Chapter Text
Many stellar cycles had passed since the war had finally ended. All of the major cities had been rebuilt and peace had fully sunk into the bots of Cybertron. Iacon especially, once the city of the upper class and sycophants, now stood as a shining beacon of hope and freedom for the entire planet.
In the central square of the splendor filled capital stood the Iaconian Archives, the former workplace of the Prime himself. But the archives were more than just a location of historical significance. They were also a hub of information and knowledge, available to anyone eager to learn.
Well, not everything was available to everyone.
Skyfire handed an ID card over to an archivist. The blue truck shot him a suspicious look before carefully examining it. After what felt like an excruciatingly long time, he finally handed it back to the shuttle. The archivist stepped out from behind his desk and gestured for the larger bot to follow.
The two made their way through the stacks full of datapads and harddrives, and towards the back of the building, where the artifacts were kept. Several powerful objects were placed on pedestals that were positioned in a circle. Many a scholar had come to the archives to study these artifacts that had once been wielded by the ancient Primes of lore. Skyfire was led through the circle and towards what one could very easily assume was simply a closet door if it hadn’t been for a heavy amount of padlocks that kept it sealed tight.
“So, what is this?” the truck asked after a few moments of walking in silence. “Some weird science experiment?”
Skyfire felt his fist clench. “The Council outlawed experimenting with. . . that stuff.”
“If there’s one thing studying history has taught me,” the archivist began with a mournful tone. “It’s that whether or not something is illegal has never stopped anyone before.”
The shuttle averted his gaze. It was probably best if he didn’t try to remind the bot that he hadn’t lived through the war, while Skyfire had. Instead he just shook his head. “I have no intention of trying to mess with the blood of the anti-prime.”
The truck nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer and began to undo the locks, each with its own key that the archivist had to remove individually from his subspace. Most of Cybertron didn’t use keys or padlocks, and it was for that specific reason that they were used on this door. Skyfire couldn’t help but think of each soft click as another layer of anxiety falling on top of him like a sheet of snow.
Eventually, the last lock was undone and the two bots were able to step into a pristine grey room that was quite a bit bigger than the door would suggest. In the center of the floor laid another door, this one sealed shut with more traditional locks. The archivist ordered the shuttle to look away and began to punch in the codes.
While his back was turned, Skyfire took a moment to steal his nerve. He could turn back now. He didn’t have to do this. In fact, the few people he had told his plan to had actively tried to discourage him.
No, he didn’t have to do this. But he needed to.
The final code was punched in and the door hissed open, prompting Skyfire to turn back around. The archivist stood up and gestured toward the open door, which revealed a steep incline of stairs that led down into a pit of darkness.
“Have fun,” the truck said. “I’ll be up here to make sure you can get out, so just shout if you need me.”
“Thank you,” Skyfire responded before beginning his descent. The stairwell leading beneath the archives was a tight fit for someone as big as himself, but he still managed to reach the bottom without any real problem.
The stairwell led out into a circular room that was illuminated by a single flickering light. The walls were painted with crude warnings and threats that someone had insisted were necessary in case the nature of the prisoner was forgotten or reduced to mere myth. But neither of these things would be the first thing that anyone noticed about the room, which had been dubbed a crypt by the group that had designed it. The first thing one noticed, even before they truly entered the crypt, was the cold. Skyfire was a shuttle, designed for the harsh temperatures of space and even he could not deny the cold that crept through the room like icy fingers. Frost coated the entire room like a second skin and icicles dangled from the walls like the teeth of a predator about to snap down on its prey. But the freezing temperature was necessary. At the back of the room was an alcove that was now completely filled to the archway with ice. Trapped within the ice, locked in a permanent stasis, was the prisoner.
It had been Skyfire who proposed the ice. Perhaps it was petty, but the drama of it all was probably what the prisoner would have wanted for his final resting place.
