Chapter Text
The wind howled through the canyons as the night deepened over Nevada’s rocky wilderness. Optimus Prime’s chassis gleamed beneath the moonlight, silent as he scanned for Energon signatures on a routine patrol. The desert was quiet—too quiet.
Until the sky ripped open with thunder.
A screech of jet engines screamed overhead as a silver blur sliced through the clouds. Prime’s optics narrowed.
Starscream.
The Decepticon hadn’t expected to run into Optimus, but he didn’t hesitate to attack. Missiles launched from his wings with practiced precision, forcing Optimus to roll aside, plasma rounds impacting the rocky ground behind him.
“I see you're still patrolling like a glorified watchdog,” Starscream sneered, transforming mid-flight and landing atop a boulder. “I suppose your Autobot code demands you intervene, even if I’m just passing through?”
“I intervene,” Prime said, stepping forward, “because I know you are never just passing through.”
With no more words, they clashed. Prime charged with a ground-shaking impact, while Starscream’s lithe form flipped and danced above his head, blades flashing in the moonlight. Blasts and grunts echoed through the canyon as the two titans collided—steel on steel, strategy against speed.
High above, something whirred.
A tiny, near-invisible human-made drone hovered, watching. Zoom lenses adjusted, silently locking onto Starscream’s lithe form as he delivered a sweeping kick to Optimus’s midsection and took to the sky again, wings unfolding in full glory.
Far away, in MECH’s command base, a feed streamed onto a monitor.
Silas leaned in.
The sight of the massive alien machine, agile, airborne, and undeniably beautiful in its aerial maneuvers, made something spark in the back of his mind.
“Pause,” he ordered.
The feed froze on a close-up of Starscream mid-flight, blades extended, armor sleek, wings slicing the air.
Silas smiled.
“Well, what do we have here?”
The camera panned back. Optimus was on the ground, adjusting his cannon. Starscream was in the air—faster, freer.
“A flying one,” Silas said softly. “An aerial bot. Not just a brute like Breakdown or that walking tank. This one’s… elegant. Precise.”
He turned to the technician. “Trace this location. I want every piece of data. Recordings, flight paths, radiation trails, anything left behind.”
“Sir?” the technician asked. “You want us to go after him?”
Silas turned, eyes hard. “No. I want him captured. Study his propulsion. His systems. That agility. If we can replicate it… we won’t just have a ground force. We’ll own the skies.”
Back in the desert, the fight was reaching its climax. Starscream, growing weary of the prolonged duel, disengaged with a blast of missiles and transformed, roaring into the sky.
Optimus didn’t pursue. He simply watched the seeker disappear into the clouds, brows knit in thought.
He hadn’t noticed the tiny glint of metal high above them.
But someone else had.
Back at MECH headquarters, Silas’s team had already begun a new file.
SUBJECT: STARSCREAM
Flight capabilities: confirmed
Weapons: plasma, serrated energon blades, aerial missiles
Personality: volatile, intelligent, proud
Status: Top Priority Acquisition
Silas stared at the footage one last time before shutting it off.
“We’ll have our own seeker soon enough.”
He turned to his men, eyes gleaming.
“Gentlemen… hunt him.”
It began subtly—small teams, camouflaged in desert gear, nestled in rocks or nestled in deep forests, sent to observe, not engage. Silas knew better than to provoke a force they didn’t yet understand. Starscream’s power was undeniable, but what intrigued him now was pattern.
“Subject is not meeting with other Decepticons,” one MECH field agent reported in hushed tones over comms. “No signs of communication. Repeats same flight route biweekly. Slows in regions with dense plant growth.”
Silas leaned back in his command chair. “Show me.”
The screen displayed a grainy feed from a long-range drone. Starscream, alone, wings tucked, walked through a forest clearing. Not stalking, not on alert.
Kneeling.
His claws brushed the petals of a vibrant purple flower, gentle and curious. He lifted it close to his face, optics narrowing—not in threat, but analysis.
The seeker muttered to himself.
“Bioluminescent pigmentation… nocturnal blooming cycle. Unusual for Earth flora.” He leaned in, sniffed, and recoiled. “Pungent. Possibly defensive secretion.”
Silas was still. The tech team exchanged confused looks.
