper clothes for Starscream. The black Seeker wouldn't waste any opportunity to mock his disgraced Air Commander and extend his humiliation as far as possible.
"Well… it has your colours! Except for the pink, that is… but at least I tried to get you something that fitted your personality!"
"And how in the Inferno does a dress fit with my personality, you dang-blasted hothead?! I am NOT a femme!"
"You certainly look like one when you scream like that. This is because I didn't get something with blue on it too, right...?"
Infinitely frustrated, Starscream snatched the dress from Skywarp's hand and placed it around his waist, passing it between his legs and covering the genital organs that ashamed him so much.
"See? You're gonna use it anyway," the black Seeker continued. "Would you be interested in a couple of high heel shoes?"
"Oh just zip it! You are fortunate that I'm so desperate that I'd use anything right now…" Starscream hissed as he adjusted his improvised loincloth. "But I will remember this, Skywarp… I swear I will remember it…"
"A simple thank you would have been enough… You don't deserve the little extra I brought for you."
"What extra?"
A sack half the size of Starscream fell before him, breaking in two. From its insides, countless little fragments resembling rocks came spilling out.
"What is this?" Starscream asked.
"Human fuel," Skywarp explained. "So you won't have to starve."
Starscream lifted one half of the broken sack and read the colorful human characters.
"Dog food?" he angrily repeated what his eyes were seeing.
"It will give you the energy and nutrients you need. It's made especially for small species, and you won't deny that you're very small right now…"
"Dog food...?!"
"It will give you a shiny coat too," Skywarp continued with a grin, "and since you value your looks so much, I thought you'd like something that would pretty up that mess of fuzz on the top of your head."
Instinctively, Skywarp lifted his arms to cover himself from the multitude of croquettes that started to fly toward him, each one ricocheting off his structure with a quiet ping.
Poorly tied, Starscream's loincloth fell to the floor. But the ex Seeker didn't even notice; he was too busy clenching his fists, all the muscles of his body tensing in response. "YOU STUPID SLAGGED-UP SON OF A GLITCH! DO I LOOK LIKE A DOG TO YOU?!"
"Well, you're small and squishy...and ugly...I can't see much of a difference, really."
Thundercracker brusquely grabbed Skywarp by an arm and dragged him toward a corner of Starscream's personal quarters whilst the young human male awkwardly covered his nudity again, blinded by fury and never stopping in shouting insults.
"Did you really have to do this, Warp? Couldn't you resist ridiculing him at least for a slagging moment?!"
"Oh, come on TC… I couldn't resist… Oh it's too funny… I just can't… ah slag!" Skywarp retorted, his words interrupted by his guffaws.
"You've had enough fun. I hope you at least brought something that he can actually use."
"Uh, no… that was all."
"Slaggit, Warp! Don't you think the Autobots will begin to suspect something's going on if we start stealing accessories for humans?"
"Would you cool down? It's true that my target was one of those storage units the humans use to get their stuff, but the Autodorks won't even smell the real objective of my mission. I was really discreet."
"How discreet?"
"I trashed the entire place. The Autobots will think that Ramjet crashed against a random building again; he does that all the time."
"As always, you think about everything…" Thundercracker ironically said.
"Glad to be of service, bro."
"Yeah, I bet you are..."
"What are you two wimps babbling about?" Starscream shouted once he finished his tantrum.
"Nothing important, Screamer," Thundercracker responded, "I was just reminding our wingmate here that he shouldn't be pissing you off in your current condition."
"In my current condition?!" Starscream cried, "I am his Air Commander, he shouldn't be pissing me off under any circumstance, be I Cybertronian or otherwise. But I guess a couple of insubordinate glitches like you two wouldn't understand that concept, otherwise you would have left me alone like I'd ordered you to do in the first place!"
"Ahh, c'mon Screamer, we're only looking out for your well being," Skywarp said, scraping together a pile of dog biscuits. "You sure you don't want to try some of this, I mean, I went to a lot of effort..."
"Go drown in a slag pit."
"You know, he may have been joking, but Warp has a point," Thundercracker said as he approached his humanised superior officer again. "How hungry are you, Starscream?"
"I am not!"
"Oh, come on, stop playing the tough one, squishy," Skywarp spat. "You haven't refueled since you were turned into that flesh thing you are now, and if humans need as much energy as we do, then you must be starving."
"I have no idea of what kind of fuel the humans consume and I don't care to find out about it! My only priority is recovering my real body."
"Well, you won't be able to do that if you don't even have the minimal energy needed to walk, you know Screamer?"
"Can't you silence the melted pit hole you have as vocaliser, Skywarp?! You've screwed me enough already."
Thundercracker kneeled before the dog croquettes scattered across the floor and scanned them. "You know, Starscream…? This may be dog fuel but I don't think it would harm your internal organs. Perhaps you could try it."
"You will see me dead before consuming pet's fuel," Starscream spat, for a moment resembling all too much his former self.
-------------------------
Carly closed her eyes and allowed the sunlight to caress her face again. It seemed like a dream that just some hours ago, that same face had received the light of a foreign sun on a planet so far away from Earth as her imagination itself.
A fairytale or a science-fiction story… But it had been real, as real as all the encounters with the incredible that she had had since the Autobots had entered her life.
And her life had definitely taken a 180 degree turn. She remembered herself, less than two years before, dressed in black before two coffins, being forced to decide what to do with her suddenly orphaned life and an overwhelming inheritance. And one of those days, when she was wasn't expecting anything from another regular day, she met an alien robot in a videogame arcade. That had marked the ending of the superficial rich girl and the beginning of days in which everything extraordinary could happen.
A shadow towered her, darkening the sandy ground around her.
"Thank you for ruining my tan, Ironhide."
