“Well it seems someone was expecting us,” Bulkhead said, as they followed the Vehicon. “You’d have thought they would have sent out the red carpet.” Optimus didn’t respond, he was concentrating on watching their guide. They still had their weapons equipped, and would be ready if Megatron tried anything, hopefully.
The Vehicon stopped by a door and opened it, before hinting at them to go in. The walked into an observation room, with the only distinguishable feature being the large window that looked out onto a lab. That had a strange machine inside it.
“Ah, Prime. What a pleasure to have you aboard our vessel,” Megatron said as he watched them walk in. The room was surprisingly well lit, so they could easily see Megatron in the far side of the room, stood in front of Soundwave who was working on the computers and seemingly oblivious to what was going on around him.
“Cut the formalities Megatron, what have you done with Arcee and Bumblebee?” Optimus asked, but he didn’t raise his weapons.
“Was the message Arcee sent not explanative enough?” Megatron replied, folding his arms in an attempt to appear calm. He didn’t want a fight to break out in here, there was too much valuable equipment.
“Yes, though-” Optimus was cut off part way through, as a siren cut through the air. Soundwave looked up from his computer and turned to the window, as did everyone else after following his lead. The large machine was slowly powering up, and soon the room was filled with a blinding blue light so they were all forced to look away.
Arcee and Bumblebee tumbled out of the portal, only just managing to regain their balance before they ended up in a tangled mess on the floor. Starscream wasn’t far behind them, but didn’t have the same luck. He took two steps and then crashed to the floor with a yell, and it took him a minute or so to make it back onto his feet.
Laserbeak had no such problem, he came soaring out of the portal seconds before it closed still gripping the present. He made no attempt to help them, and simply opened the door and flew off down the corridor towards Soundwave’s lab.
“Well what now?” Arcee asked. In response Bumblebee just shrugged, and when she turned to Starscream she found him admiring himself in a shiny panel set into the wall.
“Oh, how good it is to be back. I’m never going back to that horrid place ever again,” he said, ignoring everything else in the room. So he didn’t notice when the door slid open with a soft whoosh.
“Arcee, Bumblebee, how nice to see you back,” Knockout said from the other side of the door. Arcee glared at him, but before she could attack he continued talking. “Now, I’m not here for chit-chat. Optimus is waiting for you the next door down.”
“How do we know you’re not lying?” Arcee asked, not moving.
“I’m a Decepticon. You don’t,” he replied before turning to walk away. Arcee started to follow him when she noticed Starscream was still gawping at his reflection.
“What about him?” she asked, pointing to the seeker.
“*sigh* I don’t get paid enough to deal with him,” Knockout responded as he continued on his way. “Just leave him.”
The door closed behind them and Starscream remained fixated on his appearance for the next 10 minutes. At which point he decided to become aware of his surroundings.
“Wait. Where did everybody go?” he said as he made his way over to the door. He was about to open it when he heard two sets of footsteps walking towards the room, so instead he listened.
“My liege, you can’t seriously be letting him back into our ranks? He is unfit for his duty,” Airachnid said, her voice calm but with an underlying hint of agitation. “I can deal with him if you wish...”
“Heh heh. Let him back...?” Megatron replied, filling Starscream’s spark with dread. Evidently he was going to go along with her little plan, but Starscream didn’t want to stick around to find out the details.
He ran back to the machine, almost tripping over his feet in his haste and frantically searched for the on button. He pressed all the buttons he could see in his panic until the big red one in the centre lit up. Only taking a second to consider the implications of what he was about to do he hit the button and ran into the blast radius of the portal and vanished.
Outside in the corridor Megatron was getting tired of Airachnid prattling on. He saw her grin out of the corner of his eye as she thought he would accept her proposal.
“Let him back?” He said calmly as they stopped outside the room that the Trans-Dimensional Warp cannon was in. “If it wasn’t for you... He never would have left in the first place!” he continued, turning away from her as the grin was wiped off her face.
“NO! It was your fault and you can’t cover your tracks by killing him. No matter what you may think he is a valuable strategist, and essential to our cause.” He said.
“He tried to kill you,” she replied bluntly.
“What position is without risk?” he countered with a hint of menace. “Now, get out of my sight.” She quickly obeyed, hurrying off to whatever dark corner of the Nemesis she decided to call home.
He opened the door to be met with the slowly fading pulses of light as the machine powered down.
Starscream was prepared this time, so instead of falling 25 meters to the ground he glided slowly down. He hadn’t intended to return here, but if Megatron wanted to kill him then he had no choice.
Being stuck on this pathetic organic planet was better than being dead.
Starscream didn’t know how much time had passed since he had left. He knew the different dimensions ran at different speeds, as spending a few weeks here had only been a few days back home according to his sensors.
So as he stood on the grassy hill overlooking Ponyville he had no idea if the girls were there or not. Their train was supposed to leave the afternoon he had left, and judging by the sun it was only mid afternoon. Or mid morning. He could never tell and all the sun did was blind him.
“Hello Starscream!” came a voice and he looked around to see a very disheveled and very angry Olethron standing in front of him.