[G1 AU] Hate the Dark (part 2)
Dec. 11th, 2007 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nkfloofiepoof posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deceptikittyTitle: Hate the Dark
Arc: 'Til All Are One
Rating: R (PG in this part)
Characters: Optimus Prime, Starscream
Summary: After Cybertron's destruction, two survivors wait out their final months after crashing on a forsaken and dangerous planet.
The tremors finally stopped.
I knew it would eventually kill me if I was forced to rely on it very much longer, but I had no other choice than to use the creatures' toxic blood and organs to make energon. Starscream could be optimistic if he wanted to be - he hadn't roamed the area like I had. There was nothing but rock as far as one could see, and for every five rocks, there was one of those ravenous serpents that could eat anything. The only thing they didn't seem to eat was the rock. That was probably the only reason Starscream was still alive - they either couldn't or wouldn't go through the boulder I used to seal off the cave to protect him when I went hunting.
I let out a weary sigh and leaned my head back against the rock wall, dimming my working optic. I quit counting the number of times I wished we had crashed on a different planet - any other planet. I wanted so badly to be able to go looking for other sources of energy, but I couldn't, not without abandoning Starscream for at least an orn, and I didn't want to risk the snakes finding a way through or around the rock, especially now that he was awake. I can't imagine many worse deaths than being eaten alive by those snakes considering how badly the few bites I received hurt.
I kept him alive this long - I wasn't about to give up on him now. It was a blessing from Primus himself that we had made it this far, that we had survived the destruction of Cybertron to begin with. I could only hope that the same blessing had extended to others, that Starscream and I weren't the only Cybertronians left in the universe.
I knew Prowl and Brawn were dead - I had seen them die with my own optics, both working at the time. I had wanted to oversee the retrieval of the energon cubes from Earth myself, so I was on the ship with Prowl, Brawn, Ironhide, and Ratchet when it was attacked by Megatron. I don't think he expected me to be there, but his surprise was short-lived. I didn't see him kill Brawn, but I'll never forget Prowl as he fell backwards, fluids and smoke pouring from his mouth. He was dead before he hit the floor.
I never understood it before then, that phrase humans have, but after Prowl fell, I saw red. I had had it - the war would end there once and for all.
The battle isn't clear in my memory - they never are. Most of the time, battles are a blur between the time I'm engaged in combat and the time the battle finally ends, and this time was no exception. I suspect it's my central processor's way of numbing me to it since I'm a soldier by necessity, not by choice. I just remember being enraged and Ratchet and Ironhide giving it their all. The hole in the side of the ship was thankfully small, and only a few Decepticons could fit through at a time. It gave Ratchet and Ironhide the leeway they needed to deal a good amount of damage while I fought Megatron. They sustained damage too, mostly from one of the Seekers - to this day, I'm not sure which one - but they took down several Decepticons while I was busy.
My next clear memory was staring up at the ceiling of the ship, the Decepticons gone. I think it had been a cycle or two since the end of the battle - I just knew I was in pain - a lot of pain. A badly injured Ratchet was hovering over me as he tried to fix the worst of my damage, and Ironhide informed me of the situation as an attempt to keep me awake. The Decepticons had retreated, several of them, including Megatron, barely functional, and our ship had been severely damaged in the fight, drifting quietly in space about halfway to Earth. Ironhide had already sent a distress signal to Earth, and another ship was on the way to take us back to Cybertron.
Ultra Magnus and Hot Rod boarded the barely functional ship to help move me. I could sense my trailer's combat deck was already offline in death, and Roller was hanging on by a thread, my energy levels depleted too far due to my wounds and unable to sustain all three of us. I knew I was dying - it was just that no one else was accepting that fact yet. I just barely remember removing the Matrix of Leadership and passing it to Ultra Magnus to keep it safe until the rise of the chosen one before my optics went completely dark and the cries of protest from the others faded.
I awoke in Wheeljack's old lab on Cybertron, Arcee and Ratchet working diligently on repairing me. I honestly had not expected to wake up ever again, and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. Just because I've always been prepared to die in the war doesn't mean I wanted to.
Arcee and Ratchet were running a tremendous risk taking me there even with Ironhide guarding the lab to make sure we weren't caught. From what I understood, only half-coherent though I was, the moon base was under attack by the Decepticons who had been instructed to stay behind while our scouting ship to Earth was attacked. Their goal was to destroy our base of operations because they assumed I was taken there for repairs. If you want to hide something, you hide it in plain sight, so I was taken to Cybertron itself right under their radar. It was there while they were repairing me that I learned of Starscream's fate.
Briefly pulling myself from reminiscing, I looked at the mutilated form to my right where he sat in recharge against the back of the cave. I still could not comprehend the difference - could not get over how...small he looked without his wings. Missing half of his body didn't help, I'm sure, but without either of his wings, he looked so frail and fragile. I knew he had not had a chance yet to fully understand what that meant, and I worried for the day that he did. I had heard horror stories of Cybertronians gifted with bodies that could fly suddenly losing that ability either in the war or through unfortunate accidents. They usually broke down mentally, and Starscream was already unstable enough thanks to Megatron.