"Huh… tan?"
The confused expression on the tough Autobot weapon specialist was priceless.
"Never mind… you are a lost cause," she continued. "How long have we been friends?"
"Almost a meta-cycle."
"Which means about a human year. You should already know that I appreciate the effects of moderate exposition to sun light. My skin is too pale, see?"
Ironhide smiled. "I would like to understand what you're talking about, Carly, but I don't. But, you say you like the sun, so I suppose you wanted to try a different kind. Is that the reason why you were so enthusiastic about going to the planet of the Tlakakans?"
"Yeah, and also because I love to travel through space," she said, grinning. "You must be pretty used to it, but for me is like a dream come true."
"Nah, I don't do it that much, actually… If you ask me, I'd prefer to be on ground kicking Decepticreeps rather than spending endless breems locked in a space shuttle."
In the distance, at the entrance of The Ark, Spike waved a hand toward them whilst he talked with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.
"Guys are all the same… Spike is just like you, Ironhide, a man of action."
"Well, you did quite a good job yourself on the planet of the Tlakakans."
"I just took those native children to a safe place, no big deal… What do you think those Decepticons were doing there anyway?"
Ironhide's facial features hardened. "We still don't know. We believe they wanted to recover the control of the planet. The Well of Transformation could be an incredible weapon if used with evil purposes."
"Could have been, you mean. I can't understand why they destroyed it. Such a unique miracle of nature now gone…"
"The Decepticons have no respect for nature, Carly; they have no respect for anything. If they can't control something, they rather destroy it. That's their way."
"Fortunately you guys stopped them from destroying the rest of the planet."
"Yeah, but we can't be everywhere at once. When Starscream attacked you and Spike I was afraid it would be your ending…"
"But Wheeljack stopped him by shooting those… what was their name again?"
"Gyro-inhibitor shells?"
"Yes, those ones."
"You and Spike said that Starscream fell into the Well of Transformation after Wheeljack's attack, right?"
"Ah-huh, but just as Spike wrote it in his report to Prowl, Starscream came out almost immediately."
Ironhide narrowed his optics and rubbed his chin. "Mmmhh… are you sure that the one who flew out of the Well was him?"
"There was a lot of smoke and confusion because of the shooting, but yes, it was him."
"Thundercracker and Skywarp have practically his same design."
"I didn't see them nearby at that particular moment, so it had to be Starscream. He had his hands over his chest when he got out; maybe he was hurt."
"Yeah… you're probably right. Starscream is the most presumptuous self-centered slagger I have ever met. He would've never allowed the Well of Transformation to mess with his appearance."
"Well, he has a point."
"What do you mean?"
"Mmmhh… he's kind of… cute, you know?"
Ironhide stared at Carly, totally taken by surprise by the girl's words. "Cute?"
"I'm joking, Ironhide!" she laughed.
The old-timer Autobot scratched his head. "I have lived more milleniums than you could count, Carly, but I assure you I still have a lot to live before I can even begin to understand females."
"Why do you say that?"
"Cybertronian femmes also think that maniacal Decepticon's attractive. He treated them like slag, but he always had armies of them behind his arrogant afterburners."
"Never underestimate the charm of a bad guy, my friend. But don't be jealous. I still think you are more handsome."
Ironhide smiled. It was a fortune for him that he wasn't physically able to blush.
"I've only had one other female say that to me…" he said after a moment of embarrassed silence.
"Chromia, right?" Carly said with a smirk, "Well, she was right…but don't let it go to your head, I know what males are like."
"I seem to remember Chromia saying something like that, too," Ironhide chuckled, rubbing the back of his head; Carly couldn't help but notice the hint of sadness that crept into his optics.
"You miss her a lot, don't you?"
"'Course I do…wouldn't you miss Spike if you had an entire universe separating you?"
"Yeah, I guess I would…" she said. "Sorry…"
She cast her gaze over to Spike again.
She had never really known why she had said yes to him the night he first asked her out; maybe it had been his awkwardness or his sheepish grin as he'd said the word 'date'... Unlike her boyfriends of the past, Carly had never been able to put her finger on what it was that attracted her to him, she couldn't explain why she had fallen for someone so totally opposite to the imaginary man she held in her mind like some measure of her romantic success...
They had been from different worlds, beyond the obvious age gap; she had lived the high life, had money to burn, could do what she wanted when she wanted... While she had been off studying chemistry and engineering at MIT, he had been working some blue collar job with his dad, no vision of finishing high school, no vision of becoming anything more than a mechanic; just happy to settle with mediocrity.
Carly felt herself pout slightly; mediocrity...exactly what she didn't want in her life.
But the same thing that had changed her life had changed Spike's as well; the same twist of fate that had seen her first encounter with the giant alien robot now towering above her had also entered into his life's equation too, and whilst his aspirations still bordered on the mundane, he now had a sense of adventure about him that no other would understand.
Maybe that was the explanation. Maybe it was that extraterrestrial sense of adventure he carried with him; the excitement, the unimaginable...that was what it had to be...
Did that mean that the attraction wasn't for him, then, but the friendships he brought? Was it his relationship with the Autobots that had allowed the word 'yes' to escape her lips when he had invited her out to dinner that first time?
Maybe…
But maybe that was the way it was supposed to be; maybe that was why their relationship was so different from all the others... The two of them shared something extraordinary, and from that love had blossomed; what did it matter how the first seeds had been planted?
To be continued.
Good guess for those of you who predicted that Skywarp would give Starscream a dress. But hey, used as a loincloth, it doesn't look bad at all, honestly. A Tarzan look fits great with his gorgeous physical condition ;o)
Late disclaimer: just as we don't own Transformers, we also don't own Pedigree... but thank them for the use of their product during this chapter.