Sparkling Troubles

Chapter 20

The sparklings return after almost two years!!! :D

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Optimus didn’t want to look up. He’d heard the small cry (of surprise, or maybe fear; he couldn’t tell) and immediately knew what had happened. He forced his optics open, however, when a shout of protest rang through the dusty and humid air.

“Hey, put me down! Hey!”

Smokescreen. The Prime should have known that the rambunctious sparkling would follow him through. He bent one leg and groaned in pain; his back struts ached from the finishing blow dealt by Starscream mere moments before the entry of Smokescreen.

There was something pinching in his neck. He couldn’t lift his helm to see the scene before him and tried valiantly to bring himself upward- a luckless task until a wail reached his audio receptors, and he threw himself forward to snap his frame out of its pain-ridden prison.

And there Starscream was, in all of his grotesque glory, his long, sharp digits digging into little Smokescreen’s doorwings. Optimus felt anger radiate through his frame, boiling up to his vocalizer until he let out a harsh shout.

“Starscream!” He bellowed, rising to his heavy pedes and beginning to walk toward the other scene. “This is between you and I!”

A harsh cackle echoed through their barren surroundings. “Prime,” the seeker drawled, as if just noticing the larger mech’s presence for the first time. The very tips of his digits were glowing bright blue. “Nice of you to call in… reinforcements.”

“Put the sparkling down,” Optimus requested with malice, but not forcefully. He did not want to trigger a reaction and risk injuring the young ‘bot indirectly.

“Or what?” Starscream snarled. “I have to say, this one is much less feisty than the bug. To be fair, though, that one was a little… out of his helm.” A sneer split his face as he held Smokescreen up by his door wings and clenching the grip tighter. A shout arose from said mechling, a tiny drop of coolant following. His little legs kicked the air but did not hit their mark, too short to reach.

Optimus felt his anger reemerge and began to run forward, a wordless shout pointed at his enemy. The long blade in his forearm extended and he slashed down with the force of a titan. The blow was deflected by one of the missiles on Starscream’s arms, sending vibrations through the seeker’s entire frame, though his other servo remained tightly grasped around Smokescreen’s doorwings.

He pointed his arm at the Prime, quicky shooting off two of the red projectiles in a quick defensive response. Optimus managed to swing the blade in time to smack one to the side, where it hit a rock and exploded. The chunks of earth rained from above and managed to distract both combatants just in time for Optimus’s arm cannon to shoot two bursts of energy at the gray mech. Starscream’s second shot managed to clip the side of Optimus’s helm and, by some stroke of indescribable luck, took several nanoseconds more than usual to explode, taking only one ‘helm fin’ and some exterior metal with it.

Optimus felt his processor rattle within its confinement, but forced himself forward through the nausea. He took in Starscream’s injured state and located Smokescreen, who lay several yards away. The Prime took two steps and used his colossal momentum to kick the scrambling seeker in the abdomen.

Starscream looked up with half-terrified, half-viciously angered optics and transformed faster than Optimus could follow. A high-pitched whine of machinery cut through the aura of the stagnant area as he jetted from the ground, dust billowing beneath his boosters. The Autobot leader shot several more energy rounds at the retreating form before turning, perhaps too quickly, a searching look in his optics.