The Worst Is The Waiting [G1]
Title: The Worst Is The Waiting
Series: Lost Time
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: Skyfire, disabled and left behind by his comrades, waits for an ending, of a sort.
Continuity: Generation 1 (G1) cartoon-verse.
Characters: Skyfire, Starscream
Warnings: Slash.
Author's Note: Criticism encouraged, technical points preferable.
--
It was agony to move.
Moaning, Skyfire flicked his one remaining optic online, staring through a haze of static and damage warnings to the dusky sky above. Twining smoke roiled over his form, leaking from his ruptured chest in a black cloud, torn to indistinct shreds by a westward bound breeze. Something to his left sparked, and, abruptly, all sensation from his left arm ceased.
The shuttle gasped, an involuntary paroxysm wracking his frame. “Nngmmph,” He groaned behind tightly pressed lips, his remaining hand scrabbling at the rocky soil for some handhold, some way to vent his mounting anguish.
He was dying, of that there was no doubt. Since the shock hadn’t gotten him, the energon seeping its way from his side certainly would do the trick. If that took too long, or was - by some miraculous quirk of fate or engineering - slowed, the heavily damaged ventilation system would do him in, in a day or so. And if not that, then there was always the merry indication that his entire lower half was, slowly but surely, shutting down to conserve energy, which would eventually land him in a stasis lock. Of course, if all these options failed, there was always the off chance that a Decepticon would stumble upon his broken form, and mercifully eliminate him before they realized how bad off he truly was.
What a way to go. To think, he survived millions of years trapped in ice and cold, slowly fading away for energy deprivation; survived the deserting of the Decepticons; survived battle after subsequent battle… and now he was on his way out of the mortal coil, just from a few simple miscalculations.
He had thought he was out of range, circling above the ensuing skirmish below, ready to swoop in and transport his smaller comrades in case the tide of battle turned against them. He had been aware of the primary trine - perhaps a little too aware of one, in particular - and had taken appropriate measures to stay out of their radar range, letting the Arielbots distract them.
Megatron had been preoccupied by a tag-team of Optimus and Ironhide, while the twins made a cheery hell with Soundwave and his little army. The Constructicons had been thoroughly routed, and what remained of the Decepticons strike force was in the beginning of their retreat.
In short, he had been perfectly safe, far removed from combat.
He hadn’t seen the secondary wing until it had been too late.
The scientist grimaced, as another flash of pain ran through his relays. The first blow had been particularly grievous, doled out by Ramjet, who did his name due justice. Then the laser fire had started and - by Primus - he had truly overestimated his abilities against the trio. For some reason, the coneheads had always seemed somehow beneath note, as eclipsed by the primary as they had been in both skill and rank. Not so any longer. Should he somehow endure to fight another day, he would not so misjudge them.
Mentally preparing himself, Skyfire tried to sit up-
And fell back wailing his vocalizer out, striking the earth in a cloud of dust and a dull clang.
Great Iacon! It had only been a matter of inches, and it felt like he’d been ripped asunder all over again. He struggled against the excruciating shudders that tore through him, limbs twitching under the onslaught. Despite his straining against it, a moan managed to wrangle itself from the core of him, echoing upon the surrounding rocks. Primus, he hadn’t known it could be this bad - hadn’t know he could live through such extensive harm. It hurt to think, to even grimace; everything hurt, every thud of his energon pump compounding the suffering.
Pathetically, he found himself begging, albeit silently, for someone to end it, please, just make the hurt, the pain, the torment, stop, even if it meant deactivation. Just as long as it would stop.
Slowly, the spark-searing agony settled into a simple, all-encompassing ache.
Grateful for the reprieve, he clicked off his lone optic once more, mouth drawn in a hard, concentrated line. Slag, he wasn’t going anywhere, not like this. His distress beacon was not functioning, a quirk that involuntarily offlined by an automatic system jam to preserve energy. He remembered that, too, long ago. It had been first to go when he was in the ice, trapped by the cold and the water, calling out for rescue…
Perhaps his comm. link?
Tentatively, Skyfire accessed the program… ah, no such luck. It was open to hailing, but incapable of sending out its own message. He was thoroughly scrapped, in every sense of the slang.
The distinct, familiar whine of high-speed jet engines echoed in the distance, steadily closing in on his location, perhaps just a few miles shy.
