#tf reverse mini bang 2024 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

porkcracker · 5 months ago

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Greeting and welcome,

this little story is my part of the Reverse Mini Bang 2024 from @tf-bigbang. For anyone who doesn't know what that means, you sign up and get assigned to a piece of art and then write about it. You can read this story also on my AO3 here.

To see the comic my story is based on, check the end of it. The credit for it goes to @transformer-hardlyknowher.

As well as a shout-out to inconvenientfish on Discord for beta reading this story.

And with that, I hope you enjoy reading!

The battle over the Allspark and the Space Bridge was challenging and a matter of spark for all involved. The end seemingly clear for each faction. And still the end is not what they expected at all, rather it might be the start to something much bigger. If only the Trine did not have more important problems. Frag the rest, only Trine matters.

Consequences

The battle had been strenuous, but with the future of all mecha on earth, there had been not one spark who hadn't fought with everything at their disposal. At the centre of it all, the metal cube veined with gentle glowing blue that was the deciding point in their entire species future.

Decepticons were throwing themselves in the way of the yellow scout as he sprinted and then drove towards the space bridge guarded by humans, being tackled out of the way by Autobots in return. The Allspark changed servos once, and then it dropped as Prime crashed to the ground in tandem with Skywarp as her thrusters were hit by her trinemate.

In any other situation, Starscream would have wasted no time to berate Novastorm for hitting their own trinemate in such a crucial moment, but as it was, there were far more important matters to attend to. Up to this point, Starscream had been able to avoid excessive injury, something that came in handy as the Allspark hit the ground behind him and tumble past him. Millennia of reoccurring pain made it easy for him to bear the agony echoing through his trine bond with Skywarp, pushing it aside in favour of crouching down quickly before taking off in a sprint.

There was a strange feeling to the Allspark that made it unexpectedly distracting to carry it. It seemed as if there was a spark beat pulsing through the glowing veins that was undetectable to any onlooker, a warmth and a coldness at the same time. It made his digits tingle in a way that urged Starscream to shake out his servos. There was the short moment of curiosity, if it had felt like this for everyone that had carried the Allspark before him, but it was cut short rather painfully.

A pained and enraged hiss left the Seeker, as the heavy mass of a familiar frame dropped onto his wings and back. The Allspark slipped from his servo without fanfare, and the sudden loss of the feeling lead to a desonance Starscream was quick to ignore, quickly getting on his pedes once more and wasting no time to fire at the quickly departing form of what had once been the leader of the Decepticons. Once the leader, now a filthy traitor, it had been vindication to be proven correct in claiming to be the rightful - better - leader of the Decepticons. While it would have been pleasing to have his shot hit, and an advantage in the fight as well, Starscream was well aware of Novastorm's approach and as such there was little surprise for him as she dropped onto Megatron in a mirrored attempt to retrieve the Allspark. It also meant he had to stop his shooting, for the high possibility of hitting Novastorm in the position she was in, but that was only a small worry.

They were, after all, not the only Decepticons on the battlefield...and he was not the only Decepticon fuelled by deep rage and hate.

Truly, there had been seldomly something that had brought him more joy than then the utter betrayal Soundwave had felt when Megatron had turned his back and become the Prime's lapdog instead. Perhaps he would have been more empathetic, if the Host had not been a witness to his treatment at their master's servo, but as it stood it was a pleasure to see him suffer at Megatron's servo instead. It was not the pain he himself had suffered, but it was perhaps a worse fate for the Host.

Nevertheless, as much as Starscream enjoyed Soundwave's pain in this matter, he could not deny that this had also caused them to work together better than ever, fuelled by the same distaste for the same mech, they had become a rather formidable team.

Starscream hurried to use the opening Soundwave created with his supersonic ability and threw himself at Megatron as well. With Novastorm attempting to restrain his helm, Starscream focused on wrenching the Allspark from his grip, nearly losing his halt as Megatron fell to the ground it was easy to overplay it with victorious words.

"Decepticons, bear witness to the fall of Megatron!", it was with these words, even if they were most likely drowned out by Soundwave's ability, that Starscream doubled his effort.

Truly, even if the rest of the Decepticons would not hear it, it would be enough for Starscream, if Megatron heard it and remembered who had been the one to win in the end. Alas, it was a fruitless endeavour, with a last gathering of his strength Megatron pushed himself up and the Seekers clinging to him to the ground and pulled his arm back.

It felt as if the battlefield was suddenly slowing in time as Megatron's arm moved forwards once more, the Allspark leaving his servo and moving towards the space bridge. Starscream's optics widened, there was no doubt that the Allspark would pass Soundwave.

