Chapter 13: Rarity
Finally, with the day turning late and with darkness setting in, Rarity and Starscream vacated the picnic site. Rarity took Starscream along the route that they had gone earlier that day, only this time without the company of Spike and Twilight, who took some alternate, likely more direct one. Once again, and to Starscream’s great annoyance, he didn’t get to see anything new of Ponyville, though he could appreciate the intelligence of his captor for exposing him to as little of the landscape as possible. The less familiar with it he was, the less likely an attempt at escaping would be, after all.
By the time the two of them reached the outskirts of town, the sun had nearly completely set, decorating the ground with the long shadows of the nearby buildings. Fortunately for them, all of the buildings they passed either had their lights out, or had the blinds covering the windows, letting out only faint streaks of light. Rarity shivered beside him as a chill breeze swept past, and he could figure the reason for the windows all being shut.
“This is definitely no time for anypony to be out,” she stated quietly, breaking the silence between them that had pervaded since they had left everyone else’s company. “The pegasi have a grand way of letting everypony know that winter is coming.”
“Then maybe we ought to screw this roundabout path and take a more direct route,” Starscream offered.
She declined, however, saying, “It’s tempting, Starscream, but no. Your falling from the sky has probably been forgotten by most ponies, and I think it best to not scare everypony by suddenly revealing you in public yet.” Starscream scowled to that, but even without looking at him, she seemed to pick up on his display. “Don’t worry, Starscream, we won’t keep you a secret for much longer. It’s just that it’s late, and ponies are tired,” she said as they passed by a house which obnoxiously loud snoring could be heard coming from. “Tired ponies aren’t exactly as clear-headed and reasonable as they would normally be. They’d probably overreact to seeing you; call you some sort of changeling spy or something like that, then attempt to have you arrested.”
“Fair enough,” Starscream snorted, recognizing that, while true in some sense, accusations like that would only diminish his already hardly existent credibility. However, with that statement, Rarity revealed a glimpse as to how well ponies liked changelings. Unsurprisingly, it was not positive. “Then when would you have me show myself?” he decided to ask.
“I’ve decided to show you around Ponyville tomorrow,” she answered. “If the Cakes permit it, Pinkie will probably come with us. I think it’d be good to show you what Ponyville has to offer.”
“Then what?”
“Then…” Rarity contemplated. “Then whatever you want to do. Whatever you find interesting or curious, we’ll see to it that you get to experience it.”
Well, that wasn’t what he was expecting to hear. Whatever he wanted? That was…
Sadly, Starscream found the concept alien to him. As far as he could remember, his life had been all planned out for him by others, his purpose always being to serve others, even in the things that seemed as if they should only benefit him. Back before the war, working for Astrotrain had been more about working for Astrotrain than for himself, as Astrotrain, and by proxy, Soundwave, had kept him busy for nearly all hours of the day, nearly every day. Time off was spent beating on a dummy with a knife in his rundown apartment in preparation for when the local gangs in his ghetto neighborhood inevitably got bored and decided to hit someone up.
His time in the Decepticon ranks was time spent blindly following Galvatron’s selfish desires, for which those under his command would have received no benefit from if Galvatron had succeeded in his conquests. By the time Starscream had defected and been able for once to truly choose his own path, he’d been so warped by violence and conflict that attempting to kill Galvatron seemed like the only thing to do. Seeing Galvatron fall, even to Starscream’s own blade, may very well have been fair or just, but it still wouldn’t have changed the fact that the damage had already been done to Starscream, and killing Galvatron only would have stopped him from inflicting the same wounds to others.
Deciding to speak on behalf of Chrysalis and the changelings had at least been his conscious decision, but even then, it in no way served to help him. Sure, the act of kindness may offer him redemption in his own eyes, but on a world of strangers, he had no real name to redeem. Rude he may be, but not irreparably evil like he was before his death.
Selflessness, some might call it; others may prefer the term generosity, and some may have gone far enough to call him heroic. But Starscream knew better. He knew that everyone, even the most upstanding and selfless individuals such as Optimus Prime, still had desires and aspirations. But Starscream didn’t, and he knew why. It wasn’t because he was selfless or generous, and he most certainly wasn’t heroic. No, it was because he was broken.