I can't deny the fact that I was inwardly thrilled when I was told before my blackout that I had managed to defeat Megatron in the attack, and knowing I had taken him with me, I was content to die in peace. However, when I was told of Starscream's fate while I was being repaired, that Megatron was somehow alive, in a new body, now referring to himself as Galvatron, I wasn't sure if I was sad, angry, or both at once. I had been of firm belief for millennia that if Megatron were to die, the war would most likely die with him. I thought I had finally succeeded in starting that process when I was told I had defeated him on the scouting ship. I can't describe the...despair - that's the word I want - the despair I felt when I was told he was still alive. He can call himself Galvatron or anything he wants - he's still Megatron, my sworn enemy.
Hearing that he had killed Starscream though, his second-in-command for so many vorns, was shocking. Starscream had tried so many times to kill him, yet Megatron never returned the favor until then, not even when Starscream tried to destroy Earth with Megatron still on the planet - the Seeker had disappeared for a while, but then he returned looking and acting just as unscathed as when Megatron originally dragged him away. I never understood why, and I'm sure many nuances of Decepticon behavior will forever remain a mystery to me.
Thus, the knowledge that Megatron had finally followed through with his threats and killed Starscream once and for all was shocking. Ratchet assured me I heard him correctly though, and I had no reason to question him. Starscream was being crowned the new leader of the Decepticons when Megatron - or Galvatron; whatever he wants to be called - appeared with his new and improved body and killed his former second-in-command.
Ratchet and Arcee were nearly finished with the most critical of my repairs when alarms blared all over the planet. They naturally assumed it meant the Autobots were fighting back, but I had a terrible feeling it was something worse - a lot worse. Insisting I was well enough to move on my own, I waved them both away in time to hear Ironhide's alarmed cry. I knew something was seriously wrong when I heard that. Ironhide isn't alarmed by anything.
The sky was hidden by what I swear looked just like a Cybertronian in the middle of transforming. A horrific voice vibrated every circuit in our bodies as well as every panel around us when it spoke. It was so loud and painful, drowned out by Cybertron itself seeming to shudder in fear, I couldn't understand most of what it said - all I caught was its name.
Unicron.
Despite the fact that I had passed on the Matrix of Leadership, that they had all witnessed me do so, and I no longer carried the title of Prime, Arcee, Ironhide, and Ratchet still all looked to me for guidance. Old habits die hard. How was I to tell them that even I had no idea what to do against something so enormous? It was as big as Cybertron itself if not bigger - how do you fight a planet?
A cold mix of rage and sadness upset my systems when I looked to the sky and noticed the debris littering space where the moons had once watched over Cybertron. The moon bases were gone, my friends possibly with them. Cybertron's artillery set the sky ablaze as the Decepticons overrunning the planet tried to fight back, an exercise, I knew, in futility.
I had no choice. I ordered them to the nearest evacuation pods. Cybertron was riddled with them for emergencies such as a laboratory accident which necessitated the temporary evacuation of a section of Cybertron, so I knew we would find one close by. The only problem was that these pods were only designed to hold two Cybertronians at a time, three if necessary, but there were four of us. I didn't want to, but I ordered that we split up, and that we would meet on Earth. Even an evacuation pod could make that journey before becoming useless.
Ratchet and Ironhide, albeit reluctantly, did as I told them, separating from Arcee and myself to find a pod while Arcee and I searched for our own. We didn't get far before the ground lurched underneath us, throwing us forward with a deafening shriek of twisted. Debris rained around us, and for a brief moment, I stayed where I fell, covering my head to protect it.
I can't deny that I was beginning to panic by the time I looked up to see only the very edge of that planet-sized creature's foot resting in the ground behind us. Impossibly sharp shards of metal were sticking out of the ground at all angles around us, two of which had pierced my leg, but I was lucky. Arcee lay beside me, a shard of debris impaling her spark chamber. At the very least, she died quickly, but that did not mean it hurt any less seeing her dead beside me.
I had no time to grieve for her much as I wish I did. If I didn't want to share her fate, I had to focus on escaping. Pulling out the metal impaling my leg, I continued to search for an escape pod. I knew one had to be nearby - I just needed to find it.
That was when I found him. Fallen against the wall of a building and forgotten by his fellow Decepticons, the Decepticons he dreamed so highly of ruling over, was Starscream. His left arm, leg, and wing were gone, and that side of his torso was scorched. I thought it sad at first, that someone with such spirit and ambition was simply cast aside and forgotten entirely, that the Decepticons had not at least given him a proper farewell. He had served them diligently for millions of years - he deserved better than to be forgotten like an obsolete part.
It was during that brief reverie that I noticed he wasn't dead.
I'm not sure exactly what clued me in. I think I saw his damaged side spark or maybe his hand twitch. Whatever it was, it caught my attention, and I limped to his side to make sure I wasn't imagining things. He was, indeed, still alive, but he was deep in stasis - a coma, I think humans would have called it. It didn't take me even an astrosecond to decide what to do - Arcee was dead, Starscream was not, and enemy or not, I was not going to leave him to be finished off by the awful thing tearing into the planet, not when I was so close to an escape.
His smaller body folded into my arms easily, especially with two appendages and a wing missing, and I was able to carry him without difficulty despite my injured leg. Another horrific tremor rocked the planet, and I had not the courage to look back for the cause, running as fast as I could to the evacuation pod once I found it. I left Starscream on the floor, vowing to make him more comfortable if we escaped alive, and practically dove into the control seat, flipping switches as I went. We managed to escape even as the planet broke up around us and was swallowed by Unicron.
