Clipped Chapter 15

The dark haired human was right.

It was ten in the morning on a saturday (and technically it had already been very early friday when Jack and he spoke). Starscream had come to hate the 'weekend', as it left more time for Arcee to hang out with her human friend, and occasionally lead to more talking with the other two humans as well. Today, the female with shocks of pink in her hair.

"Hey Screamer, wouldja' take me for a flight? Just a real small one? Please~?"

"Do not call me Screamer, my name is Starscream. As for a flight, I'm sure your guardian would object," Starscream replied sourly, glaring down at the human.

"Nah, she'll be in your servos," Bulkhead clamoured as he approached the seeker. Stepping in close and patting the silver mech on the back, he added quietly," And I know where you recharge."

While it was said mostly in jest, Starscream nervously nodded his helm and said," Of course." It was his lucky day, wasn't it? The one guardian who was fine with letting his human charge fly with the 'scary ex-con'... "Well, erm, I don't see why not." With the boisterous bruiser's words in mind, tossing her and catching her was out of the question, so he merely walked outside and folded up.

As she was placed in his cockpit, he fastened her in and took off. The poor seeker was not prepared for her high pitched sonar attack. "No yelling, squealing, or whatever you just did qualifies as," He quickly instructed.

"Ah, c'mon. Just a little bit?" She teased. "Hey, you got radio?" She began pressing buttons which received a rapid reply.

"No pressing buttons either! If I wasn't tightly controlling this flight, you would have just launched yourself out of the cockpit!"

Crossing her arms, Miko softly grumbled," Anatawa takusan honsokuga arimasu."

"Iie, zenzen," He calmly replied, doing an aeolian roll and earning a giddy shout from his passenger.

"Nihongo o hanashimasuka...?"

"Of course I speak Japanese," He scoffed. "It was the fourth Earth language I learned.

"What were the first three?" She asked.

"Chinese, then English and French."

"Suh-weet!"

"You act like this is an impressive feat, but your planet's languages are very simplistic. I could probably learn them all in a matter of hours, if it even took that long" He replied impassively.

"It'd be nice to talk in Japanese, sometimes I get a little homesick," Miko admitted. As much as she would deny missing her parents and Tokyo, she found herself thinking about them a lot. It was mostly the uprooted culture and language, but all of this was easily smothered and temporarily forgotten by hanging out with Bulkhead.

Switching over to the girl's native tongue and not missing a beat, Starscream asked," You haven't just asked if your guardian spoke Japanese?" He did have to admit that he liked the structure of the language. As far as Earth went, it had a very special structure; subject, object, verb. As opposed to the romantic and germanic languages, which ran completely different. Even as a former decepticon, he could admire diversity, though his former decepticon days still left him mildly xenophobic, and it was hard to appreciate the Earth languages as anything but inferior to his own.

"Um, no, I never thought to do so."

"Perhaps that is for the best. I doubt your friend can learn more than one," He abstractedly replied, and silently cursed as he realized that probably wasn't the correct response.

"He could too! He just doesn't want to!"

"Yes, yes, of course," Starscream eagerly accepted, glad he had a way to get out of hot water. Taking a severe dip, he accelerated at an alarming rate, then pulled up into loop, twirling a few times before inverting and continuing on upside down. For some reason, humans seemed to like being upside down, and it was turning out to be a crowd pleaser. One that didn't disappoint; the human eagerly let him know how cool this was. "What is it about inverted flight that exites fleshlin- humans so much?"

Thinking about it, she answered," I can't walk on my hands, and generally rolling a vehicle is bad, so I guess it's just awesome because you usually can't move around upside down, y'know?"

"You can't walk on your hands? Shouldn't that fit well into the parameters of what a human body is capable of?"

"I'm told we can do back flips too, but the only time I'll ever do one is on a trampoline."

"Trampoline...?" Quickly cross referencing it with his dictionary, he didn't even come up with a Japanese word for it. Checking through his english, he came up with 'trample'... He doubted that was what she intended to convey.

"You know. It's usually a black circle, and you can bounce really super high on it."

"I'm afraid I will simply have to take your word on that."

"You're missing out," She said, then laughed as she thought of her autobot friends bouncing on trampolines. Those would have to be very large trampolines. Like, industrial sized, times two.

He didn't find the conversation very humorous (though he wasn't privy to her amusing thoughts), but dismissed it as 'humans were insane'. He did laugh at her panicked grab for her safety belts as he pulled off a few intense aerial maneuvers, one after another. "We should probably head back." If Bumblebee was any indication, guardians weren't particularly gracious of him taking his time in returning.

"Aww..."

Tentatively, he offered," I suppose we could fly again, sometime soon. You know, for language purposes."

The human grinned and said," Thanks, Starscream, I'll have to take you up on that."

~~
~~

"Is Starscream fit for a mission?" Optimus Prime asked his medic.

"Physically, sure, but you're not thinking of trusting him out on the field are you?" Ratchet had his doubts as to whether Starscream was ready for their confidence that he'd do the right thing. The seeker had been an autobot for a lot less time than he was comfortable with, especially with what the old Second in Command of the decepticons was notorious for. While it had been helpful for the autobot cause, how many times he tried to backstab Megatron didn't exactly reflect well on him.

"If not now, when are we to start, old friend?"

"You should know my answer."

Optimus Prime warmly said," Never isn't an option, Ratchet."

With a grumble, Ratchet said," You're in for a surprise, 'never' wasn't my answer. Later is all I ask. I believe he's changing for the better, but I don't believe he is completely devoted to our cause yet."

"It would be a simple energon mission. We found a small pocket of it in Ecuador, in the Andean highlands, and we would send him with Arcee."

"A simple mission that Megatron wouldn't waste his time with," Ratchet read into his leader's plans," and with a little added incentive to do the right thing." Optimus nodded, and Ratchet thought aloud," It may go wrong like I predict, but under those circumstances, he may just be ready. I guess there wouldn't be much harm in trying."

"While I would not need it, I am very glad to have your approval, old friend."

~~
~~

Starscream followed Arcee's heels as she stepped out into the mountainous terrain holding a scanner and letting her optics float over their surroundings. The seeker was a little surprised to hear that he would be assisting Arcee on a field mission. He knew at some point that they were supposed to trust him enough for this, but it still slightly amazed the silver mech.

He was going to utilize this opportunity; show off just how beneficial and advantageous trusting him could be. He was going to show his autobot friends that they made the right decision in-

"Looks like we have company," Arcee said, cutting off his grandiose thoughts. Checking her scanner before stowing it away, she pointed to an out of reach rock face and continued," I can take care of the vehicons, you just locate the energon. Scanner said it should be in that direction. Report back once you've found it."

Being talked to as an equal still intrigued him; for the longest time he had been stuck in the middle of a huge gap between lower worker (almost slave) force, and highest Lord Megatron. While it bothered him to lack the power to just order a mech around, it was kind of nice to think that he was equally important as everyone on his team. Nodding his helm, he quickly affirmed," Understood."

Jumping into the air and transforming, he quickly flew over the area she had designated and gracefully dropped to the ground. It was higher up than the area that Arcee was now engaging the vehicons in a fight on, and while she would be able travel up to this height if she pushed her engines to the max, it looked like Optimus Prime was correct in saying his flight would be an asset on this energon run.

Starscream brought out his own scanner and began analyzing his surrounding environment. It appeared that there was only a small amount of energon, but it was close to the surface. Before Starscream could confirm this, a large shadow flew over him. Peering up at the blinding, glinting sun, a dark figure caught his optics.

A cybertronian jet.

Megatron's alternate form.