“Starscream, are you alright?” Rarity asked, as he had stopped moving completely for at least the past few minutes.
His life spent in servitude for others had led him to forget how to want and how to aspire for himself.
“Starscream?”
“No, I’m not alright,” he spat, roughly brushing past her. He stopped after a few paces, remembering that he had no idea where exactly he was being brought. “Just...forget I’m here and lead on.”
“Did I say something to offend you?” she asked worriedly, coming to his side.
He sighed, bringing his head low. “No, you said nothing wrong,” he assured, to no effect on Rarity. “What you said just made me realize more of what’s wrong with me.”
“Would you like to talk about it?” Rarity offered.
“No, I most certainly would not,” Starscream snapped.
Starting off towards her house again, Rarity sighed softly. “I’m not going to force you to talk if you don’t want to, Starscream, but please know that talking about your problems with somepony else will usually make you feel better, and getting another point of view can help with devising a solution.”
Starscream couldn’t bring himself to stay mad, though; he could tell that Rarity was genuine in her concern for him, although he had no clue as to why she was being so friendly towards him. “I can trust you,” he sighed. “I’ll tell you my secrets, but not yet. When I learn to trust myself I will, but not yet.”
“That’s fair enough,” Rarity agreed. From there, neither said a word until they reached Rarity’s home.
Carousel Boutique read the sign that hung over the door of the purple and white building; fitting, as it was in the shape of a carousel, albeit it did have walls, as it was a building. The temperature had dropped by a couple of degrees and the wind had picked up by the time the two of them had arrived, leaving Rarity shivering and her teeth clattering. Apparently she didn’t do cold well.
However, with the conditions as they were, no other ponies were braving the outside, and they managed to arrive at the Boutique without running into any other ponies.
“Ah, it’s good to be home,” Rarity said as she quickly trotted up to the door. Starscream followed, standing behind her a couple of steps as he waited for her to open the door and enter. She was about to, but suddenly hesitated when she placed her hoof on the doorknob. “How could I have forgotten?” she asked no one in particular, then backed away from the door, beckoning Starscream to follow, which he did. “I completely forgot that Sweetie Belle doesn’t know about you,” she said. “Perhaps it’s best if I go in first and of warn her so that you don’t scare her.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Starscream muttered. Rarity returned to the door, and Starscream followed, then sat himself just to the side of the door so that anyone peering out from inside would be unable to see him. “Just call me whenever you’re ready for me to enter.”
Rarity nodded, then turned the knob. As soon as she twisted the knob, a loud crash and a flatulent sound like that of a poorly played tuba sounded from inside. Her eyes widened in both surprise and concern, and immediately the door was flung open and she was inside. “Sw-Sweetie Belle?” Starscream could hear Rarity’s incredulous voice ask.
“Uh...hi, Rarity,” a squeaky voice answered.
“Sweetie Belle, what are the other Crusaders doing here?”-
What in Primus’s name- Rarity houses warriors!?
-“And why are there pots strewn about the floor? And where did you get that tuba?”
“Before you get mad, Rarity, let me explain,” the squeaky voice said.
“That is what I asked for,” Rarity replied. The squeaky voice hesitated for a few seconds, prompting Rarity to say, “Well, go on; explain yourself.”
“So when we got out of school, we were going to ask you if we could have a sleepover here,” squeaky voice, as Starscream chose to dub it until he could find out its true name, began to elaborate, “but when we got here to ask, you weren’t here, and I know you don’t want guests in the house without you knowing, so we just decided to hang out outside until you came back, and when you didn’t come back, we got bored and decided to go crusading for a while, and so we decided to try being the Cutie Mark Crusaders Orchestra, and we went over to the music store where the owner let us borrow an instrument, and we chose the tuba since none of us had tried it before,-”
“Sweetie Belle, breathe,” Rarity suggested as the squeaky voice began to falter under the weight of its obnoxious run-on sentence.
The now identified Sweetie Belle panted for a few seconds, then resumed. “So then we brought it back here, but by then we were a little hungry and tired, and you still hadn’t come back, so being the lady you always insist I be, I sort of invited them in so that we could rest and grab a snack.”
“Don’ worry, Rarity,” another voice spoke up, sounding reminiscent of Applejack, “we only had a few crackers; nothin’ fancy.”
