Facing his Fears

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
TFA
Thundercracker, Skywarp, other clones
warnings: none
Summary:  Thundercracker decides to 'help' Skywarp confront his fears.

A/N: written for dark_fest , prompt.

“Oh indeed,” Sunstorm’s oily voice carried across the hangar of the wrecked ship, half lodged in the lunar surface. “Skywarp’s flight skills are entirely unmatched.” 

Thundercracker harrumphed from where he stood.  Not eavesdropping, no. The magnificent and superlatively superior clone of that inferior prototype Starscream did not stoop to eavesdropping. He was merely…intelligence-gathering. Intelligence gathering, intelligently. What more intelligent, resourceful way to gather intelligence than listening when mechs did not expect to be overheard?

But this nonsense about Skywarp being a superior flyer was clearly…insanity.  Then again, everyone knew Sunstorm would praise anyone for just about anything.  Why, the other day when Thundercracker had scared the purple wussbot so badly that he’d leaked coolant, Sunstorm had praised the nice symmetrical circle of the coolant puddle. So his opinion on Skywarp’s flying…? Irrelevant.  At BEST.

“I think,” Ramjet’s nasally voice cut in, “Thundercracker is the superior aerialist.

Yes! No, wait. Ramjet…lied all the time.  Thundercracker stiffened in outrage.  How dare he!!  

This…could not stand.  HE was the superior flyer. He was the fastest, the most maneuverable.  Not to mention the handsomest, though that went without saying.   Thundercracker resolved to fix this. Right now.

He stomped down the corridor of the ship to the small space Skywarp had claimed as his own.  Well, cowered in as his own, really.  Barely large enough to turn around in.  There were scratches of black and purple paint on the walls from where the jet had struggled to move around. 

“Skywarp,” Thundercracker bellowed, just because he liked the way his mellifluous voice reverberated in the tiny space. 

“Eeep!”  Skywarp squeaked, cringing against the wall. When his audio cache cleared, the jet whispered, “Can you keep your voice down?  Loud noises are scary!”

Right. This was a better flyer than Thundercracker. Not a chance. 

“So, Skywarp,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. “I hear you think your some hot flyin’ slag.” 

“I—I do?”

“’Pparently.” 

Skywarp cringed. “Sorry! I’m afraid of foreclipped slang words!” 

WHAT-ever. “I said,” Thundercracker said, firmly. “I hear you think you’re better than I am. Clear and correct enough for you, Warpy?”

The black jet wrung his hands. “Nicknames are also frightening.  Why are they called ‘nick’ names?  Does that mean the other part has been nicked like stolen or nicked like cut?” His optics grew round with fear. “Linguistic imprecision is TERRIFYING!” 

Okay. Getting a little off track here, Thundercracker thought.  Time to drag this one back. “You and me.  Flying contest.”

Skywarp looked at Thundercracker, stunned. He pointed at the blue jet, then himself.  “You? Me?” 

Impatiently, Thundercracker repeated, “Flying contest.  We’ll see who’s better.”  It was patently clear who had the superior processing speed. 

“I don’t want to.”

He didn’t want—what? “You,” Thundercracker said, haughtily, “Don’t have a choice. We are going to settle this.” 

“But—competition is scary!” Skywarp shivered. “There’s the risk of injury—very high, especially when flying.  I’m barophobic, did you know that? Because gravity is terrifying—it wants you to crash!  And so there’s gravity which is scary, and then possibly running into obstacles, and the obstacles themselves are probably scary, otherwise why would you want to get away from them? And then aggression! Do you know what too much cybosterone does to a mech’s systems in the long run?”  He quivered, and then *pop*ed in and out of the room. “It shrinks your mechawee!” he whispered, as if afraid to say it too loud. 

Mecha-wee? Oh, dear sweet Primus.  This was not his clone-brother.  Thundercracker simply refused to acknowledge he could have ANY CNA connected to this level of linguistic wussitude. And hadn’t Skywarp just been getting on him about slang?  Coward AND hypocrite. 

A dangerous combination and one Thundercracker had to put in its place before it got dangerous. “One megacycle,” he said. “Outside. Be there or I’ll GIVE you—and your mechawee— something to be afraid of.”  He turned on his heel thrusters, feeling solidly confident that he was making a majestic exit. 

