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capitalh2014-05-12 01:46 pm
WHAT YEAR IS IT!?!?
Where: Variable, the Decepticon Base and the Mojave/California wilderness generally.
When: March 18th and beyond.
What: Starscream wakes up from his visit to Scary Jail and has a lot of personal bullshit on top of probably a pretty angry boss to deal with. Then he goes energon scouting. Reluctantly.
Warnings: Some medical talk in the setup, discussion of SCARY JAIL TORTURE, probably some gay. Okay definitely some gay.
[Options 1 and 2, CLOSED TO THOSE WHO COULD FEASIBLY BE AT THE 'CON BASE]
It's a few days before he regains proper consciousness.
Starscream’s last encounter with the AI and put him completely down for the count. He failed to escape, of course. It hadn’t been for a lack of trying, in fact he had come painfully close on his last try, but then he got caught and at that point he just didn’t have the energy left in him to put up enough of a fight. He’d gotten another good zap and then his internals went into automatic shutdown, an involuntary emergency defense mechanism designed to divert all of his remaining energon to prolonging the life of his spark for as long as possible.
Help did finally come, as he had predicted before passing out from Energon depletion, but he certainly wasn’t awake to witness it. Fortunately it came from (relatively) friendly forces and not humans as he had feared and Orion Pax had suggested. So he’d been carted back to the Decepticon base, completely dead to the world.
When it came down to it, his symptoms were fairly straight forward. Energon starvation was easy enough to fix; a few transfusions and he would be back up to acceptable levels, though their limited resources meant that he was only just hovering above what was strictly necessary. Starscream has a vague recollection of hazily waking up a few times, confused and enraged and swatting weakly with his one good arm, desperate to get his claws on what he assumed to be the antagonizing AI, but those moments were few and far between and he can’t even remember what put him back out again. The real problem was the implant; it hadn’t taken long to locate and remove, of course, but the procedure had required him to preferably be unconscious, so perhaps it was a blessing he was in such a bad way.
Once the offending piece had been removed though and he was no longer starving to death, it is only another 12 hours or so before he opens his optics for what feels like the first time in ages. It’s slow coming at first, and then the situation hits him with a sudden, startling clarity.
He bolts upright, snarling and digging his talons into the berth he is laid out on, optics wide with panic.
----
[HERE'S OPTION 2]
It doesn’t take Starscream long to get up and moving around after that. What’s notable is the manner in which he seems to be skulking around the ship. It’s not in his usual, scheming, swaggering kind of skulking. He seems almost dejected, likely troubled by the thorough ass kicking and pathetic state in which he was retrieved in. Of course he’s not going to admit any of this out loud, because he’s an emotionally constipated piece of shit, but it’s easy enough to infer. Beyond that he just seems to be in a particularly foul mood, and oddly unwilling to go back outside the relative safety of the ship unless directly ordered to do so.
----
Sometimes he has to go outside though; without a complete formula there’s still naturally occurring energon that needs to be gathered and recon to be done. Those who know what they’re looking for might spot a fighter jet zipping around where it doesn’t belong. He’s carefully cloaked from showing up as an obvious threat on scanners, but those with the know-how can easily tell that he is at least Cybertronian, and can therefore potentially engage him. Those without the know-how might be lucky enough to catch him in robot mode, digging around in the wilderness (desert, forest, whatever floats your boat) for supplies to bring back to the Decepticon base.
3
Staying quiet and out of sight, Airachnid continues watching him. She considers approaching him, too. On one hand, she doesn't know if there are any other Decepticon forces on the planet that Starscream might call for assistance, should he feel the need to. On the other, he might have supplies she can take. She loves taking supplies from others.
The possibility of supplies and the certainty of information convince her. She steps out into the open, towards Starscream. Her gait is still affected by the incident with Matilda and the tree, despite her best efforts to patch herself up, but she walks slowly, as if she is just taking her time, to try to cover it. "Starscream," she calls out. "It's so nice to see you again."
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He whips around as soon as she speaks up, openly startled by her appearance and immediately on the defensive with his blasters cycled out. The fact that she had been able to sneak up on him at all is impressive, considering he has been on extra high guard as of late thanks to recent events.
His eyes widen in surprise once he identifies her, but he doesn't even remotely relax. Airachnid is a wildcard, completely unpredictable; he's smart enough to know not to take her lightly. "Airachnid," he says carefully, keeping his tone civil. "How... unexpected. Fancy running into you on a hunk of rock like this..."
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"I could say the same for you, Commander." There's just the slightest hint in her voice indicating that she couldn't care less about the title, and not just because she's unaffiliated. "It is still 'Commander,' isn't it?" It's an earnest question; her immediate plans will vary based on his situation. She doesn't mind if he takes it as a bit of a jab, though.
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"I''ll admit I find myself rather curious... Perhaps you'll have the chance to discuss the details further once we're back at the warship. After you've been to see Megatron first, of course." Probably safer to defer to the big guy's judgement on this one, loathe as he is to admit that.
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"I must say, though: I'm surprised to learn that Megatron is here. How many of you are there?" She tries to keep the displeasure out of her voice. A Decepticon presence on this planet makes her task all the more difficult, but she might as well see if she can get some information.
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She watches his blasters and tries very hard not to smile.
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He pulls up his internal comm systems to call back to the ship, carefully keeping both blasters trained on Airachnid. "Lord Megatron, do you read me? You will never guess who I just ran into. And no, it's not Orion this time." silence drags on for a moment, Starscream's jaw remains set in concentration. "Lord Megatron? ....Knock Out...?" Nothing. "Is ANYONE there? Hello!?" The seeker vents with an exasperated roll of the optics. "What is the MEANING of this--?"
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So, without any warning, he looses a shot at her to cover his ass while he transforms and tries to fly off.
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Determined as ever though, he still fires off two rockets directly at her from his rather undignified, upside down position, hoping to keep her at bay until he can get back on his feet.
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She just barely evades the rockets, which whiz by her feet as she dodges. Thankfully, the direction of the leap finds her landing on her good side. As she regains her bearings, she becomes keenly aware that Starscream may be one step closer to escaping. She shoots another web in his direction and scrabbles to get up in case he attacks again.
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He does a ferocious amount of tugging, firing off both blasters repeatedly in the hopes of preventing her from sending another blast in his direction before he can free himself from the first.
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She sticks her head and arms out into the open, despite the blasts coming her way, and shoots two more webs. This time, she aims specifically for Starscream's free arm and torso.
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He struggles frantically, trying to at least free his claws enough to start hacking at the web because like hell he's going to let himself get stuck like this, but even moving his wrists is proving to be a challenge. What is this stuff made of, anyway?!
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"You'll freeze if you know what's good for you," she says. She stops a few feet in front of him and lets her blasters charge up a little. "We can do this the easy way, Commander, or we can do this the hard way."
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"You'll have to forgive me, but I honestly have no idea what the "this" you are referring to could possibly be," he says in a level tone, the corners of his mouth twitching. He does freeze (reluctantly), and stops working at the webs, but what she can't possibly see are the internal self diagnostics he's running to at least get a text message out to the other Decepticons...
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"Oh? And what could you possibly need information like that for, if you have no intention of returning to us?" He squirms a bit, flexing his claws under the web. "Come now Airachnid, you can't expect me to share such sensitive information without some sort of gesture of good faith?" he holds a polite little smile on his face, dodging the question while still, he hoped, managing to convey a willingness to cooperate.