And if it did and entered the space bridge? Everything would be for nothing.

It hurt, but the Leader of the Decepticons pushed himself up and forwards, towards the space bridge, he was not the fastest Seeker for nothing. The rapid built of speed was anything, but pleasant, but it all paled in the light of the stakes. When the world seemed to regain normal speed once more, everything happened at once, Starscream had just a moment to note in the back of his processor that Soundwave was turning his helm to watch as he passed him, his digit tips brushing the surface of the Allspark, and he could feel the familiar pull of the space bridge.

Then everything lit up in white-hot pain.

Starscream's relationship to dying had been ever-changing. In a time that felt lives away, back on Cybertron, before the war, before losing one of the most important mecha in his life he had not thought about death much, there had been no reason for him to do so. But then he had lost his partner and death had been the only thing on his processor. The responsibility for his death and the wish that it had been him instead, a wish that had never been granted.

Then the war had started and Starscream had thought himself above death, something that had not been changed by the enemy, but instead by his own leader. It had built a vicious cycle of abuse and revenge that over millions of years had made Starscream fear death and then accept it. There had been no doubt to him that one day he would die at the servos of Megatron, if he did not kill him first, a sentiment that had not changed after Megatron had left and had become an Autobot lackey instead.

But for all the times Starscream had thought he would die or had thought about how he would die, he had never imagined dying for something other than himself, which while one might argue it was the case indeed, there was no denying that the Allspark was far more than just for himself. With the Allspark gone, and the space bridge destroyed, they were all doomed to a fate on earth with no escape. While there was the common assumption of one's life flashing before their optics upon death, Starscream could not claim the same for himself.

There was only pain.

Every cable, every plate, every last piece of his frame lit up in pain before falling numb in the face of the agony centred in his wings and cockpit, or was it his spark? He couldn't tell, any rational thought drowned out by the pain numbing his frame, before that too faded into nothingness.

The battlefield had come to an abrupt halt, as if suddenly frozen. All optics were directed towards the smoking crater that had only nanokliks ago held both the last hope for their species and their last hope to return to their home, both gone, wiped out in an explosion that had rattled the ground and the armour on everyone's frame. EM fields flared with terror, hopelessness, grim determination and pain, there was no longer a way to leave earth. But that was not the only thing that had changed in the drop of an eye.

Watching the dark smoke rising from what had only seconds ago been the space bridge back to Cybertron, red optics wide and intake slightly open, Megatron stood frozen. Were someone to stand beside him at this moment, the strength of the once Warlord's EM field would have most certainly been enough to force them to take a few steps away at least. But as it stood, his allies were not within reach. Perhaps for the better for more than one reason.

Millennia upon millennia had made Megatron a battle experienced warrior far outreaching any gladiatorial fight he had fought before and the logical part of his processor was well aware that it was perhaps the better choice to destroy the space bridge lest any of the Decepticons followed after it to Cybertron. He had after all been a close witness and the leading force in the faction's stubbornness before this, and as such was well aware that there was little that would stop his most stubborn warriors - his once most stubborn warriors, there were still times he spoke and thought of the Decepticons as his, a habit he had yet to fully break.

There was a part of him that was not fully willing to let go yet. Not for reasons some may have thought, no rather Megatron caught himself in the quiet hours of the day regarding the Decepticons as his to master, his to own. Perhaps another reason he had to join Optimus. He had no doubt that he had strayed far from his original goals, something he did not regret in all cases, but this one was one in which he did so.

Had he not rebelled in the first place, as to enable all Cybertronians to life their lives as they wanted with no one to call themself the master of another mecha's life? And yet it was a role he had settled himself in so easily and comfortably at the cost of not only his own ideals and goals, but the misery of his faction and now at the cost of never being a witness to the Cybertron he had done this for.

Perhaps the eternal payment for the destruction he had brought to the planet in his quest to better it. But no matter what the logical part of his processor said, the thing at the forefront of his processor was the abject horror of being stuck on this planet so far away from their home that it was a certain doom to remain here for the rest of his life.

With all his focus on the smoking crater, Megatron paid little attention to the yellow Seeker not all that far behind him, but in return Novastorm did little to pay active attention to the once Deception leader either. She had only managed to sort through her internal alarms and cleared her HUD of warning messages dying it red, in time to watch the fatal shot hit, and the space bridge explode as she had sat up. The shock at seeing the only way back to Cybertron blow up made her freeze, wings dropping in disbelieve, making her wince automatically at the pain flaring through her system at the abrupt movement of her injured wings.

