The Devil's Advocate

Chapter 4

Starscream had already settled himself on the operating table by the time Arcee fully processed what he was asking of her. His aerial alt mode was the singular advantage that he had over the Autobots, and only with him losing it did they stand any chance of defeating him in a one-on-one battle. More specifically, it was the only thing that made him Arcee's own equal in terms of weaponry.

And that was all assuming she didn't end up killing him during the procedure- accidentally or not.

"And why should I help you get an alt mode back when I can't even use mine?" Arcee asked, crossing her servos in refusal of the scalpel Starscream held out towards her. His talons gripped the handle harder, scoring grooves into it as he growled.

"This is not the time to be petty, two-wheeler. Either suck up your bitterness and help me, or get used to being under Megatron's claws for the rest of your short life."

As overdramatic as the statement was, Arcee's will to survive the remainder of the war intact outweighed her need to see Starscream suffer. Still, even if she wasn't operating on an enemy, she was no medic. Anything beyond a simple field patch up and scratch buff was way beyond her. "Do you really want someone like me slicing you open?"

Starscream's expression curdled. "Believe me, you wouldn't be my first choice, but you're the only one I have. Just do exactly as I say, unless you actually like having those restraints stuck on you." Though his snarl was convincing enough, it couldn't mask the tremor in his vocaliser; the one that showed he was just as nervous as she was. He knew how dangerous she was, how quickly she would offline him given the chance, yet he was the one literally offering her a knife to gut through him.

He really was desperate, then. Arcee finally took the scalpel from him, rubbing her digits over the marks left by his claws as he lay back on the tilted table.

"Now, there's two ways to proceed..." Starscream hissed stale air through both vents and olfactories. "I can either endure an incision through my side, directly cutting into where my T Cog should be, or... accessing through my chest, since the cog goes right underneath the spark chamber. Each have their own range of complications and countless things to go wrong, so it really makes no difference which one you choose."

Arcee's optics flicked to both his chest, rising and falling slowly with his stilted breaths, and the point above his hip where one of his talons tapped. "Which is less dangerous?" she asked. Though this opportunity to terminate him would never come again, she wasn't so blinded by revenge that she'd jeopardise any chance at ending the war early.

Starscream stared at her, as if trying to figure out whether she actually was planning to kill him. "In the short-term, the first one, though there's always the possibility of the incision becoming infected. So if you want a chance of me dropping dead later, I'm sure you'll enjoy that method." He flashed a knowing smirk at her, obviously goading her into some sort of confession that, just this once, she needed him alive.

She weighed up the options for a few long moments, staring at the blade in her hand and Seeker-turned-sacrificial lamb in front of her. "I'll risk going through the chest," she decided.

Starscream's optics widened in surprise, and his mouth flattened into an impartial line. "...Very well." He turned his helm so he was staring at the ceiling, and air rattled in and out of his vents. "When I open my chest plating, I'll indicate where to cut into."

Arcee's optics narrowed in confusion. "Aren't you going to induce stasis?" That had been her assumption, that Starscream would give her all the directions before hand, but he stubbornly shook his helm.

"And let you run off to leave me here? No, I'll happily take my chances with the pain instead." That he would endure the waking agony about to follow just to make sure she stayed put said a lot more than he would have meant to, Arcee couldn't help thinking, but she let the scalpel blade cut into her palm to chase the notion away.