After engulfing Cybertron, Unicron then did his best to swallow every single evacuation pod littering the now empty void of space where our beloved planet once hovered. There were far more evacuees than I thought there would be, nearly a hundred pods if not more all trying to escape in every direction imaginable. I could only hope some of those who escaped Unicron's hungry jaws were my friends.
I couldn't watch. Regardless of the despair and fear I felt for my friends, I felt the controls lurch to the side as Unicron dove for us next. It took nearly a breem to escape, and its yell of frustration shook the whole ship so thoroughly, I worried for a moment that it would be shaken apart. Once the vibrations ceased, I made the ship fly at the maximum speed it was capable of, heading back to Earth.
It was en route to Earth that I became paranoid. While I was looking over Starscream and assessing his damage, Unicron's frustrated roar continued to replay in my memory, and my imagination ran wild. I began to worry about why it seemed to be so insistent on devouring every last evacuation ship despite how tiny they were comparatively, and I worried that it would hunt down those who escaped. If so, I couldn't allow it to follow me to Earth and devour that planet as well. I changed course and delved deeper into the galaxy.
Unicron didn't follow us, and only now do I realize that perhaps the last quarter of a vorn could have been different had I not allowed paranoia to dictate my actions. It was another of Primus' blessings that our ship, only meant to be used for short distances such as that from Cybertron to Earth, lasted as long as it did. Twenty Earth years, it carried me and Starscream through the galaxy, only a few times trying to break down, and the times it did, they were easily fixed. Unfortunately, by the time I finally accepted the fact that we were no longer in danger from Unicron following us ten years into our journey, we were completely lost. I couldn't even backtrack our journey at that point, so the last ten years were spent trying to find clues as to where we were in the galaxy and determine our proximity to Earth as well as sending distress calls out through the void in the hopes that one would be heard. I didn't have my hopes up even then that it would work - again, it was strictly meant for evacuations. The signal would travel through space, but it was weak and could easily be missed.
During that time, Starscream remained in stasis, and I tried to repair what I could. I'm not medically trained - the most I can do is field repairs in battle, not replace missing limbs, but I did my best with him. His life wasn't immediately in danger, so most of what I focused on was making him comfortable, tying off leaking piping and sparking cables and numbing his pain receptors. I talked to him as I worked - it's stupid, I know, but even though I knew he couldn't hear me, it made me feel better to have someone to talk to. It also helped me notice earlier that something was seriously wrong.
It started as simply a line of ash grey rimming the edges of his missing limbs, and I originally dismissed it as simply his paint job peeling from my work. It wasn't until I went to clean it at one point and the outside edge of his missing arm crumbled like dust that I realized it was something much more serious.
He was rotting right there in front of me. Machines don't rot, but I couldn't think of any other way to describe it, and without a proper medical database at my disposal, I couldn't determine its cause, what it was, or how best to fight it. I tried everything I could think of, but through the course of the first ten years when we were fleeing Unicron - the ten years before I turned around and started searching for Earth - it only got worse and worse. The necrosis swallowed what little was left of his arm and leg all the way to his shoulder and pelvic junction where it then started on the scorch marks on his side. By the time I managed to stop it, the vent on his left shoulder down to his hip was half gone, exposing a cross-section of his insides, and most of the circuitry across his back was exposed as well from where the necrosis had snaked across his back and swallowed his right wing. Only half his wing was beyond help, but the whole thing had to be removed to delay the spread of the necrosis. I had just enough spare metal to cover the gaping wound covering his back so I could at least lay him on his back without putting him in pain, but the horrific wound trailing down one whole side of his body had to remain the way it was.
His initial reaction to the loss of both wings was actually much better than I anticipated, but I knew I had bombarded him with too much information - too many shocking facts - all at once, and it was taking a while to fully sink in. I just hoped the necrosis wouldn't try to begin again as it had just before he finally awoke - there wasn't much of his body left that he could lose before his life would be in severe danger. Plus the procedure I used to stop it was extremely risky, especially now that we were exposed to the elements of this Primus forsaken planet with the proper medical facilities and containers nowhere in sight. I thought I'd killed him the last time, and I preferred to not go through that trauma again.
"Don't you Autobots know it's rude to stare?"
"I didn't know you were awake." I almost asked him how he was feeling, but I stopped myself this time. While I think I'd be just as cranky if I were in his condition, I just didn't have the energy to endure his cutting sarcasm today. Of course, Starscream was not exactly known for his good moods in the first place. Instead, I pointed out something which was beginning to concern me anyway, "You need to eat soon."
Predictably, he shook his head in defiance. I can't say I truly blamed him - I didn't like being forced to eat this disgusting, toxic energon either, but he just refused to cooperate.
"You're not going to last much longer if you don't take in energy," I insisted though I didn't say what I was going to. Every Cybertronian with a working central processor knew that shutting down only recharged so much - we needed energon to keep up our strength. He didn't need me to remind him of that. I had been fine on the ship with simply recharging every few cycles since I wasn't burning much doing other activities, but once we crashed here and I was constantly having to either hunt or otherwise fend off the snakes, I needed a steady supply. He had been fine while he was in stasis since he was not awake to burn energy, but now that he was awake, he needed to compensate.
