Chapter Text
Nothing could ever go right for Starscream.
It was just supposed to be a regular patrol. He was just supposed to do two sweeps of the perimeter and then fly back to base. Hell, it was even a solitary patrol, which meant he wouldn’t have to deal with any annoying slaggers slowing him down or ruining the atmosphere by trying to talk to him. Overall, the perfect scenario for a nice, peaceful flight.
This, however, was not peaceful.
It wasn't even the Autobots’ fault this time, a bunch of humans were accosting him at the moment, apparently oblivious to the fact that Starscream could turn them into gross organic dust with the flick of his guns. And he would have!
. . .If the awful fleshies hadn’t somehow hit him with an EMP and sent his equipment into various stages of meltdown.
Both null-ray's down, four other assorted blasters down, his emergency distress beacon sent offline, even his backup engines were disabled. He thought these stupid organics were supposed to be technologically inferior to them, but maybe the Autobots made a habit of sharing their schematics with the humans. No matter, as soon as Starscream returned to his lab he was going to personally upgrade every single piece of technology he owned—starting with his guns, of course.
But first, he had to shake off the current annoyances.
Starscream growled and banked left, watching the tiny humans below aim their pathetic weapons at him, weapons thrice their size and probably ten times their weight. They were pathetically energy-inefficient and lacking in meaningful firepower, but they were just impactful enough to drive him in circles to avoid denting something important. That, and his—admittedly petty—need for revenge. Starscream considered if it was worth it to transform into root mode and crush the horrible little creatures underneath his peds.
The pros: They’d definitely stop shooting annoying little pellets at him and cease making so much noise.
The cons; Nasty fleshy goo stuck in his thrusters and tracks.
Hmmn. . .
Before he could come to a decision, the sight of nearly a dozen human aircraft breaking right for him made him pause. Soon enough, homing missiles flew towards him, a few even hitting their mark before Starscream came to his senses and started evading.
Primus, those actually stung a little!
Starscream pushed away the warning diagnostics cluttering his HUD and focused on evading the human fighters, getting more pissed off by the second. It was bad enough that the little rats had the audacity to disable his weapons, but now they were firing actual attacks at him.
Fragging ridiculous.
Suddenly, while Starscream was busy being irritated, the humans that were on the ground seemed to have abandoned their other weapons and began with a different kind. These weapons shot odd-looking pins at him with line attached to them. He dodged the first few, but they were so thin and fast that it was only a matter of time one caught, with the fighter-jets driving him towards them. One of the pins stabbed into his wing and latched onto him with what he now saw was hooked barbs at the end of the rod, but it didn’t particularly hurt all that much. Such an ineffective weapon.
What in the world—
Then, the line began to pull him down.
. . .That’s what they’re for.
Starscream tried a tight roll in an attempt to dislodge the spear, but before he could get the thing off of him at least five more pierced his plating, all working in tandem to literally drag him out of the sky.
For the first time since this whole encounter began, Starscream began to feel a little. . . worried.
He was not scared, dammit! The greatest flier in all of Cybertron and beyond was not scared of a bunch of primitive fleshies and their toys, but. . . he didn’t really feel like finding out what the filthy parasites wanted with him, is all. And it was creepy, they usually weren't this organized.
Starscream pushed his thrusters to their limits and prepared to speed far far away from these disgusting creatures, cables or no, when suddenly, one of the humans let out a particularly loud squeak and there was a shrill whistling sound shortly after.
Starscream’s thrusters flared but it was no use, he was already trapped. He tried twisting around, but—
A large, noticeably thicker bolt pierced his chassis, right below his chestplate.
A beat passed, and suddenly there were countless warnings flashing across his vision, faster than even the pain reaching his processor. Sharp waves of agony shooting from the wound and sending his sensor-net into a torturous feedback loop. Starscream hardly noticed when two more bolts joined the first.
His thrusters deactivated without input, and Starscream was sent crashing to the ground below. Battered drivers futilely attempted to start the transformation sequence as he fell, only making the twisted holes in his chassis scream with pain as bent plating grinded against raw, exposed mechanisms.
Starscream almost hoped the crash would knock him out.
But it didn’t.
