Title: Reboot – Safe Mode (I Think It's Going To Rain Today v.2)
Author: akisawana
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply.
Characters: Aerialbots and Seekers
Continuity: G1 cartoon, where the movie never happened, with some holes filled in by IDW.
Rating: PG-13 overall, for themes, language and occasional violence.
Warnings: In a past life, I was an English major.
Summary: Everyone's been turned human. For Starscream, this is the last straw; he's going to overthrow Megatron for real this time. The Aerialbots are going to help, even if they don't know it yet.

Note the first: This is the Grand Massive Rewrite of I Think It's Going To Rain Today, which I picked up after an extended hiatus and discovered that I had made some poor choices. I tried to patch it, but I decided it was better to just scrap everything and start over.
I mean, it's still self-indulgent melodramatic crack, but it's better now.
Note the second: all units are from IDW

Safe mode, in computing, is a specific boot mode that disables all but the most basic functions. This makes major system errors easier to identify and correct.

Skywarp was the first one to online.

He was confused at what he saw, at the loss of half his senses, at the narrowing of all the wavelengths he still could access. The pounding in his processor explained a little of it; Megatron's latest superweapon apparently had some sort of kickback. He didn't remember anything after the light, but he must have hit his head. Beyond that, he didn't know what else had been hit -he couldn't feel two-thirds of his body and his diagnostics were entirely shot. Giving himself a moment to regain his bearings didn't work beyond allowing him to realize he was face-down in the Chinese dirt. He pushed himself up, and that felt strangely off-balance, like there wasn't enough weight on his back.

Whatever hit him must have taken both his wings. Skywarp cursed and looked around for them; he wasn't losing another pair to trophy-hunting Autobots. They were nowhere to be seen. The Autobots were nowhere to be seen. Nobody was anywhere. Even the frame that had held Megatron's latest science experiment was gone.

Skywarp was alone.

Mindful of his training, he picked a direction and walked in a straight line. Or at least as straight a line as he could manage with his gyros going haywire. He walked by something that could have been an oversized meatbag, and six paces beyond that another one. There were no other landmarks save a crater that could have swallowed him, with five more giant fleshlings in a heap at the bottom. Their position tickled something in the back of his mind, but he told himself that his processor was clearly damaged and he couldn't spare the cycles to see how closely those bodies were laid out like a fallen gestalt.

A metal girder, impossibly tall for Earth at chest height, blocked Skywarp's path. He didn't trust his wonky balance to try to climb it. Instead, he turned right and picked his way along the churned mud of a battlefield. He very carefully didn't think about self-assessment or teleporting or where everyone else was. He didn't think about anything until he lost his precarious balance and grabbed at the girder to keep from eating mud again.

Instead of the clang of metal on metal, the sound was more akin to a tiny bag of wet concrete as his skin and meat and bone hand connected with the support for the mystery device over the Decepticon symbol.

Skywarp hadn't survived millions of years of war by thinking too hard. With the new information about the location of the superweapon, and his own shift in size, he could get his bearings enough to find where Megatron would lay. There was a subroutine screaming in the back of his processor, but he didn't waste time trying to shut it down. He had lots of practice not paying attention to that particular subroutine, especially when he was going to be shot at any second.

There was a human body lying where Megatron had stood. Skywarp poked it with his foot.

"Who..." the human said. It sounded like Megatron, or how Megatron would sound over tightbeam. "Skywarp. Of course."

Skywarp stood at attention and waited for orders while his leader regarded the field.

"Wake the others," Megatron told him.

Skywarp went back to where he had woken. He and his wingmates had been standing on the ground in case of a shock wave, so Starscream would be...this one?

"Ow. Fuck."

No, that was Thundercracker.

Starscream didn't say anything when Skywarp kicked him awake, just stood up gingerly and turned in a slow circle, taking everything in. More of the Decepticons-turned-human were waking up and waking their fellows in turn. The gestalt team Skywarp had passed earlier was pulling itself out of the crater. The Stunticons, or possibly Soundwave and his cassettes were sitting on the ground by Megatron's feet.

Someone was screaming. Skywarp didn't try to figure out who.

"Why," Starscream started, staring at his hands. He squeezed them into fists a few times. "What is the point?" he asked Skywarp.