And he hadn't eaten since he finally awoke nearly an Earth week ago.
"I'm not ingesting that vile slag," he snapped back at me. "Kill yourself with it if you like, but I'd prefer not." All I could do was sigh in response. If only I could be certain he would be safe while I scouted further for other sources of energy.
"I'll be back soon," I told him after a breem or two of silence. I took my rifle from its place beside me and stood to leave the cave to hunt more of the serpents for today's energon supply as well as to be alone for a while. Starscream wasn't any better company awake than he was in stasis. I didn't expect any different, really, but that didn't lessen the disappointment. In fact, I'm not sure what I expected.
"Take me with you."
I know I didn't expect that.
"What?" I stared at him for a moment, positive I heard wrong. He just glared at me defiantly, his red optics cutting through the dimness of the cave.
"Take me with you - maybe I'll see something else you could use," he insisted. I didn't hesitate an astrosecond to shake my head and refuse.
"No - it's entirely too dangerous. These things are fast and numerous. I need both of my hands free." I knew he wouldn't like what I was going to say next, but it needed to be said if he was going to act like that. "Having to carry you would only slow me down and probably get both of us killed. Your null ray may work, and I can understand a soldier not liking to be confined, but I don't need the distraction of trying to keep you safe."
His glare heated slightly, but he just became more insistent. "Contrary to what rumors you may have heard, Autobot-" I hated the way he spat out the faction title like it was an expletive. "-I wasn't a soldier my whole life. I lived before the war, and before I was a soldier, I was a scientist - an explorer. I've been to worlds like this before. If there's something else that can be used, I'll see it before you."
I'm not sure which surprised me more: his opening part of his past to me so willingly or the fact that he used to do something other than fight. It made me feel a little guilty as I realized that, over so many millennia of fighting, I had automatically assumed all of the Decepticons to be born killers and soldiers. Not once could I recall wondering what any of them may have been before the war. Deep down, I knew I knew better than to make such prejudicial assumptions, but I had those prejudices regardless. I too was something other than a soldier once, so it should not have surprised me so much that he used to be a scientist.
But I've been a soldier too long, and a soldier's mindset dies hard.
"I still can't risk it," I finally told him, ignoring how he seemed to crackle with anger at being denied. "If you were in better shape, maybe, but I'm responsible for you now. I wouldn't risk any of the Autobots in such a way either."
"Prime!" he yelled at my back when I turned to leave again.
"Optimus," I corrected him shortly. "I'm not Prime anymore, so you may as well quit calling me that." I certainly didn't feel like I deserved the title anymore, and I no longer had the Matrix of Leadership. That was, hopefully, still in Ultra Magnus' capable hands on Earth.
"Prime!"
I ignored his enraged shrieks and rolled the boulder back into place, leaving just enough space to allow him some light. I didn't want my paranoia to cause him to injure himself again as it had that first time after he awoke.
I had to admit I was very curious as to how the dark could cause such an intense panic attack in one so normally sure of himself as Starscream, but at the same time, I knew it was more than likely a touchy subject, not one he would delve into readily. Not to me, anyway. I shook my head, deciding to not worry about him for now and focus on the task at hand.
The skeleton of the ship wasn't far away, stripped down to the bare wires and metal frame. The snakes were most numerous there since they were still working on what little was left of the ship, so that was my destination. The rock underfoot crushed and sent up a cloud of rusty dust with every step I took. The planet's suns shined painfully down on me, gleaming off my chassis so brightly I had to dim my working optic to keep the brightness from hurting. It was still only bearable, but I needed to be able to see the snakes when I found them.
It takes a lot to get me to truly dislike something, and I hated this planet. I had to swerve for the colorful one on my inadequate charts, didn't I? Upon crashing, I sent out one final distress beacon through the void of space. I used every last drop of energy to make the signal dozens of times stronger than all the previous attempts in the hopes that it would carry through the void and finally be heard.
In hindsight, I should have used some of the remaining energy to convert into energon cubes, but I had no idea how difficult it would be to find usable sources of energy here, and I didn't have time to experiment before the serpents began eating the ship. We had been crashed for little over a cycle before the foul creatures appeared, chewing holes through the hull effortlessly. I barely had time to grab the energon converter and Starscream before the snakes began chewing on my feet. I had several attached to my ankles by the time I was able to escape and make my way up the cliffs where the snakes had more trouble following me. Those clamped onto me were already dead by then, but I was in too much of a rush to get away to shake them loose, and it's just as well that I did. It was after we had settled into the cave that I experimented with them and discovered I could make energon with their blood and organs thanks to a chemical in the snakes' bodies.
Contrary to what Starscream probably believed, I knew it was toxic as soon as I made the first cube. It was because of that fact that I avoided eating it for entirely too long - I was nearly deactivated from lack of energy dozens of orns after the crash because I didn't want to eat poison, but I knew I had to if we were both to survive this ordeal. The best I could do to counteract the toxins was to try to force it through my filters when I ate and then clean off the filters in the tiny stream nearby during one of my hunts.
I flinched and shot down at my feet when a painful bite tore me from my thoughts. This was close enough to the wreckage if the snakes slithering my way were any indication. I only needed a few, but I knew I was going to have to kill many more than that before I could escape again.