Another day, another team.
Starscream perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean. He extended a single talon into the breeze, testing wind resistance. His wings adjusted slightly. “Humidity high… stronger turbulence at low altitude. Adaptation of airfoils needed.”
Then, just as smoothly, he sat. Cross-legged. Silent.
Watching the horizon.
They compiled hours of footage. Observations. Silas reviewed them all.
“He’s not just a weapon,” he finally muttered. “He’s a scientist.”
A long-forgotten report floated to mind—Cybertronian caste structures, knowledge of Seekers being once-intellectuals and explorers. It clicked.
“He’s studying Earth,” Silas said, nearly in awe. “Not as a conqueror. As a… biologist.”
One agent, positioned deep in a tropical region, sent a near-frantic whisper through the comm:
“He just caught a snake with his claws. Gently. He’s… petting it.”
A pause. “Sir, I think he’s naming it.”
Silas was no fool. Knowledge was power. A weapon was predictable—but this?
This was new.
“Update Project Seeker,” Silas ordered coldly. “Behavioral profile: curious. Scientific orientation. Vulnerability: distraction via rare flora, fauna. Use this.”
He stepped closer to the projected image of Starscream kneeling before a field of bioluminescent mushrooms.
“We won’t just capture him,” he whispered. “We’ll bait him.”
Meanwhile, Starscream flew high above the jungle canopy, wings stretched wide in the fading light.
Freedom.
In these moments, away from Megatron’s barking orders and Decepticon politics, he could be himself. Not a warrior. Not a traitor.
A Seeker. An explorer. A scientist.
He found a secluded glade and landed with care, scanning the soil.
"Unusual energy readings. Could be geothermal… or something else,” he mused aloud, talons digging delicately. “Possibly… worth coming back to.”
From the shadows, unseen by him, a MECH camera whirred.
The trap was already being built.
-=-=-=-
Location: Pacific Northwest Forest – Unmapped Sector
Time: 0400 Hours
The forest was still, dewy with early morning mist. Moonlight filtered through dense trees and kissed the surface of a quiet stream. Hidden within the foliage, camouflaged to near invisibility, lay MECH’s newest trap: an artificial glade engineered to attract Subject: Starscream.
“Operation Nightshade is in position,” came the soft voice of a MECH technician. “Bioluminescent lures active. Plant samples coated with synthesized pheromones based on last week’s readings.”
“Deploy the drone decoy,” Silas ordered.
A small, floating machine released from its container, buzzing faintly. It mimicked the appearance and energy signature of a rare Cybertronian-compatible spore plant—one Starscream had previously investigated near volcanic vents. A perfect bait.
“He’ll come,” Silas said coldly, arms crossed. “He always returns to what he’s curious about. And when he does… he’ll walk into a field of sedatives, binding charges, and plasma nets calibrated to his exact armor resistance.”
His gaze narrowed. “Prepare containment.”
Hours later
Wings sliced silently through the cool air as Starscream descended from the clouds. His scanners picked up the strange anomaly again—just like before.
"You're a new one…" he muttered to himself, optics scanning. “You weren’t here last cycle.”
He landed lightly in the clearing, claws clicking on moss.
The glade glowed subtly with colors not native to Earth. The plants were unusual. Too unusual.
Starscream crouched, examining a cluster of fungal growths glowing faintly purple. “No root system… and yet producing myco-reactive spores? Hm…”
Then his optics sharpened. He inhaled slightly.
“…no natural scent.” He stood slowly. “And your leaves… are plastic.”
He looked up sharply—wings flaring.
Silence.
Then a sudden whine. A net launched from the tree line with near-silent propulsion.
Starscream didn’t even flinch.
With inhuman speed, he leapt, twisting in mid-air and throwing a blade. The net caught nothing but leaves. His blade embedded in the tree canopy—and exploded, revealing three MECH soldiers.
“Amateurs,” Starscream spat.
From every angle, drones and tranquilizer darts came flying. Starscream launched into the air, spinning mid-lift, claws slashing three nets apart as they shot toward him. Two plasma bolts grazed his wings—but only barely. A missile hit the ground near his foot, throwing up dirt and smoke.
He soared up above the canopy, turbines screaming, and vanished into the cloud cover.