“That explains the Crusaders and the tuba,” Rarity said. “So what about the pots?”
“I’m the percussionist!” a third, scratchy voice proclaimed. “And I sort of...panicked when I heard the door begin to open. Sorry. We were going to put them away, though!”
Outside, Starscream’s patience began to wane. He found himself disinterested in the exchange going on inside, so he began pawing at the dirt in front of him out of boredom, leaving small trenches where his hoof passed, only to refill them with a swipe in the opposite direction, only to then repeat the process.
Inside, Rarity gave an annoyed scoff. “Are you mad at me, Rarity?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“I...ugh, no,” Rarity stuttered out. “You did what was proper, and I’m proud of you for that. It’s just that, of all nights, why did it have to be this night that you planned this?”
“It was Scoot’s idea,” Sweetie Belle defended, earning a ‘Hey!’ from the scratchy voice. “But you didn’t tell me you had anything planned tonight.”
“You’re right, I didn’t,” Rarity replied. “But that’s mostly because I didn’t have anything planned until this afternoon. I do suppose we could have communicated better.”
“Yeah,” agreed Sweetie Belle lamely. Her voice perked, though, as she asked, “So what plans did you make?”
“Ah, well, you see, I have a very special somepony who will be spending the night here tonight, and,-”
Whatever she was about to say next was cut off by an overly dramatic gasp from Sweetie Belle, who afterwards proclaimed, voice cracking and squeakier than before, “Oh my gosh! Rarity, you have a special somepony! Since when?!”
“Congratulations, Rarity!” the Applejack-like voice congratulated.
“I what?” Rarity asked, confused, then paused to rethink what she had said and find her mistake, Starscream guessed. “Oh, no, girls, I didn’t mean that I have a special somepony, I meant that this is somepony who happens to be very special, and you’ll see why as soon as you see him.”
Despite not being able to see what was going on, Starscream could almost see Sweetie Belle deflate as Rarity corrected her. “Oh…” Sweetie Belle muttered, significantly less enthusiastically than before. “Where is he, then?” Starscream heard Sweetie Belle ask over the scamper of little hoofsteps approaching the door. “Is he outside?”
The hoofsteps stopped suddenly. “Yes, he’s outside,” Rarity answered. “But before I let you three see him, I need you three to promise me something.”
“Promise what?” asked the Applejack sound-alike.
“My friend is for the most part nice, but he is rather irritable. So I need you three to promise to settle down for tonight and leave my friend alone if asks you to. Understand?”
“Yes, Rarity,” the three others answered in unison.
“Alright Starscream, deary, you can come in now,” Rarity finally called to him.
Finally, he thought as he stood and dusted off his backside and hooves. Before entering, he gave one last look to the late evening sky, which was clear save for one not too distant cloud, where the light from the night’s first few stars began to overpower that of the waning sun’s. What a long day it’s been, he mused. He steeled himself to enter Rarity’s house. And it’s still not over.
Three exaggerated gasps of awe greeted him as Starscream stepped through the threshold of the boutique, coming from the three little ponies sitting in front of Rarity as he entered. He made sure to close the door behind himself before diverting his attention to the new surroundings.
It looked as if the interior had been meticulously designed to provide a homey yet professional air, with its walls painted a pure white while the floor and other drapings were various shades of purple, some of them with elaborate gold or silver sewn patterns in them. The room itself looked like it served both as a showroom and as a living room, with a matching couch, table, and chair set located near the room’s perimeter, out of the way and overlooked by a large window, while elsewhere were mannequins, some bare and others with various articles of clothing. A large mirror rested in one corner, next to it a variety of fabrics and sewing utensils. Attached to the showroom via an entryway was a kitchen, and there was a staircase on the side of the room opposite him, which Starscream guessed lead to the house’s beds and baths.
With all that taken in, he finally gave heed to the three half-sized ponies also present in the room. One was white like Rarity, with a purple and pink mane, while the second was yellow and had a red mane held in place by a large pink bow, while the final one was orange and had a unkempt purple mane. All three stared at him wide-eyed expressions that, to his surprise, and somewhat to his annoyance, looked more excited than fearful. Chrysalis truly wasn’t lying when she told him that ponies were used to other species.
