I wonder what's happened so far; [open]
who; Starscream and people who aren't sleeping
what; Starscream wanders around in ghost!form and does his best Transformers: Armada impression bawww insert linkin park here introspects about his current situation; possibly, people go "why the hell is there a weird looking cyborg ghost running around"
where; a public park somewhere in Kurzwiel
when; nighttime... sometime...
warnings; none yet; possible crankiness..?
He dropped the drone body like a bag of ruined clothes, practically ripping himself free of it. He imagined that it smelled; he knew that it creaked, and he hated it. He'd never believed that he could hate anything more than he'd hated his human body, but at least his human body could feel properly, could touch, could fly, could sense wind on his skin, and it had that lovely bonus of a sense of taste, and that wind in his hair had been an unexpected pleasure, and...
And. And this drone thing was just insulting. Disgusting. Hands, certainly, but no ability to fly, no ability to express, to emote. Which was, perhaps, a benefit, at least for now while he was trying to hide... but he hated hiding. Hated it. It was, ultimately, against his nature. Oh, certainly, Transformers were meant to disguise themselves, and he was a master of deception, but his deception wasn't this sort. He was more of a silver-tongued snake, a double-dealer, and ultimately he preferred to lie with his own face, not to hide himself under quite this many layers. Ultimately, he wanted to shout his name from mountaintops, to declare “I am Starscream! All shall love me and despair!”
He couldn't, though. If Soundwave and... and... if they weren't here, he could have done so, but they were, and so he had to hide his true name, his true face. Had to settle for these disgusting little drone creatures. Had to bow.
He had said he'd never bow again.
And now Megatron was here. Or a Megatron. Certainly more a Megatron than that idiot purple impostor, but different by far from the one he knew. Dangerous. This one was from some very distant world, and spoke of things that didn't make any sense at all. What the frag was a Diva? Wasn't a Nautilus something from an old Earth novel?
Frag this. He couldn't think. Too much had happened in the past week (two weeks? How long had it been, anyway?). He needed to breathe. He needed to fly.
It was the station's night cycle. The city glowed faintly still, soft blue lights coming from the holograms. He concentrated, filling out his own semi-holographic form - a wavering translucent image. It helped him none. It would probably blow his cover, if anyone believed that they'd seen it. But he didn't care. Even if he couldn't feel anything, it gave him... something. A sense that he was really present, instead of just a visitor like he was.
Instead of just a ghost.
He screamed. It was an unnatural, bizarre sound, the sound of a broken jet engine, a sound more machine than anything else. It split the nighttime quiet and then he was done, alighting (as best as something insubstantial could alight) on top of a spire of one of the buildings. He sat down, and looked up at the false sky. It mocked him. He wanted a real planetary sky, a real atmosphere. Someplace he could feel the wind under his wings.
… if he had wings.
He bit back another screech and curled in on himself. This was too much. This was too much. It was still there, a gaping, massive hole in his chest. Dead he might have been, but his body still bore marks of his life. He still looked half-human. He couldn't change it. He'd tried, and he could appear to be machine for a little while but he'd stayed human height and always drifted back to the middle, to this... winged but fleshy... thing. And then the hole. The huge, ragged hole over his spark, where it hung glittering inside him. On the spark itself? Two scars - one old, one new, a black cross splitting its glittering surface.
Waspinator. Of all creatures to ruin his plans... it had been bad enough to be defeated by the Blue Beetle in his moment of triumph. He was so close, so close to everything he'd ever wanted. He would have had Cybertron again, and then he would have harnessed the Porter, and somehow brought … no. No, even then, he never would have... that was forever lost to him. But the rest! Cybertron, at his feet; a thousand worshipers, and he could have promoted Rimmer and then his friend would have understood at last. A Cybertron of his own, and the stars would have beckoned and he would have sent his armies out into them, conquering the distant stars, seeding them with his new children until the whole of the Milky Way lay at his feet. And then the vast distances between galaxies and perhaps universes would have been his for the taking.
That entire glittering vision undone by a teenage human and a miserable failure of a Predacon. It was enough to make him go mad. Almost enough to make him actually long for death.
But even that was denied him, if those visions hadn't been madness. They had to be madness. None of that could have been real. Yet he could still feel the heat on his outer plates, he could still hear his own voice betraying him, he could still feel the dry grass beneath his feet as he lay down and prepared to simply fade away.
“I can't fade,” he hissed. “I have a...”
Destiny.
... don't I?
He buried his head in his arms. No troops, here. No one to listen to him. Rejected by the Well and the Pit both, and even by Limbo.
