Starry Skies

Chapter two; Seriously? Chains?

When Skywarp woke up, he found himself chained to a berth. Chained. With chains. And all that stuff. He began to hyperventilate, venting quickly and pulling at the restraining cuffs.

The mech began to click and chirp in the seeker language. Calling out for his brothers, sending desperation through his EM field. He wanted out, and he wanted it now. A unhappy seeker, plus fear, plus super strength equals broken chains.

Skywarp retreated to a corner, ashamed of breaking the chains. They probably cost a lot of credits. He bowed his head and whined in the lonely darkness of the room. Feeling dejected, he let himself shed a lone tear.

The door opened with a swish. Once Skywarp looked up, he wished he hadn't. There stood the Scout, who was looking at the berth in astonishment. Glancing at the terrified seeker, he held out a servo.

"P-Please! Don't hurt me! I-I-I'll be good! Don't chain me, please! T-They hurt-t. I don't w-wanna hurt anymore."

The servo gently pulled the seeker up. Skywarp fell forward, unable to balance. He didn't have rocket thrusters, he was just unbalanced. Leaning on the scouts chassis, Skwarp felt another wave of brief security, before he stood up strait again.

Warily, he scanned the smaller mechs defences and offences. Two servo blasters, a blade and... Holy all-spark! Was that a laser cannon? Deciding he was safe, the mech followed the scout through numerous hallways.

The scout whirred a quick question to the cowering seeker.

"-Will you harm the humans?-"

"No! They're more likely to scare me away! Everything is scary."

The muscle car nodded, and walked into the main room of the silo. Three humans sat on a faded red sofa, playing a video game. Some of team Prime were out, apart from Ratchet, Bulkhead and Smokescreen.

"-Hey!!! I brought... Sorry, what's your name?-"

"S-S-Skywarp."

Most bots would begin laughing, imitating his nervousness. These bots just nodded and watched him. A loud noise shrieked around the base. This effectively sent Skywarp upwards, and he hid under a table. Loud noises scared him. So did silence, but that was irrelevant.

"R-tche-, req--sti-g gro-nd-bri-ge!"

Said mech opened the portal, and a dented Optimus and Arcee stepped out. Arcee was leaking energon out her side, and Optimus had a cut on his chassis. Skywarp felt anger rise in him, but it was quelled with worry.

"Berth. Now. Don't argue, you're wasting time. If you don't treat that slash on your side, miss, then you are probably going to leak out."

The astonishment of a Decepticon and a Starscream look alike tending to her wounds shut Arcee up and she followed orders. Skywarp forgot who was tending, lost in a memory.

~
"Stay still Starscream! I warned you that Megatron was in a scrap mood!"

Starscream was pouting on a medical berth, a long gash in his side. He was wriggling away from the cleaning cloth. Skywarp was tenderly humming as he began to stroke Statscream's helm, distracting him from the welder.

"Here we go."

Gently he began to weld the wound. Starscream stiffened considerably, before relaxing again. Within seconds, his wounds were gone.

"At least I didn't have to sing again."

"Please Skywarp?"

"Scary!"

~

Skywarp hadn't noticed he had begun humming as he finished with Arcee. Ratchet was still working on Optimus, so the scared mech was quick. His slender digits were perfect for wiping away energon and welding wounds in seconds.

"Where did you learn skills like that?"

It was Smokescreen who had spoken. Skywarp slid back under the table. He was to nervous to speak. If he had done that in front of Megatron... He shivered. Life would not be pleasant. He spoke quietly.

"Thunder and Star used to get beaten for no reason. I had to repair them. Usually I took the beatings, but once every fifteen times I took the pain, they would come to me, near death. You learn to be quick and gentle when you have two mechs snapping at you."

The kids were watching this with interest. Miko asked a question (how unlike her!).

"Who are Thunder and Star?"

"Well, they're sort of my brothers. If you want technical terms, me and Thundercracker are clones of Starscream."

It only took seconds for Arcee to drag him back to the room and chain him again. She growled as he wimpered in the darkness, scared of everything.

"You may have helped me and Optimus, but Starscream killed Cliff. I don't want you around the kids."

"O-O-Okay."

•~•

Evidently, you haven't destroyed your device or hated my book.

Thank Primus.