 

**

The other clones crowded around the hull of the Nemesis.  Not because they really cared, but because there was nothing better to do. Judge Judy wasn’t due on until later. They loved Judge Judy.  Well, for different reasons.  Slipstream considered the diminutive squishy a role model in authoritarian femininity; Dirge liked to keep a running tally of the money won or lost by the judgments (this was where he learned to love the expression of humiliation and rage on the face of a losing defendant); Thundercracker liked the powerful way she wielded authority; Starscream liked how she treated her bailiff whom he insisted was her Second In Command; Ramjet liked to cheer for the side who was lying better; Sunstorm picked up pointers on sucking up to authority figures; and even Skywarp decided that it was good that there was law and order and that the ‘nice lady’ prevented things from getting too rough. “No one got hurt,” was his final approving judgment.

But that wasn’t on for another megacycle and Starscream had gone to Earth, determined to confront Megatron and maybe bring back a disco ball for the main hangar (he’d promised and Dirge was a terrible whiner when he didn’t get what he wanted) so no one was ordering them to do pointless chores.  And so here they all were.

Thundercracker had set up the obstacle course that their alleged originator had made to hone their skills—it had a speedway, a sharp turnaround and (Thundercracker had grinned wickedly) several pop-up obstacles.  If anything was going to scare Skywarp right out of flying, a target that popped out of nowhere would do it. 

Ramjet had won the dice roll to give the signal, and waited by the starting line. After several false starts (he kept yelling ‘stop!’ by mistake) he finally clapped his hands together and they were off.  Skywarp blasted away from the starting line, whimpering about the loud noise and his audio receptors.  Thundercracker snarled as he had to struggle to keep up.  In flat out flight, it was a dead heat.  But they were coming up to the first target.  And, Thundercracker thought smugly, he knew exactly where they were. He positioned his flight path for optimal evasion. 

The first target appeared. 

Skywarp squealed, his thrusters bursting white hot with fear, and he spun somehow in a terrified nimbleness, under and around the target.  The rest of the targets were the same—he careened wildly, zipping from one panicked surprise to the next.

And somehow, he was pulling ahead. 

Thundercracker was…furious.  There was no fury so magnificent as Thundercracker’s fury, but he’d rather, at the moment, be demonstrating the magnificence of Thundercracker-in-victory. But still, he consoled himself, the hairpin turn was coming, and the wild way Skywarp was flying…he’d never make it. He’d go sailing into space. 

Thundercracker bore down on his throttle, determined to make the tight turn with the grace and elegance that was suitable to his superiority.

Skywarp overshot the turn, as he predicted and then…disappeared with a vacuum-stretched ‘pop’, reappearing ahead of Thundercracker on the last straightaway.  Thundercracker’s rage knew no boundaries at all. Skywarp had…cheated! No! Only the keen intellect and slick morals of Thundercracker were allowed to cheat!

He was so enraged that he barely controlled his own flight, coming past the finish line at two full lengths after the purple wuss. 

His magnificent fury was only matched by the burning itch of his humiliation. Like a rash for which there was no ointment.  And for which Sunstorm was an irritant.

“Such grace!” the saffron jet burbled.  “An astonishing display of, uhhhh,” Sunstorm faltered, “gracious secondary success.”  

Thundercracker growled.

“I-I mean, of course, that you were superlatively brilliant in allowing Skywarp to win, which you…obviously only did out of your magnificent generosity and desire to help him overcome his fears.”

“Fears?”

“Oh yes, Skywarp’s fear of victory is legendary!”

“Skywarp isn’t afraid of anything,” Ramjet ambled over. 

“The only thing to fear,” Dirge added, “is fear itself.” 

Right.  Thundercracker looked over to where Skywarp was shivering with fear as Slipstream approached him for a hug. Thundercracker raged. That was HIS victory hug. He was being stolen from, right now, in front of his inferior copies. BY an inferior copy. 

This would not stand.  He would get the better of that deviously ‘afraid’ act that Skywarp pulled.  He would see just how afraid the black and purple jet really was.  He would teach him new meanings of fear! 

**

The first step in teaching an uppity inferior clone new meanings of fear, Thundercracker discovered, was to learn new meanings of fear oneself.  Thankfully, the organics on the disgusting mudball below had a host of stupid fears that they had categorized for easy searching.  He decided he would be gracious enough to (mentally) be grateful for their effort.

