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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.
1
"Starscream," he says, as if his second has just walked in from the mission he sent him on a week ago, instead of having spent several days unconscious in the med bay. It's clear from his voice that while Megatron isn't necessarily disappointed yet, but he is very, very prepared to be.
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For once, he is completely speechless, internally struggling against a cacophony of emotions. He's glad to be rescued rather than left for scrap, of course, but Megatron's presence is not a comforting one; rather, it aggravates Starscream even further. He's not sure if he's delighted to see Megatron, to report the success of his mission, or furious that (as far as his opinion was concerned) it was Megatron's fault he was captured in the first place. The fight with Baelheit's lackey seems like a million years ago now, a distant memory, but the humiliating sting of being locked in a cage underground for four days was just a little too fresh.
Ultimately he has to settle for falling back on the berth with a loud groan, palming his face and holding back all the vicious, snide remarks he really wants to make in response.
"I don't suppose you could show up a little more quickly next time."
Okay not all of them.
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"Oh it wasn't for a lack of trying, you see I was dealing with a rather serious handicap--" he wiggles the stump of his arm pointedly. "Thank you for that, by the way, it made protecting Pax a delightful challenge."
He didn't know what was driving him so directly disrespectful to an already clearly displeased Megatron. He certainly wasn't expecting sympathy or compassion. He was just too worn down and busted up to really give a damn, he supposed.
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""I'm not sure why you're thanking me for that setback, Starscream – I'm quite certain that the last time I saw you I left you with all your limbs intact," he says, in the kind of way that suggests he would really have rather liked to have been able to pull Starscream's arm off.
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He tilts his head center once more, squinting pinching at his optics. "Do you have business or are you just here to mock me? Since I'm assuming you haven't come here to wish me a speedy recovery."
There was an odd, unintended bitterness in his voice. He didn't usually give a damn either way about the lack of sympathy in their relationship, but this time... whatever the reason for it, it made him feel disgustingly vulnerable.
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"I would hardly wait at your sickbed just to mock you, Starscream; not all of us are quite so petty. No – I have been eager to inquire after the results of your mission, to retrieve the formula for synthetic energon." His eyes narrow, clearly expecting to hear that Starscream failed. "Although I can't help but wonder, as well... if it wasn't your captors who took your arm, how it was exactly that you lost it."
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He couldn't even bring himself to gloat about his success. He couldn't even bring himself to lie about his mistakes at this point. There was just no reason to, since Megatron would likely find out sooner or later. "The human girl... she was quite a bit more powerful than we anticipated. I'll leave the gory details to your imagination. At any rate that was the only thing of value she seemed to have on her at the time and she was very distraught when I took it, so I can only assume that it contains our prize."
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"Hm," he says, holding up the drive between the clawtips of one finger and thumb. "Excellent work, Starscream. As you are no doubt aware, we need this formula more than ever... Hopefully this is the genuine article, and not some manner of ruse." He means by Baelheit, of course, but...
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It was astoundingly easy to assuage Starscream's ego.
Unfortunately, fixing the damage done by the (in his opinion) utter humiliation he had experienced in the past week is not so easily accomplished, so the relief he feels is somewhat fleeting.
"If it turns out to be a ruse I will personally hunt him down and claw his eyeballs out until he relents and tells us the true location of the information we seek. I'd welcome the opportunity," he hisses on the last note, eyes narrowing dangerously. He still looks troubled, but there's at least more of the familiar old Starscream resurfacing, if only for a moment.
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His attention is drawn back to the stump dangling uselessly from Starscream's shoulder. "I take it you were unable to retrieve the remains of your arm..."
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He gestures with his other hand at the stump. "I'm sure you can tell, but what you see here isn't even part of the original... the girl tore that off right at the shoulder joint. This is some horrible excuse for an appendage that abomination back at the cave stuck on me." He seems to start seething at the mere memory of that. "So if we could get that taken off as soon as possible, I'd be rather grateful."
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"Of course. Give the coordinates to Breakdown so he can retrieve the limb while Knock Out works on detaching this... unfortunate substitute."
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Really what Starscream is experiencing is a bout of actual self-pity, the likes of which he has never felt before. Or at least, this was the first time he was consciously acknowledging it rather than expressing it outwardly by turning to anger and taking that out on others. Starscream is not adept at handling his emotions like a proper adult though, so rather than dwell on it he rapidly tries to change the subject to focus on something else more physically tangible that has been bothering him.
"Where is Pax...? I can't help but notice he isn't present here... I thought for sure he'd be laid out in here as well."
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He doesn't say anything else.
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There's a scrape of metal on metal as he sits up to face Megatron more directly. "What do you mean he has yet to be located?" Starscream growls quietly, wings tucking back in an involuntary display of alarm momentarily, before they flare out once more as he gestures angrily with his one arm. "We were taken to the same facility, he was there the whole time I was!"
If Orion Pax was still missing, it meant that everything Starscream had suffered through had been truly pointless.
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"Evidently not," he replies curtly. "The facility's other locations were also demolished, but there has been no sign of Orion, we have been unable to track his signal, and we have received no contact from him. If he still lives, he is likely in captivity."
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"He mentioned something at one point, that the creature had been using him to transport items between certain locations. I had assumed he meant specific drop points, but if what he actually meant was the other full bases..."
He stares dully at his remaining hand. "I'd start with piecing together likely routes on the human highways between all of the bases, and investigate for signs of his abduction there. If he hasn't gone off and starved to death somewhere."
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"Good," he says after a moment's consideration, although he doesn't sound particularly optimistic. "I will resume the search with that in mind." A brief pause, during which Megatron contemplates trying to get to the bottom of what exactly has Starscream so unusually listless and morose, and decides firmly against it. "After Knock Out has seen to your arm I expect your assistance in this task."
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