by K.A. Rose
Transformers and all related characters and indica © and TM Hasbro and Takara, 1984-2007. Used without permission for non-profit fan appreciation.
Whatever I'm doing with this, it's not worse than Kiss Players, okay?
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Starscream hates this. He hates this.
“On your knees.”
He hates this.
The others all wonder, why does Megatron keep him around? How in Cybertron’s name is he still here, cycle after cycle, snarling like a damaged quadruped but still functional, still in command, even? At the very least, the marks should show.
Yes, even the Autobots snicker about Starscream’s routine punishments, such as they presume must exist. Completely unbecoming of a male, much less his manufacture line. It’s a wonder his CPU doesn’t lock up from such sheer indignity.
“Open your mouth, you wretch.”
Megatron loathes all aspects of human culture, except for the parts that seem to amuse him.
That it’s a pantomime makes it no less humiliating. Starscream’s optics shut almost involuntarily as Megatron’s finger presses further down his throat. The gears in his lower jaw shudder and try to lock.
Megatron snarls. “Take it, you miserable proxy server.”
Starscream lets loose a single noise, that he soon regrets. The finger in his mouth forces itself hard against the back of his receptacle tract and spreads its casing, letting loose the wiring and banded cables Megatron had fitted through it just for this purpose.
He feels them as they snake through his chassis, weave through every pore and skirt dangerously close to his power supply, enter linkages meant for his coolant cables, up through to the CPU and central nervous core, his damage centres. The first thing Megatron does is shut off the regulatory processes. It’s important to do this. Otherwise Starscream might faint halfway through.
Starscream knows this is the result of grovelling and scraping and pleading for mercy. Starscream knows that this is the case every time that this happens. He knows that if there were any way out of this he would have seized upon it aeons ago. This is Megatron’s generosity.
Probing for his transformation matrices, the wires fry two of his joint regulators and the damage sensors go wild, pain like point-blank cannon fire spreading through his chest. He squeals like a fleshling, grappling desperately at his leader’s knees to stay upright. Starscream tries to reassure himself that his hydraulics still function and in a moment they’ll have transmuted enough energon into endorphins to dull the sensation, but it’s not quick enough. The connectors seize an open synapse with his transformation core and Megatron drags the failsafes down in a storm of overrides. His lieutenant screams.
Meat creatures have no concept of this kind of terror, feeling one’s own body split down the spine and crack open in a vomit of output jacks and oversensitised receptors that are never, ever meant to see the light of day. Four of Starscream’s coolant cables snap and lubricant streams out of the wound in thick torrents, pooling around his chest, as Megatron withdraws the connectors from his subordinate’s throat and forces the broken body onto the floor.
“Please,” Starscream begins, but he’s already pleaded. The corners of his optics are flooding, leaking out a mixture of coolant and jet fuel. “My lord--”
“Silence.”
This is mercy. This is forgiveness.
For some reason his commander prefers to continue his work from behind. He presses Starscream’s frame into the ground and jacks all five fingers directly into the wound. The wiring reaches his CPU and Starscream’s circuit boards light up like the skyline at twilight, a thousand wailing sensors drowning out the higher processes like a sudden virus in the system. His chest pounds against the floor plating as two and then eight of his processor cores keen and start to overclock, all the sense connections usually kept dormant opening wide and quivering with each rapidfire refresh.
His auditory receptors pick up Megatron’s voice by his shoulder. He can’t discern the words. But he knows what’s coming.
He can’t brace for it. No defences for this, not this. He just clenches his jaw and hopes it’ll be over quickly.
Who knows by what means Megatron discovered this function, this interplay between a robot’s pain detectors and the release of energon to counteract the damage systems. They only did this themselves maybe twice before leaving Cybertron, and Starscream can’t imagine even the hardiest of receptor females standing for this kind of thing. The cacophony of warring signals usually sends the awareness centres offline after the first volley. Starscream’s do, at least, without the overrides.
Starscream can’t imagine envying humans for anything, but really, they seem to get off easy in this regard.
The first pulse is a strong one. His major joints lock and six of the primary damage centres start shrieking, reading off fictitious trauma throughout every inch of his casing. His body tightens, straining off the ground. Megatron holds him down.
After an eternity on this edge it begins to pull back, and the adrenal cables kick in to flood the circuitry, soothing and hot, a slow and dull burn. Megatron steeps his hand further into Starscream’s open frame and lets out a pleased moan.
His commander sends a second pulse flicking through his system, a light brush to tease the still-active processes. Fooled conductors send in another torrent of endorphins almost before the pain recedes, and then again, even quicker, until it anticipates the wave and streams them in even before the strike.
Soon, it’s not the pain but the feedback. The convulsions come on stronger and stronger and Starscream curls in on himself, optics clenched tightly shut for all the good it does.
This incomprehensible sensation, that the frame should only be able to take in small amounts, overrunning every node in his circuitry-- he feels his awareness cortex beginning to shut down and ulterior processes drag and fail-- as the heat builds toward some unimaginable peak, and starts to crest, his coolant cables boiling across his framework--
--And then it falters, leaving a raw gap in space, stinging and raw circuitry shivering in the damp air.
Megatron’s voice, husky, close to his cheek. “Eager, are we?”
“N-no--”
Megatron waits until the feedback is almost completely settled to graze another synaptic module, and the results are as expected. White noise.
After a time, Starscream regains awareness enough to detect Megatron settling back on his haunches, legs comfortably straddled over his subordinate’s flanks. The probes dig deeper into Starscream’s circuitry and the pulses begin anew. More deliberate with their momentum, more precise in their effect. Switches and counterweights come undone; sensors break and emergency protocols take flight and shatter, and the primary boards become entirely overrun.
He is strong enough to endure this. Starscream tells himself this. He is the strongest of his kind. The strongest. He can endure--
Megatron, too lost in transferred sensation to keep careful track of his work, ventures too far across Starscream’s motherboard and enters the transformation matrices, just as another strong surge hits his system. Starscream opens his mouth in a yell only to vomit coolant instead. The panels in his chest spontaneously fold and realign, outside any given command. His joints contort and twist; his compressors crease and sink; wires snag and sizzle, disintegrating against the furnace his non-heatsunk processors have turned into; all RPMs shooting entirely off the scale--
And then his mainframe collapses.
Rebooting, Starscream stares unflickering at the floorplates, streaked with a sampling of every fluid possible out of his body. Even the lubricants a ‘bot could hope to never see outside his casing, drying as a pale film across the riveting.
Before the shutdown, Starscream’s CPU misread his vitals to interpret an entire system reformat, and charged energon flow accordingly. An immense rush of energy through every last pipe and cable in his system. Sucked dry. Not even the strength to fold himself back together. Even his optics are on reduced-power operation now.
Another bargain successfully struck. Another cycle and all operation will resume as normal, as though nothing ever happened.
Survived. He survived. He is the strongest. He proved it. Megatron--
--Someday he’ll kill him. Someday he’ll--
Megatron. He’s close by, still. Cleaned off, standing over his subordinate with surely that same satisfied smirk as always, so naively unaware that it's only a matter of time until-- until--
What? What is it? A snide remark about receptor models? Some lofty joke about cross-manufacture? What can he possibly have to say to him now?
“Access hub,” Megatron growls.
“Your maker,” Starscream coughs.
It earns him a swift kick to his torso casing, but on top of everything else, it hardly matters.
Starscream laughs until the hibernation overtakes him. He goes under peacefully, more than content to stay in standby forever, if that’s the case. Just so long as Megatron’s still there when he reactivates. Just. Right. There.
end
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