For a reason. Surely. Surely for a reason, because someday it will... someday...
With no troops? With nothing? He didn't even have friends, here. Soundwave and... well, neither of them would have him. Frag, Soundwave was probably shacking up with Megatron right now, and... no. Again. That was closed to him. It should have been closed three hundred and twenty five years ago. Why? Why a second time was that door even opened, just to close again? For a few brief, blissful moments he'd thought he'd seen another future. Another way.
Yet he somehow knew it really was his fault this time.
I have to try again. Have to rule.
Was it worth it? Was it really worth it to stand back up and work again?
He jumped off the building. It didn't matter, of course. He had no mass to speak of, so his drifting downwards was only a function of his own thought that he should drift downward. He landed in a park. Trees. Bah. He missed Cybertronian life - proper things, steel and crystal, not these carbon-and-water things. This place... it was halfway between both.
Like himself, really.
In some ways it reminded him of Central Park back in the city - this organic life surrounded by steel and concrete. Which in turn made him think of that day he fell out of the sky, and broke his ankle, and there was...
“Shut up!” he snapped. “Pull yourself together. You were sparked for this. You were made to rule. So... so... find some way.”
He sat down on a park bench near a fountain (for all the good sitting did) and leaned his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands and staring straight ahead, watching the play of the water and the soft blue lights nearby.
Hack the space station. Overthrow Hypatia. Corrupt her data, become the station. Maybe play the resistance against the bitch and then betray them, too. Yes, even better, let them have what they want, take her out and then take the station's power for your own. Then, using that, terraform Asphodel into your perfect Cybertron. And... and... throw the rest of them home. Send Soundwave and... back to the City where they can be content to be stupid humans, send Megatron... frag, send him anywhere but here, kill the rest of them or offer them places at your side - no, just kill them, no deals, not anymore, or send them home, or whatever's easier. And then rule your perfect world. No one to disagree with you anymore. Yourself as a ringed god.
But it sounded like so much work. He'd done so much already, so many times, and now, after nine million years it was starting to wear on him. Finally, after all this time...
He felt old.
[ooc: if you need any clarification on... anything... feel free to ask. also, TFCast: I love you, but he is very likely to run away from you unless you are Dinobutt. You're of course welcome to tag in regardless~]
what; Starscream wanders around in ghost!form and does his best Transformers: Armada impression bawww insert linkin park here introspects about his current situation; possibly, people go "why the hell is there a weird looking cyborg ghost running around"
where; a public park somewhere in Kurzwiel
when; nighttime... sometime...
warnings; none yet; possible crankiness..?
He dropped the drone body like a bag of ruined clothes, practically ripping himself free of it. He imagined that it smelled; he knew that it creaked, and he hated it. He'd never believed that he could hate anything more than he'd hated his human body, but at least his human body could feel properly, could touch, could fly, could sense wind on his skin, and it had that lovely bonus of a sense of taste, and that wind in his hair had been an unexpected pleasure, and...
And. And this drone thing was just insulting. Disgusting. Hands, certainly, but no ability to fly, no ability to express, to emote. Which was, perhaps, a benefit, at least for now while he was trying to hide... but he hated hiding. Hated it. It was, ultimately, against his nature. Oh, certainly, Transformers were meant to disguise themselves, and he was a master of deception, but his deception wasn't this sort. He was more of a silver-tongued snake, a double-dealer, and ultimately he preferred to lie with his own face, not to hide himself under quite this many layers. Ultimately, he wanted to shout his name from mountaintops, to declare “I am Starscream! All shall love me and despair!”
He couldn't, though. If Soundwave and... and... if they weren't here, he could have done so, but they were, and so he had to hide his true name, his true face. Had to settle for these disgusting little drone creatures. Had to bow.
He had said he'd never bow again.
And now Megatron was here. Or a Megatron. Certainly more a Megatron than that idiot purple impostor, but different by far from the one he knew. Dangerous. This one was from some very distant world, and spoke of things that didn't make any sense at all. What the frag was a Diva? Wasn't a Nautilus something from an old Earth novel?
Frag this. He couldn't think. Too much had happened in the past week (two weeks? How long had it been, anyway?). He needed to breathe. He needed to fly.
It was the station's night cycle. The city glowed faintly still, soft blue lights coming from the holograms. He concentrated, filling out his own semi-holographic form - a wavering translucent image. It helped him none. It would probably blow his cover, if anyone believed that they'd seen it. But he didn't care. Even if he couldn't feel anything, it gave him... something. A sense that he was really present, instead of just a visitor like he was.