"Doesn't how matter more?" Thundercracker asked. His wingmates sounded like themselves, still. Not all of the Decepticon voices across the field were so easily matched to names.

"Science could do this," Starscream said. "Skywarp. Which one is Megatron?"

Skywarp pointed dumbly at their leader, and wondered why his voice didn't work.

"Exhale to talk," Starscream told him. "Can your poor overtaxed processor handle two things at once?"

"Yes," Skywarp whispered. Sniping back at Starscream was nearly hard-coded into him, and calling that function unlocked a dizzying array of other basic programs; talking, swallowing, accessing gauges; things Skywarp didn't have words for, things Skywarp didn't have a concept of.

"Hmph," Starscream crossed his arms. "How about walking and talking at the same time. Can you handle that?"

Skywarp didn't think he could just yet, but that was because of his gyros, not his ability to multi-task. Skywarp was awesome at multi-tasking. Just usually he was calculating warp vectors and not shooting Starscream. Not shooting Starscream could take as much as half his mind at once. "Leave me alone, Starscream," he whined. "I got hit in the head."

"Like there's anything in there to damage," Starscream snorted. "Thundercracker? Status?"

"Watching Megatron...I think he's going to hit someone with a rock."

Megatron was standing over someone, probably Prime, armed with a stone the size of his fist. He dropped it on the head of the prone man at his feet.

All he managed to do was anger who turned out to be Ironhide.

Ironhide launched himself with a yell at Megatron. The Autobots began to stir and rise. Some of the Decepticons, Skywarp couldn't tell who, had the presence of mind to join the brawl. Some of the Autobots had the same idea.

"How is this my life?" Starscream asked the ground. Half the people on the field were just watching the battle, dull surprise on their soft faces. Among the participants, maybe one in three had any sort of control over his new form. As Skywarp watched, somebody with black hair tried to punch someone with red hair, missed, and fell on his face.

"Should we be helping?" Thundercracker asked, making no move toward the pile of humanity.

Starscream rolled his eyes at him. "Sure. You tell me who's a target and who's on our side." He watched the battle for a few more minutes, then looked at Skywarp. "You're banking," he said. "How can you bank on the ground?"

"I am immensely talented," Skywarp said. The screaming in the back of his processor was getting harder to ignore without something to do.

"You are immensely something. I can't watch this anymore; it's just painful." Starscream turned away from the sad excuse for a battle. "Let's go pick out a rendez-vous." Skywarp fell into line behind him, and Thundercracker brought up the rear.

"Are you good to walk?" his wingmate asked him quietly. Skywarp nodded, even though he was now yawing along with banking. Walking had never been so difficult in his life, but it was a welcome distraction from how he didn't have a choice.

Starscream lead them to dry, grass-covered ground under some trees. He had picked up a few more Decepticons on the way, and they sat down with varying success. Starscream himself dropped down like he had been in that body his whole life.

"How are you so good at this?" Thundercracker grumbled at him, lowering himself with far less grace.

"The question is, why aren't you?" Starscream pulled on Skywarp's hand. "Let me see your head. Is it leaking?"

Skywarp sat in front of Starscream and let his wingleader poke at his head. Thundercracker patted his shoulder awkwardly. His hand was warm and faintly sticky. Skywarp tried to tell himself that it was good enough, that this was close enough to normal. He tried to shut down some of the running processes, but couldn't find the controls. Distantly, he heard Megatron call a retreat.

"How did you manage to dent your head out?" Starscream demanded. "You've been like this for what, ten kliks, and you've already broken yourself."

"I don't think it's a hardware problem," Thundercracker said. "Look at everyone else."

Megatron called roll as the rest of the Decepticons staggered into the clearing in twos and threes. The curvy one at his feet with all the short ones surrounding him turned out to be a silent Soundwave and his cassettes. The Combaticons, the only gestalt upright, stood at awkward parade rest behind Starscream. Motormaster and Drag Strip were physically restraining the other three Stunticons. The Constructicons were having a collective breakdown but all six were there. Astrotrain and Blitzwing were the only ones as steady on their feet as Starscream and Megatron himself. Reflector, oddly enough, was only one man.

"The Insecticons were in Africa," Thundercracker muttered to Starscream. "What do you think happened to them?"

The Coneheads were the last to find their way to the rendez-vous. Ramjet opened his mouth to make his excuses but at a look from Megatron changed his mind.