The figure encased in the ice might have once been considered a jet, but the plane wings had been torn away and replaced with spindly limbs connected by a metal patagium. The vents on the side of its head twisted up into something resembling horns, framing a face that held the dark optics of an unconscious bot. His hand was outstretched, close enough to break through the ice if it moved forward even a little bit, as if he was reaching for something. Or someone. Skyfire reached forward, as if to take the jet's servo in his own, but seeing as that was not possible, settled for placing his own hand over the frozen jet’s. The cold pressed back like a curtain blowing against him as he stood downwind.
Skyfire vented deeply before looking his former friend in the optics, never removing his hand from the ice. “You know, I had a whole script before I came here.” He paused at the deafening silence. “No. I didn’t really. I thought I did. You used to think that everyone operated on a script, the only difference was whether or not they knew it.” Skyfire hesitated before he continued, his voice cracking ever so slightly. “Did you know the ending? Did you— Is this what you wanted?” The shuttle chuckled humorlessly to himself when he didn’t get a response. “No. I suppose it wouldn’t have been.”
The large white bot clenched and unclenched his fist for a moment in contemplation before pulling his other hand away from the ice, the cold still tingling on the surface of the metal like the longing touch of a lover that refused to let go. “I loved you,” Skyfire finally admitted. “More than you could possibly imagine. You were. . .” The fire that kept me warm when I was buried. “Gone. You died in that storm and that hate took over your empty frame and then that monster was awarded a crown by the literal Unmaker.” Skyfire stepped away from the ice for a moment. “I guess this is just a long winded way of saying: I loved you, Starscream. And goodbye.”
Skyfire reached into his subspace and removed a bouquet of flowers he had gathered during a recent trip to Earth from his subspace. One of the organics had told him that they were called red spider lilies. They were a brilliant red, much like Starscream’s colors had been before they had become corrupted with the Unmaker’s touch. The petals resembled a cluster of stars with styles shooting off from them like a shower of comets. Without saying another word, Skyfire left them at the base of the wall of ice, and ascended the stairs, leaving the crypt behind him.
The lilies lay next to the icy alcove, not quite touching the ice. But eventually gravity and time forced one of the petals to fall from its place and drift off from its starting point. A single petal lazily floated away from its origin until its tip touched the ice. Almost immediately, purple cracks tore through the prison, which held for maybe a moment more before shattering into a flurry of shards.
Violet optics flickered back online and Starscream groaned as he regained consciousness. Ugh. Everything hurt. Why was it so cold? The herald pushed against the ice covered ground until he was on his knees, at which point he looked around the room with a frown. Where was he? He remembered Prime driving the Star Sabre through his spark, but after that. . .
Starscream awkwardly lurched to his pedes, fragments of ice falling from his frame like a heavy snowfall. He stumbled over to the wall, his joints still cold and sore from his imprisonment, and brushed some of the frost off the wall so he could properly read the messy scribbles.
Beware!
Very informative.
He turned his helm towards the stairs, and seeing that there weren't exactly a lot of options, began to climb them. The stairs abruptly ended under a trap door. Starscream moved to make use of his null ray, but was prevented from firing by the simple fact that his weapons had been removed. The Seeker scowled. How typical.
Starscream tentatively pressed a servo against the door, pushing it a bit to test its strength. It didn’t show any signs of budging, so he moved on to plan B. The herald ran his claws along the edges of the door until they caught on the hinges. A sinister grin formed on his features. Considering that the room he had been kept in was essentially a glorified freezer, he guessed that whatever was on the other side of the door was much warmer. Such conflict of temperature must put such a strain on the poor hinges. Starscream pulled back his hand before swiftly swiping through them. He tried once more to push against the door, and this time it gave way without too much trouble.
Thankfully he was right in his assumption that the cold was only relegated to his strange tomb and as he climbed out of the stairwell, the frozen water that had crept into his seams slowly began to melt, allowing his movements to be much smoother. Starscream shook his frame, shedding the final remnants of his less than ideal condition.