Pteronophobia, he discovered: fear of being tickled with feathers. That seemed…Skywarp enough, but Thundercracker wanted something that would be abjectly humiliating.  For Skywarp and not himself. He simply couldn’t picture him lowering his magnificent self to tickling Skywarp. Who would, no doubt, manage to squirt lubricant on him in his paroxysm of fear and tickles.  Blennophobia: fear of slime. Promising, but again, he could see how this could backfire and Thundercracker again end up coated in slime. He would not soon forget (nor forgive) the humiliation of losing to the fraidy-jet in the obstacle course.  How was he to know that Skywarp’s fear actually increased his reflexes? 

Right. More research. He had to find something he could inflict to put Skywarp in his place. Aulophobia. Fear of flutes? What? That just…didn’t seem possible. Even for Skywarp. Still, he jotted it on his list.  Arachibutyrophobia. No, he couldn’t even pronounce that one, much less try to figure out what peanut butter was.  The list went on and on.  Thundercracker stayed up way past his recharge time, jotting and plotting. And by shiftcycle, he was ready.

 

**

“Skywarp,” he said, earnestly. “I need your help.”

“M-my help?”  Skywarp’s optics quirked worriedly. “I…I don’t think I can help you,” he whispered. 

“Of course you can,” Thundercracker said, exuding confidence and more than a touch of bonhomie.  Yes, he would prove himself superior to this pitiful wretch. Even his vocabulary was better. Bonhomie.  “You’re the only one who can help.”

“I…me?  No one else?”

“You are the only one!” Thundercracker said, the bonhomie edging into his Commanding Tone, his volume rising. Skywarp quailed back, intimidated beyond asking further irritating and plot-hole-widening questions. 

“O-okay,” Skywarp said, dubiously.  Thundercracker grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him stumblingly behind him to the outside of the ship. 

“There,” he said, pointing to a dark space under the hull, a narrow crawlspace between the outer hull and the lunar surface.  “I lost the datapad under there.” 

“H-how?”

“I’d tell you,” Thundercracker said, at the edge of his patience, “but it’s really scary.”

“Oh!” The optics were large circles. “Don’t tell me! Please!”

Easier than he thought.  “Only you can get it out from under there for me.”

“But…why can’t you?”

“I, uhhhhh, I injured myself.”

“In there?” Skywarp’s optics flickered in fear.

“No! No. Earlier today.  I sprained a servo.” Thundercracker hitched up on one side, putting his weight on one thruster heel, trying to look weak and sad.  It was a challenge for someone of Thundercracker’s virility to appear so fragile, but Thundercracker had superlative acting chops to his credit.  “Please?” he said, using said chops. 

“O-okay.”  Skywarp got down and stuck his head into the darkness under the ship.  “W-where did you drop it? I don’t see it?”

Of course you don’t see it, Thundercracker thought.  That’s because there isn’t one.  “It must have gotten pushed further back when I tried to grab it,” he said.  “You’ll have to go in more.” He was so tempted to plant his foot squarely in the wriggling black aft.  But he restrained himself. The lunarspiders that liked to nest in the dark crevices in the moon’s surface were more than enough.  Besides, he might mar his exemplary polish.  He could hardly restrain a masterful chortle as Skywarp, his legs trembling from fear, disappeared under the ship’s bulk.  He could hear whimpering reverberating through the space.  Not quite loud enough to awaken the spiders.  “All right in there?” he boomed.  He heard a solid thunk as Skywarp jumped, his entire back slamming against the ship’s underside. 

“Fffffine. Please…be quiet. I think there are…things in here with me!”  Skywarp’s voice drifted, the thinnest of whispers. 

Thundercracker smirked.  He kicked the underside of the ship with all his might, the loud clang echoing through the confined space.  He heard the soft ploppings of the lunarspiders dropping from their cozy webs.  And he heard the sweetest music he could imagine—other, of course, than his own beautiful voice—Skywarp screaming in stark, tight terror. 

“AAAAAAUUUUUUuuuuuuuuugghhhhhhhhhAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGGHHH!!!” Glorious music. A hallelujah chorus of Thundercracker’s superiority, punctuated by the panicked scrabblings of limbs as Skywarp tried to escape the falling spiders. 

Thundercracker threw back his head and laughed, as loud and hard and long as he could manage. Until he heard a *pop*. 

Oh, frag. 

*Pop*!  Skywarp reappeared in front of Thundercracker, his frame strung with the blue tendrils of lunarspider webs, his face a rictus of terror, his knees knocking, and his hands clutching…a datapad?  A datapad.  With ‘property of Dirge, do not touch, mine all mine all mine’ on it.    Thundercracker had no choice.  His tanks boiled with rage, but he took the pad, muttering the most ungracious thank you that had ever been uttered. He consoled himself that even in his ingratitude, he was superlative.