"Well," Starscream broke the silence. "A rousing success. Surely this is all according to your master plan."

"Not now, Starscream," Megatron growled. Skywarp was very aware that he was currently in between the two of them.

Starscream stood up and tilted his head. "Really, oh Glorious Leader? You mean to say this wasn't what you intended to happen when you fired an untested weapon? How...unfortunate."

"I still have a rock."

"Yes, the rock you almost took down a single Autobot with. But you failed. Again. When I lead the Decepticons, such mistakes will not happen!"

Megatron threw the rock at Starscream, who went down squealing. "Shut up, or I'll rip out your vocalizer!"

And that was very nearly normal, so the Decepticons picked themselves up and moved out.

This wasn't the worst thing to happen to Skyfire in his long life, but it was close.

Once the Decepticons had retreated from the field and everyone had sorted themselves out, they had returned to the village where their human friends had been waiting for them. Protection from the elements was the first order of business, followed by calling for an extraction. The few Autobots left behind at the Ark had found themselves similarly...inconvenienced, and it had taken a week for those in charge to scramble together a cover story and enough money for plane tickets. Skyfire wasn't sure about the politics involved, but the Autobots had never needed cash before.

The initial shock had taken about three days to wear off. Cybertronians, by and large, were used to adjusting to new forms, and it didn't hurt that Optimus Prime had reassured them all, collectively and individually. Perceptor was already working on a reverse-transmogrifier sketched on the proverbial napkin.

As a scientist, Skyfire knew that Perceptor's machine was at this stage worse than useless. They didn't know what had caused this, by what mechanism, through what process. All they knew was that according to the Constructicons it was the "product of superior Decepticon science," which was a hint only slightly bigger than "not magic." But the machine lent hope to the other Autobots, so Perceptor worked on it all week, starting from first principles to try to figure out what had happened beyond "the big gun made a bigger flash and we woke up transformed." It would be easier once they were back at the Ark with access to all their labs and equipment.

They were heading back there now, everybody fitting on a single plane. From Skyfire's seat in the very last row, he could see everybody, but recognize only a handful. Fully half the Autobots now inhabited female bodies. Anyone who was mainly black or white or yellow had kept their original coloring, including Skyfire himself; everyone else had become a single shade of pink or brown. Hair had the most variation -Skyfire was charting it out to see if there was any sort of logic behind it. Relative size had stayed the closest: the tallest were still the tallest and the thickest were still the thickest, but Slingshot was a scant two heads shorter than Skyfire now, and he could almost share clothes with Silverbolt.

Skyfire had spent most of the last week with the Aerialbots. The five fliers had suffered the greatest shock, losing not only their natural forms but their gestalt-link and their wings in one fell swoop. They had also recovered the fastest. He had intended to surround himself with them, to distract himself from his own loss of flight. But by the time he had found them, Silverbolt had appointed Skydive in charge of discovering the full range of motion of the human body, nominated Air Raid and Slingshot to a committee investigating the properties of food as enjoyment as well as a fuel source, and assigned Fireflight to discovering any new senses or abilities, especially those that could offset something lost. In retrospect, Skyfire should have known. The Aerialbots had been fighting, and fighting the elite of the Decepticon army, since literally the day they came online. Was it any surprise they were terrifyingly good at adapting to new situations? He said as much to Silverbolt, who thanked him for the compliment and asked Skyfire if he would mind helping him pick out what would be important to the science team.

On the plane, the Aerialbots had claimed the very last seats for themselves and the Protectobots. Slingshot and Blades were arm-wrestling. Silverbolt and Hot Spot had their heads together over a notepad. The other six had pushed up all the armrests on the middle row of seats and were sleeping in a pile. Ratchet, Wheeljack, and the Dinobots were the next closest Autobots, three rows up, giving them the illusion of privacy. The idea had been to continue to give the gestalt teams space to adjust to being fully separated individuals, but Silverbolt had invited Skyfire back there. "This is your first time flying in something, isn't it?" he had asked.

Skyfire had politely declined the invitation when they boarded, but after the disaster of takeoff retreated to the back as soon as he was able. The other Autobots meant well, he knew, but he just didn't have it in him to reassure a new mech every five minutes that he was fine. At least behind the Dinobots he only had to convince First Aid he wasn't sick, and the young medic vouched for him to everyone else.

