Title: Come Closer (Part 1)
Fandom: Transformers
Continuity: AU loosely G1-based
Genre: Angst, Drama, Family
Rating: M (for safety)
Overall warnings: OCs, unnamed characters, lots of italics, OOC-ness, implied slash, violence, character death
Summary: Years after the Great War’s end a creator must decide Cybertron’s fate, a youngling wonders whether or not to open the gate, and a monster lies in wait.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of the Transformers franchise.
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BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
Amongst the haze of bad recharging and unending anxiety, Starscream moaned painfully as he slowly sat up from the hard berth he lay on, sweeping his dulling red optics over to the loud spark monitor that had kept him up many months as his youngest Seekerlet, a tiny sparkling with dark armor and pale faceplates fought for his short life, his emerald optics tuned so far down they seemed almost completely offline, a thought that had wracked Starscream to his very spark. After countless of Cybertron's best doctors and medics had watched over the dying sparkling, repeating over and over again that the survival of the newspark was almost impossible, Starscream had been reduced to a complete mess, berth ridden will worry. The thought of his youngest sparkling being able to die at any second was something that had been hard to swallow at first, but as it sank in, so did the void in Starscream's spark.
"Please...don't give up. Ever. I gave up everything for you...and I have no other route...you must survive..." The months were passing by slowly, and still the Seeklet was not strong enough to survive without the machines plugged into his systems. He could barely squeak when he wanted his creator's attention. The poor thing didn't even have a name yet, Starscream's attention completely consumed by the sinkhole of desperation to find the doctor that could heal the tiny Seekerlet.
If the War was still going, and if Starscream still followed the old Decepticon ways, the Seeklet would be considered a lost cause and not worth all this expensive care. Instead, it hurt the older Seeker to know how fragile and helpless his son was. It hurt even worse when every day, the insensitive mechs and femmes, seemingly unaware of the depression and spark hurt of Starscream seeing his creation perishing right before him, would ask that horrid question: 'Why not pull the plug?'
Admittedly, it may be considered a mercy to end the Seeklet's constant struggles, but Starscream could not and would not let his creation die. Too much has been lost to give up now. Like his el- No. He couldn't think about that loss right now. Not yet.
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When he onlined his optics for the first time, there was a bright light that nearly blinded him, almost plunging him once again into the void of blackness he had gotten used to. Thankfully, the light faded as quickly as it had appeared as he began to take in his surroundings. Everything around him looked large and distorted, too large almost. One such large, distorted object, an imposing blur came closer and reached for him with wide open servos. He squirmed once in panic as he was closed within its grasp, lifted high into the air until he was held close against the body of the huge object. The warmth radiating from the obscured object somehow soothed him, despite the alarm bells in his mind trying to resist, and he stopped his struggling. His vision soon cleared and he was finally able to clearly see the being that held him. The large one had large sheets of metal protruding from his back and a dark face with crimson optics that looked upon the little one, himself, with a kindly look on its faceplate.
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"You're finally coming home, Nimbus," Starscream murmured to his creation, relief and happiness evident in his voice, a bittersweet joy flooding his ravaged systems. "Everything is finally going to be okay."
The newly named Nimbus only cooed quietly at his creator's words, taking solace in the soft Vosian words spoken by his creator.
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Starscream stroked Nimbus's metallic cheek as the little one recharged in the nursery with his older brother for the first time. It hadn't taken much effort to get the Seeklet to enter recharge as Nimbus was less fussy than his eldest brother had been years ago. The elder Seeker sighed wistfully in remembrance of those long nights and turned to leave his two smallest younglings with their dreams when he froze. Vivid colors began splashing around in his viewpoint, shaping and recolouring the world immediately around him as he felt a strong dizziness pull him to the ground and further down into unconsciousness.
Starscream was no longer in the sky blue room containing his creations when he awoke, instead finding himself standing in the middle of city, one resembling the pristine classy sheen of Iacon. In fact, without further analysis of minor differences such as inhabitants and buildings, the Seeker would've merely dismissed this city as Iacon. But, almost instantly, Starscream saw a major disparity between this city and the capital of Cybertron. A major disparity.
There was no one in this town!