**

That last time had been a failure, Thundercracker thought, but every leader faced setbacks, and it was how one dealt with the setback that demonstrated one’s own superb character.  He would rebound to total victory. 

Total victory this time required some equipment, which in his genius, he managed to have delivered to the Post Office Box in Detroit. One quick swing by later, and he was all set.  Cameras were installed focused precisely to capture the humiliating spectacle.   

“Oh Skywarp,” Thundercracker sang.  “I need your help with something.” 

Skywarp crept into the rec room, his optics staring at the grey lumpy pad on the floor.  “There—there aren’t any spiders under that, are there?”

“No. Of course not.” Slag, that would have been a good idea. He filed that away: everything was scarier with spiders. “I need to test this device.”

“Test!?” Skywarp cringed behind the door, only one optic showing around the frame. “What happens if I fail?”

“Nothing. It’s just, well, I need someone I can trust. I trust you, Skywarp.”

The other optic appeared. “Why? Are you sure there are no spiders? I’m afraid of spiders. And the dark. And confined spaces.”

Thundercracker gestured around the large rec room, well-lit (the better to capture all of this on film). “No spiders. Promise. Just this thing.”

“What is it?” He crept into the room, flinching as if he expected the pad to leap at him.

“It’s just a game.”

“How—why do you need me to test a game?”

Thundercracker feigned a frown. “I want to learn how to dance, but…I’m afraid of looking like an idiot.”

“Me too!” Skywarp nodded, earnestly. 

“So…,” Oh you wickedly ingenious actor, you, he praised himself, “I was thinking I could maybe learn this way.”

“That makes sense.” Skywarp eyeballed the dance pad carefully.  “So why do you need me to test it?”

“To see if it’s too hard for me.” Thundercracker rubbed his thigh. “Pulled that servo, remember?” Ah, Thundercracker, you fiendish genius! Or did genius fiend sound better?

“Okay, what do I have to do?” 

“Ah.  You just match what the image on this screen is doing.” This should be terrifically humiliating. He’d set the game on the hardest level.  The music started, and Skywarp’s optics darted frantically from the screen to his feet.  Skywarp froze.  Thundercracker felt a surge of triumph at the stark terror in the purple and black jet’s optics.  He hoped the cameras were getting all of this so he could replay this at leisure, and for others, in perpetuity: Skywarp terrified of a game. 

Skywarp looked up. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Just…do what the screen tells you!” He gestured.  The little cartoon woman on the screen was simple enough to follow, feet hitting the colored symbols that exactly matched the ones on the pad.  Skywarp stared, and began trying to wiggle his hips to match the image.

“No! Not the hips.  The feet! Do what the feet are doing!”

“The…feet?”  Skywarp looked up at the screen, down at his feet.  “How?”

“How? How can you be so stupid!” Thundercracker roared. “This simply isn’t that hard!”

“Please don’t yell,” Skywarp whimpered.

“Don’t yell? A sparkling could do this!” He shoved Skywarp aside. “Here! Like this!” He stomped on the pad, following the screen. “Look! Left, right, chassez, kick. Like this!”  He tried to follow the motions, but they came way too fast for his feet to follow—left, right, spin, side tap, back kick, jump….ahhhh!  Thundercracker tripped over his own pedes, crashing onto the floor. 

He heard applause from the rec room doorway. Sunstorm and Ramjet stood there, grins spread across their inferior faces.  “You are a veritable Terpsichore!”  Sunstorm gushed. 

“That was the most awesome display of talent I’ve ever seen,” Ramjet deadpanned.  

Thundercracker seethed as he had never seethed before as he dragged himself up onto his feet again. 

“And, oh look,” Sunstorm added, pointing to the cameras. “He has recorded this so that we can view this spectacle of choreography again and again and again.”

“I have no idea what I’d do with a copy of that,” Ramjet smirked.

Oh. Skywarp was going to PAY!

**

This time, Thundercracker thought, he was pulling out all the stops. Enough with the chorophobia. Enough with the spiders and darkness and cramped spaces. Sparkling’s play, the lot of that. He was breaking out the Big Guns of Stark Raving Gibbering Terror this time: Public Speaking. 

“Skywarp,” he said, sliding smoothly into the seat next to the black jet in the dining hall.  He hadn’t thought of a great cover story for this one, so he’d decided to go with the truth. Partial truth. Adulterated truth.  Skywarp could not handle the truth—was probably afraid of it.  “I think it’s time you faced up to some of your fears.”