The harbinger looked around and felt frustration flood his processor at the knowledge that he was now in another room with yet another door blocking his path to freedom. Starscream stomped forward and landed a harsh kick right below the knob, which was followed by the door falling out of the frame with a loud crash. As angry as he was with his patron, Starscream could never truthfully say that he didn’t appreciate the abilities that came with their deal.
Starscream walked over the door as if it was a bridge to his freedom, but froze before he could step off of it. His wings flared as shock captured him in its grasp. When he had been a naive aspiring scientist, Starscream had spent many hours studying within the walls of the Iaconian Archives. There had been a specific reading room that he and Skyfire had practically claimed as their own, mostly because it was the only room with a seat big enough to support the shuttle’s large frame. But that room, as well as the rest of the archives, had been destroyed during the early days of the war. And yet here they stood. How long had he been in stasis?
Not everything was the same. In front of him stood a display of artifacts, sealed behind glass and placed on pillars, and he was sure that there would be more differences if he walked further into the building. But the walls, the shape of the windows, the size of the stacks were all the same; recreated with painstaking detail. It almost made him wonder if the graffito he and Skyfire had left in that reading room was still there, even if he knew even the most dedicated historian wouldn’t try to recreate the messy SF+SS carved into the underside of a table that was most likely destroyed in the initial bombing.
Starscream hurriedly shook off that wave of nostalgia. He couldn’t afford to get distracted by such sentimental drivel. He stepped off the door and began to walk into the center of the circle, his line of sight drifting towards where the Star Sabre was displayed. The memory of that sword sticking out of Megatron’s deactivated frame flashed before his optics and grief for the being who had been puppeting it stabbed through his spark. No. He wasn’t going to grieve him. Not after what he had done to his processor.
“Who’s there?”
The herald turned his helm to see the outline of a bot, features concealed by the bright light they held in their servo. The light lingered on the fallen door for a moment before jerking towards where Starscream stood, the bright light almost making him hiss as it shone directly into his optics.
“Oh, Primus!”
Starscream shattered the glass of a nearby display and grabbed the long green darts that were contained within before lunging forward and stabbing it into the neck of who he assumed to be an archivist. Alarms blazed through the archives, painting the walls a sinister red as the archivist’s light fell from their grip and flickered out. The bot sputtered in fear as Starscream leaned over their paralyzed frame. He smirked as he looked them in their fearful optics.
“Not quite,” he responded before placing a clawed finger on the archivist’s forehelm and tilted them over.
Starscream walked past the stiff frame on the ground and continued into the archives. If he remembered the layout correctly, the door was just past the learning center for young sparklings. A sting of bitterness accompanied the thought of that location. A part of him was grateful that he had never been forced to go through those awkward stages of not being able to walk or read, but he had also been denied being cared for by a creator. A dark feeling tickled at the back of his processor, but before it could take root, Starscream had jerked away and was quickly moving in the direction of the exit.
A fragging library should not be making him this emotional. It shouldn’t even be here. Was this some kind of psychological warfare the Autobots had designed his prison with? How big was their budget?
The door to the outside world was within his sight. If he could make it then he could figure out what was going on. He wasn’t entirely clear on his plan after that, but he sure as the Pit wasn’t going back in the ice.
He was almost there when the door swung open from the outside and a blastershot went off, hitting him right between his optics.
To say that the Council was panicked would be an understatement. The Crypt had been their solution. That was it. A comatose bot should not have been able to break out of a prison with several heavy duty locks!
The Council of Cybertron was gathered in a circular room with walls made of windows and a round table in the center. The sunrise streamed into the room, tinting everything with a beautiful pallet of colors. Not that anyone was paying attention to that, as they were too busy talking over each other.
“Okay!” Optimus interrupted, slamming his hands on the table for emphasis. Once everyone had finally quieted down, he continued. “Arcee. You were the one who took him down. What can you tell us?”