Back at MECH HQ
The feed cut to static.
Silas’s jaw tightened. A long pause.
“Status report.”
“Eight operatives down. No casualties, but Subject escaped clean. We… we underestimated his reaction time, sir.”
Silas stared at the still image of the empty clearing.
“No,” he said softly. “We underestimated his intellect.”
He turned away, bitter, but with a glint of something else in his eyes.
Admiration? Or obsession?
Elsewhere, high above the Earth
Starscream banked hard in the sky, streaking through the stars as dawn began to rise below him. He wasn’t panting, but his optics were sharp with fury.
“Humans. MECH,” he hissed. “They think I’m a fool to chase flowers blindly?”
His anger softened slightly as he thought of the fabricated glade, of the way they had tried to mimic alien flora. As if they knew what they were doing.
“…But it was clever,” he murmured, grudgingly. “Almost convincing.”
He twirled through a pocket of warm air, then leveled out over the sea.
“Let’s see how long you last before I start hunting you.”
-=-=-=-
Location: The Nemesis — Decepticon Warship
Time: 0700 Hours, Earth Standard
The Nemesis hovered in geostationary orbit, its massive frame shrouded by cloud cover and stealth fields. Inside, the corridors were quiet—until the echo of rapid, uneven footsteps disturbed the silence.
Starscream strode through the entrance hatch of the warship, wings twitching, energon-stained talons scraping the metal floor. Bits of dirt clung to his armor. A long gash scored down his left thigh, still sizzling faintly from plasma residue.
He wasn’t limping.
He was seething.
“Starscream,” came the gravel-thick voice behind him.
The Seeker froze for the briefest moment, before turning with theatrical indifference. “Yes, Lord Megatron?”
Megatron stood at the end of the corridor, arms folded, red optics narrowed. His gaze slowly swept down Starscream’s dirt-smeared frame.
“You’re… filthy.”
Starscream blinked. “Yes. Thank you for stating the obvious.”
Megatron took a step forward, talons curling slightly. “I asked for a patrol, not a skirmish. What happened?”
Starscream casually swiped at a smear of mud on his wing. “Nothing of consequence,” he said. “Just an… overzealous little ambush by our human friends.”
Megatron’s optics narrowed further. “The Autobots?”
“No.” Starscream grinned, sharp and amused. “MECH.”
That gave the warlord pause.
“They attempted to capture me,” Starscream added with a purr of disdain. “Netting, tranquilizers, explosives… quite the production. Sloppy, of course. I escaped with barely a scratch.”
Megatron stared at him, unreadable.
Starscream began plucking moss out of his wing joint with one claw. “I think I’ll… play with them a little,” he said lightly. “They’re curious. I’m curious. It could be fun.”
“That is not your decision to make.”
Starscream’s optics flicked toward him, brow raised. “No? I handled myself just fine, did I not?”
“You should be withdrawing,” Megatron growled. “Laying low. Not parading through forests and letting yourself become a target.”
Starscream bared his denta in something not quite a smile. “So now you’re concerned?”
There was a flash of something in Megatron’s optics—frustration, maybe, or something darker.
“You are mine,” he said finally. “My second-in-command. If a human faction wants you badly enough to orchestrate multiple failed captures, I want to know why.”
He turned sharply to the shadows.
“Soundwave,” he said.
From the wall panel, the silent spymaster emerged like a ghost, visor already alight with files, signal intercepts, and energy readings.
Megatron didn’t even look at him.
“Find out what MECH wants with my Seeker. Now.”
Soundwave nodded and vanished again into the Nemesis systems.
Starscream huffed but didn’t protest. He turned to go, mud still dripping from his leg.
“You know…” he added over his shoulder, “If I’d known getting a little dirty would get me this much attention, I might’ve done it sooner.”
Megatron didn’t answer—but his gaze lingered on Starscream far longer than necessary.
-=-=-=-
Location: MECH Headquarters – Operations Core
Time: 0930 Hours
The dim glow of monitors painted Silas’ expressionless face in shades of blue and static green. Around him, technicians moved in silence, watching him from the corners of their eyes. The atmosphere was tense—MECH had just failed again to capture the Seeker designated Starscream, and Silas’s mood was not known for its mercy.