Maybe they’ll finish me off, thought the shuttle, morosely. If he could get a few shots off, first to gain their attention, then to goad them into firing…
Where had his gun gotten to?
Skyfire’s optic flickered back to life, scanning at the very corners. Ah, there it was. A few meters away, uphill, perched with innocent precariousness upon a rock outcropping. Perfect. Just where it was entirely inconvenient. Primus, what had he done to deserve this? One tragedy after another, ever since he stumbled upon this blasted planet.
Shoring up the last reserves of his determination, the shuttle steeled himself, and wrenched aside.
He became conscious again after a time, still screaming for all he was worth. He hadn’t even managed to get onto his side, flopping back into his previous position, battered frame hopelessly akimbo. There was no helping it; he was not going to go down fighting.
The jet was getting closer. Any time now, he’d see the nosecone peek over the rim of the gulch, followed by a spattering of laser fire.
The scientist prepared himself for termination.
There was a flash of color in the sky, for just a moment, as it passed beyond to the next edge of the shallow gorge.
Skyfire eased out of the reflexive tenseness, relaxing painfully tensed cables. Hadn’t it seen him, so stark and defenseless against the red sandstone?
Ah, yes, there it was, doubling back. His lone optic focused, determined to pick out the muzzy details of his executioner. He saw some blue, glinting in the sparse, waning sunlight - Dirge, then, perhaps. Trust it to be one of his assailants, come to finish their work. Wait, no, there was too little for it to be… by Iacon. Was that…?
“S-Starscream?” He feebly garbled the name from his offlining vocalizer, despite his being well-below audibility. Surely he had to be hallucinating. This was just some last minute firing of his central processing unit, an image superimposing itself over reality to comfort him to his journey into the void. Likely he was still alone, lying out in the darkening ravine, gradually expiring.
The jet looped again, circling like a humongous vulture above him. The sparse, wan light played havoc with his glossy form, sliding easily over sharp lines and angles, reflecting mischievously here and there, a roguish wink. It was dazzling, over-bright to his weakening optical unit.
If it was a last vision, it was a fragging good one to conk out to.
The Seeker dipped lower, cutting gracefully through the air. Focusing as best he could, Skyfire willed his optic to its highest setting, despite the clamoring of his warning system to cease and desist, lest he slip into stasis with the lack of energy. With the added power he could pick out the little details, the minute dings and scratches and chipped paint from a recent encounter, the heavy impact dent along the jet’s underside. Scattered laser burns along his horizontal stabilizers. A gouge mark on his nosecone.
Odd, that. He would think that a shutdown image would be less… damaged.
Exerting himself, he accessed the last - and weakest - of his scanners. No, no; the Seeker was, for all intents and purposes, there, in the plating. Starscream had come to see him off. A giddy sort of elation
began to rise in him, before his sight again caught upon the purple sigil. Whatever moment of relief he had experienced was firmly crushed beneath the heavy weight of their current circumstances.
There was only one reason his admittedly addled processor could produce to explicate the unexpected arrival.
He was to be finished off by the Air Commander himself. Quite an honor. The jet had gone out of his way to see him firmly to the beyond, abandoning the retreat to double back and track down the wounded scientist. It was to be an execution - perhaps the last act of mercy on the part of a truly ruthless being.
Skyfire’s spark convulsed, rejecting the though, recoiling from it. It had a terrible sense of irony about it, as if the cosmos thought this all some strange sort of prank.
Well, he, for one, wasn’t laughing along.
The circling jet slowed, considering where best to land the finalizing shot. Perchance, in light of association, he might go for the quick and painless route, or so the downed shuttle hoped. Straight for the laser core, as Skyfire had seen many times in the old archives of war videos, stored in Teletraan-1. His consciousness would be gone before he could even register the weapons’ fire. It would be a kindness, and one he would hope Starscream capable of.
Though, admittedly, it was conceivable that the Seeker would want him to suffer, also in regards to their shared history. He would not put it past the spiteful Decepticon to hold anything and everything against him. Perhaps even the loss of the battle could be - by some convoluted twist of ‘logic’ - blamed on Skyfire’s person. Or it might be a simple mood that could strike the Seeker.
It really all depended on what sort of disposition he had captured the Seeker in: merciful - unlikely - or malevolent.
With the wicked Air Commander, either was possible - though it leaned toward the latter rather than the former.