But her focus did not stay directed towards the crater of the space bridge all that long, or rather not on the part of the crater that had once been the space bridge. Familiar purple lightning whizzed past her faceplate and her optics automatically trailed it, only for her expression to shift from shock to abject horror.

Scrambling to get to her pede, Novastorm did not even manage a full step before falling to the ground once more. In the horror of the moment she had forgotten that the damage that had grounded her in the first place had been a shot out thruster, and as such the sudden weight of her frame on it had sent burning pain through her frame. However, the pain of her battered frame and shot out thruster paled in comparison to the black hole in her spark. What had previously not fully registered came in full force now. It felt like someone had ripped out her spark and cut out a third of it, leaving it incomplete and instable in the face of a suddenly cut trine bond.

Her whole frame and processor were taken over by pure agony, the pain of her crash fully overshadowed by this new kind of pain filling her frame. Novastorm once more attempted to rise to her pede, ignoring the pain flaring in her pede, but once more she found herself crumbling to the ground, leaving her unable to walk or stand a prolonged time. Horror and agony burned bright in her field, only overshadowed by the pain in it, a little less than a hundred meters, and she was incapable of reaching them. There was a rattling noise she noted in the back of her processor, but did not even fully realise was coming from the shaking of her own frame, as yellow digits dented black plaiting as her arms wrapped around herself in a hug. Of course, all Seekers were aware of the risk from the day they were able to comprehend the meaning of trine and even more so once they had found a trine, but there was nothing that could have prepared Novastorm for the full agony it would be.

It was suddenly far more understandable why this pain was said to drive Seekers into lifelong depressions, or even simply kill a lone left Seeker. With the sudden loss with of one of her trine bonds, Novastorm buried herself in the one that she had left, reaching out and being equally reached for, clinging to each other in the bond to reassure that at least this one was still there and not simply cut in the blink of optic like it had never been there in the first place. It was horrifying to know that from one moment to the other any proof of their trine bond had simply been whisked away into the nothingness of the black hole in her spark and still she knew if she opened her chassis right this second, there would be no physical damage to prove.

With her focus turned inside and towards her bond, Novastorm did not even notice the way her derma was quivering or the way her vision was blurring as optical fluid gathered in her optics until it simply spilled over and ran down her faceplate in big tears. There was no sound, no sobbing, no sniffling, only the reflection of the setting sun in the increasing wetness of her faceplate, as more and more tears spilled from her optics, until they had crossed her full faceplate and dripped to the floor and unto her arms. It was only then that she noticed the outward change and with a muted pained whimper quickly wiped her faceplate with shaking servo's, before simply burying her faceplate in her servo's.

Whereas Novastorm and Starscream had reached the Space Bridge, Skywarp had been stopped in her tracks by Prime, the moment she had collided with the earth, she had triggered her transformation just in time to meet the bigger mech helm on. The crash had been anything, but pain free, but it was easy for her to ignore the pain with the amount of signals shooting through her circuit. The pain signals the last of her worries at the moment, still in the end it didn’t prevent her from being disoriented by a fist to the faceplate. Her view momentarily darkening as she stumbled back, servos shooting up to hold her faceplate, she expected more attacks to follow, but none did.

By the time she regained her view, her optics widened in shock as she realised just why this had been the case. The Prime had used her moment of disorientation to make his way quickly towards the edge of the canyon, his weapon aimed at something Skywarp did not immediately realise. It was as he shot, her helm turning to follow the visible laser streak, that she understood.

The Prime had doomed them. It filled the usually rather cheerful Seeker with raging hate. They had fought millions of years, brought sacrifice after sacrifice to move towards a Cybertron that they could one day call theirs and that would thrive and Prime simply decided for all of them that they would never return, stuck on this dirt ball filled with disgusting fleshlings. But the rage was catapulted to the back in mere milliseconds, for the Space Bridge was not the only thing destroyed by the Prime. Undoubtedly there was only one other mecha on this battlefield that felt the same rage, pain, desperation and shock than her.

It was like slow motion that she watched Starscream reach for the Allspark before the whole area lighted up in a big explosion, leaving nothing but a charred crate in its wake. But what did it matter, if they could no longer return home, there was no longer any kind of hope of their species continuing on after this war would be over, no, the only thing that mattered was the blinding pain that ripped her spark apart as a connection she had thought to be lifelong flickered and then vanished leaving an empty space that surely would reflect in her spark as a piece having been simply carved out. There was no way that this pain was not physical. What felt like an eternity of her simply standing there like frozen, must have been a few seconds to any witness before her frame was suddenly gone with the crackle of purple lightning.

