(Here we are on the next chapter. The Spirit of a certain somebody is about tot make his appearance.)
As the bellows of the clock tower called upon the hour of 11:00 p.m, the cool and frosty air mingled with the fog in a dance, moving in tune to the wind's elusive tango. The dance blanketed all the vacant streets and alleyways of the city, as Megatron Scrooge made his way down the partially lit sidewalk. Thankfully to his own self, he had no encounter from any citizen, mech, femme, youngling or sparkling. None except for one feral cyber cat who hissed in fear as it crossed paths with the old miser, but Megatron had the upper servo as he used his stiff cane to slap at the sidewalk to create a warning cracking sound to frighten the animal.
After making his way underneath a bridge, which was occupied by only the small robotic rats that lived amongst the barred opening of the sewers, Megatron Scrooge soon came upon the entrance to his homestead; not the glamorous and stately mansions of all who had been in the financial work, but it was as cold and dingy as the occupant himself. All the windows were closed and the sound of the silent air roamed from inside.
As Megatron Scrooge came to the door, he went to his pocket of his coat to get to the keys, when he looked up and suddenly drew back. The knocker of the door, which was in the style of a growling lion, was suddenly changed to the that of a Cybertronian's head and face, the mouth holding the large ring , the face was very familiar to the miser as his frightened optics stared upon the knocker. "Starscream Marley?" His hand, quivering and shaking like that of an elderly Cybertronian, reached to the knocker and was almost close to grasping the ring, when the eyes of the face sprang to life. The inner glow was bright and empty, like the inside of a vase; white in surface but blank and silent.
Megatron Scrooge uttered a shout as his legs went backwards, but the upper half of his body was all but frozen, and he stumbled down the stairs and landed with a hard thud. After the pain from beneath him subsided, Scrooge slowly arose from the snowy ground, he hesitantly looked back to the face of his deceased associate, but saw that the lion head had returned to its rightful place. "Bah! Humbug!" he breathed out as he soon came back to the door and went into his dark, dreary and desolate solitude of a home. He blamed the hallucination as a reminder of the mention of his partner from today; he had never spoken word of Starscream Marley in 7,000 stellar cycles, and the sudden mention may have brought the vision of the head of his partner that moment before.
As he came to the staircase that led to the bedroom, Megatron became apprehensive. That face on the knocker had brought a feeling of insecurity; a feeling that he had never felt in all his time from being online. He lit himself a candle and made the slow, cautious walk upon the stairs, cob webs from spiders blanketing parts of the aisle, and a groan came from each step as the miser's foot came upon its surface. The miser looked from each angle his optics could allow, believing that the head of Starscream might be right beside him. Even the sound of the winds howling wails startled Megatron Scrooge; its call like the wails of a demented siren from the sea.
Megatron Scrooge's fear was then covered by a relief as his black, iron fist closed upon the knob of the door, leading him to his room. After locking the door tight, he made a quick check upon his resting area to make sure that he was the only living spark in it, his and his alone. Nothing, not even a micro mouse was seen. Just he, and the painting of his past partner, hanging above the unlit fireplace.
Megatorn Scrooge was now in his nightgown, sitting upon his chair and eating his energon grool, as his optics watched the fire from the fireplace. The flames seemed to sway from side to side like a writhing snake, or more appropriately a pit full of writhing, exotic snakes; each bend and snap was dulling the misers senses. All of the events that had happened from the day were erased as Megatron Scrooge was hypnotized by the warm, flowing flames.
Just as his optics were about to close up to rest, he noticed that the large pit of fire was suddenly and quickly dimming and decreasing size, until it was put out by an invisible force. All the room was now left in a cavern of darkness. All of the sounds that Megatron Scrooge was used to while she lived in the house was now silent; no creaks, no squeaks. The sound of the clocks had all but stopped, none of their hands moved in time with the time. Even the howls of the wind from the outside world was put in a standstill. Scrooge now felt that all of the area his home stood upon was now frozen in time.
A loud and abrupt clank was heard from below, and Megatron Scrooge uttered a small yelp and turned to the door, keeping himself in his chair as he listened to this unfamiliar and foreign sound came up the steps. The sound of the clanks was joined with a jingling noise, and the symphony of the clanks and jingles became louder and louder as they came to the last step, and then, a sound of a heavy burden being dragged across the floor came to the misers audio receptors.
As suddenly as they began, all of the sounds of the unknown ceased, leaving Megatron Scrooge sitting in fear upon his chair as he waited for the noises to return to their symphony of terror.