There were a few tense seconds of silence that were eventually broken by the orange one, who happened to have the grating, scratchy voice. “Woah, wicked cool robot, Rarity!” the tiny winged pony said, stepping towards him a couple of paces. Starscream looked to her and scowled in response to being called robot, but otherwise did nothing. “What’s it do?” the pony asked a she began to circle around him. The other two quickly got up and followed, the trio eventually surrounding him. “Is it remote controlled? I don’t see any remote...is it voice activated? Do a barrel roll!”
“Uh, Rarity? I think it’s broken,” the white one noted, gesturing towards where Starscream’s sword ought to have been. “It’s missing a wing.”
“Girls!” Rarity barked at them, “Be respectful and give Mister Starscream his space.”
“Sorry,” the three answered in unison as they moved away from him, giving him the impression that they were scolded often.
Terrific, Starscream though. It’s Billy, Fred, and Carlos all over again. In truth, he wouldn’t say that he disliked those kids, but he would freely admit that those three specifically could be a little too rambunctious and bothersome for his tastes.
There was silence for another few seconds, each of them waiting for someone else to say something before speaking themselves. Rarity awkwardly looked about before finally fake coughing into her hoof, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Well, girls,” she started, “are you going to introduce yourselves, or will you have me do it for you?”
“We kin do it ourselves,” the yellow one chirped to Rarity, then approached Starscream with hoof extended for shaking. “Howdy,” she greeted, unphased by Starscream’s appearance. “Name’s Apple Bloom.”
“Any relation to Applejack?” Starscream questioned as he returned the hoofshake. Apple Bloom and the others were momentarily startled by the sound of his voice, but they recovered quickly.
“Yeah,” she answered. “She’s mah big sister. Wait, do ya know her?”
“I’ve met her,” Starscream grumbled, not particularly glad that that was the case. Ditching that line of thought, he looked expectantly to the orange one.
Said orange one seemed to be distracted staring at Starscream’s thruster, confusion becoming more and more apparent the longer she looked. A nudge from Apple Bloom, though, knocked her out of her stupor. “Uh, wha’?” she bumbled as she returned to reality, only then noticing Starscream looking at her. “Oh, yeah, I’m Scootaloo,” she said, not bothering to move from where she was seated next to the white one, which Starscream deduced to be Sweetie Belle. “What’s with those round things next to your head?” Scootaloo blurted. Apparently thrusters weren’t a thing in Equestria. “They seem totally not aerodynamic.”
That was a fair question, he surmised, even though Rarity gave her a scolding look for asking it. In all honesty, the things were a bit clunky and intrusive while in his robot mode, as they often times obstructed his peripheral vision, but they were what allowed him flight even in that mode, so they were invaluable. “They’re what let me fly,” he decided to answer with.
“How fast?” Scootaloo queried.
Why is that important? “Um...fast. If I had my other wing, I could reach mach one without effort.”
“That sounds pretty fast,” Scootaloo said, putting on a confident smirk. “But I bet Rainbow Dash could leave you in the dust.”
So Scootaloo was, for some unfathomable reason, a fan of Dash’s. That revelation immediately put a dent in Starscream’s already minimal desire to converse with the little pony. Without giving any type of retort, he moved his gaze to the little white pony who sat on the side of Apple Bloom opposite Scootaloo. As he did that, Rarity reminded them of his irritability, and mentioned to them that he and Dash weren’t exactly getting along well, getting the point across that they should try not to mention her around him.
He waited for Rarity to finish telling them all of that before asking the pony to which his gaze was afixed, “And you’re Sweetie Belle, right?”
“Um, yeah,” she answered rather timidly. “Hi.” To Starscream’s satisfaction, Sweetie Belle didn’t seem too intent on conversing, and so he looked up to Rarity expectantly, awaiting some sort of instruction. She, in turn, looked about the floor, which still had discarded pots and a tuba strewn about.
“Girls, do you have any homework tonight?” she asked them.
“Some,” Sweetie Belle replied.
“Very well, then. I’m going to show Starscream to the guest bedroom so he knows where he can sleep for tonight. As I do that, please clean up this mess you’ve all made, then get started on your homework.”