When Skywarp took form again, a violent flinch shook her frame, wings flared unevenly and in contrast to the usual elegance Seekers carried themselves with in the day-to-day life, but the purple Seeker could not have cared less as bright red optics stared at the ground before her. Starscream had been a constant of life for a very, very long time, there had been more than one fight inside the trine and more often than not they found themselves arguing, but they had been trine.

Trine was more than any non Seeker would ever understand, it was something that had prevailed from the moment the first Seekers had wandered Cybertron. Trine was more than family, trine was more than a silly relationship, trine was a commitment for eternity. No matter how often they argued and fought and disagreed, there was a bond deeper than any love between them and now Skywarp was looking down at the destroyed frame of her trine leader and the pain that had previously been near paralysing reached a new height.

There were no words, no gesture, that could express the agony filling every atom making up her frame, it was like Primus or Unicron or whoever was out there was peeling her apart atom by atom and scrapping out any bit that had ever been Starscream with a blade.

It was by then that Novastorm seemed to have woken from her stupor and buried into their bond, and Skywarp was glad for it. It was that movement in the bond, that little bit of life in the consuming darkness that forcefully reminded her where she was and why she was here, not that she paid any more attention to it than she had prior. No, for all she cared everyone, Autobot and Decepticon could frag right off, what did they matter in the face of this damage they had done. The only things that counted right now were Novastorm and Starscream.

Extending her bond towards Novastorm, Skywarp attempted to express as much comfort as she could while being consumed by the same pain and agony that was consuming her yellow trinemate. In the end, there was not much they could do besides share their pain, for neither of them had much energy to comfort the other with positive emotions at the current time. Later, mayhap when they were alone and had done their duty, they could grieve and comfort each other, but right this moment it was simply impossible. It was then that her legs simply gave in, a tremble running through them, before Skywarp crumbled to her knees next to the frame of her trine leader. His frame was for all purposes beat up, but not as bad as he had been beaten before.

The white had been charred with black and his optics were offline, his cockpit was smashed, and his wings were melted at the edges, but Skywarp had seen him in worse states before. Had felt the pain echo in her own frame through the bond as grey servos inflicted more and more pain, followed by prolonged stays in the medbay or not, if Starscream managed to scurry himself away or Megatron decided he did not deserve it. It was with these thoughts, memories of an even worse crumpled frame filling her processor that her servo let go of her thighs, the armour crumbled under the strength of her straining grip and instead reached for the frame of her trine leader.

Logically, Skywarp knew that Starscream was dead, there was no way to replicate a broken bond and there was no doubt in her mind that there was no comparable thing to the pain they were feeling that could be anything other than a broken bond, but nonetheless a small perhaps childish part of her hoped that if she was to simply shake Starscream he would online his optics again and glare up at her before hissing at her to get the frag out of his berthroom and how dare she wake him up like he had done so often before he had been calmed with a nice cube of Energon. The scene playing back in her processor was so… domestic in retrospect that Skywarp could not help herself but curse herself for never appreciating the grumpy aft Starscream had been whenever he had been caught up in an experiment of his own and had fallen asleep on a datapad. Back at the moment she had only ever been annoyed and so had Starscream been and more often than not the result had been an argument that had reached on for the entire morning.

It was only at the feel of a new stab of devastation in the bond that was left that Skywarp realised that her clawed servos had closed around Starscream’s arm and shoulder and were shaking him. Red optics slowly filled with unspilled tears as the Skywarp slowly stop shaking Starscream, forcing herself to do so.

After what had felt like several minutes and had in truth only been a few seconds, Megatron’s focus had shifted from his musings to the world around him once more, fully expecting an attack from an enraged Starscream or Soundwave, but it was as his optics landed on the view only a few meters away from the crate that his thoughts screeched to a stop and his optics widened in abject horror. There was his SI- his once SIC’s frame, and Skwarp was kneeling next to it with a look on her faceplate that Megatron had never seen there before. The way she was shaking Starscream was the second thing that clues the once warlord in to what was happening, and it was enough to make his vents momentarily stop. There was no denying that Megatron had beaten and degraded Starscream on more than one occasion, bending his armour, breaking his struts, watching as his Energon leaked over his frame and had coloured his armour and the floor he had been lying on in a bright pink. There had been far too many times when he had done so in the view of all and everyone, but never had Skywarp reacted like this.

The pain, the shock, the way she seemed so desperate as she shook Starscream was enough to make him assume that Starscream was either dying or dead already. A part of Megatron wished to walk over and reassure himself of the fact, offer comfort to the purple Seeker in the wake of what undoubtedly was an agonising pain, but he was under no illusion that he would not be welcome, not as an Autobot and not as a leader either. And if Megatron was honest with himself, another thought he could not let Optimus hear about, another equally big part, if not bigger, did not want to do so. Said part was filled with satisfaction and pleased fulfilment at the traitorous Seeker finally dying.

