Optimus Prime's unusual Charge

Unexpected Partners

The rest of the day for Knockout and Breakdown was pretty much uneventful. Routine checkups for the various crewmembers, occasional small repairs and the con medic finally got around to explaining the difference between organic blood and energon to his friend.

Knockout went into recharge earlier than usual, as he wanted to try something out.

Something that had to be done in a full recharged state and at a specific hour; at least according to his research on the subject.

Starscream's day wasn't as pleasant though. The seeker had to spend the whole day cooped up in his cell, both his wings and shoulder pads were getting stiff from being tied up with stasis cuffs all day.

He paced back and forth and around the small space nervously. Being grounded and locked up was driving him up the wall, and Megatron knew this.

The warlord was cruel indeed, and he knew his decepticons from helm to ped. This meant he knew what made them tick and what was the most appropriately cruel punishment for each one.

And the best way to punish a seeker was to ground them and take away their freedom. This is exactly what he did.

Starscream has been pacing for hours now, his pedes were starting to hurt. He stubbornly continued until his knee joints started cramping up.

With a silent hiss, he let himself slump down into a corner. He kept a brave face, scowling at the guards when they looked into his cell to check on him.

When the coast was clear though, his optics leaked. ["Curse you, Megatron! May you one day feel the wrath of oppression, as I have been doing for countless vorns!"]

Suddenly the small hatch at the bottom of his cell door unlocks and slides open. A servo sized cube of energon slid into the cell and the hatch closed back up and got locked.

The racket snaps him back out of his depressing thoughts. He looks at the cube for a while. It's at the farthest end of the cell. His pedes hurt and he doubts he's able to push himself back up onto them.

He looks at the door. No one is looking in. Good. He wouldn't want to be caught crawling over to his food like some four legged animal. Or three-legged, now that his servos are joined by the cuffs.

He crawled over just enough to grab it and retreated to his corner. He didn't feel like it, he didn't feel like anything. But he had to. His survival depended on it. ["Curse my instincts! Why can't they just let me die in peace? I rather die than remain a prisoner of Megatron's for the rest of my existence."]

He slowly but surely consumed the energon and was starting to feel much better. Though not for long as the reality dawns upon him again, he's back to feeling gloomy and resumes brooding in his small lonely dark corner of existence.

Later that night, Knockout was the only bot to wake up. The rest were still in recharge, and he was glad to have it that way. The more silence he had at his disposal, the better. Luckily for him, during the day he had Breakdown help him draw out some energon from his fuel lines and fill up some vials; ten to be exact.

They went about their business as usual but every now and then, Breakdown went around hiding vials all around the ship in locations out of sight and took notes of where he placed them. He didn't report this to Knockout and just gave him a datapad with a simple map of the ship and its various levels.

Knockout assumed his meditation position and got started.

The berth room was nice and quiet, a perfect space to relax. He made sure he was sat comfortably with his servos on his knee joints and tried to keep his back strut straight. He relaxed his neck guard and tucked his chin plate in slightly.