XXXIV - Inception

"Whose bright idea was it to fly into the ocean! All this salt water is clogging my actuators!" I sputtered irritably, churcing my legs while making slow, circular motions with my arms to tread the water.

Starscream broke the surface beside me with a little help from his thruster. "My dear clone, why point fingers? You enjoyed it as much as I did," he said knowingly. I huffed, blinking water out of my optics before diving back under. The water was a pleasant temperature as it danced through my fingers and over my wings. I wasn't terribly fond of swimming, but I had to admit that this was nice. I kicked out and stroked towards shore, watching a few curious fish investigate me before flitting away into the murk. I couldn't see the bottom beneath me and that spurred me onwards, leaving an uneasy feeling in my tank. My thruster blasted to life, flameless, propelling me on towards shore.

When I reached it, Starscream was there waiting for me, bone-dry. "You sure took your time," he pointed out.

I disentangled a sodden clump of something-or-another from my left heel strut, making a face at the ensuing squelch. "Did the others leave so soon? I imagine Smokescreen would have joined us."

"He's not here."

"Too good for us?" I huffed wryly. "At the very least, I expected Knock Out or even Bee." But as I looked around in a slow circle, it became very clear that no one but the two of us was here, and that my chassis was dry. There was no way any bot short of a sparkling would be able to hide behind any of the scrub on the beach. "I swear that the others were just here, is there something urgent happening at the Harbinger?" I frowned, suddenly worried. The ocean lapped at our pedes, making strange sucking sounds.

"Where are we?" My double asked, ignoring my question. He almost looked like he knew something that I didn't.

"Wh-how am I supposed to know?"

"Look at me." Starscream commanded, his stern tone taking me by surprise. I did it nervously. "Think, Seven. How did we get here?"

"We both know," I said haughtily, "you're wasting our time. We flew from–uh…" now that I tried to grope for the memory file, it was much less clear, like a switch had been thrown in my processor, or something else… "What?! What happened to my memory? My fragging processor, Starscream!"

"What's your last memory?" my double asked, on-edge now.

I struggled to remember, like trying to dig for something I couldn't see that was beneath meters of syrup. "The Harbinger, then…"

"Have you ever been able to remember how a dream begins?" he interrupted, raising an eyebrow in a way that just looked ridiculous.

Flustered, I sputtered, "I—are you saying this is a dream?"

"We may never know if it is or not unless you find one or the other is true, that is."

"That really clears things up," I scowled sarcastically, but slowly began to believe him. How else was he able to hear me underwater when we didn't have an open comm link? Or to have seemingly teleported out of the ocean, bone-dry…

"Seven!" Starscream shouted, snapping me out of my thoughts with enough force that I jumped. The world, no, dreamscape had undergone a drastic change: we now sat on the edge of a skyscraper, however, that wasn't what threw me. "It almost looks like Iacon," he breathed, sounding only mildly surprised.

"Almost…" I breathed, swinging my legs and leaning back on my arms. "So, if this is my dream, how are you still here if–"

"I'm a what?" he said, affronted, wings on end. "A figment of your overworked processor?"

"What else would you be?" I retorted defensively, stilling my legs and glaring out over the almost-familiar horizon. "Every fragging time I find myself inside a dreamscape, you're there with me! It's torturous!" I couldn't remember getting up, but I must have at some point because I was on my pedes now, glaring down at him. My wings had flattened and servos were balled into fists. "Of course," I continued scathingly, "you're just a fragment of my subconscious, so you'll never understand. You'll never know what it's like for me every time I see my reflection, the spitting image of my dead twin. You called me your brother! I WATCHED YOU DIE IN MY FRAGGING ARMS, STAR!"

Starscream—the figment of my imagination that looked like him—wouldn't meet my optics. I noticed that his frame had become transparent like a ghostly apparition, a cruelly fitting description. "I-I shouldn't have expected you to react any differently… but I wish you didn't take my death so hard. I'm so sorry, Seven, but I didn't know it would happen! I was arrogant, thinking that all my problems were over when I reclaimed my wings and T-Cog, but oh, it was only the beginning."

"And what the scrap is that supposed to mean?!" I snapped, and the light seemed to darken.

My double slumped and put his helm in his servos, watching the horizon. It was the bleakest picture I could ever come up with. His frame flickered. "Promise me this, right now, you'll keep your emotions in check. I haven't gotten this down to a science, but the last time you panicked, I was shut out. All this time I've tried to get back in here, hear me!?"