“Replay the Breakdown containment footage,” he ordered, voice cold.
One of the techs hesitated. “Sir… we’ve already—”
“I said replay it. High resolution. Full audio.”
The footage blinked to life: a static-laced replay of the Breakdown extraction incident. The camera captured the moment Soundwave infiltrated MECH’s bunker. A silent wraith—quick, surgical, unstoppable.
Silas leaned forward, eyes narrowing.
“Pause,” he said, pointing at the moment Soundwave paused beside a terminal, one hand raised, fingers brushing the side of his helm.
“Zoom and enhance.”
The technician did so.
A faint flicker—Soundwave’s visor blinked in a pulse pattern. A signal relay.
“There,” Silas muttered. “Audio channel.”
Another tech leaned over. “It’s encrypted—shortwave burst. We couldn’t decrypt it before.”
“Try again. Boost the gain. Filter by low-frequency distortion.”
The silence in the room deepened. After a few seconds, faint audio filtered in.
A voice—calm, clipped, dry.
“…Are you certain he is there?”
Another voice—emotionless, modulated.
[Affirmative.]
“Then I’ll distract the skywatch team. You get in, grab him, and get out.”
There was a pause. The next line came quietly, but unmistakably:
“You were right. He’s in that facility.”
The first voice—recognizable now. Silas clenched his jaw.
Starscream.
“…Starscream helped Soundwave recover Breakdown?” one of the operatives whispered, stunned.
Silas remained silent, watching the grainy footage where Soundwave sliced through guards without uttering a sound.
“He knew,” Silas said, almost to himself. “He knew where Breakdown was being held. He planned it. They both did.”
He turned to face the room.
“You’ve all been operating under the assumption that Starscream is a wild, unpredictable rogue. A weapon with wings.”
Silas’s mouth curled into a cold smirk.
“But no. He’s a tactician. A manipulator. And he’s working with Soundwave. That means every sighting, every near-capture, every failed drone tailing—we weren’t dealing with random chaos. We were being observed.”
He stepped toward the screen, watching Starscream’s shadowed face in the captured waveform.
“He is the complete opposite of Breakdown. Breakdown was a brawler. Predictable. Primitive. But Starscream…”
He turned away, voice lowering.
“Starscream hunts.”
A moment of silence followed.
“Sir,” one technician said nervously, “should we suspend pursuit?”
Silas didn’t answer immediately. Then:
“No. We refine pursuit. Send only our most skilled operatives. Small teams. Passive observation only. I want to know where he lands. What he watches. What he studies.”
His voice dropped further.
“And above all… I want to know what he’s planning.”
Location: MECH Headquarters – Sublevel Command Center
Time: 0137 Hours
The lab was dark, bathed only in the artificial glow of dozens of monitors and the hum of an experimental interface array. Silas stood alone in the heart of the command room, arms crossed behind his back, watching the final simulation run complete.
It worked.
The neural-splice interface, patched together from decades-old Cybertronian signal architecture and MECH’s own hybrid stealth tech, was finally ready. A convergence of brutal necessity and genius theft.
“All systems green, Director,” the lead engineer said quietly. “The infiltration gear is synced. Camouflage index is holding against residual energon scans.”
Silas turned his head slightly. “The team?”
“Already prepped. Operation Shadowfeather launches in T-minus ten minutes.”
Silas gave a slow nod. He knew it was mad—foolish, even—to risk human lives aboard a Decepticon warship. But the longer Starscream remained free, the clearer it became:
He wasn’t just a target.
He was a revelation.
And Silas wanted everything.
A mile-wide crater shimmered with residual energy from the Decepticon mining operation two days prior. Jagged energy stones still crackled at the rim, half-harvested. The Vehicons had long since vanished, their ground bridge closing behind them after loading the final transport crates.
Or so they thought.
A soft hum split the silence—and a pulse of light formed in the air. The grid signature flickered, then stabilized.
MECH's modified ground-bridge anchor—built from Prime’s stolen molecular key specs—latched onto the frequency like a parasite.
Four black-clad MECH operatives stepped forward, helmets sleek and insectoid, carrying sensor-disruptor packs and energon-tuned stealth gear.
Without a word, they stepped through the shimmering portal.