I really hated this planet.
Arc: 'Til All Are One
Rating: R (PG in this part)
Characters: Optimus Prime, Starscream
Summary: After Cybertron's destruction, two survivors wait out their final months after crashing on a forsaken and dangerous planet.
The tremors finally stopped.
I knew it would eventually kill me if I was forced to rely on it very much longer, but I had no other choice than to use the creatures' toxic blood and organs to make energon. Starscream could be optimistic if he wanted to be - he hadn't roamed the area like I had. There was nothing but rock as far as one could see, and for every five rocks, there was one of those ravenous serpents that could eat anything. The only thing they didn't seem to eat was the rock. That was probably the only reason Starscream was still alive - they either couldn't or wouldn't go through the boulder I used to seal off the cave to protect him when I went hunting.
I let out a weary sigh and leaned my head back against the rock wall, dimming my working optic. I quit counting the number of times I wished we had crashed on a different planet - any other planet. I wanted so badly to be able to go looking for other sources of energy, but I couldn't, not without abandoning Starscream for at least an orn, and I didn't want to risk the snakes finding a way through or around the rock, especially now that he was awake. I can't imagine many worse deaths than being eaten alive by those snakes considering how badly the few bites I received hurt.
I kept him alive this long - I wasn't about to give up on him now. It was a blessing from Primus himself that we had made it this far, that we had survived the destruction of Cybertron to begin with. I could only hope that the same blessing had extended to others, that Starscream and I weren't the only Cybertronians left in the universe.
I knew Prowl and Brawn were dead - I had seen them die with my own optics, both working at the time. I had wanted to oversee the retrieval of the energon cubes from Earth myself, so I was on the ship with Prowl, Brawn, Ironhide, and Ratchet when it was attacked by Megatron. I don't think he expected me to be there, but his surprise was short-lived. I didn't see him kill Brawn, but I'll never forget Prowl as he fell backwards, fluids and smoke pouring from his mouth. He was dead before he hit the floor.
I never understood it before then, that phrase humans have, but after Prowl fell, I saw red. I had had it - the war would end there once and for all.
The battle isn't clear in my memory - they never are. Most of the time, battles are a blur between the time I'm engaged in combat and the time the battle finally ends, and this time was no exception. I suspect it's my central processor's way of numbing me to it since I'm a soldier by necessity, not by choice. I just remember being enraged and Ratchet and Ironhide giving it their all. The hole in the side of the ship was thankfully small, and only a few Decepticons could fit through at a time. It gave Ratchet and Ironhide the leeway they needed to deal a good amount of damage while I fought Megatron. They sustained damage too, mostly from one of the Seekers - to this day, I'm not sure which one - but they took down several Decepticons while I was busy.
My next clear memory was staring up at the ceiling of the ship, the Decepticons gone. I think it had been a cycle or two since the end of the battle - I just knew I was in pain - a lot of pain. A badly injured Ratchet was hovering over me as he tried to fix the worst of my damage, and Ironhide informed me of the situation as an attempt to keep me awake. The Decepticons had retreated, several of them, including Megatron, barely functional, and our ship had been severely damaged in the fight, drifting quietly in space about halfway to Earth. Ironhide had already sent a distress signal to Earth, and another ship was on the way to take us back to Cybertron.
Ultra Magnus and Hot Rod boarded the barely functional ship to help move me. I could sense my trailer's combat deck was already offline in death, and Roller was hanging on by a thread, my energy levels depleted too far due to my wounds and unable to sustain all three of us. I knew I was dying - it was just that no one else was accepting that fact yet. I just barely remember removing the Matrix of Leadership and passing it to Ultra Magnus to keep it safe until the rise of the chosen one before my optics went completely dark and the cries of protest from the others faded.
I awoke in Wheeljack's old lab on Cybertron, Arcee and Ratchet working diligently on repairing me. I honestly had not expected to wake up ever again, and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. Just because I've always been prepared to die in the war doesn't mean I wanted to.
Arcee and Ratchet were running a tremendous risk taking me there even with Ironhide guarding the lab to make sure we weren't caught. From what I understood, only half-coherent though I was, the moon base was under attack by the Decepticons who had been instructed to stay behind while our scouting ship to Earth was attacked. Their goal was to destroy our base of operations because they assumed I was taken there for repairs. If you want to hide something, you hide it in plain sight, so I was taken to Cybertron itself right under their radar. It was there while they were repairing me that I learned of Starscream's fate.
Briefly pulling myself from reminiscing, I looked at the mutilated form to my right where he sat in recharge against the back of the cave. I still could not comprehend the difference - could not get over how...small he looked without his wings. Missing half of his body didn't help, I'm sure, but without either of his wings, he looked so frail and fragile. I knew he had not had a chance yet to fully understand what that meant, and I worried for the day that he did. I had heard horror stories of Cybertronians gifted with bodies that could fly suddenly losing that ability either in the war or through unfortunate accidents. They usually broke down mentally, and Starscream was already unstable enough thanks to Megatron.