I nodded slowly, pretending to understand. But Starscream growled to himself and motioned for me to take a seat again. "I'll try to start from the beginning, but I'm dealing with time and for all I know, this could just be a loop without a starting place."

I blinked. "Oh, now I'm about to receive another lecture from my subconscious? The whole 'Seven, you should take better care of yourself' again? And what's this about some," I waved a servo to move the words along, "temporal loop?"

"I was wrong then," he began. I raised an eyebrow, listening. "Yes, you should really take better care of yourself," he chuckled at the little derisive snort I made, "except… to be frank, I'm not dead, Sev. But I will be, unless we do something.

"Wh… how? Do you mean to tell me that you are here, right now? Really here?" I didn't believe it. It simply wasn't possible.

He nodded grimly. "I wouldn't say 'me' like you remember it—my chassis is still very dead—but some semblance of myself remains." He bit his lip as if expecting me to shoot him down.

"Your spark?"

He nodded.

I suddenly felt a wave of vertigo, and the skyscraper seemed to sway beneath me in the faint breeze. "L-last time—that was you in the park?"

He nodded again, "What happened to me?"

I gave him the short version, sometimes pausing to add details and be sure what I was rambling was actually the truth. How I had went and became a Decepticon for a stint, blew up our base ("I was forced to!"), then rejoined the Autobots. How we discovered and then fought for control of the Omega Lock, Bumblebee's demise and ensuing resurrection, and how I attempted to do the same with him. My double was rapt, drinking in every word like he was starving. "There was a lightning bolt that struck you, and if what Ratchet said is to be believed, it helped zap your systems back online. Apparently, that wouldn't have happened without your spark. However, I saved the best for last. The dear doctor ran a few scans of your systems, and the virus is gone, completely and utterly.

"Now," I continued, if one can assume that nothing has changed, you're in stasis lock while I'm beside your berth."

"How cozy." Starscream smiled, letting that sink in for a long moment of silence that stretched on and on until it pulled taut with an almost audible snap! My twin took an intake and leaned back on his arms, looking up at the stars which had each popped into existence a while ago, one by one. "My chassis is online, but lacking my spark? And somehow I'm able to interact with you on a mental level…" he trailed off, frowning at the stars. So many stars. "Primus, I used to be a scientist, but none of this makes a shred of sense!"

"You're telling me," I groaned. His wings drooped, making him look weary. But then a memory resurfaced like a slap to the faceplates. "Hold that thought, did you say I–we could bring you back?!"

"I'm not sure… it's merely a theory I concocted—who's to say it could even be possible?" his wings drooped further, "And now I am obligated to tell you, but I know you will only say I'm insane, and shut me out!" He hid his faceplates from me, and only now did I notice that he was trembling like a leaf. "You—my clone—have never believed me, and I'll wind up trapped in that perpetual nether realm again!" My spark hitched and sank. His form flickered. "You already think I've lost it…"

I took a seat next to him, trying to heed his advice and remain calm. "What are you saying?" What happened to that confident bot from the park?

Starscream drew into himself, and it took a good deal of coaxing and threatening to get my double to emerge from his ball of armor and wings.

"No matter how mad you think it will sound, I'll listen. It's okay, you're okay–" I winced.

He glared at me, "Neither of us is okay."

I suddenly was prompted to wonder if it was possible to get injured in a dream.

"I said I will listen." I repeated in the most patient tone I could muster.

He took a shaky intake and seemed to uncoil, wings relaxing and bobbing up. "Just–don't interrupt me, My spark—me, I mean—time is different for it." My jaw might have gone slack at that pronouncement. "I've had these, I don't know what one would call them… flashbacks." His tone suggested they were something more unpleasant than that word usually meant. "By the time I grew used to them, I was thrust into one of my dreams. My past self's dream, to be precise."

I shook myself, "Like now? Do you–can you remember it?"

Starscream shook his helm, "Its details faded into obscurity a long time ago, as all dreams do. But I spoke with my past self, and I remember the shock it gave me then."

"When?" I prodded.

"When I first met Oliver, in his house," he answered, and his expression began to take on a hopeful look, "You do believe me, then?"

