Portal crashing
(( cf. here. Starscream is still LOL'd. ))
Starscream dives through the yawning archway, not caring where it leads, except OUT of this nightmare! Skyfire hasn't caught him yet, and now, won't, if Starscream has managed to shake him.
A flash of darkness, and Starscream pulls up abruptly in his headlong flight, just short of plowing face-first into a metal wall. Fortunately that he had transformed before hitting that archway--his F-15 form would have been a half-mile through the far side of that wall--or rather, plastered across it in tiny bits--before he could have reacted. Riveted metal plates, scaly with oxidation--very Cybertronian, Starscream thinks as he looks at them from about six feet away.
He backs away and settles to the floor with a clang that startles him. It's silent here--or was until the Air Commander intruded. Where is he? Some sort of tunnel... underneath Cybertron. The gravity feels right, and there's that subtle buzz of energy in the air, all the electrical fields and myriad communications chatter going on in the background that's so familiar. Starscream is home.
The red and blue Seeker looks around; there's some dim lighting up ahead. A row of plinth lines each side of the tunnel. Starscream ignores them and heads toward the light.
The tunnel leads to an intersection of tunnels, a rotunda well lit by flickering energon crystals. Motionless figures of metal and ceramic loom over Starscream; suddenly, he knows where he is.
This is the Decepticon Crypt, the place of rest and propitiation for those dead so respected or feared that the living still walked carefully around even their memories. Starscream represses a shudder; he's the Air Commander of the Decepticons, second only to Megatron himself--and that not for much longer! What does he fear of the corroded, forgotten dead?
Still, he finds his steps drawn toward that one certain niche--the one with his own shrine so carefully prepared. Not that he'll need it for a few million years, but it still exerts a certain irresistible fascination.
Starscream dives through the yawning archway, not caring where it leads, except OUT of this nightmare! Skyfire hasn't caught him yet, and now, won't, if Starscream has managed to shake him.
A flash of darkness, and Starscream pulls up abruptly in his headlong flight, just short of plowing face-first into a metal wall. Fortunately that he had transformed before hitting that archway--his F-15 form would have been a half-mile through the far side of that wall--or rather, plastered across it in tiny bits--before he could have reacted. Riveted metal plates, scaly with oxidation--very Cybertronian, Starscream thinks as he looks at them from about six feet away.
He backs away and settles to the floor with a clang that startles him. It's silent here--or was until the Air Commander intruded. Where is he? Some sort of tunnel... underneath Cybertron. The gravity feels right, and there's that subtle buzz of energy in the air, all the electrical fields and myriad communications chatter going on in the background that's so familiar. Starscream is home.
The red and blue Seeker looks around; there's some dim lighting up ahead. A row of plinth lines each side of the tunnel. Starscream ignores them and heads toward the light.
The tunnel leads to an intersection of tunnels, a rotunda well lit by flickering energon crystals. Motionless figures of metal and ceramic loom over Starscream; suddenly, he knows where he is.
This is the Decepticon Crypt, the place of rest and propitiation for those dead so respected or feared that the living still walked carefully around even their memories. Starscream represses a shudder; he's the Air Commander of the Decepticons, second only to Megatron himself--and that not for much longer! What does he fear of the corroded, forgotten dead?
Still, he finds his steps drawn toward that one certain niche--the one with his own shrine so carefully prepared. Not that he'll need it for a few million years, but it still exerts a certain irresistible fascination.