Once again in unison, the three of them let out a disappointed groan, but Sweetie Belle suddenly perked and asked, “But wait, does that mean that we can have the sleepover?”
Rarity hummed in contemplation for second before replying, “Oh, maybe…” Wearing a sly smirk, she said, “Maybe if all three of you have your homework done before supper is ready.”
“Hey A.B., bet’cha I can put away more pots than you can,” Scootaloo challenged to her yellow friend.
“Oh, yer on,” Apple Bloom said, accepting the challenge and squatting into some sort of pre-sprint pose.
Scootaloo mirrored the stance and, with a competitive smirk on each of their faces, she began the countdown. “Onetwothreego!” she said absurdly quickly, and the two were off gathering pots, leaving behind a sour Sweetie Belle.
“Oh, come on!” she squeaked, flailing her forelegs into the air. “You’re just gonna leave me to put away the tuba? That thing’s heavy!”
Starscream couldn’t help but snicker at the situation, easily being able to visualize Alexis in Sweetie Belle’s spot as she chastised Carlos and Rad for doing something stupid, impulsive, or both. She didn’t press her friends to come help though, instead struggling to shove the tuba towards its case, and making little progress at that.
“Sweetie, you probably shouldn’t push that across the floor,” Rarity warned Sweetie Belle, who continued to push with all the strength she could muster. “You may scratch up the lacquer, and we wouldn’t want to return it in a worse condition than you borrowed it in.”
“Well, I’m sorry that I’m not strong enough to move it any other way,” Sweetie Belle retorted, which earned a glare from Rarity. “Why don’t you just pick it up with your magic and put it in the case? It’d take, like, two seconds,” Sweetie Belle reasoned.
“I would, but I feel that this is an opportunity for you to start learning to take responsibility for your actions, and-”
Something about Rarity’s tone gave Starscream the impression that she was stalling, and that was as much as he could take before he walked past Rarity to where Sweetie Belle was. For the amount of consideration she was giving him, he would have expected a lot more from her for her own sister. He picked the tuba up in his forelegs and hovered over to the open case, where he carefully laid the delicate brass.
“Why, such a gentlecoltly thing for Mister Starscream to do; you ought to thank him for helping you,” Rarity said to Sweetie Belle, but while smiling warmly at him.
“Thanks, Starscream,” she said.
“Uh, you’re welcome,” he muttered, still finding himself not completely comfortable at the prospect of being thanked.
From across the room, Scootaloo shouted, “Yo Belle, get over here and help Apple Bloom with this math; she still has no idea how to do it!” She and Apple Bloom had taken care of the scattered pots extremely quickly and now were seated on the couch in the corner, each with a pencil and a few sheets of paper resting on the table in front of them. Sweetie Belle immediately scurried off to where they were, after stopping to grab her own homework from a pack laying next to the front doorway, and the three began working. It sounded an awful lot more like debating than math, but it wasn’t Starscream’s problem, and he quickly began ignoring them.
“Come, Starscream,” Rarity said from beside him. “Let me show you the room you can use for tonight.”
“I really don’t need a whole room for myself,” he protested, but followed her towards the staircase in the back anyways. “I don’t need anything, in fact; you could set me on the floor right here and I’d be just fine.”
“But, I’m not going to,” Rarity answered, beginning her ascent up the stairs. “Even if you don’t need the room, I’m giving you the option. If it’s any incentive, I’ll make sure that it’s Crusader proof for the-” A very loud creak from behind cut her off, and she spun around to see Starscream with one hoof on the first step and a nervous grin. He removed his hoof, and the step creaked some more as it stopped bending from bearing his weight.
Starscream chuckled sheepishly. “Oops...uh, I probably should have asked how many tons your upstairs can hold without collapsing first.”
“Tons?” Rarity repeated. “But you’re pony sized; how can you weigh so much?” After a second of consideration, she noted, “Um, no offense. I didn’t mean to imply that you looked the weight; it’s just…”
“Yeah, I get you,” Starscream interrupted. “To be fair, I’m not used to being around organics that are about my size, so I don’t know if I’ve shrunk or if your species is just large relative to humans, but regardless, I should be approximately the same mass as before...which happened to be a few tons.”