The team emerged in the dark. Dim, violet-lit corridors stretched out before them—silent and pulsing with low-frequency energon hums. A wall marked with Cybertronian glyphs confirmed it.
They were inside the Nemesis.
“…Readings confirm,” whispered operative Hawke. “Lower decks—armory vault, unused sector.”
“Perfect,” came the reply from Commander Juno. “They didn’t even notice. This ship’s too large. We’re ghosts.”
They moved quickly—hugging walls, avoiding drone patrols. Their suits hummed with adaptive camouflage, blurring into the metal around them.
“We stay close to primary target,” Juno said through the silent line. “No engagement. No noise. We observe. We learn.”
“And if we’re spotted?” another whispered.
“We don't get spotted.”
Hours passed. MECH’s squad followed the signal trail quietly. And finally—he appeared.
Starscream.
Tall, lithe, gleaming silver under Nemesis lighting, his back turned as he stood before a table littered with datapads, energon quills, and holographic projection files. He tapped thoughtfully through rotating scans of Earth’s biosphere—fauna analysis, botanic structure studies, evolutionary diagrams.
“He’s… studying them,” Hawke whispered, almost incredulous. “Like… like a scientist.”
“Keep recording,” Juno ordered quietly. “Everything.”
They watched silently as Starscream tilted his helm, then murmured something to himself, a strange, pensive look crossing his features. He crouched beside a terrarium cube—where a small Earth snake coiled sleepily under synthetic heat. Starscream tapped the glass with the gentlest touch, optics oddly soft.
Then, his posture shifted. Wings twitched.
“…Hnn. Someone tampered with my Earth-side surveillance relays,” Starscream muttered, voice sharp now. “Soundwave?”
A pause. The team froze in absolute silence as the Seeker turned toward the comm.
No answer came.
Starscream narrowed his optics, muttering something about inconsistencies. His claws danced over the controls, eyes scanning comm logs.
“…Time to recalibrate,” he said finally, tone cool again.
The team held their breath.
And then he turned his back once more, continuing to review his Earth field reports, none the wiser that humans—less than ants to him—were watching from the shadows.
Juno breathed out.
“Now we wait.”
-=-=-=-
Location: Decepticon Warship – Starscream’s Quarters (Cycle 0189 – Unoccupied Window)
The moment the Seeker left, the team struck.
Juno gave a silent hand signal. MECH’s infiltration squad slid into Starscream’s quarters like phantoms—suits still cloaked, footsteps noiseless on the gleaming alloy floor.
“Scanners up. Time is short,” Juno ordered, already sweeping a multispectrum detector across the surfaces.
Despite the militaristic sleekness of the room, the squad was stunned by what they found.
A dozen datapads were scattered across the room—not with weaponry data, as they expected, but scientific logs, hand-drawn maps, and custom-built simulations.
“Cloning now,” Hawke whispered, plugging a micro-siphon into one of the smaller pads. “It’s like… he’s building a database on Earth. Species... plants... planetary layers... even tectonics.”
Juno flipped through another. “…This one's written in two languages. Cybertronian and—English. The spelling’s formal. Latin names and everything.”
But it wasn’t until they found the black-trimmed datapad near a terrarium control console that they realized how deep the rabbit hole went.
The label on the top:
“Hobby.”
And inside—
Blueprints of hybrid tech: energy rifle designs, medical scanner improvements, low-energy reactors that could revolutionize human sustainability.
A folder marked “Human Pathogen Countermeasures”—filled with chemical sequences and notes describing synthesized treatments.
Not just treatments—cures.
Cures for ALS.
Experimental reversal for Huntington’s.
Retroviral inhibitors for aggressive cancer strains.
And notes on a mutagenic reversal therapy… for congenital blindness.
All described as mere “mental exercises.”
“Silas needs to see this now,” Juno muttered.
Hawke had already cloned the data pad. The upload pinged—encrypted and sent back to base.
Then came the more... personal revelations.
Another tab marked simply:
“Tastes.”
The team exchanged uneasy glances but opened it anyway.
Logs.
“Red energon: chemically unstable but metabolically rewarding. Taste profile notably sweeter than synthetic grade B. Sharp aftertaste. Intoxicating if consumed warm.”
“Preferred for long stargazing flights.”
They moved on.