"Hello?" As soon as he Seeker uttered the phrase, multiple screaming mechs and femmes, along with burning and destroyed objects began materializing out of nowhere in a mist, most of the mysterious bots yelling and running past him, even through him somehow, all desperate to escape the growing flames which leapt and licked at their backs, growing tall as they fed on the crumbling buildings and twisted frames of the bots that had failed to escape the rapidly approaching inferno. so desperate that family members and companions that had fallen were quickly abandoned and were soon trampled upon by the hysterical masses. Everything was happening so fast that Starscream didn't even have time to understand the magnitude of the hysteria breaking around him in his unfamiliar situation as it grew both in intensity and volume. The ground beneath the Seeker began to shake and Starscream soon realized that the Cybertronians weren't just trying to get away from the fires. Crawling out of large cracks in the earth were monsters of various shapes and sizes, some adorned with long blades and proper weapons, others with just their natural weapons such as huge claws and body spikes. Some took to the skies and began snatching civilians as they fled, flying high up in the sky to feast on their catch. The monsters would tear the limbs off of their live captives, their screams a macabre melody accompanying the rain of Energon spewing from their torn apart shells, covering the screeching masses on the ground. Starscream could see the horrific creatures sink their huge fangs deep into their screaming victims, tearing out internal mechanisms and sparks, which were instantly swallowed up into the void of their insect-like mouthpieces. Starscream winced every time a scream was emitted by a victim of the weird monsters, flinching and shuddering violently. It was not just the air assault that shocked him. All around him, the land hunters were at full force chasing the grounded victims down, immediately slicing deep into their chassis with their serrated claws and fangs to spill the precious Energon from their delicate fuel lines. The landscape, in a matter of minutes, had transformed into a fire-ravaged wasteland, covered in huge spatters of Energon and scrap metal. The attackers continue to hack away at the innocent victims, roaring and snarling in sick glee. Starscream's attention was again captured, this time by a flying monster suddenly swooping down, snatching a crying mechling from his creator's grasp, eliciting sparks and long claw marks as it's talons sunk effortlessly into the soft metal of the doomed sparkling. The mechling struggled to get free, but the monster's hold was too strong for it, tenfold almost of the bitlet's own. Unlike its brethren, the monster did not immediately kill the mechling, instead flying to a crowd of its flightless counterparts. They quickly took notice of the mechling in the flyer's arms and were sent into frenzy, claws and teeth, armour and limbs smashing into each other in their frantic death dance, closely resembling the slashing and grinding of a refuse processor. The flyer smirked with a purely demonic quality and lets it's talons go slack, dropping the mechling into the awaiting claws and fangs of the mob. Starscream turned away from the mechling's screams, almost lost in the clashing and slashing of the feral monster flock. It was a horrifying sight. Not even during the height of the Great War were soldiers so vicious toward the enemy forces during battle, much less fleeing civilians. While this massacre continued, Starscream found that he couldn't move from where he stood. He panicked, thinking at any moment one of the creatures would notice his presence and end his miserable life in a flash. However, it never happened. It was as if the creatures couldn't see him. Was he a ghost? Starscream didn't understand how that was possible, but he was relieved for the safeguard to his life nonetheless.
This was all before a voice, loud and clear, cried out encouraging the creatures to keep going, to keep viciously destroying all that they saw. Starscream saw the owner of the powerful bass voice as the mech stepped into his view and to say the Seeker was shocked would have been a grave understatement. The voice did not belong to one of the monsters, but to a mech, and not even a menacing looking one at that. The mech was a newly full-grown Seeker, lithe and a tad small in stature, which seemed out of place with the savage creatures. What had shocked the elder Seeker, however, was the rare color of the mech's optics. They were emerald green.
"Just like Nimbus..." Starscream whispered in disbelief. The veridian optics scanned the area with pinpoint precision, looking for any hiding civilians. They lit up once as movement was detected. Moving quickly, the mech plunged his servos into a pile of rubble and yanked out an older grounder, frame rusted and battered. The grounder begged for mercy, but the young mech would not listen. He violently threw the old mech to the ground and remorselessly crushed the grounder's spark with his sharp claws, plunging them deep into the struggling mech's chest and releasing a torrent of escaping Energon, splashing both frames the color of death. Starscream could only shiver as the mech of death once again looked around the destruction, his optics suddenly focused on a single target. Straight ahead, right into Starscream.
He stalked closer to his frozen prey, his long, sharp claws glistening from the fresh energon coating them from his previous kill, the pink liquid leaving a macabre trail. The energonlust was evident in his steely optics and an all-too-familiar smirk graced his face, one that many had seen on Starscream's own face during the War. His servo rose up, with razor claws fully bared, ready to strike down the elder Seeker.
"Farewell Creator," the mech sneered.
His claws went straight for Starscream's spark chamber, darkness and pain washing over the targeted Seeker.
Starscream was gasping as his vents struggled to intake cool air to fan his overheating systems. His servos were shaking as he looked at his surroundings. The sky blue walls, the colorful toys, and the small white cribs; he was somehow back in the nursery. He quickly looked inside both cribs and found his creations still recharging peacefully, not a trace of stress on their faceplates. It was as if he had never left the room...of course. It had all been a horrible, terrible dream. Starscream vigorously shook his helm. Of course he hadn't left! A dream! Just a dream, the Seeker told himself
But what he had seen... It had all seemed so real...
No, it couldn't have been real. He was just exhausted. Yes, that was it. He hadn't had a decent recharge in months and his processor was starting to slip because of it. Starscream left the nursery and headed back to his room, hoping this would be the first and last time he saw anything like that delusion.
How wrong was he.
TBC...