He stepped out of the way as Rarity came back down the stairs, giving an annoyed grunt, though it didn’t seem to be directed at him precisely. “Are you absolutely sure that you’re fine with being down here for the night?”
“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place.” Honestly, quit being so stubborn about it.
With a sigh of concession, she said, “Alright, then down here it is. I was hoping to be able to kill the kill-switch, as it were, in my workshop upstairs where everything would have been conveniently nearby, but I suppose I can settle for doing that down here.” She then glanced towards the entryway to the kitchen, then towards the foals on the other side of the room. “I should probably begin preparing some proper supper for them. Go make yourself comfortable for now, and would you mind offering the Crusaders some help on their homework if they ask for it?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thank you very much, Starscream; I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.” With that, Rarity turned away and made for the kitchen, leaving Starscream to do as she said and make himself comfortable. That happened to entail seating himself in the corner of the room most distant from both the Crusaders and the kitchen and doing nothing but suppress his thoughts from wandering to the series of events that had lead him to his current situation. It was all in the past, and reflecting on it would change nothing.
He considered shutting himself off to keep his thoughts at bay if just for a little while, but ultimately decided against it for if he was needed to respond to something in a timely fashion. And considering the conspiratory looks the Crusaders were giving him now that they were no longer being directly supervised by Rarity, he figured that he would need to.
Sure enough, Scootaloo, sitting between Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, called out, “Hey, Starscream, come help us, would ya?”
He hesitated a moment, then reluctantly rose from his comfortable, isolated corner and came over to where they were. “Alright, let me see what it is you’re doing,” Starscream said, extending his hoof so that Scootaloo could hand him her work. When he was given all three pages of it, he looked it over, mild annoyance growing as he did so. “This is just basic algebra,” he muttered. “And you’ve already finished the first one and a half pages. And it’s all correct. You don’t need my help.”
“Yeah, we know,” she responded. “We just wanted to get you over here so that we could talk while making it look like we were actually doing our homework.”
“Oh boy...how devious...” Starscream grumbled, ripe with sarcasm. “Fine. Ask.”
“Only one question from me, actually:” Scootaloo continued, “why exactly is your wing missing?”
“Why are you so interested in my flight mechanics?” Starscream shot back.
“Flight’s just somethin’ that’s real important ta pegasi,” Apple Bloom answered. “But even as an earth pony, I have ta admit that a one-winged pegasus looks a li’l strange.”
That was a fair enough reason to be curious, Starscream conceded. Furthermore, considering the organics’ dependence on both wings for flight, he suspected that she was also somewhat curious about his ability to fly, even with just one wing. However, he didn’t quite feel up to recalling how he had nearly killed Rainbow Dash, or recalling any of his interactions with her, for that matter. Instead, he just said, “If you want to know what happened to my wing, ask Rainbow Dash; she’s the reason it’s gone anyway.” Then, looking back to the homework he still held, he handed it back, saying, “And if you’re not needing me for helping you, please leave me in peace as you finish.”
“Um, may I ask you something before you go back to your corner?” Sweetie Belle asked, timidly raising her hoof slightly as if Starscream were some sort of classroom instructor.
“Fine, but only because you asked nicely.”
“Why is Rarity letting you spend the night? I mean, if she had some sort of alien robot friend, I think we would’ve heard at some point before she lets that friend stay over. But you just sorta...happened, I guess…” She trailed off, evidently losing sight of where she was trying to lead her point. That was fine by Starscream, though, as he didn’t have an answer for her question to begin with.
“Firstly,” he started, “I’m not a robot; calling me such would be like me calling you ‘meatbags’ or something of the like.” All three of them glared at him slightly at being indirectly called that, exactly as he was hoping for; hopefully they learned their lesson there. “Secondly...I don’t know. Of all the admittedly few ponies I’ve met, Rarity has been the most kind and understanding, and probably the only one I could say I like. I’ve been meaning to ask her why that is.”
“So you’re saying you don’t like us?” Scootaloo asked harshly, crossing her forelegs across her chest.
Humming in thought for a moment, Starscream answered, “We’ll see. I’ve been known to have a soft spot for children. Now, is that all?”
“That’s all, Mister Starscream,” Apple Bloom answered while the other two nodded in agreement. “Sorry to bother ya.”