“Why?” The energon cube dropped from Skywarp’s fear-numbed fingers, clattering against the tray.  Skywarp ‘eep’d and popped in and out. 

“It’s good for character building. And…you’re a handsome mech,” not as handsome as me, of course, “and you deserve a little self-confidence.”

“I do?”

“Of course. Self confidence is s—“

“Scary?” Skywarp cut him off.

“SEXY. I mean, just look at me.” Thundercracker preened.

“Scary,” Skywarp repeated. 

Grrrrr.  Whatever.  “The point is, Skywarp, you need to do this.” He handed over the datapad.  Skywarp read it, his optics flickering with tension. 

“A speech? I have to give a speech? In front of EVERYONE?!”  *Pop*

Thundercracker waited for Skywarp to pop back in. “It’s not everyone,”  he said, soothingly, lyingly, “it’s just us.  We’re your friends, right?”  Frag, with friends like these clones…?

“Oookay.  You are my friends.  How bad can it be, right?”

Oh, very, very bad, Thundercracker hoped.

**

The clones were assembled, grumbling.  Their foul mood made Thundercracker’s spark sing.  Oh, Skywarp would foul this up on a cosmic level. In front of witnesses who were already irritated that they had been forced to this assembly (called, their rosters read, by Skywarp himself)  instead of being left to their own devices.  Slipstream was complaining about being taken from her manicure; Dirge from his day trading. Sunstorm was praising the tension that all of this delay was building, and Ramjet was loudly vociferating how much he LOVED waiting and that this would DEFINITELY be worth his time. 

Skywarp, when he appeared, looked to be in the high stages of Mortal Terror—his knees clattered together as he walked, he cringed over, clutching his notecards in trembling fingers.  He kneeknocked to the center of the stage.  Thundercracker tapped the light controls: a bright spotlight blaring on Skywarp, but not enough to blind him to the judgmental glowing red optics of the other clones. 

After a long moment of standing there, quivering, Skywarp started making ‘muh’ sounds, as if priming his vocalizer for speech.  He looked over to Thundercracker, who grinned, wickedly. 

Dirge gave up and pulled out his portable and began texting trading orders to his stock agent, muttering that time was money.

“Uhhh, ummm, okay,” Skywarp began. He wrung his notecards.  “I have a little speech,” his voice squeaked on the last word, as if even the very notion of speaking were terrifying, “for you and it would be very…not-scary of you to please just hear me out…without being too mean? Please?”

A restless shifting in the crowd. “How long is this going to take?” someone complained. “Get on with it already.”

“Uhhh, okay?”  He tried to uncrumple his notes, squinting at them in the washout of bright light. “My Speech,” he read. 

“Oh no! Monotone!” Slipstream said, loudly.  “Is there anything worse than a droooooone?”

Skywarp looked up at her, optics fearful. “Sorry! I’m sorry!”  He tried to smooth his notecards with his thumbs.  “I’ll do better.  MY Speech!” He looked up for approval.  Slipstream rolled her optics, but decided that more commentary would just make this ordeal THAT much longer. 

“My speech!” Skywarp repeated. “The t-t-topic of m-my speech is...Th-thundercracker.”

Thundercracker elbowed himself off the wall, uneasily. Oh this could be bad.  Skywarp had asked what he should write about, and Thundercracker had figured that keeping the topic wide open would…terrify Skywarp with the possibilities.  He’d never expected HE’d be the topic. Was Skywarp smarter than he looked?

No. Thundercracker had all of the keen evil intellect in the group—didn’t he?

“Thundercracker,” Skywarp began, “is the nicest friend a mech could ask for. He’s always looking out for me.” Thundercracker felt the other clones’ optics flick to him.  Not. Funny.

“Thundercracker is always trying to get me to better myself, so that one day I can be as awesome and self-confident as he is. He has been helping me to face my fears, which has been terrifying for me—as you know, I suffer intensely from cainophobia and new stuff positively scares me half to death!” He looked up from his notes, muttering ‘eye contact, eye contact’ to himself.  He tried to force himself to meet the optics of his clone-brothers and sister.

“And he doesn’t treat me like a sparkling but…insists that I stand up to his challenges and…he’s so very good to me.” Skywarp’s lip was trembling almost as much as the rest of him. “He made me face my fear of flying, and gravity, and spiders and dark spaces and dancing and now this because he knows that in the end, it will all make me a better mech and a better friend for him.”

