The Good, the Bad and Starscream

Chapter 5: One Shall Rise

Starscream continued banging his head against the door, trying desperately to get the Autobots' attention.

What he didn't know was that they were currently busy trying to save Rafael's life, who had been inside Bumblebee when the latter was struck by one of Megatron's Dark Energon plasma blasts. The scout survived with minor injury, but the boy had been in life-threatening danger. The Autobots had fought the Decepticons at the military base when Megatron landed gracefully in front of them, exchanging trash talk with Optimus and then noting the presence of Bumblebee, carrying the wounded Rafael.

Bumblebee and Arcee had then returned to base through the GroundBridge with the boy, to everyone's horror, while Optimus and Bulkhead stayed behind to finish the mission.

As they were currently working on Rafael, they had completely forgotten about their Seeker, who had been slamming himself against the door and walls for a day, trying to warn them of an upcoming disaster.

The dream he had didn't seem like a mere dream. It felt like a forecast: Cloudy, with a bit of Dark Energon downpour.

Another thing he noticed in his dream was that the sun was pitch black, surrounded by a ring of light - a solar eclipse. He didn't know what it meant, but that, combined with the violet eruption of the volcano behind the towering Decepticon leader, soon executing his archnemesis, seemed like a bad omen.

He had first considered it to be merely a dream. That it was a figment of his imagination and that he shouldn't think further about it.

But seconds after waking from the dream, he swore he heard a faint, yet powerful and ominous voice inside his head rumbling:

"I...SHALL...RETURN..."

It felt too real to be merely a dream.

While he wasn't a religious fanatic like a certain other Seeker he knew - he was more of a scientist like a certain Cyclops - he had speculated on the odds of Primus and Unicron being real beings or merely folktales. The Primes were real, he knew that much. That they were messengers, followers of Primus, that he knew as well. Dark Energon is the Blood of Unicron, he knew that too. But there had never been any documented images or personal encounters with either Unicron or Primus, so he doubted either of them were real.

That dream got him on other thoughts.

Not wanting to risk getting destroyed by - literally - the Destroyer, he felt he needed to warn someone, anyone, so he could get off this planet and to safety. But it didn't seem like that was going to happen any time soon, if at all.

During the first hour, he was getting annoyed that the Autobots weren't answering his call. After six hours, he started getting frustrated. After nine hours, he became furious about being ignored. After fourteen hours, his anger turned into desperation and worry.

What if they had forgotten about him? Soundproofed the cell so they couldn't hear his outbursts anymore? Or...had they finally given up on him?

Whatever the case, it was driving the Seeker mad. He was no longer banging simply his head, but also his shoulders, his back, his chest and even kicked at the door.

"Autobots! You can't seriously ignore me forever! Why won't you listen to me?!" he screamed with all his might, twenty hours later.

He paused for a moment, panting in exhaustion and feeling pain and soreness from the areas he rammed himself with, waiting for someone to appear, even giving a simple response. Nobody came, no sound came, there was no response. His anger returned, as well as his frustration, tired of being ignored.

"ANSWER ME!" he yelled and kicked hard at the door.

He winced back when the door went up ten centimeters from his kick. It was open. It had been open this entire time. But when? Why? Had the power gone out? Or did somebot forget to lock the door after them?