Life always empty, but I will never change [OPEN]
WHO: Starscream, [OPEN] To all! He's taking visitors.
WHAT: Starscream faces down the idea of being one of the first Decepticons to suffer a slow death, rather than a quick blaze of glory. He's waiting his last few days.
WHERE: Starscream's apartment.
WHEN: All day today and tomorrow.
WARNINGS/NOTES: Soundtrack start.
( I wouldn't want to live like this forever. But change myself? Never, never!
The very thought sends shivers down my spine. I'm sure everything, everything will be fine... )
WHAT: Starscream faces down the idea of being one of the first Decepticons to suffer a slow death, rather than a quick blaze of glory. He's waiting his last few days.
WHERE: Starscream's apartment.
WHEN: All day today and tomorrow.
WARNINGS/NOTES: Soundtrack start.
( I wouldn't want to live like this forever. But change myself? Never, never!
The very thought sends shivers down my spine. I'm sure everything, everything will be fine... )
She does find it distressing that any of them may fade in this manner. She'd seen it before, when she'd found Starscream's gray shell on the street in Detroit. That had been a rather short time before she found herself in Axiom Nexus. Something around six lunar cycles have passed - depending on the calendar in use - but it isn't like she's forgot! She hadn't cared then, either, except, maybe it had distressed her that the Cyber-ninjas hadn't faced Starscream in combat, but just...accidentally caused him to offline. It- this isn't the way a Decepticon is supposed to go!
The whole thing does bother ( ... )
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He takes a moment to answer, his voice a low grinding scrape now.
"I've been this way since I came here." He takes a klik to cycle some air through his vents. His seeming placidity is a sharp contrast to her agitation.
"I don't know what they did to me. I tried... examining myself when I had the time, but nothing that I can comprehend. Not the details anyway."
Another long pause.
"I survive much like a xenomorph- what humans call insects..." He admits.
"From my understanding. I am a bundle of programming wrapped in a shell."
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"But you must have made some plan!" She doesn't allow Starscream time to answer, not immediately, but goes on, nearly at a rant. Her vocalizations and her steps rapid, the flaps on her wings flick back and forth in agitation. "You examined yourself. There was time. You must have a plan. You haven't trusted me in this short time to tell me, of course. But there must be one. A pass out of the Offworlder Zones, or a lead on some artifact that's been smuggled in...."
She looks, finally, at Starscream, standing still as she waits for an answer.
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Position. To be trapped in this way. The way she rants at him. It's everything he went over with himself, only concentrated into one sentence.
"There is no plan." He's run out of time.
"The only... possibility is to take a fragment. From one of you." He says flatly.
"I wanted to avoid it, and now I am too weak to offline one of you." he's very plain, as if he's not talking about ripping the life out of one of them to save himself. He knows Slipstream will understand his logic. She is a part of him, after all. He means no offense. It is simply a Decepticon way.
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She doesn't dare show weakness now, by stepping away, not that she believes Starscream has the strength to come after her. But, she quietly scans for the engineer or others who might be motivated to aid him.
"That doesn't always mean strongest," She trills uneasy laughter. "Could mean the craftiest, or most manipulative, or the one with the most useful allies...." Starscream being most of these things.
She probably should have realized this contingency plan. She probably would have, in time. Dirge would have thought of it faster.
"Soooo, who's it to be? Is it Skywarp?"
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Dirge would have to take the fall. Though Starscream doubted he would give in. Not without a fight.
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Slipstream turns, keeping one optic on Starscream, but not looking at his weakened frame, directly. "He's not going to just give it up."
Starscream says he has no plan, yet, this dire contingency is a plan. A last resort, but still one path he's left himself. At least she can feel better that her estimation wasn't so far off.
"If you are the one who offlines," she says, laughing humorlessly, "I'll commission Toph to make you a suitable memorial marker. And if it's one of the others...well, you all look the same."
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"I know he's not. I'd have to get someone to do it for me." He says, folding his claws over the glass of his cockpit.
"Relying on the good will of my clones is a rather faulted expectation." He admits, "Especially Dirge. He is. My very base... the id, as humans might call it."
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Of course, Starscream has these things. He knows when to bow or retreat or lie to avoid punishment, how to survive to fight another solar.
Slipstream straightens and takes a step back. "You are an idiot, and a pretty poor leader, but it's not like it would be advantageous for you to deactivate."
The only way it might be an advantage, is if another defeats him when he is at full strength, to improve their own status in the faction. He's hardly at full strength now. Dirge is, though, which means some bot might maintain or improve their status taking his fragment, as well as ingratiating themselves to Starscream.
"You realize if you let someone take-out Dirge for you, you'd be indebted to them?"
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"Maybe. Depending on who did it." He rests comfortably again, turning his head to look at the window.
"Then again... what's the point?" The erstwhile Air Commander sighs.
"My existence. I wonder."
He looks at her, his foil.
"You are a piece of me. Tell me. Am I worth saving?" He knows what he wants to hear. What he would tell himself.
But now is the time for the brave questions.
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Slipstream crouches beside Starscream. "You want me to tell you a secret?" she asks, somewhat amused, despite the dire circumstances. "Something for you to take to the grave, as it were?" she suspects some kind of smelting or recycling will be more accurate than grave, but she's picked-up a lot of Earth sayings.
She continues anyway, assuming the answer is yes. Starscream had asked about saving. She doesn't usually tell her secrets, but Starscream's one bot she doesn't mind hearing this.
"I asked myself that exact question, before, when I found your gray shell on the street in Detroit."
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"And what was your answer, Slipstream? You. Are the most like me. You got all of my assets, unlike your brothers. When you remove my vices, are you truly better?"
A question he asks more of himself than her.
"Or is that a weakness?"
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It occurs to her, after she answers, that such a straight-forward answer, coming from her, is probably an obvious lie, but maybe, in his failing state, Starscream will choose to believe it.
"I was sure I'd regret it, though!"
She's starting to doubt there's even time to save him, now.
"Let's say, that we all have potential to be better, given opportunity."
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Nice, fake, comforting words.
"Yes... better." He echoes.
Opportunity he won't have. Unless the Transtechs see fit to reanimate him again... and then the cycle would begin anew.
Not a concept he likes.
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Commander Starscream.
That alone is a nice comfort to have right now. Something of an accomplishment.
"You know. All that sort of final-wishes stuff." He tries to sound dismissive.
"Just... yeah." There's not much to say.
He knows the financial side of things will be taken care of anyways.
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