The Day We Hailed The Heavens

Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Flor de Sangre

Warning: The last section of this chapter contains a character death, and some images of gore and violence. Rated M for safety.

Slag it!

Starscream rolled madly in midair to avoid a trine of enemy jets, his recently singed tailfin protesting to his pain processors when he managed to glide past them on the wind with the clumsily executed stunt. They had come out of nowhere, it seemed, but it was no excuse for him to have missed them - he was their superior, and he would prove that to them. He would...

He was furious that Thundercracker had dared to face him again after fleeing the first confrontation in pursuit of a mere human boy, but he was also energised by a craving for revenge that he hadn't felt for many years - since joining the Autobot forces, in fact. He had spied a smoking, sparking Sunstreaker limping across a nearby roof with his sibling's assistance, too - apparently the intolerable little streak of sunshine had abandoned their 'jet judo' hobby in pursuit of more interesting things, leaving him to 'face the music', as the humans said.

Having been snapped out of his distracted state by the trio of drones, Starscream was ready for the navy Raptor when it sent a missile his way. He barrel rolled to avoid it and shot back with his Vulcan cannon; one of his shots hit Thundercracker square on the conical nose, and he heard a frustrated scream from his old comrade.

"What's the matter, Thundercracker?" he sneered as they passed each other. "Rusting already, are we?"

"Slag off, you wretched malfunction!" was the infuriated response, which was felt in full force by an unfortunate Harrier that was the target of Thundercracker's next, angry attack. "Give it up now and I might not send you to the flaming Pit! "

Starscream sniggered maliciously, delighted by the fact that Thundercracker was losing his grip on his composure. If there was one thing that was very important in a battle, it was to remain calm - not doing so was a mistake that he himself had made many times in the past, and even on this day, but now he would let Thundercracker give in to his rage and realise the consequences.

/The Pit would be just fine by me/ he assured the Seeker snidely, once the distance between them made verbal communication more difficult. /Hasn't it sunk through your unbelievably thick cranium yet, scrap heap? I have nothing to lose here. If I go down, I will take you down with me./

/Oh, I'm sure/ Thundercracker scoffed sardonically. /You were always a coward. You'll go down screaming in terror, just as your name suggests!/

A sense of private superiority made Starscream smirk internally at this, but he said nothing.

Clearly intimidated by his silence - or possibly the fact that he hadn't reacted in any way whatsoever to the slight on his valour - Thundercracker continued to speak, his voice becoming almost as shrill as Starscream's as he blustered on angrily, sounding as if he might be becoming a little unnerved by Starscream's brutal honesty when it came to his new opinion on dieing. Allowing himself to crash today would bring him one step closer to an escape from this war... to peace...

To Alexis.

He thought of her now as Thundercracker continued to swear violent oaths and curse his name in the background. She was probably entering Unicron's central chamber, considering the amount of time that she and Prime had been up there. She was too far away for him to feel anything from her through the spark bond, so he had no idea how she might be feeling, or what she was doing.