Polar Opposites [G1, slash]
Title: Polar Opposites
Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. All publicly recognizable characters are copyrighted to Hasbro, and the respective artists/writers/et cetera. No infringement intended.
Summary: A Fire In The Sky extra scene, sidled in sideways.
Continuity: Generation One (G1) cartoon-verse
Characters: Starscream, Skyfire
Warnings: Slash.
Author's Note: What prompted me, really, to do this was the sheer absurdity of it all. Screamer, as any G1 fan knows, is a liar, a backstabber, and an all-around schemer. I thought it extremely odd that he be so very offended and hurt by Skyfire's betrayal when he himself did so more times than I care to count. Case and point: Plot bunny.
... I need sleep.
--
Skyfire grunted as the smaller jet hit him full force, armor bending inwards under the high-speed collision. The two went spinning off course, trajectory mangled, to land together over the icy peak, impacting the snow banks in a spray of white. Starscream reacted the swiftest, having had more comabt experience, transforming as he tumbled to land awkwardly on both feet and one hand, backsliding in the snow. Skyfire, meanwhile, ricocheted off a jutting slab of ice, coming to rest on his back in his shuttle mode.
Blearily, he registered the Decepticon straightening, wings mantled. “Traitor!” Starscream spat the word as a curse, leveling a null ray gun at the supine spacecraft.
Before the disbelief that his once-upon-a-time-partner was leveling a firearm at roughly where his laser core was located could stop him, Skyfire reacted, transforming and rolling away at the same moment the laser beams sizzled through the impression left in his wake.
He stumbled minutely, whirling about to face the warrior dead on, arms out in a vague grappling crouch. “Starscream, please, listen to me,” The shuttle pleaded weakly, trying to reason with his emotional friend. “I didn’t-” He was forced to break off the evidently unwanted explanation as Starscream fired again, grazing the sensitive area just beneath his shoulder joints.
The Seeker continued the bombardment, fervent loathing blazed from his feverishly bright optics, his mouth twisted in a line of hate. “Die!” He screeched, beyond the point of rationalization.
Seeing his only available option, detest it though he might, Skyfire acted, barreling forward. His body jerked and spasmed with each shot fired, yet he continued inexorably onward, lunging forward to tackle the lunatic Air Commander to the snow.
He had to give him credit; Starscream went down swinging. Millennia of war had sharpened the Seeker’s instincts far beyond what Skyfire, an irenical by nature, could fathom.
Starscream contorted himself as he fell, pulling both feet to his chest so his thrusters point upward. Activating the impromptu weapons, the Decepticon put the full force of twin afterburners to work, warping the smooth white chest plate by sheer heat.
Skyfire recoiled in unexpected agony, a cry welling up in his vocalizer. “Ah-!”
Seeing his opportunity, Starscream heaved up with both feet, launching his nemesis over him, using the larger mechanism’s own momentum against him.
It was over in a matter of astroseconds. The Seeker scrambled upright, dropping back in an automated defensive crouch, null rays fully charged. Several meters away, Skyfire laboriously pulled his upper body out of the snow he had unceremoniously been flung into, feeling some of the icy liquid drain down his throat. The cold, thankfully, soothed the burning on his chest, re-hardening the scorched metal, though it made it all the more brittle.
“Get up,” The Air Commander hissed, voice low.
Skyfire looked up at him slowly, blankly. His spark wrenched in upon itself, pained by what he perceived. This was not the Starscream he knew. One moment, it had been his close friend, his confidant, his… partner - the next, some other entity entirely.
Despair overtook him. He did not understand this abrupt change that had overtaken his fellow scientist. This being was cruel; a thing without remorse, willing to kill for whatever whimsy struck him. Willing to backstab and claw his way to power over the deactivated husks of his own leader.
… Willing to destroy the one who had almost been his bondmate.
Seeing that Skyfire was not going to comply, the Seeker straightened, bristling. “I said get up!” he shouted, hands clenching and unclenching sporadically.