“Awwwww,” Ramjet sneered, “That is so cute.”

“I love how you’re not afraid of run-on sentences anymore!” Sunstorm gushed.

 “Thundercracker is also the most handsome mech, like, ever. Blue is a nice color. He’s a very handsome shade of blue and he keeps himself super shiny, because he knows that appearances matter.  One time he polished himself for three whole megacycles.  He was so shiny it hurt my optics!” Skywarp quailed at the memory. “He has really good posture for one thing and for another he’s got really good hygiene—he smells really, really nice.” 

Dirge rolled his optics, groaning.  Sunstorm jokingly sniffed the air in Thundercracker’s direction.  “Must we really listen to this fascinating drivel?” Ramjet whined. “There really aren’t any better uses of my time.”

Skywarp shivered at the complaints, his thumbs puncturing his notecards in fear.  “I…uh…Thundercracker is also very, very smart. And kind. And humble. Why, did you know he is afraid of dancing? Just like me!  It makes me so very happy to have something in common with such an awesome mech.”  A snicker rippled through the crowd.  Thundercracker felt his recently-praised posture sag.  That was a lie! A story he had told Skywarp to get him to….oh! Thundercracker was torn between seething at this humiliation and preening at the praise. Was there such a thing as preething? 

“And even though he is very easily injured and slow to heal, he keeps his complaints to himself. Did you know he pulled a servo?  You can barely tell: that’s how brave and uncomplaining he is.” Another round of snickers, this time with a few muttered ‘wuss’es for good measure.  The noise startled Skywarp—he popped out and then back.  

“And he’s shown me,” Skywarp straightened up, “that it’s okay to be scared. He was scared to go under the ship, too.  And he was scared of that dance game, too.”  The giggles were rising to a tide, almost surging into a guffaw. 

Thundercracker panicked. He had to find a way to stop this.  Skywarp was ruining everything! 

“In conclu—in conclusion,” Skywarp looked rattled by the laughter among the assembled clones, “Thundercracker is the best mech ever. He has nobility, character and intelligence and generosity.  He truly cares about bringing out the best in all of us.  And his ambition to be leader of us is truly one worthy of a mech of his character.”  The notecards fluttered to the ground as Skywarp *pop*ed away.

The clones burst out laughing.

“I don’t know which of you,” Dirge said, leaning over the seat between Ramjet and Sunstorm, “should be more jealous about Skywarp stealing your schtick.”

“Neither,” Slipstream said, wiping a tear from her optics from over-laughing.  “ Delusional doesn’t apply to either one of them.”

“That,” a voice came from the back of the darkened room, one that made all of them jump to attention, “was a most interesting display.” Starscream himself stepped from the shadows. “Skywarp has done a great service in opening my optics. Easily injured? Afraid of dancing?  Generosity of spirit? I hardly know which of these character traits impresses me LEAST about you, Thundercracker.  I was honestly considering you for the position as my Second In Command, but with Skywarp’s GLOWING recommendation, I see that I shall have to find someone else.”

Comments

[katsuko]

First: You damned near made me late for work this morning, I was reading and giggling so much. Luckily my roomie kicked my butt into gear and made me hold off on reading the whole thing until I got to the office.

Second: Oh. My. God. Thundercracker. Darling. Sweetie. You should have realized by now that, as a clone of Starscream, your plans will backfire spectacularly. Thanks to your efforts, you managed to not be named as SIC. *sarcastic applause* Good on ya, babe.

Excellent job, Antepathy. You have made my morning just a bit brighter. Now to finish reading through Book 16 of The Odyssey and plot vengeance upon Kyle. That or jot down notes for the paper. One or the other.

[candlewitch2486.livejournal.com]

This fic was an awesome way to wake up on my day off. I'm still giggling about it. I'd feel sorry for Thundercracker, but he totally brought it on himself.

[karanseraph]

You win the internet.

I adore every characterization. I love that there is cybosterone. I love that they watch daytime TV. The phobias...TC's spectacular fail and Warp's seemingly accidental competence. Just love.

[caiusmajor.livejournal.com]

Heee! This is *hilarious*.

...although I think Thundercracker might luck out in the end. Being 2IC of the Starscream unit seems like a dangerous endeavor. XD

[elycien-xiii.livejournal.com]

Ohhh dear. XDDD This made me laugh so hard. I love the way you write the clones. Skywarp is just... adorable. And poor, poor Thundercracker appears to have inherited Starscream's luck. *snerk*