I took a moment to respond. "I–I think so. It's just a lot to process—that you are alive in some freakish way—" he frowned, "and that I'm here right now, speaking with you." An idea began to dawn on me as I looked out over the Cybertron's surface glittering in the faint light, seeing the first hint of Hadean shyly peeking up over the edge of the horizon. I stood up and stretched, "How long have we been here!? I need to wake up, the others will be worrying, and Primus knows what those crazed bots might have done–"

"Easy!" Starscream exclaimed. I looked back at him, he was transparent and flickering again. "Time is slower in here, it may have only been a couple minutes up there, or a couple hours. It's hard to tell, but it hasn't been as long as it feels in here." My double jerked a thumb at the sky to show.

"I-I think I'm having an existential crisis, but you're right. What were you saying?" I asked, shaking some feeling back into my wings.

The other Seeker was much more sure of himself now, "I think that with your help, I can convince my past self to alter his actions so that I never die to begin with, and we both get out of this mess."

My optics widened. "That is hardly plausible, but is it even possible?! What if you make circumstances worse–or create some sort of paradox! Who knows what could happen–you could unwittingly change major events or–"

"SEVEN!" He shouted, his voice faint as if coming from the far end of a tunnel. My twin's chassis had faded drastically and continued to do so, dissolving into the waxing light. I took a few slow, deep intakes in an attempt to calm myself, and it worked. But he still was fading. "It's okay…" he trailed off. "Find me the next time you recharge. I'll be waiting."

Without even thinking, I lunged forward and caught him in a crushing embrace. "By the Allspark, I've missed you so much! Don't leave now!"

He smiled sadly, but he was so faint now that it could just as well have been my imagination. "I'll be waiting, brother."

Bumblebee whistled to the open, more-or-less empty room, lost to internal musings. The sound felt familiar, and he appreciated it more now that he had his own voice back because he could choose whether he wanted to chirp and whistle or not. Some tune he'd heard on the radio when he picked Raf up from school, more than once. It was his shift to keep an optic on Starscream and Ultra Magnus, and it wasn't exactly action-packed.

"Livin' like we're renegades…"

"That's overplayed," Seven criticized out of nowhere.

Bumblebee started. "Hey Sev, sorry. I didn't know you were awake."

Seven transformed into his bipedal mode and leaned against Starscream's berth, arms folded across his chest plate nonchalantly, but it couldn't have looked more forced. The mech looked giddy. "I am now. Where are the others? I thought I would wake to my tail fins tied in knots."

"Consider yourself lucky." The yellow mech chuckled.

Seven wasn't listening anymore, he stared down at his double's lifeless chassis. His faceplates were serene in stasis lock, and for a moment, his clone sympathized with Optimus; was it right to take that from him? But Starscream himself had told him otherwise, and Seven knew with all his spark that he was going to try his hardest to bring his double back from the grave. Even if it seemed crazy, or even impossible to the others. He had a sinking feeling that none of the other 'Bots would believe his tale if he so much as breathed a word of it.

That peaceful mask was an illusion, one pierced by the jagged black scar down his right side and the army of machines keeping his chassis functional.

"Hey, Sev?" The yellow scout piped up, startling the Seeker, "Wanna go for a drive and take your mind off all this?"

The silver mech huffed, shaking himself, "With what, my landing gear?"

Bumblebee only laughed in reply and transformed, revving his engine loudly. Seven's helm snapped over to look at Starscream hopefully, as if the latter would jump awake at the noise.

"C'mon Sev, best two out of three!"

The Seeker shot a glance at Ultra Magnus, who was still unconscious on the berth next to Starscream. The yellow muscle car drove out of sight. Seven jogged after him and stopped beside the car once he was outside, casually leaning against a large boulder.

"Ready?" Bumblebee asked, revving his engine again.

Seven watched him, "I'll give you a two minute head start, to the road and five miles south of down it."

"You're on, Sevvie."

The Seeker watched him race off and began to count off in his helm, grinning like a fool and not even bothering to tell him off for the nickname.

Cybertron gleamed like a silvery-blue pearl amid the inky blackness of the final frontier. The Nemesis swooped above the metal planet's surface, keeping its distance from the moons. It accelerated, getting a gravity assist from the large planet.

"Fools!" Megatron barked in laughter from the warship's bridge, facing the massive array of view screens which presently showed the planet's glittering surface blur past beneath.