The motorcycle shrugged. “Not much. I was on duty when the alarms went off and drove over to investigate. I saw a figure with glowing purple optics running towards the door and fired. When I got closer I saw who it was and went deeper into the building to investigate, where I found the archivist who had been put on night watch.”
“How is he?” Optimus asked.
“He’ll be fine,” Ratchet responded. “We just need to wait for the toxin to wear off.”
“I think we’re ignoring the bigger problem,” Elita One interrupted. “How did he get out in the first place? Did someone let him out?”
Jazz shook his helm. “I already looked into that possibility. The last person to visit the Crypt was Skyfire, and that was nearly a million years ago.”
“So what’s the plan?” Bumblebee asked. “Put him back in the ice?”
Elita shook her helm. “No. It didn’t work as a permanent solution like we thought it would, and we don’t know what went wrong, so we can’t exactly come up with a better solution.”
“We currently have him in stasis cuffs,” Arcee said. Those seemed to hold him when he brought him in.”
Optimus sighed. “I’ll contact Bulkhead and ask him to operate a space bridge to Earth. Our prisoner is going to need fuel and I don’t know what regular energon will do to him.”
“Why do you have to get him fuel?” Bumblebee asked. “I don’t want to be the one to suggest this, but wouldn’t starving him solve the problem?”
Ratchet scowled. “We tried that when we first brought him here. He doesn’t die, he just suffers.”
“Cruel or unusual punishment,” Arcee added. “Optimus doesn’t want to compromise our morals.”
The Prime nodded in confirmation. “We do not want to sink to the depths that the Decepticons or the Senate once did.”
There was a moment of silence before Windblade spoke up. “We could try talking to them.”
Bumblebee started to laugh, but cut himself off when no one joined him. “You’re serious?”
“Windblade,” Elita began. “You weren’t there for the war. He was second in command of the Decepticons. That’s not to mention the rust plague he tried to unleash on us independent of them.”
The red and black flight frame folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. “I know, as you frequently remind me, that I wasn’t there. But I do know that every other Decepticon has been forgiven and integrated into the rest of society. I don’t know why we can’t do the same thing here.”
“Every former Decepticon that walks free today has proven their trustworthiness. Starscream was unconscious for thousands of years, meaning he remains just as evil as he was when we locked him away.”
Windblade nodded. “I understand that, but the reason they remain that way is because they haven’t been given a chance to grow from it. I’m not saying we let them loose, just that maybe we can strike a deal with them.”
Arcee rolled her optics. “Great idea! Let’s strike a deal with the Herald of Unicron! That always works great in stories!” The motorcycle slammed a hand down on the table. “We’re not just talking about some random Decepticon, we’re talking about literal Pit-spawn.”
Optimus nodded. Arcee was right, but Windblade did have a point. Besides, until they could find out how the herald had broken out of the prison in the first place, they didn’t have any real plan for him besides ‘slap some stasis cuffs on him and hope for the best’. Which, in all honestly, was more wishful thinking than a plan.
“We could try talking with him,” Optimus started. The rest of the council stared at him like he had gone crazy. He didn’t blame them. “Think of it as an interrogation. We can assume Starscream knows how he broke out. We can ask him, and once we have our answers we can build a better containment that prevents something like this from happening again.”
The Council continued to stare at him for a few moments as his words sunk in.
“Well, we don’t exactly have a better plan,” Jazz said, shrugging. “Regardless of what he says, I’m adding cameras to the new Crypt. Clearly it was a mistake not to include them before.”
Arcee sighed and stood up from her seat. “I’ll prepare myself to tell Prowl then.”
Optimus nodded in thanks. The enforcer had been banned from Council meetings after the third time he had flipped the entire table over. Now they drew straws before a meeting started on who had to catch him up on their decisions. Most of the time Jazz ended up doing it anyway, but on some days, like today, the white car wasn’t able to clear his afternoon in order to break the news.
Elita looked over at him. “Should we reconvene in a couple hours for the interrogation?”
