Chapter Text
You had the worst migraine pounding in your head. You didn’t want to wake up but you were already sitting and your bed was more uncomfortable than usual.
The first thing you saw was trees, which was fairly strange - considering that you were not one for the outdoors. Why would you be out here? A flash of grey caught your attention. Silver claws, a red missile, and, apparently, your brand new metal arm. This only gave you more questions.
Well, there wasn't any point continuing to lay in the dirt. You got up, clumsily, with replaced legs that ended with stiletto heeled feet. Not a very good design decision and you had no idea who you should complain to. That may not be a good idea anyway - you were starting to suspect what fanfic brain rot scenario was playing out. (There is a very small hope that this is all just a horrible dream but you were never that optimistic).
“Testing” Steve Blum’s voice. Suspicions confirmed. You were now the proud owner of the name Starscream. Transformers Prime Starscream. One of the most cunning yet physically weakest incarnations of the character. You were unlucky enough to inherit none of the cunning but all of the inclinations to run and hide - let's face it, you don't have any confidence in your ability to fight against people who have been fighting longer than humanity's existence. You can't even bluff at being ready to kill whoever crosses you - the rest of the cast treats Starscream like a joke. A joke which is your life now.
At least there is the Nemesis and an abundant energon supply. But how would you even - wait, didn't Starscream go rogue during the show. Waking up in the wilderness doesn't suggest that there is a bed waiting back on the warship for you. Good news, you wouldn't have to go out of your way to fight Autobots or pretend to be someone you're not. Bad news, no food, no current shelter, you don't know how to do anything transformery, Megatron is going to be after your head, AND the Autobots might decide to join in anyway.
You kind of wanted to find the nearest hole to pre-emptively bury yourself. You also kind of wanted to live just a little bit more. But even more than that, you wanted to go back to bed which unfortunately was not an option. The only choice was to walk and try to find out where you are - there must have been some reason that Starscream was here before you unexpectedly came into possession of his body. Unless… he was hiding from something.
Trees surrounded you. You couldn’t see anyone else. You couldn’t hear anything suspect. Sure you had missiles on your arm but that wasn't going to do you much good when you are likely to get caught in the blast radius. It might work as a deterrent but it is a mostly useless deterrent. A different weapon would be useful.
A transformation sequence. You don’t see anything, where could they be? Are they planning to attack you right now?
Bang
Fuck this. You duck behind the trees while bringing your hands up to protect your head. Your hands felt weird, one more so than the other. A hand and a blaster.
The blaster felt warm.
Oh.
That was embarrassing.
Transformers. Transforming. You can do that now. You can use your arms as guns and, evidently, scare yourself while doing so.
You're sometime before Starscream’s M.E.C.H incident but after Arachnid goes after the immobilizer. Or are you? It is possible that Starscream was on his way to the Harbinger ahead of Arachnid but decided to take an impromptu nap. If the immobilizer is there you can take it for yourself and try to join the Autobots. If it isn't then it means Starscream has already burnt that bridge - not that it mattered because you don’t exactly have any Decepticon intelligence. So, back to the Harbinger which may be useful items hiding about, after all, Starscream did miss the immobilizer- a very powerful tool.
You might be in another random forest. Rogue Starscream wandered in forests quite a bit during the show and probably more offscreen - at least before he made a homebase out of the warship. Despite this, walking with a faulty plan is better than walking with no plan.
So you walked. A blaster held out in front at the ready and a fist poised behind. The only hindrance being wings occasionally bumping into the trees because you having giant mood signs is a thing now. Owning two new limbs was weird. You couldn’t consciously move them yet. They would twitch whenever you felt nervous which was all the time because this entire situation was justifiably nerve-wracking.
Bump
A little more to the left next time.
Bump
Ok, too far left.
Bump
You wondered if having six limbs made you an insect now because this was bugging you severely.
Bump
That's it.
Two hands reached to push those annoying wings down. It will be a lot harder to collide when they are taking up less space. Frustration made them rise. Frustration built.
You forced yourself to breathe.
In. Out.
Do you even need to breathe? No, stop that train of thought. Just breathe.
In. Out.
Breathe.
In. Out.
Hands calmly reached out and pushed down. The wings followed.
You walked.
You held your hand out ready to shoo- when did your blaster become a hand? You tried shaking it, as if that would trigger a transformation sequence but to no avail. Gun, make gun, become the gun, bang bang - but no, it was still a hand. You know what? You were too tired to care and just continued walking.
At least until you almost fell down a giant hole.
Arms fell back swinging wildly. Wings snapped up in surprise and continued to be the greatest annoyance by being immediately hit - sending pain ringing through your head. Pain might not have been the correct word - it wasn’t pain as you knew it. Pain stung, pain burned, pain pulsed - this wasn’t that kind of pain. A bundle of confused sensations that sent a blast of error messages across your vision and diverted your entire attention to it. Then just as quickly as it came - it was gone. You didn’t know if that was a transformer, warrior, and/or a Starscream thing but you were not looking forward to experiencing it again.
So, giant hole. A hole that doesn’t look very giant but only because you yourself are now a giant though it is still massive - massive enough for you to jump down without worrying about hitting any edges. Not that you want to jump down - the longer you stare into the darkness the more it occurs to you that going down is a very bad idea. You don’t know what’s down there and you don’t really want to find out.
Twin sounds of a transformation sequence draws attention to your han- blasters. You tried shaking them but they were there to stay. They glowed brightly.
You’re going to have to jump down. Every self preservation instinct is screaming ‘No’ but you know that you are going to need resources to survive and those resources would not be found lying about in the forest. Energon can only be found underground.
If only you were a cosmically powerful Starscream or even the immortal animated Starscream - then you wouldn’t have to fear anyone. Instead you are Prime Starscream and are left to fear everyone.
So down into the rabbit hole you went.