A large, green, and translucent safe flew through the door and landed just a few inches away from the miser, and Megatron Scrooge screamed in pure horror and shock, his terror seizing his grip on the chair and he fell onto the solid floor below. He watched as more safes flew into the room; each one being tied to long, rusted, cold chains, and Megatron Scrooge soon noticed that at the end, someone, or something was pulling at them as if to pull the marionette of the chains and safes inside.
A translucent, ominous, and faded figure of a Cybertronian mech floated inside, it's hands holding to the chains anchored to the floor. Megatron Scrooge got up with great difficulty, almost close to falling over once more from fear, and he saw that this figure resembled a spark of someone that he used to know, but was uncertain.
"W-W-W-Who are you?" he gasped.
The figure lifted it's bandaged head, it's optics glowing a bright white and yellow aura, and it spoke in a voice that seemed to resonate from a rotting carcass. "Ask me who I was."
Megatron Scrooge swallowed as he answered back to the specter. "Who were you, then?"
"When I was online, I was your partner; Starscream Marley." the specter replied. It was Starscream Marley, with his face, his worn-out waist coat, and his winged appendages stood out like an iron weather cockerel's arrow; pointing to both the east and west. Marely's wrists, ankle joints, and his abdominal plate, were tightly clasped in the handcuffs that connected to each of the chains bounded to the safes, and there were no keyholes in either of the handcuffs as Scrooge observed.
Even as he observed the floating phantom of his long lost partner for a few minutes more, Megatron Scrooge was incredulous about this being an actual presence of the supernatural. "How now," Megatron Scrooge spoke as coldly as he ever did in his lonely, elder life. "...what do you want with me, Starscream?"
"Much, Scrooge. Very much."
"Can you sit down, Spirit?" the miser asked, and Starscream Marley replied that he could. "Do it then." Megatron asked this question because he did not know if a ghost, in its transparent state, could be capable of sitting down upon a solid surface. He watched as the ghost sat upon the opposite side of the fireplace, and it observed the old miser with an intense look in his glowing, empty optics.
"You do not believe that I am right before you, do you, Scrooge?" Starscream Marley said. Megatron Scrooge replied that he did not believe in the specter, to which the specter replied. "Why do you doubt your own optics, your own audio receptors? Why doubt all of your senses in my presence?"
"I have many reasons to doubt them." Megatron Scrooge answered. "There are many things hat can cause any fellow Cybertronian, such as myself, to hallucinate and see images of many things in their time. And most of these hallucinations are partially done by an empty tank. You could be nothing more than an unprocessed energon cube that has been left to boil in the heat of the day, a pint of oil that has been expired for many days without notice, or even the very substance of a coolant gravy can be contaminated by foreign particles from some unknown world. There is more of gravy than a grave about you." Megatron Scrooge was never the kind of being who was known to make jokes or make the attempt of cracking one, but he did this only once in hopes of keeping his inner fear well kept inside his metal husk.
The specter, to Megatron Scrooge's utter shock, rose up from the chair and wailed in great anger and disgust. The optics from the face plates of the phantom mech seemed to burn profusely in great concentration and intensity as Starscream Marley flew to the miser, his translucent nose plate close to phasing into the nose plate of Megatron Scrooge. The chains began to shake and jingle furiously as the ghost blared; his voice now in a much frightful tone, and to what Scrooge could describe, joined by an inner shrieking component in an echo. "Mech of doubt! Spark of ignorance! Voice of treachery! Dost thou believe me or not?!"
Megatron Scrooge felt the balance of his seat tip backwards and his back plate felt the harsh impact, as if the very voice of the phantom was the cause of the fall. Megatron, however, was in much more fear of the ghost then of the chairs improper holding, and shook in terror as Starscream Marley floated over him; his optics now two, white vortexes of flame. "Yes, I do believe! I must believe! I do believe in you, Starscream. But, why are you here?"
The phantom, seeing that his words had gotten through the impenetrable barricade of the white mech quivering below him, calmed his tone and the flames of his optics returned to their soft, white glow. "It is needed for every Cybertronian, that the sparks and life-force within themselves, should walk amongst their fellow brothers and sisters. But, if that life-force and spark fail to do so, they are condemned to walk amongst their brothers and sister, only to be trapped between the gates of the world which Primus reigns and the pit of which all the evil lurk below the surface of this planet itself. They are all doomed to be forever ignored and never to be given forgiveness by their living peers." Starscream Marley returned his answer to Megatron Scrooge, and he then placed his hands on his head and moaned in pain. "Oh, woe! Woe to them all! They can now only watch lives pass through them. They are to never share their condolences, nor are they given the chance to mend their ways from their past life. Never are they to return their new found kindness to the living that they had failed to do so when online. Woe! Woe to them!"