Skyfire flinched at the demand, lowering his head again. The astroseconds ticked by, tense, as he waited expectantly for the burn of laser fire to bite into him, in sharp contrast to the dreadfully familiar cold seeping in through his sensors. He clicked his optics offline once more, outwardly composed as his spark writhed at the prospect before him.
Why? He wailed, internally railing against his fate. Why is this happening? It wasn’t supposed to be like this!
At first, when freed from the ice that had been his tomb, he had been bewildered, lost in his own mind from the shock to his system. Distantly, he had heard Starscream’s voice - and had moved toward the sound, though he did not understand the words. Elation had welled up inside of him; his partner had found him, rescued him from the cold and the dark, and everything was going to be okay. He was safe. Then… others had spoken, new voices surfacing as he drew nearer to cognizance. The next joor had been a maelstrom of perplexing and clashing realities, the present thrown in sharp conflict to the time frame he had known. But Starscream was there, to guide him in the new world, just as he used to be. A new alternate mode, a little harsher, more aloof - but still the Starscream he had known, he was certain.
… How much things had changed. He hadn’t even been able to process it, to comprehend the sheer amount of time between them. And now… now it was too late.
He registered the sound of movement, the steady crunch of footsteps in the snow. “Get up, defector. Face me on your feet,” Starscream commanded imperiously, kicking the scientist ruthlessly to punctuate the order.
The despondent shuttle had no doubt that, should he rise as directed, Starscream would kill him. It was the Seeker’s intent, as he had made patently obvious.
Perhaps I should, came the bleak thought, out of the darkness that had become so familiar in the ice. I can rise up and leave this horrible new world. I’m not meant to be a part of this. Feeling vaguely detached, he again turned on his optical units, tilting his head so he could take in the familiar form of his executioner.
Starscream glowered down at him, stark and arresting against the monotonous white expanse around him, face contorted in a foreign, malicious sneer. He looked impressive - daunting, even - as he loomed above, quite the harbinger of death.
Something in Skyfire snapped at the perfidious notion. Not like this.
“No,” The explorer rumbled, only half-aware he had spoken at all. Before Starscream could vocalize a retort, much less lash out at him again, Skyfire flung out his arm, swiping the Seeker’s legs out from under him. With a shocked squawk, the Air Commander went down, smacking earth hard on his aft.
Skyfire heaved himself atop the smaller aircraft, grabbing both of Starscream’s arms in an unwavering grasp, jamming them back against the ground. His massive hands clenched down hard, denting the metal of the seized appendages, crushing the dangerous null rays before they could become a factor.
Starscream arched back, squirming as he cried out in surprised pain, though it availed him nothing, thoroughly pinned by the sheer bulk that was his captor.
Once more, Skyfire’s spark wrenched, knowing he was the cause of the jet’s suffering. He had never meant to harm his captive - merely restrain him against himself. He had to persuade Starscream, bring him back from whatever madness had gripped him so unexpectedly, not batter him into submission.
Yet another part of his psyche, one he refused to fully acknowledge, was pleased by the outcry, of having Starscream trapped so utterly beneath him. He was certain it wasn’t because of the pain itself - their closeness, their… connection, was still there, though tarnished by war and conflicting loyalties. It was natural that he would still feel as he had for his one-time companion, as the period separated, for him, had been much shorter.
That didn’t make it any less disturbing.
Shaken, Skyfire lessened his stanch clasp somewhat, though he refused to fully release the ensnared Seeker. “Starscream, please, calm down,” the shuttle implored, as his feisty captive continued to struggle, vainly thrashing in his clutches. “Just… listen to me, please.”
“No!” Starscream yowled, bucking upward in a futile attempt to dislodge the larger mechanism. He raved in fluent Cybertronian back street slang, cursing the stalwart shuttle, nearly hysterical with fury. When he had run out of foul insults to hurl, he again turned to somewhat rational sentences, snarling, “I won’t listen to you, you thrice-blasted traitor! Let me go!” When Skyfire did not concede to his will, the Seeker flailed all the harder, gears straining against the unyielding hands that bound him.