I can't deny the fact that I was inwardly thrilled when I was told before my blackout that I had managed to defeat Megatron in the attack, and knowing I had taken him with me, I was content to die in peace. However, when I was told of Starscream's fate while I was being repaired, that Megatron was somehow alive, in a new body, now referring to himself as Galvatron, I wasn't sure if I was sad, angry, or both at once. I had been of firm belief for millennia that if Megatron were to die, the war would most likely die with him. I thought I had finally succeeded in starting that process when I was told I had defeated him on the scouting ship. I can't describe the...despair - that's the word I want - the despair I felt when I was told he was still alive. He can call himself Galvatron or anything he wants - he's still Megatron, my sworn enemy.
Hearing that he had killed Starscream though, his second-in-command for so many vorns, was shocking. Starscream had tried so many times to kill him, yet Megatron never returned the favor until then, not even when Starscream tried to destroy Earth with Megatron still on the planet - the Seeker had disappeared for a while, but then he returned looking and acting just as unscathed as when Megatron originally dragged him away. I never understood why, and I'm sure many nuances of Decepticon behavior will forever remain a mystery to me.
Thus, the knowledge that Megatron had finally followed through with his threats and killed Starscream once and for all was shocking. Ratchet assured me I heard him correctly though, and I had no reason to question him. Starscream was being crowned the new leader of the Decepticons when Megatron - or Galvatron; whatever he wants to be called - appeared with his new and improved body and killed his former second-in-command.
Ratchet and Arcee were nearly finished with the most critical of my repairs when alarms blared all over the planet. They naturally assumed it meant the Autobots were fighting back, but I had a terrible feeling it was something worse - a lot worse. Insisting I was well enough to move on my own, I waved them both away in time to hear Ironhide's alarmed cry. I knew something was seriously wrong when I heard that. Ironhide isn't alarmed by anything.
The sky was hidden by what I swear looked just like a Cybertronian in the middle of transforming. A horrific voice vibrated every circuit in our bodies as well as every panel around us when it spoke. It was so loud and painful, drowned out by Cybertron itself seeming to shudder in fear, I couldn't understand most of what it said - all I caught was its name.
Unicron.
Despite the fact that I had passed on the Matrix of Leadership, that they had all witnessed me do so, and I no longer carried the title of Prime, Arcee, Ironhide, and Ratchet still all looked to me for guidance. Old habits die hard. How was I to tell them that even I had no idea what to do against something so enormous? It was as big as Cybertron itself if not bigger - how do you fight a planet?
A cold mix of rage and sadness upset my systems when I looked to the sky and noticed the debris littering space where the moons had once watched over Cybertron. The moon bases were gone, my friends possibly with them. Cybertron's artillery set the sky ablaze as the Decepticons overrunning the planet tried to fight back, an exercise, I knew, in futility.
I had no choice. I ordered them to the nearest evacuation pods. Cybertron was riddled with them for emergencies such as a laboratory accident which necessitated the temporary evacuation of a section of Cybertron, so I knew we would find one close by. The only problem was that these pods were only designed to hold two Cybertronians at a time, three if necessary, but there were four of us. I didn't want to, but I ordered that we split up, and that we would meet on Earth. Even an evacuation pod could make that journey before becoming useless.
Ratchet and Ironhide, albeit reluctantly, did as I told them, separating from Arcee and myself to find a pod while Arcee and I searched for our own. We didn't get far before the ground lurched underneath us, throwing us forward with a deafening shriek of twisted. Debris rained around us, and for a brief moment, I stayed where I fell, covering my head to protect it.
I can't deny that I was beginning to panic by the time I looked up to see only the very edge of that planet-sized creature's foot resting in the ground behind us. Impossibly sharp shards of metal were sticking out of the ground at all angles around us, two of which had pierced my leg, but I was lucky. Arcee lay beside me, a shard of debris impaling her spark chamber. At the very least, she died quickly, but that did not mean it hurt any less seeing her dead beside me.
I had no time to grieve for her much as I wish I did. If I didn't want to share her fate, I had to focus on escaping. Pulling out the metal impaling my leg, I continued to search for an escape pod. I knew one had to be nearby - I just needed to find it.
That was when I found him. Fallen against the wall of a building and forgotten by his fellow Decepticons, the Decepticons he dreamed so highly of ruling over, was Starscream. His left arm, leg, and wing were gone, and that side of his torso was scorched. I thought it sad at first, that someone with such spirit and ambition was simply cast aside and forgotten entirely, that the Decepticons had not at least given him a proper farewell. He had served them diligently for millions of years - he deserved better than to be forgotten like an obsolete part.
It was during that brief reverie that I noticed he wasn't dead.
I'm not sure exactly what clued me in. I think I saw his damaged side spark or maybe his hand twitch. Whatever it was, it caught my attention, and I limped to his side to make sure I wasn't imagining things. He was, indeed, still alive, but he was deep in stasis - a coma, I think humans would have called it. It didn't take me even an astrosecond to decide what to do - Arcee was dead, Starscream was not, and enemy or not, I was not going to leave him to be finished off by the awful thing tearing into the planet, not when I was so close to an escape.
His smaller body folded into my arms easily, especially with two appendages and a wing missing, and I was able to carry him without difficulty despite my injured leg. Another horrific tremor rocked the planet, and I had not the courage to look back for the cause, running as fast as I could to the evacuation pod once I found it. I left Starscream on the floor, vowing to make him more comfortable if we escaped alive, and practically dove into the control seat, flipping switches as I went. We managed to escape even as the planet broke up around us and was swallowed by Unicron.