With merely a nod in return, Starscream turned and retreated back to his corner, where he proceeded to lay down and curl up. No more than fifteen minutes later, the Crusaders had finished their homework and began discussing something amongst themselves, respectfully leaving Starscream alone. It was not long after that that Rarity called from the kitchen, announcing that supper was prepared. The Crusaders excitedly hopped off the couch and dashed through the entryway to the kitchen and out of Starscream’s sight, and he guessed that they were off to the dining room.
Why is Rarity letting me spend the night? Even if it was an unnecessary gesture to offer such lodging to one of his kind, the fact remained that she was letting him, an unknown who had already nearly murdered one of her closest friends, into her own house, with her own sibling around and unprotected. And she was going to remove the only possible thing she had to inhibit and control him, too. She was either incredibly stupid, or incredibly trusting. So far, though, too many things about her had proved the former untrue, like her ability to accurately reconstruct him, and furthermore thinking to insert the kill-switch, however inconvenient it was to Starscream. That left only the latter.
Trust. That was something hard to come by, at least for a Decepticon, and especially for him. So far, he’d betrayed the trust of everyone he had known in the Decepticon ranks, in the Autobot ranks, and on Earth. Sure, he missed Cybertron, and Earth, and especially Alexis, but maybe his passing and coming here to Equestria, however that occurred, was really in everyone’s best interest. No longer could he betray the trust of those back home, and now he had another opportunity to build new trusts. He’d started with Chrysalis, and, thinking on it, was willing to add Rarity to his exclusive list. It was only a matter of time before he’d place himself there, too.
He watched as Rarity passed by the entryway in pursuit of the Crusaders and smiled. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps Equestria isn’t so bad.
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...........
What?
Obligatory:
I particularly liked this part! Very good job! Keep it up.
3996700 What?
3996735 This joke is the climax of humor in this story; I can only get worse from there.
3996885 It's nice to Starscream seem content and hopeful for once, eh?
I'm glad you're continuing to like the story, and I'll try my best to keep it that way
.
Not bad. Glad to see your update
.
In what shadow were you hiding?
Welcome back.
It's alive!
3997316 Glad to be back! I was just...bein' lazy. I expect to not be as slow in the future.
I'm waiting for the Crusaders to try and get him to take them flying.
IT'S BACK!!!
Man, am I late to the party. Pinkie's gonna kill me...
Pinkie: Of course I won't silly! I'd only kill you if you'd missed the whole thing!
Everypony leaves, as the party is now over
Uh-oh...
Pinkie: You- you missed the whole party?
Gulp Umm, I, uh, have to, umm, RUN!
Pinkie: YOU MISSED THE PARTY!!!!!!!!
...
Well, good thing I invested in those illusion spell lessons. Now, before she realizes that she's chasing nothing:
Great work, and I'm happy to see this thing resurrected. Not sure why, but I found the whole "Starscream is too heavy to go upstairs" thing inexplicably funny.
While this may not have been the most eventful chapter, the CMC interactions certainly filled the gap. Y'know, I wonder if-
Pinkie: LEGIOOOON!!!!
Oh, crap. See ya 'round!
Write on,
Legion
2492611 And here's your CMC for ya
.
nice its back!
ha but i wonder why the CMC didnt ask about his "cutie mark"
and rarity and starscream... well in another universe...
derpicdn.net/img/2013/1/5/203257/full.jpeg
Yesyesyesyesyes!
That was a really nice chapter.
fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/047/e/6/clapping_pony_icon___flutterbat_by_comeha-d76qgbd.gif
I feel like before this story ends the CMC is gonna break something inside Starscream, intentionally or otherwise.
Congratulations man. Yesterday marked the anniversary of your story. You should be proud.
4289575 Thanks, I guess, although realizing that makes me ashamed of how little it's actually progressed since it became a thing. Ugh, I wish I still felt that drive to write right now...
Oh don't be. great stories take time.
So he's been knocked out for a while, he doesn't have his wing, he's already told them he has a time sensitive message, and they still haven't removed his kill switch. The changelings are going to starve at this rate. Can't wait for the next chapter though.
11 weeks later
4379726 I know, I know, I'm being slow. Right now, due to life things, writing is currently on hold, but I'll be getting back to it soon.