Skyfire, in the interim, looked down in mystified stupefaction, distantly marveling at just where the Seeker could have learned such an extensive repertoire of brute vernacular.
Shoving aside such morbid speculation for the moment, Skyfire lightly shook his hostage, trying to jerk him back into the realm of sanity. He couldn’t argue with the temperamental jet otherwise; such outbursts had, unfortunately, been a part of their often-tumultuous relationship. Of course, back then, he had known how to manage such rages - and never before had they been this… intense. And certainly never directed at him.
Again, the disparities between what he remembered and what clearly was became devastatingly obvious.
Starscream’s wing rattled with the jolting motion, joggling distressingly as he went limp, air intakes laboring to stabilize his overwrought systems.
Respite granted, the shuttle sighed, running an internal diagnostic in the lull. He was dented everywhere from Starscream’s wild endeavors to break out of his confinement. Grimacing, he pulled out of the check-up. Nothing terribly serious, for the time being. He hoped it could stay that way. “Are you ready to listen, now?”
“No,” Juvenilely, Starscream glowered up at him, vexed at the complete imprisonment of his limbs. His head flopped back in the snow, optics clicking offline. “Get off of me.”
“Not yet,” Skyfire said passively, reallocating the majority of his weight onto his knees so as to avoid crushing his for-the-time-being subdued jet further. “I have questions for you. Questions that need answering.” He waited for a response, but the Seeker remained as he was, looking to all the world as if he were in recharge mode. So this is how it’s going to be, Skyfire thought dejectedly. Starscream could be incredibly brilliant and charming, when he wanted to. The real trick was to get him to stop being an immature brat, when the mood struck him. “You didn’t give me time to ask before. And I… I understand that things have, well, changed. I just don’t…” He trailed off. Vocalizing his personal sentiments - particularly emotional ones - had never really been his forte.
From below, Starscream’s optics glowed softly - unbeknownst to Skyfire - as the Seeker carefully scrutinized his every nuance of expression. For once, he didn’t interrupt, waiting idly for Skyfire to continue under the pretense of rest.
Interpreting the silence as it was meant to be - a sort of resigned go-ahead - Skyfire assembled his thoughts into a proper sequence. “Why would you harm these organics? They are helpless against us-”
“Not so,” Starscream scoffed, squirming uncomfortably. “These primitives are not so defenseless as you believe.”
Skyfire doubted the truth of the statement. How could such a small and frail form as the natives’ hope to stand against the sheer might of a Cybertronian? “We have no right to intrude upon their lives. As a scientist, you should know that.”
“Tch,” Starscream grumped, disinclined to further elaborate as his opinion on the issue was rather eloquently summed up.
“Why are you being like this? The Autobots-”
Before the last syllable had fully emerged from his vocalizer, Starscream’s optics had flared up, regaining their maddened light as he reassumed their battle, all the more resolved to escape. “Silence, traitor!”
Skyfire grappled with the determined Air Commander, astonished at the strength displayed as Starscream actually managed to lift both of them partially off the ground. As he fought, he tried to speak, attempting to overriding the numerous, colorful death threats tumbling uncontrollably from the enraged Seeker’s vocalizer. “Would you just - agh, I’m not - stop doing that - betraying anything worth - oomph!” One hand, unexpectedly wrested from his grasp, socked him across the face, dazing the shuttle.
Starscream used his moment of distraction effectively, half levering his body into a roll. With a shout of dismay, Skyfire fell free, plopping over on his side into the drifts.
Disentangling their various limbs, Starscream kicked free, managing to land a brutal wallop on the top of Skyfire’s cranium, before skittering back to put himself out of reach of his opponent. He lifted his arms, charging his null rays-
“Slaggit,” He swore, as the weapons sputtered unresponsively. He drew back with a few choice invectives as the shuttle stirred, groggily glancing around to relocate the escapee.
“Wait, Starscream,” he grunted, pushing himself up on one elbow. “I’m only trying to-”
“Will you shut up?” The Seeker interrupted, kicking a great flurry of snow at the downed scientist. His expression remained fierce, but something had… changed. The Seeker’s vocal output hitched alarmingly, once, choking off whatever else he might have said. Shaking his head to clear it, the jet croaked, “Just - just fight me already!”