After engulfing Cybertron, Unicron then did his best to swallow every single evacuation pod littering the now empty void of space where our beloved planet once hovered. There were far more evacuees than I thought there would be, nearly a hundred pods if not more all trying to escape in every direction imaginable. I could only hope some of those who escaped Unicron's hungry jaws were my friends.
I couldn't watch. Regardless of the despair and fear I felt for my friends, I felt the controls lurch to the side as Unicron dove for us next. It took nearly a breem to escape, and its yell of frustration shook the whole ship so thoroughly, I worried for a moment that it would be shaken apart. Once the vibrations ceased, I made the ship fly at the maximum speed it was capable of, heading back to Earth.
It was en route to Earth that I became paranoid. While I was looking over Starscream and assessing his damage, Unicron's frustrated roar continued to replay in my memory, and my imagination ran wild. I began to worry about why it seemed to be so insistent on devouring every last evacuation ship despite how tiny they were comparatively, and I worried that it would hunt down those who escaped. If so, I couldn't allow it to follow me to Earth and devour that planet as well. I changed course and delved deeper into the galaxy.
Unicron didn't follow us, and only now do I realize that perhaps the last quarter of a vorn could have been different had I not allowed paranoia to dictate my actions. It was another of Primus' blessings that our ship, only meant to be used for short distances such as that from Cybertron to Earth, lasted as long as it did. Twenty Earth years, it carried me and Starscream through the galaxy, only a few times trying to break down, and the times it did, they were easily fixed. Unfortunately, by the time I finally accepted the fact that we were no longer in danger from Unicron following us ten years into our journey, we were completely lost. I couldn't even backtrack our journey at that point, so the last ten years were spent trying to find clues as to where we were in the galaxy and determine our proximity to Earth as well as sending distress calls out through the void in the hopes that one would be heard. I didn't have my hopes up even then that it would work - again, it was strictly meant for evacuations. The signal would travel through space, but it was weak and could easily be missed.
During that time, Starscream remained in stasis, and I tried to repair what I could. I'm not medically trained - the most I can do is field repairs in battle, not replace missing limbs, but I did my best with him. His life wasn't immediately in danger, so most of what I focused on was making him comfortable, tying off leaking piping and sparking cables and numbing his pain receptors. I talked to him as I worked - it's stupid, I know, but even though I knew he couldn't hear me, it made me feel better to have someone to talk to. It also helped me notice earlier that something was seriously wrong.
It started as simply a line of ash grey rimming the edges of his missing limbs, and I originally dismissed it as simply his paint job peeling from my work. It wasn't until I went to clean it at one point and the outside edge of his missing arm crumbled like dust that I realized it was something much more serious.
He was rotting right there in front of me. Machines don't rot, but I couldn't think of any other way to describe it, and without a proper medical database at my disposal, I couldn't determine its cause, what it was, or how best to fight it. I tried everything I could think of, but through the course of the first ten years when we were fleeing Unicron - the ten years before I turned around and started searching for Earth - it only got worse and worse. The necrosis swallowed what little was left of his arm and leg all the way to his shoulder and pelvic junction where it then started on the scorch marks on his side. By the time I managed to stop it, the vent on his left shoulder down to his hip was half gone, exposing a cross-section of his insides, and most of the circuitry across his back was exposed as well from where the necrosis had snaked across his back and swallowed his right wing. Only half his wing was beyond help, but the whole thing had to be removed to delay the spread of the necrosis. I had just enough spare metal to cover the gaping wound covering his back so I could at least lay him on his back without putting him in pain, but the horrific wound trailing down one whole side of his body had to remain the way it was.
His initial reaction to the loss of both wings was actually much better than I anticipated, but I knew I had bombarded him with too much information - too many shocking facts - all at once, and it was taking a while to fully sink in. I just hoped the necrosis wouldn't try to begin again as it had just before he finally awoke - there wasn't much of his body left that he could lose before his life would be in severe danger. Plus the procedure I used to stop it was extremely risky, especially now that we were exposed to the elements of this Primus forsaken planet with the proper medical facilities and containers nowhere in sight. I thought I'd killed him the last time, and I preferred to not go through that trauma again.
"Don't you Autobots know it's rude to stare?"
"I didn't know you were awake." I almost asked him how he was feeling, but I stopped myself this time. While I think I'd be just as cranky if I were in his condition, I just didn't have the energy to endure his cutting sarcasm today. Of course, Starscream was not exactly known for his good moods in the first place. Instead, I pointed out something which was beginning to concern me anyway, "You need to eat soon."
Predictably, he shook his head in defiance. I can't say I truly blamed him - I didn't like being forced to eat this disgusting, toxic energon either, but he just refused to cooperate.
"You're not going to last much longer if you don't take in energy," I insisted though I didn't say what I was going to. Every Cybertronian with a working central processor knew that shutting down only recharged so much - we needed energon to keep up our strength. He didn't need me to remind him of that. I had been fine on the ship with simply recharging every few cycles since I wasn't burning much doing other activities, but once we crashed here and I was constantly having to either hunt or otherwise fend off the snakes, I needed a steady supply. He had been fine while he was in stasis since he was not awake to burn energy, but now that he was awake, he needed to compensate.