The Prime nodded and Elita began to hash out the exact time with the other council members. Optimus smiled beneath his mask as he watched her. When they had begun rebuilding the planet after the war, it had become clear to him very quickly that he had no idea what he was doing. After Soundwave had expressed no interest in a major leadership position (the cassette player was part of the council, but he had opted to skip this meeting with the simple message of Soundwave: Not dealing with Starscream again) the head-of-council position had been split between Optimus and Elita into Head-of-State and Head-of-Government respectively. This had ended up being the perfect arrangement, with Elita leading the planet from a political angle while Optimus worked on inspiring and mediating the population as well as acting as a direct connection to Primus.
Once everyone but Elita and Optimus had cleared out of the room, the pink car turned to her conjunx. “Are you sure about this?”
The truck shook his helm. “No. But as of now this is our best option.”
Elita responded with a sigh but forced a smile as she looked up at him. “I just hope you’re right.”
Everything was black. Darkness stretched in every direction for as far as any one could possibly conceive. It was space with no stars, or planets, or moons. It was a wasteland.
Starscream groaned as he floated in the Void. Not here. He didn’t want to be here again.
Purple cracks began to form at his pedes, stretching out into the Void. Fear wrapped its talons around his spark, squeezing it in its grasp as panic filled his frame. Starscream desperately began slamming his servos against his helm. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up! Just as the cracks began to form a face, Starscream’s optics snapped back on and he woke up, venting heavily.
The herald ran his hands over his face, and it was then that he noticed the stasis cuffs. Frag.
He wasn’t sure how long he wallowed in self pity before the rhythmless beeping of a code being typed into a lock broke the silence. A door he hadn’t noticed before hissed open and three bots stepped into the tiny room, forcing Starscream to scoot himself backwards against a wall in order to create some distance between himself and his captors. This cell was far too small for all of them. Was it even a cell? Had the Autobots just stuffed him in a closet?
Starscream looked over the bots in front of him. He recognized the bot who had entered first as Elita One and his spark sank ever so slightly. If he tried to escape now she would definitely be the biggest obstacle. Next to her stood the Head of Special Op (Jazz, was it?), not as big a problem but definitely not to be underestimated. He had downed the jet more times than he cared to admit. The odds were most definitely stacked against him if it came down to a proper fight. His gaze drifted towards the final member of the trio of jailers and he felt a frown cross his facial plates.
“You’re new.”
The flight frame in question cringed ever so slightly at his voice before quickly regaining her composure. “I did not fight in the war.”
Starscream raised an optic ridge at that but turned back to face the large pink car. Yep. He definitely couldn’t take her in a fight without his weapons. Perhaps he could take this newcomer hostage and use that as part of his escape attempt?
“Hey, Screamer,” Jazz began. “How you doing?”
The harbinger scowled at the racecar. “What do you think?”
Jazz held up his hands in an imitation of surrender. “Fair enough. Listen, we just want to know how you broke out of the Crypt.”
Starscream scoffed. “Even if I knew the method of my escape, I wouldn’t tell you.”
The newcomer’s brow knitted together. “You don’t know how you broke out?”
“So someone freed you,” Elita deduced.
The herald shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Autobot.”
Elita One and Jazz exchanged a brief glance followed by silence that gave away that they were having some kind of conversation over comms. Rude.
The newcomer cautiously took a step forward, causing the prisoner to try and unfurl his wings, only to be stopped by the tight cord he hadn’t realized was wrapped around them. Why hadn’t he noticed it? “Did the Unmaker free you?” she asked.
Starscream almost laughed. “My Master and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment.”
“How are things going in there?” a voice called from outside.
Starscream’s claws itched with murderous intent. Primus’s stooge. The image of the Star Sabre buried in Megatron’s empty spark chamber flashed through his mind once more.