“No,” Skyfire lurched to his knees, cautiously drawing himself upright. Starscream watched him cagily, skittish of his every motion. Making a show of moving as slowly as possible, Skyfire at last regained his footing, putting out both hands in a pacifying gesture. “I’m not going to fight you. I want to… we need to talk.”
“I don’t converse with deserters,” The Seeker snarled back, obstinate as he ever had been.
Skyfire, after a moment of deliberation, took a long stride forward, keeping his hands up peaceably. “I’m not a -” He broke off with an aggrieved sigh, gathering himself. The scientist had always been such a collected, placid spark. Yet, somehow, Starscream seemed able to draw the worst out in him, rile him up like no other could.
I must be a masochist in hiding, thought the shuttle morosely. Then, heaving a deep, calming breath, he regained his poise, taking another step. “I am not a traitor.”
“Yes, you are,” Immediately, and childishly, Starscream retorted, taking half a pace back as his larger counterpart advanced.
At last, exasperated, Skyfire groaned, “How can I be a traitor? I didn’t even get an opportunity to choose!”
That gave the recalcitrant Seeker pause. Starscream’s optics dimmed, his posture making the subtle transition from aggressive to uncertain. “The choice should have been obvious. We are the superior fighting force. Yet you… you turn to their side, against us, against me-” He cut himself off, mouth snapping closed a moment too late. To cover his slip, he drew himself up haughtily, reassuming his accustomed role as the Decepticon Air Commander. “You made your choice, Skyfire, and you chose wrong.”
There was no more time for words. One moment, Starscream was across from him, and the next the Seeker’s heel caught him on the chest, propelling them both into the ice. Skyfire gasped in anguish as the blow buckled the warped metal from the earlier assault inward, tearing open his chest cavity with a ghastly shredding noise. On pure instinct, he grabbed a hold of his attacker once more, by the wings, throwing the Seeker aside. Starscream landed half on one side, leaving a long drag mark across the snow.
Skyfire, meanwhile, reeled, clutching his ruptured torso. Severe damage indications flashed across his optics, warning of the shorn circuitry.
Thud!
He hadn’t expected Starscream to recover so swiftly. The pacifist ineffectively attempted to ward off the hail of blows, throwing up his arms to protect his upper body. When that failed dismally, Skyfire swung out at random, half astounding himself as he felt a solid connection that sent Starscream careening into the nearest wall.
The Seeker gasped as he hit, crumpling in on himself as he slid back down to the snow. He looked like a broken toy, sagging back against the cracked ice, head resting on one knee.
Skyfire immediately felt the bitter rush of regret. He came forward, reaching out tentatively. “Starscream…?”
The Seeker shuddered, painfully hauling himself free of the snow. He slapped one hand against the sheet of ice to brace himself, then looked up, expression frigid and remote, deterring Skyfire from whatever action he might have taken. Then, delivered with disquieting flatness:
“I should have left you to die in the ice.”
For a long moment, Skyfire said nothing, gawking back in speechless horror as the callous words registered. He stumbled back, mutely opening and shutting his mouth, the power of speech driven from his processors. A keening wail pressed for release, one felt from the very depths of his spark. Why? Why, why why? He howled internally, wanting to fling himself upon the ground for the injustice of it all.
Starscream remained as he was, uncompromising as the austere expanse of artic wasteland that surrounded them.
Skyfire broke. The cold that had so long encased him went inside, freezing him from within. Ignoring the clamor, the sheer agony his very spark was undergoing, the shuttle hefted his weapon, and fired.
The Air Commander dove aside, transforming, and took to the air, knowing that the scientist would follow. He would have what he wanted.
With a roar of powerful engines, the Autobot took to the skies, in pursuit of the nimble jet. Their dogfight was brief - they were already injured, and neither could afford a drawn out clash.
Thus, in eerie synchronization, the two turned in midair, preparing to crash into one another -