And he hadn't eaten since he finally awoke nearly an Earth week ago.
"I'm not ingesting that vile slag," he snapped back at me. "Kill yourself with it if you like, but I'd prefer not." All I could do was sigh in response. If only I could be certain he would be safe while I scouted further for other sources of energy.
"I'll be back soon," I told him after a breem or two of silence. I took my rifle from its place beside me and stood to leave the cave to hunt more of the serpents for today's energon supply as well as to be alone for a while. Starscream wasn't any better company awake than he was in stasis. I didn't expect any different, really, but that didn't lessen the disappointment. In fact, I'm not sure what I expected.
"Take me with you."
I know I didn't expect that.
"What?" I stared at him for a moment, positive I heard wrong. He just glared at me defiantly, his red optics cutting through the dimness of the cave.
"Take me with you - maybe I'll see something else you could use," he insisted. I didn't hesitate an astrosecond to shake my head and refuse.
"No - it's entirely too dangerous. These things are fast and numerous. I need both of my hands free." I knew he wouldn't like what I was going to say next, but it needed to be said if he was going to act like that. "Having to carry you would only slow me down and probably get both of us killed. Your null ray may work, and I can understand a soldier not liking to be confined, but I don't need the distraction of trying to keep you safe."
His glare heated slightly, but he just became more insistent. "Contrary to what rumors you may have heard, Autobot-" I hated the way he spat out the faction title like it was an expletive. "-I wasn't a soldier my whole life. I lived before the war, and before I was a soldier, I was a scientist - an explorer. I've been to worlds like this before. If there's something else that can be used, I'll see it before you."
I'm not sure which surprised me more: his opening part of his past to me so willingly or the fact that he used to do something other than fight. It made me feel a little guilty as I realized that, over so many millennia of fighting, I had automatically assumed all of the Decepticons to be born killers and soldiers. Not once could I recall wondering what any of them may have been before the war. Deep down, I knew I knew better than to make such prejudicial assumptions, but I had those prejudices regardless. I too was something other than a soldier once, so it should not have surprised me so much that he used to be a scientist.
But I've been a soldier too long, and a soldier's mindset dies hard.
"I still can't risk it," I finally told him, ignoring how he seemed to crackle with anger at being denied. "If you were in better shape, maybe, but I'm responsible for you now. I wouldn't risk any of the Autobots in such a way either."
"Prime!" he yelled at my back when I turned to leave again.
"Optimus," I corrected him shortly. "I'm not Prime anymore, so you may as well quit calling me that." I certainly didn't feel like I deserved the title anymore, and I no longer had the Matrix of Leadership. That was, hopefully, still in Ultra Magnus' capable hands on Earth.
"Prime!"
I ignored his enraged shrieks and rolled the boulder back into place, leaving just enough space to allow him some light. I didn't want my paranoia to cause him to injure himself again as it had that first time after he awoke.
I had to admit I was very curious as to how the dark could cause such an intense panic attack in one so normally sure of himself as Starscream, but at the same time, I knew it was more than likely a touchy subject, not one he would delve into readily. Not to me, anyway. I shook my head, deciding to not worry about him for now and focus on the task at hand.
The skeleton of the ship wasn't far away, stripped down to the bare wires and metal frame. The snakes were most numerous there since they were still working on what little was left of the ship, so that was my destination. The rock underfoot crushed and sent up a cloud of rusty dust with every step I took. The planet's suns shined painfully down on me, gleaming off my chassis so brightly I had to dim my working optic to keep the brightness from hurting. It was still only bearable, but I needed to be able to see the snakes when I found them.
It takes a lot to get me to truly dislike something, and I hated this planet. I had to swerve for the colorful one on my inadequate charts, didn't I? Upon crashing, I sent out one final distress beacon through the void of space. I used every last drop of energy to make the signal dozens of times stronger than all the previous attempts in the hopes that it would carry through the void and finally be heard.
In hindsight, I should have used some of the remaining energy to convert into energon cubes, but I had no idea how difficult it would be to find usable sources of energy here, and I didn't have time to experiment before the serpents began eating the ship. We had been crashed for little over a cycle before the foul creatures appeared, chewing holes through the hull effortlessly. I barely had time to grab the energon converter and Starscream before the snakes began chewing on my feet. I had several attached to my ankles by the time I was able to escape and make my way up the cliffs where the snakes had more trouble following me. Those clamped onto me were already dead by then, but I was in too much of a rush to get away to shake them loose, and it's just as well that I did. It was after we had settled into the cave that I experimented with them and discovered I could make energon with their blood and organs thanks to a chemical in the snakes' bodies.
Contrary to what Starscream probably believed, I knew it was toxic as soon as I made the first cube. It was because of that fact that I avoided eating it for entirely too long - I was nearly deactivated from lack of energy dozens of orns after the crash because I didn't want to eat poison, but I knew I had to if we were both to survive this ordeal. The best I could do to counteract the toxins was to try to force it through my filters when I ate and then clean off the filters in the tiny stream nearby during one of my hunts.
I flinched and shot down at my feet when a painful bite tore me from my thoughts. This was close enough to the wreckage if the snakes slithering my way were any indication. I only needed a few, but I knew I was going to have to kill many more than that before I could escape again.
I really hated this planet.