The chains began to rattle once again, but in a softer, more saddened motion; like the chains that would hold up a sign of a shop in the gentle breeze of the wind. "These chains. Why are they strapped to you, Starscream?" Megatron asked.
Starscream looked and took hold of the chain that held his abdominal plate into his hand and suddenly wailed and shrieked in pain. The handcuffs that clamped to each joint of his body began to tighten and burn. "Aaahh! The chains! These are the chains of which I have forged in life. I made them link by link, and yard by yard. They were made by my decisions I have made when I functioned. And now, thanks to my careless and ignorance to understand the consequences, I am bound to them forever, and left to wander the planet. I can never rest, I can never linger anywhere anymore. Oh, woe is me!"
"But, Starscream, you were such a good mech of business." Megatron spoke, but he should have kept his own glossa held inside his mouth.
Starscream Marley rose up once again, the wild, feral flames of his optics returned, and the echoed, multi-toned voice came back. "BUSINESS?! BUSINESS?!" The chains from the floor suddenly broke away from their grips on the safes, and began to coil around the miser and lifted the terror stricken mech in a tight and death-gripping hold, as the phantom screamed in tones equal to that of a wild roar of a dragon. "CYBERTRONIAN KIND WAS MY BUSINESS! THE COMMON WELFARE WAS MY BUSINESS! SWINDLING EVERY PIECE OF CHANGE AND HOARDING IT WITHIN THE ROOM OF OUR COUNTING HOUSE WAS MY BUSINESS! THE TRADES OF WHAT I HAVE MADE ARE NOTHING BUT A DROP OF MY OWN BLOOD WERE ALL MY BUSINESS!"
He waited and huffed his undead breath as he watched his friend cringe in fear as well as turn away; his own red, scarlet optics seeming to melt in apprehension upon the specters optics. Then, the chains loosened their grip upon Megatron Scrooge and he fell to the floor, and as he got back up he watched as Starscream Marley come back to him, but with his demeanor calm once again. "Upon this time, old friend, I surfer the most. For it is a reminder of what my actions have caused me, why that my optics always turned down upon a stranger, and why the light of the many stars above me ceased to bring my attention to what I could have done to mend myself." He then looked upon Megatron Scrooge and said in a low voice. "I have been with you, Scrooge, in my invisible state before this form tonight. I already see that the chains of your actions are beginning to become much greater in weight and thickness as mine."
This one statement made Megaton quiver and wipe the perspiration from his brow plates and he went over to the ghost. "Please, Starscream. There has to be another way for me to unbind these chains of mine. I may not see them, but after seeing and hearing your despair, I believe in you. Please, give me advice of which I can save myself."
"My time here has come short, for I have stayed for too long, Megatron Scrooge. I have come to this chamber of silent discomfort, to warn you about the events that will occur on this night. You still have yet a chance to escape my fate." Starscream Marely answered the pleading mech before him. "Tonight, you shall be haunted by three Spirits; The Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Future."
"Three Spirits?"
The phantom then, before Megatron Scrooge's gaze, began to slowly fade away into the clear air, and the sounds of both the house and the outside were close to being returned to their state. Starscream Marley, however, still spoke his final words to the miser. "Expect the first to appear when the bell tolls 12. Expected the second to follow suit, and the third when the last star upon the heavens is clouded in the mist of judgement. Take their words to spark, Megatron. It will be a great tragic, mortifying decision not to pay heed to each of the Ghosts." Starscream Marely then added, as his whole form disappeared except for the glow of his optics. "Mend thy ways."
With that, the two orbs of light were shut from the room, and once more the darkness returned to the atmosphere of Megatron's room. The clocks began to utter their clinking language, the thin and whispery whines of the winds from outside resumed their serenade of the night. And Megatron Scrooge was left in the room of his home, left to think of what had befallen before him, and what else was to happen. He was in great indecisive thought of whether all of this was nothing more than a slight hallucination, or an actual encounter of what could be his last moment to repent. He could not decide of the right choice, but, it would be much more than a choice for Megatron Scrooge as the night would begin its long, periodic trek to the number of the hour of midnight.
*Authors Note*
(It seems that Starscream Marely has certainly made this night much more of an upcoming goal for Megatron Scrooge to somehow achieve. Will Megatron decide to believe what he had recently doubted? Well, we shall see when the clock strikes midnight in the next chapter. Sparkling Lover out.)