Optimus peaked his head in through the doorway and paused awkwardly once his optics landed on Starscream. The herald wasn’t sure if the hesitation was due to him being dangerous or because the Prime felt some amount of guilt for killing his carrier. Starscream abruptly slapped himself as hard as he could with bound servos. He couldn’t let himself think of him like that.
The cell was filled with an uncomfortable silence as the other bots stared at him as if he had done something odd. Thankfully, it was broken when Optimus decided to speak again. “As you may have guessed, the war is over.”
Starscream opted to give him an unimpressed look. He had started to suspect as much and, with Megatron dead, it definitely made sense. Not to mention the existence of the archives.
“More specifically,” the Prime continued. “The war has been over for a few million years.”
Starscream felt like he was back in the ice. The frigid talons of fear trailed up his spinal strut like thousands of frozen spiders. He should have suspected this. He should have known. But it had been a possibility that just hadn’t crossed his mind. Why hadn’t it? Near the same thing had happened to Skyfire. Why wouldn’t it happen to him? The universe certainly hated him enough to allow it to happen. His vision was going blurry. Was it because of the shock, or was he suffering from medical complications due to being trapped in a block of ice for millions of years?
It would appear that the planet was still ruled by a Primacy, if the presence of Primus’s lackey was anything to go off of. Cybertron really was a foolish civilization if they thought the existence of a pitiful glowing knickknack meant that their murderer of a leader could rule over the planet as if his servos weren’t stained with energon. Such was the sway of religion, he supposed.
Hmm. There was an idea.
“So, as you can guess, we want to maintain this era of hope and peace between both former factions. A lot has changed while you were gone, and we really just think it would be better for all of us, you included, if we simply put you back in the ice.”
Anger cut through the dread that had previously kept him from interrupting. “How about you go frag yourself, your holiness?”
Elita scowled and stepped directly into his line of sight, cutting off his view of the Prime. “That does it!”
The pink car reached down and plucked the Seeker from the ground, causing him to release a loud squawk. Starscream struggled in her grasp, but she held strong. Elita removed a hard drive from her subspace and his optics widened in fear. There was no doubt in his mind that it was a sedative that would have him out like a light if it was inserted into one of his ports. Starscream had been right to assume he couldn’t take her in a fair fight. But in an unfair fight. . .
“Wait. Wait!” he shouted as loud as he could. “I was being controlled!”
Elita paused, frowning down at him. “What?”
Starscream took a moment to gather his thoughts before he continued. “The Unmaker had me under his control.” He looked over at Optimus and desperately struggled to keep himself from smirking. “Like Megatron.”
Oh, yes. That definitely struck something within the Prime if his optics were anything to go off of.
“Arcee can confirm this for you. It may even be in any reports you have.”
Elita looked over at Jazz and the two of them seemed to communicate something over comms.
“So you didn’t willingly do any of the things that got you locked in the Crypt?” the newcomer asked.
Starscream shook his helm while biting down hard on his glossa to keep any amusement from rising to the surface. This one would be easy to manipulate. “What I did do willingly was give the Autobots the cure for my enhanced rust plague.”
“You willingly made a deal with the Unmaker,” Elita argued.
The herald shook his helm in an imitation of sympathy. “How would you like it if I shamed you for your religious practices? I thought the Autobots were better than that. Tell me, is there any law on the books saying I can’t worship who I choose?” Starscream knew for a fact there hadn’t been before the war. While there had been strict laws about how one could worship Primus, worshipping Unicron had been seen as such a ridiculous concept no one had been worried about it. And if a law had been written in since the war ended, he could just claim innocence via a grandsire clause.
“You still did all those war crimes for Megatron!” Jazz interjected.
Starscream cocked his helm. “So did the rest of the Decepticons. Were they also imprisoned for millions of years?” The looks on their faces said enough. “I thought not.”
With Elita distracted, Starscream managed to free himself from her grip and backed a short distance away. Finally free, he allowed the faint hint of a smirk to tug at the edge of his features. “What do you say, Prime? Am I free to go?”