Instead of just a ghost.
He screamed. It was an unnatural, bizarre sound, the sound of a broken jet engine, a sound more machine than anything else. It split the nighttime quiet and then he was done, alighting (as best as something insubstantial could alight) on top of a spire of one of the buildings. He sat down, and looked up at the false sky. It mocked him. He wanted a real planetary sky, a real atmosphere. Someplace he could feel the wind under his wings.
… if he had wings.
He bit back another screech and curled in on himself. This was too much. This was too much. It was still there, a gaping, massive hole in his chest. Dead he might have been, but his body still bore marks of his life. He still looked half-human. He couldn't change it. He'd tried, and he could appear to be machine for a little while but he'd stayed human height and always drifted back to the middle, to this... winged but fleshy... thing. And then the hole. The huge, ragged hole over his spark, where it hung glittering inside him. On the spark itself? Two scars - one old, one new, a black cross splitting its glittering surface.
Waspinator. Of all creatures to ruin his plans... it had been bad enough to be defeated by the Blue Beetle in his moment of triumph. He was so close, so close to everything he'd ever wanted. He would have had Cybertron again, and then he would have harnessed the Porter, and somehow brought … no. No, even then, he never would have... that was forever lost to him. But the rest! Cybertron, at his feet; a thousand worshipers, and he could have promoted Rimmer and then his friend would have understood at last. A Cybertron of his own, and the stars would have beckoned and he would have sent his armies out into them, conquering the distant stars, seeding them with his new children until the whole of the Milky Way lay at his feet. And then the vast distances between galaxies and perhaps universes would have been his for the taking.
That entire glittering vision undone by a teenage human and a miserable failure of a Predacon. It was enough to make him go mad. Almost enough to make him actually long for death.
But even that was denied him, if those visions hadn't been madness. They had to be madness. None of that could have been real. Yet he could still feel the heat on his outer plates, he could still hear his own voice betraying him, he could still feel the dry grass beneath his feet as he lay down and prepared to simply fade away.
“I can't fade,” he hissed. “I have a...”
Destiny.
... don't I?
He buried his head in his arms. No troops, here. No one to listen to him. Rejected by the Well and the Pit both, and even by Limbo.
For a reason. Surely. Surely for a reason, because someday it will... someday...
With no troops? With nothing? He didn't even have friends, here. Soundwave and... well, neither of them would have him. Frag, Soundwave was probably shacking up with Megatron right now, and... no. Again. That was closed to him. It should have been closed three hundred and twenty five years ago. Why? Why a second time was that door even opened, just to close again? For a few brief, blissful moments he'd thought he'd seen another future. Another way.
Yet he somehow knew it really was his fault this time.
I have to try again. Have to rule.
Was it worth it? Was it really worth it to stand back up and work again?
He jumped off the building. It didn't matter, of course. He had no mass to speak of, so his drifting downwards was only a function of his own thought that he should drift downward. He landed in a park. Trees. Bah. He missed Cybertronian life - proper things, steel and crystal, not these carbon-and-water things. This place... it was halfway between both.
Like himself, really.
In some ways it reminded him of Central Park back in the city - this organic life surrounded by steel and concrete. Which in turn made him think of that day he fell out of the sky, and broke his ankle, and there was...
“Shut up!” he snapped. “Pull yourself together. You were sparked for this. You were made to rule. So... so... find some way.”
He sat down on a park bench near a fountain (for all the good sitting did) and leaned his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands and staring straight ahead, watching the play of the water and the soft blue lights nearby.
Hack the space station. Overthrow Hypatia. Corrupt her data, become the station. Maybe play the resistance against the bitch and then betray them, too. Yes, even better, let them have what they want, take her out and then take the station's power for your own. Then, using that, terraform Asphodel into your perfect Cybertron. And... and... throw the rest of them home. Send Soundwave and... back to the City where they can be content to be stupid humans, send Megatron... frag, send him anywhere but here, kill the rest of them or offer them places at your side - no, just kill them, no deals, not anymore, or send them home, or whatever's easier. And then rule your perfect world. No one to disagree with you anymore. Yourself as a ringed god.
But it sounded like so much work. He'd done so much already, so many times, and now, after nine million years it was starting to wear on him. Finally, after all this time...
He felt old.
[ooc: if you need any clarification on... anything... feel free to ask. also, TFCast: I love you, but he is very likely to run away from you unless you are Dinobutt. You're of course welcome to tag in regardless~]