A section labeled:
“Encyclopedia Terrae (V.7).”
Pages upon pages of handwritten entries, drafted in flawless Cybertronian with English subnotations.
Meticulously categorized flora. New insect species with detailed anatomical sketches. Predictions on climate change impact trajectories.
A hand-drawn map of an island, somewhere in the mid-Atlantic—undiscovered by humans.
“High probability of pre-extinction species surviving due to geothermal anomaly. Live dodo specimens confirmed. Will return to observe mating rituals. Curious if they prefer sunlit or shadowed clearings.”
Another page—bathymetric scans of the ocean trenches.
“Specimens: Gigantothermic squid subtypes. Pressure-adapted vertebrates. Life thrives in shadows.”
“…He’s… better at this than we are,” Hawke whispered, shaken.
Juno didn’t reply.
None of them did.
They had entered thinking Starscream a target, a weapon. But what they found instead was a scientist. An explorer. An intellectual titan… who dabbled in curing humanity’s greatest plagues between battles.
All as a way to pass the time.
And MECH wasn’t even sure if he thought humans worth noticing.
Location: MECH Headquarters – Private Server Room
Silas stared at the uploaded contents in total silence.
His reflection in the screen seemed small. Irrelevant.
The scroll of data, the cures, the maps, the journal entries—unfolded like scripture from a far more evolved world.
He leaned closer.
“…All of this… was done in his spare time,” Silas whispered.
Starscream’s name—once a tactical label, a nuisance—now took on a terrifying new meaning.
He wasn’t just a Seeker.
He was a god playing scientist.
-=-=-=-=-
Location: MECH Medical Development Lab – 3 Weeks Later
The atmosphere in the lab was one of desperation wrapped in sterile white.
Silas stood behind the reinforced glass, observing the team of biochemists, nanotech engineers, and pharmacologists MECH had scoured from across the black market and corrupted corners of academia. The air was tense. Not from pressure—but frustration.
He clenched his hands behind his back. “Report.”
Dr. Faulkner, his lead virologist, turned from her screen with a mix of exhaustion and resentment.
“We’ve managed to identify less than ten percent of the compounds Starscream described. The rest... they don’t exist in the periodic table as we know it.”
Silas’s eyes narrowed. “You mean they’re Cybertronian?”
“No. Worse. They’re hybrids. Combinations of molecular structures we thought were unstable. Some shouldn't even function at room temperature. And yet his notes indicate full stability in Earth gravity.”
Another scientist, Dr. Raymond, chimed in bitterly. “It’s not just the materials. The math—he’s not using any human equations. He’s working off a logic system that looks like theoretical quantum branching, but...”
“But what?”
Raymond sighed. “We think it’s a language of calculation. His own. Not Cybertronian. Not human. Custom.”
Faulkner tapped the screen and pulled up a sequence: a tangle of shifting geometric shapes overlaid with color-coded protein chains.
“We tried to create the enzyme for the ALS therapy. The sequence folds backward, violates known biochemical rules, and somehow still works in his simulations. We tried to replicate it.”
Silas raised an eyebrow. “Results?”
“We killed the test cells.”
Location: MECH Command Room – Two Hours Later
Silas stared down at the failed samples. Dozens of petri dishes. Some had melted. Others had crystallized mid-reaction. One had even become... gelatinous and twitched.
A complete, humiliating failure.
And yet... Starscream had created the cures casually.
No labs. No machines. Just his mind. And a datapad.
No wonder Soundwave trusted him enough to guide him to Breakdown’s location.
Silas looked up at the holographic projection of the Seeker’s profile.
Cold optics. That infuriating smirk. A mind that saw humans the way humans saw ants—fascinating only when doing something unexpected.
And still, he had written cures for them.
Silas whispered to himself:
“If we had him—just for a week… we could rewrite history.”
He stared long and hard at the screen, voice low with something between admiration and obsession.
“Starscream… you’re not just a weapon. You’re the future.”
He turned toward the planning board.
“Begin phase two. I want him alive. No damage to neural components. No frontal cortex interference. He needs to think. Talk.”
Faulkner hesitated. “Sir… that means he’ll also manipulate us.”
Silas smiled darkly.
“Of course. That’s why we’ll manipulate him first.”