"Cybertron is restored."

Megatron turned at the sound of the Seeker's deep voice. "Better, Dreadwing. I did not hear you come in."

"My apologies, my Lord. It was not my wish to intrude." The blue mech dipped his helm in a shallow bow.

"Has Shockwave received a sample of the cyber-matter?" The warlord inquired, regarding his second with a new air of authority.

"Indeed, Lord Megatron."

"Good, Dreadwing. Has there been any progress in locating the Autobots?"

The Seeker frowned, "Does that issue remain on the table with the armistice? I would think not."

"Ah, but Dreadwing! Who could be capable of maintaining such an armistice without the proper infrastructure?" Megatron asked innocently.

"If the Autobots fail to meet our terms, we eliminate them?"

"You always have caught on quickly," the warlord's smile dripped with poison, his innocent demeanor having been burned away.

"My Lord, you do not intend to uphold the cease-fire?" Dreadwing was far from skeptical.

"Oh, I do." Megatron didn't fight the diabolical grin darkening his features, "I intend to let them all rest in peace."

"Enjoy the beauty rest, Maggie?" The white mech jibed, playing catch with a grenade.

Ultra Magnus sat up on his berth and took in his surroundings, and there was no mistaking the mech leaning against the wall opposite him, a cocky smile on his faceplates.

"Wheeljack." He rumbled disdainfully.

The Wrecker caught the grenade and clipped it to his hip. "What gave it away? The swords?"

"Soldier, were you too busy cavorting in the wilderness to aid us in battle?"

"Nice to see you too, chief," Wheeljack muttered, "I haven't heard anything about a scuffle, but I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by, give Bulk a visit. But the place's deserted, and I wasn't expecting you. Thought I'd stick around for a bit, see if anyone decides to swing by."

"Soldier, if you had arrived earlier, you could have aided our unit in battle against the Decepticons." The blue mech growled.

Wheeljack smirked and crossed his arms, "And steal all the fun? Besides," he adopted a much more serious tone, "by the look of things, you and Sev have been through the wringer. Thought the doc would be here at least, keeping an optic on the two of you."

"Sir."

"Sir."

Ultra Magnus noticed Seven's supine form for the first time, dead to the world and hooked up to enough machines whose combined power could create a black hole. The blue mech actually felt a pang of pity for the ailing Decepticon, then a consequent surge of disgust at himself. Yes, the silver Seeker looked harmless and was clearly worse for wear, despite his gleaming chassis. But something was new: a jagged black mark down the right side of his chest and faceplates. Magnus knew that all the other Autobots viewed him as one of their own, even Optimus. But he also knew Decepticons didn't change their stripes: once evil, always evil. That brought on another realization: the crimson stripes on the Seeker's large wings had vanished.

"You're doin' a lot of thinking in that helm of yours, care to share?" Wheeljack huffed, jerking the larger mech out of his reverie.

"What happened to him?" The larger mech queried, scrutinizing the silver mech in case he was faking.

"Dunno. Poor guy was like that when I showed up." The Wrecker went over to the comatose bot and leaned over him, "Sev?" he tapped sharply on his faceplates, "Anyone home?"

"Wheeljack," Ultra Magnus chastised, "Wait for the doctor to return, then you can question him about Seven's condition." He stood, not looking thrilled at the prospect.

Wheeljack shrugged, "Suit yourse–"

The sound of faint but steadily growing engine noise cut him off, and both mechs listened intently, going closer to main entrance. A yellow muscle car resembling a Camaro suddenly zipped into the room, followed by a silver F-16. Wheeljack ducked as the jet flew over his helm, and the duo simultaneously transformed.

"Wheeljack!" Bumblebee exclaimed. "When did you get here?"

The Wrecker was too stunned to say anything meaningful. "Your voice?!"

The Seeker's wings snapped up to their usual place on his back and he straightened up, standing a little taller than the white mech. "An astute observation," he huffed. "Why did you come?"

"For the grand finale. Wait a sec…" Wheeljack wheeled around, looking from the standing Seeker to his double on the berth. Ultra Magnus looked similarly confused. "Uh, sorry to ask, but which one are you?"

Seven's wings fluttered, "Are the stripes not obvious enough?"

"Does that mean that's Starscream?" The white mech jerked a thumb at the Seeker on the berth.

Seven sighed, "Are you going to ask him?"