One of the rods snapped on impact, tearing metal and making ribbons of his internals, another following soon after. He skid through the dirt, each little spin and jolt wracking his frame with so much pain Starscream could hardly make sense of the signals anymore. Everything was just an overwhelming haze of strut-deep agony blended with the occasional shock of something sharper, yet just as unidentifiable.
He didn’t want to die, but it was hardly in his servos at this point. Starscream could hardly string a coherent thought together, let alone take any action to save himself.
Starscream’s cockpit was shattered, broken glass mixed with dirt and debris tainting his tender entrails. One of his wings were bent, he thought, or maybe just torn open, but so was most of his plating. Not that any of that mattered, because the amount of energon currently spilling from his broken frame would be what killed him, he’s sure.
Vaguely, he felt the humans scrambling around him, doing something. His processor skipped. And skipped again. And again.
What a. . . stupid way to finally go out. To a bunch. . . of fleshies.
Fear was beyond Starscream’s reasoning at this point. His frame forced him into stasis.
⤜♙⤛
Optimus Prime was taking a leisurely drive through one of the pretty scenic trails that wound through the local woods when he received the energy signal, the alert flaring out in the corner of his HUD. He nearly ignored it at first, mistaking it for another wayward ping from Jazz or another one of his officers (Optimus got very few breaks, all he asks is that his mechs do not blow up the Ark in his absence), but a second glance had him pause. The signal was massive, enough so that either a volcano erupted somewhere nearby, or. . .
Energon, and a lot of it.
Optimus’ engine whirred nervously as he went off-road set course for the site of the signal. Had there been a fight he didn’t know about? Surely not.
Maybe it was just a hardware glitch. . .
Thoughts like that rolled around in his processor until he neared the location, where he saw a large number of humans running around, strange considering the deep forest they were all in.
Optimus held back and idled, trying not to draw any attention to himself and keeping out of view of the group. From his limited experience with humans and their culture, he came to the assumption that these humans were military, or at least something similar. One was barking orders to the others, causing them to run off and do whatever it was they were doing.
He almost considered leaving. The signal must’ve been a glitch, something to do with what these humans were working on.
That was, until he saw the distinctive bright pink of spilt energon smearing some of the soldiers' boots, slicking the grass.
Stealth and discretion be damned, Optimus transformed into his root mode and quickly made his way through the swarm of humans, appreciating their sense to rush out of the way of his peds. Plenty of them were yelling something at him, but Optimus focused on finding the source of the spilt energon. He hoped it was simply a stray puddle of blood, left over by some unfortunate Cybertronian who was now returning to wherever they called home, but Optimus didn’t think he would be that lucky.
Sure enough, the gleam of white plating shone through the brush, and Optimus stumbled upon a downed, mangled jet, lying in a pool of their own energon.
His spark jumped to his throat.
Immediately, Optimus rushed to the mech’s side, overwhelmed by the sheer number of wounds on the jet's frame. He had no idea where to start. His servos were already slick with energon and he hadn’t even fixed anything yet. Optimus considered himself a strong mech, but it all still made him feel a little sick.
Optimus swallowed thickly.
Looking for any explanation, he inspected the scene, and it looked like the humans pulled the mech out of the sky. Were they already injured at the time? How else could a human. . .
Something sharp dug into the seams of Optimus’ ankle, and he turned his helm to find the source; the soldiers, shooting hooked cords at him. He now recognized what one of the soldiers were screaming.
Attack orders.
Optimus growled and whirled on them, tearing the cables off of his protoform and forcing the soldiers to scatter. Some ran off for good, though some decided to stay and shoot at him still. He paid them no mind, getting even closer to the jet and looking for any sign of functioning.
Now gazing fully at the jet’s plating, Optimus noticed the colors streaking the other mech’s dirty, scuffed frame; bright blue and red, along with the dark violet Decepticon brand.
Starscream.
Optimus took a steeling vent and knelt before him, scanning for a sparkbeat. War or no, he wouldn't leave a fellow mech to this fate.
Miraculously, Starscream was alive, though surely not for long in this condition.
Something lurched hard in Optimus’ chassis at the thought.
He sent a ping to Ratchet, almost compulsively, sending for an urgent medical response. Afterwards, he got to work with administering as much aid as he was able.
Optimus just couldn't let Starscream die, factions be damned.