Starscream probably did not have that particular problem right now.

His thoughts turned, like they usually did when he was alone with them too long, to his former partner. It bothered him that he didn't know if Starscream would be disgusted or angry or scared. Before The Ice, he would have guessed that Starscream would have been excited at the data he could collect, until the first time he discovered an unpleasant sensation. Then he would demand of Skyfire to fix it or at least join him in his suffering. If Skyfire refused, Starscream would go off and sulk until Skyfire found some irresistible new artifact or life-form to show him. (Since this was Skyfire's fantasy, Starscream wouldn't simply restate his demands with increasing volume and offensive language until Skyfire gave in.) Now, Skyfire could only hazard that Starscream probably wasn't very happy he was without means to fight or fly.

"Starscream will be okay," Fireflight said softly next to Skyfire's audial in his new, female voice.

"Where did you come from, Fireflight?" Skyfire asked once he could breathe again.

Fireflight sat down next to Skyfire. "Over there," he said. "Didn't you hear me?"

"No," Skyfire said. "I was lost in thought."

"About Starscream, right?" Fireflight asked with far too much glee.

"Yes," Skyfire admitted. The Aerialbots were the only ones on the Ark who seemed willing to consider that the explorer Skyfire had known was very different from the Air Commander of today. Skyfire would have thought that a lifetime of being shot at would have lessened their admiration of the Seekers, but if anything the opposite had happened. "How did you know?"

"I just looked at your face, and I knew."

"Humans can read minds like Soundwave?"

"No," Fireflight shook his head. Some of his hair came loose from behind his ear and he tucked it back, irritated. "But nobody can control their faces now, and yours was all worried out the window. He'll be okay. I've seen him much worse."

"But you don't know how he is now."

"I know that Megatron doesn't have a fusion cannon anymore and isn't as strong as he used to be. He can't hurt Starscream like he used to. Besides, he'll have his friends with him; they'll fix him up afterwards at least."

Skyfire's eyebrows came up of their own accord, a truly unsettling feeling. "How do you know so much about the inner workings of the Decepticons?"

Fireflight shrugged. "Not all of them, just those three. I find them hiding in the mountains all the time, especially down in the desert where nobody lives. It's easy to sneak up on them if I'm alone."

"Spying on three Decepticons by yourself seems dangerous."

"If they see me, I just yell, "Oh no, Decepticons! Help! Where is everybody!" and fly off. They must think I just got lost again." Fireflight laughed a little. "Most of the time I am lost. I see them about three times a month, more if Megatron's having a bad run."

"They don't show up in your reports nearly that often." Skyfire would have noticed. He noticed every report mentioning Starscream.

"Silverbolt knows, but we all leave them out of our reports unless there's shooting."

"You'd be in a lot of trouble if Prowl found out though, wouldn't you?"

"Not as long as they don't shoot at us. Skydive found something in the Tyrest Accords that makes it okay. Their base is underwater," Fireflight added.

It made sense. The Decepticons were trapped in their ship under the ocean, and everything within range for Starscream was Autobot territory. "Three times a month, though?"

"It's...complicated," Fireflight looked over at the pile of his sleeping brothers -for backup, presumably. "We can learn a lot from watching them."

"There aren't any Autobot fliers you could learn from," Skyfire said as neutrally as he could manage in the face of this information.

"Yeah, just Powerglide and he's very different," Fireflight agreed. "Do you think all Decepticons are like them when we're not looking? They're almost like us."

Skyfire didn't have an answer. It was much easier to think of the Decepticons as a ship full of violent sociopaths who refused redemption, and little evidence to the contrary. The idea of Starscream having new wingmates, real wingmates, not just soldiers he had been thrown together with wasn't something he'd considered; twenty-three metacycles was barely a blink to him, not even long enough for the sting to fade. The idea that this new, Decepticon Starscream was even capable of getting along with someone else for more than five kliks was even more radical. If he had friends, though, he wasn't alone. Did these new friends have a hand in making Starscream who he was today? Or did they get through Starscream's defenses where Skyfire hadn't? They had more time to try, though, maybe if Skyfire had stayed with Starscream...

Skyfire suddenly found himself with plenty to think about besides being unable to fly himself home.

Thank you for reading.