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Starscream jolts awake, drowsily making note of his surroundings. Good, still in his chambers, wouldn't look good for the 'Chosen One' to be caught powered down on the job.
Running Cybertron was increasingly lowering the amount of time he had to recharge, and it was showing... Perhaps... Just a quick one. Rattrap can handle things for a few dozen kliks...
Suddenly he's conscious again and sprawled out on a grime encrusted floor. And oh Primus, he knows where he is.
The door opens behind him and he can see his shadow... He can barely bring himself to turn around and face him. This isn't happening. This isn't happening.
"Hello Starscream."
Slag slag slag, not here, not again!
A heavy foot collides with his back, and he's forced to look upon him, in all his terror-inducing glory.
Megatron.
"Up. You'll not find your dignity down there."
He scrambles to his feet, this isn't real, he can't submit, won't submit. He's the Chosen One now frag it!
And so in a moment of fury, he runs, blasting out the wall and transforming in one slick movement.
But things are different, instead of being able to make his escape into space he's flying down a hallway, one that gets smaller and smaller as he moves along it. Decepticons shift through the walls, laughing, laughing at him. Quake, with molten slag spewing from his eyes and mouth, Acid Storm and Sunstorm with their paint chipped and scratched away to nothing, Dreadwing, nothing more than a metal endoskeleton. Even Hot Rod, the matrix gripped in his hands.
And as he reaches the end of the hallway, forced to transform in the cramped conditions, there is little more he can do than watch Megatron approach, fusion cannon outstretched.
Claustrophobia is a common affliction for Seekers, to be free in the sky was their greatest dream, to be trapped... It was a nightmare. And so, as Megatron began to beat him into the walls of the ever-tightening hallway, Starscream felt more fear than he had ever felt before in his entire life.
And Megatron's still talking.
"You see, leadership is not something I fear losing. It is something I dread you gaining."
He knows he's right, the evidence is all around them, laughing and beating him within an inch of his life.
I couldn't make them obey me. Not through respect. Not through fear.
All my plans I had envisioned... Trickling through my fingers...
But in the midst of the pain, of the humiliation, he hears a faint voice.
"Starscream!"
It's him, the phantom, the memory, the figment of his imagination, the friend.
A yellow hand reaches out for him, and Starscream takes it.
"Starscream! Are you alright?"
Starscream jolts awake once more, back in his chambers, turning to his left he sees Bumblebee, in his usual spectral form, looking over him.
"Of course I'm alright!" Starscream snapped, he couldn't show weakness, despite how difficult it was to not just take his head in his hands and sob openly after that whole ordeal.
"You started convulsing..." Bumblebee said, a look of concern on his face. Indeed, Starscream could almost faintly feel it, genuine worry emanating from a distant EM field.
"Nothing more than a processor glitch. It happens sometimes..." Starscream mumbled.
"If you say so." Bumblebee nodded, Starscream could clearly see he knew it was more than that but decided not to press the matter.
"But... Thank you, for your concern." He said as quickly as possible. Bumblebee smiled slightly and began to fade out.
"Rattrap took the cycle off, by the way, you've got a whole stack of datapads outside your door."
"Scrap." Starscream muttered, what did he pay that rodent for anyway?
Things were more clear now though. That... Event, was stellar cycles ago now. Megatron was gone, on some fools errand which if Primus had any mercy left, he wouldn't return from. He'd learned from his mistakes on the asteroid, he was in control now, things were working.
All those plans he had envisioned would finally come to fruition.
All. Hail. Starscream...