Skyfire sighed, reluctantly watching the jet make another low circle. Starscream was probably relishing the moment, taking everything in before he destroyed his former partner for-
Beep.
Startled, the shuttle jolted, face contorting in pain again as his numerous injuries were jostled. That had been an Autobot distress signal - his distinctive pitch, to be exact - broadcasted over the entire Autobot frequency. Open coordinates flashed across his optics, indicating the gulch. A second indicator flared, the same as the first, signifying emergency assistance was necessary.
He felt the response, the acknowledgement of the distress signal, from several of his fellows.
Gaping sluggishly, Skyfire watched as Starscream loomed above, lazily spiraling, occasionally miming Skyfire’s signal to keep them on track and updated - though Primus knew how. Was he luring the others into some manner of a trap, using the immobile shuttle as a sort of bait? Or - much as he loathed to think it - was it some sort of horrible game, waiting for the others to arrive to witness his end? He’d heard of such things before, psychological ploys made by the Decepticons. The very jet above him, it was said, pioneered such a callous technique.
Nothing for it but to wait; he couldn’t very well ask, much as he longed to. It would have been better to at least know to what end his termination was done.
So the breems passed, unnoticed, Skyfire vulnerable and open, laying askew across the dirt and rubble; the Seeker above, lurking as a silent, perfidious guardian, in a patient circle. Occasionally, he sent out a homing signal, directing the Autobot salvage party ever closer - though he said not a word to the shuttle below.
It was nearly dark now; he could barely see the silver-white, sleek form above, against the bruised purple of the sky. The last dregs of light played across his body, occasional winks of light that startled and dazzled the fading scientist. Sometimes he thought this was a different planet, or space, or even the Artic - it was difficult to keep himself focused. Time lost its meaning, along with most of the sensation in his body. That was a relief; he was tired of hurting.
Then, foggy and distant though it might have been to the broken Autobot, \Hang in there, Skyfire. Help’s on the way.\ Who was that? He thought he should recognize the accent, but things were getting so muddled…
\Decepticreep’s hanging around up there,\ Someone else added, tone grim. Names drifted through his mind, just out of reach of coherency. It was impossible to tell who was who, as he began to drift away, into stasis. With effort, he resisted, listening to the murmur of words. \Seeker model.\
\Slag, I thought we ran off the bunch. Told you we should have swept back to make sure.\
\Weren’t the flybots supposed to be watching him?\
\Closing in. Hang on, Sky. We’re almost there.\
Above, Starscream stalled, turbines quieting enough for Skyfire to hear the rumble of several grumbling engine, tantalizingly close. Tauntingly.
This was it, the moment of truth. He was not going to be half-conscious, not at the last. He overrode the clamoring of his internals, returning full perceptions. Pain flared through him in a tingling rush, and he grunted, but he refused to slip under again. Not now. Not like this.
Resolved, Skyfire regarded the jet above him, feeling the awareness returned. An uneasy glance across the sky, with too many words lying between them, but seemingly laden with possibility.
The jet hesitated, then, with a shriek of taxed turbines, sped off into the distance, opposite of the approaching contingent of Autobots.
“Skyfire! You alright?” Someone shouted, sliding down the steep incline to his side as the others - he assumed - took passing shots at the hastily retreating figure. Not that they had a chance of striking a Seeker in full retreat, particularly not this one. A strange pride drifted in the back of his mind. Nobody could shoot down his Starscream. Nobody in all of Cybertron.
But Cybertron was gone now, wasn’t it? It seemed like he should have known, but…
Whoever it was beside him gasped in shock, dragging him back toward reality. He didn’t much care for it; it was loud and achy and all these little lights that surely meant something dreadful were flashing behind his optics.
“By Primus - Ratchet, hey, get down here!” He twisted about to shout up the hill, frantically waving. The medic started his way down, all haste to assess the extent of the damage.
“Slag.” The would-be rescuer swore, again turning to face the delirious shuttle, half-crouched in a defensive pose. One comforting hand awkwardly landed, with gentle fingers, on the sole remaining uninjured section of his body, the upper half of his shoulder. “You’re gonna be alright. Just go off for a while - we’ll keep the ’creeps off ya. Can’t believe you even made it this far with that freak here.”
Not bothering to respond - he was too far-gone for even a slight nod - Skyfire mindlessly did as instructed, gratefully slipping into stasis mode.
The image of a sleek, angled form flashed through his processor, and he was no more.