There had been many times when the Seeker had been in his grasp, optics filled with pain and pleading, and Megatron had wanted to do nothing more than to disregard the pleading and the whimpering and simply tighten his grasp, until the Seeker’s optics darkened, but to do so then would have robbed him of an at times, rather competent SIC and the loyalty of the remaining Seekers as well, so he had never done so, but the wish to see the white, blue and red Seeker in pain had grown over the millennia and there was little pity for the way he had ended. To a certain degree, Megatron was disgusted with himself for how he thought about Starscream, but he was also aware that if he had not kept the Seeker in check the traitorous electro viper would have killed him instead, and there was no doubt that Starscream would not have had the mercy that Megatron had shown to him again and again.

Starscream against what many liked to rumour, and there were many rumours, had no noble upbringing, no fancy connections, nothing like that. The first memory the young Seeker had was the dirty streets.

How he got there he would never fully know and quite frankly at this point he no longer cared, he had carved himself a place in this world, and he had done so by himself. Science had been his first passion and love, stealing and pirating any data he could get on it to teach himself had been hard, but it had made his life brighter, and then he had managed to achieve what he had considered near impossible back then. An application to the Academy of Science with the alt mode conveniently left off, it had been good enough for a scholarship and by the time he had arrived, and they had realised they had let a Seeker into their precious Academy, it had been too late. A trick the professors and fellow students never let Starscream forget, how he wasn’t supposed to be there, but he hadn’t been alone.

There had been another flyer, a shuttle, brilliant and compassionate and caring. Starscream had quickly found his first true friend in him, and their partnership had been a close one until the fateful expedition that had changed Starscream’s life once more. He remembered the coldness, the way his wings had ached, and his fuel lines had hurt, and the white had become all composing. He had circled the whole planet nearly twice by the time his fuel was so low he only barely made it back to Cybertron and still there had been no sign of his partner. Not only that, but he had lost consciousness upon arriving back on Cybertron and when he came online again he had been accused of murder and no one listened when he begged for a search party, for help to search, Primus to let him go alone.

But no one listened.

Stripped of his place at the academy, his achievements and worst of all, knowing his partner was still somewhere out there alone, this was the first time Starscream truly thought about dying. He had begged for Primus to change their places, for his own death, if it meant Skyfire would be alive and well, but it had never come to fruition. There had been little left for Starscream that had mattered at all to him until he had heard of the start of a rebellion. There had been little consideration needed for him to join those that rebelled against those that had left his friend to die, and Starscream as such threw himself into the cause, quickly gaining the leaders' attention. Rising through the ranks hadn’t been all that complicated, and in the process of doing so he had found trinemates as well, Novastorm and Skywarp.

And for a time he had been almost happy, and then his relationship to Megatron had begun to deteriorate and a vicious cycle of scheming, punishment and more scheming had begun that had once more brought Starscream closer to death. All this played in front of Starscream like a film, it was near enough to make the Seeker scoff at the idea that it was truly true that one saw their life before them when dying and there was no doubt he was dying. He knew he had been in agony and now there was nothing, it felt like he was floating in a vast nothingness…no. Not nothingness, he was floating in the universe, dotted all around him were stars and planets, galaxies and black holes, it was quite beautiful. Is it not? The question made Starscream tense and his wings flare, that had not been him, he was sure of it, but what had it been then? Was he not dead after all? Had he been captured by the Autobots? But before he could get more agitated, a fond chuckle echoed through every atom of this scenario and his frame was filled by a soft numbness.

There was movement. The universe was fading, but the feeling was not, and then his optics onlined suddenly.

Bright blue optics stared up and tear filled red optics stared back. “....Starscream?”, it was more a disbelieving whisper than a true question and as Starscream opened his intake to answer he balked on the inside as something not him answered. “Yes, we are.”. It was in horror that the Seeker realised that he still felt numb, and the view was like watching a film instead of truly witnessing himself. His frame moved without any command of him, and ice-cold fear that was quickly dosed with more numbness and calmness filled him as the Seeker realised he was as much in control of his frame as a copilot watching a pilot fly.

A soft comfort and reassurance was projected at him calming him, if he wanted or not, wordlessly promising him to be taken care of and that all would be well. It was time that the Allspark had a chance to act, this Seeker was a prime example on how badly this war was impacting the bots participating. They would fix it.

#reverse mini bang 2024 #transformers #transformers earthspark #maccadam #starscream #skywarp #novastorm #implied major character death #mild gore

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