Story title: Before the end of time

Chap 1: The last star in the universe.

His existence had been infinite. How long was it now? He didn't know, really, he had no means to know since he didn't have a chronometer to tell him anymore. But by the looks of things around him, it had been a long time, a very long time for which a proper name of time measurement didn't exist. It was over billions of trillions of years since the day he had died for the second time.

Damaged by Galvatron's blasts and drifting out of control in space, his body had ceased to function. Unlike the first time, his death had been slow, his fuel calmly dripping from the open lines, his motors stuck by the cold of space. He had seen his newly given body deteriorate without being able to do anything about his fate and he had lost it, again. That body, which had been powerful and magnificent, had turned grey and useless, so he had to leave it. Dispersed through space as the time had passed, the metal carcass had been reduced to dust.

Starscream had always known that he would not get another chance at life. No one could or would accept to do it for him. Unicron was no longer able to give him another body and would not grant him that wish anyway. No one would ever put up with him, follow him, trust him anymore. He had brought that to himself by systematically betraying every last one of those who had walked at his side or who had been foolish enough to regard him as a friend. He had never cared for anyone, even those who had been ready to give him everything they were and much more. He had taken what he wanted from them only to abandon them after, in the best cases. For the most, they simply died.

No one cried the day Starscream died.

Not even he himself.

Unicron, Cybertron, the Decepticons, the Autobots...With time passing, all was gone. The Cybertronians had evolved greatly, along with the planet. There had been long periods of war followed by long periods of peace, then more conflicts had occured and the Cybertronian race eventually became something that was nothing like their ancestors, the Cybertronians of the kind of his age. The only thing that had seemed to bind them was their inevitable fate. Wars had weakened the planet over and over again until the day it had collapsed on itself. For the Cybertronians had come the end of the world. Their billions of years-worth memory had remained for a few millenia more while the hostility of space had taken to claiming the survivors. In the universe, nothing was in a hurry.

Starscream himself had learnt to be very patient, as he had nothing to wait for any longer. A tiny orb of blue light wandering among the stars, he was merely a spectator contemplating the course of time and how it changed the universe around him without affecting his existence, for he was out of the reach of time itself.

The disappearance of his own kind and the destruction of his world had affected him greatly, but even then, his sorrow was egocentrical because now, he had no more reason to be, to exist. He had no more goal, no place to belong to, no one to remember him. He was the last one to remember them, the ones that he had wished to remember. He was the last one to carry the memory of their existence, but he was dead himself. So, it was like nothing had existed at all.

But he existed still and soon had stopped to be affected by the things he witnessed, the end of many worlds, the destruction of thousands of planets.

His scientific mind noticed, after a very long while, that creation had halted and that the time passing brought only destruction around him; planets and stars disappeared, but none were created. And Starscream soon deduced that it was the universe itself that was disappearing. He realised that he was going to witness the end of times.

Starscream, who had thought he would never be able to feel anything anymore, was suddenly afraid. Afraid of disappearing for good in the void that would follow the destruction of the universe and where all that remained of him would find its end.

And even now, he could hear it: " I will rule the universe, even if I am the last one in the universe!". He had been right, but he was only a tiny piece of light in the immense nothingness, a last remnant of the existence of something infinite that would soon cease to exist.

Once again, he knew there was nothing he could ever do about it. But before it happened, before everything went dark, he still had a question to ask, he still had someone to go talk to.

He travelled through space, back to the coordinates of that place where Cybertron once had been, and stopped upon reaching drifting debris he hoped were what remained of his lost world. There he called his memory for a projection of his self image. It was pointless, but he wanted to be seen again as he once was, a very long time ago, even if the red in his optics was dark and the smirk on his face was no more. He wanted to be decent for the one he had come to visit.

"Primus?" he called and was surprised by the sound of his own voice. He hadn't talked for so long... "Primus, please, answer me!"

For long, there was only the silence of the nothingness around him, but he continued to call Primus' name until...

"Nobody has pronounced my name for eons. I thought no one remembered me anymore."

The image of Primus, as etheral as Starscream's own image appeared in front of him.

"Who are you?" asked the god of all Cybertronian, now god of nothing.

"My name is Starscream, I am... I was one of your creations."

Primus seemed to think and to remember.

"You are the last one remaining of my children. Why does it have to be you who carries the memory of my planet and my creations? I have to tell you that you haven't been my pride."

"I don't feel insulted by your words, great Primus. I have had the time to contemplate my life and I know what I was, I know what I've done and I'm not sorry."

"That is of no importance...." The god was bitter.

"Yes, that is true," Starscream replied.

The god looked around him. "It lasted so long... I never thought it would end one day. But the fact is, this is the end." He turned back his attention to Starscream. "And you? What do you want from me. You haven't come only to talk, have you? Whatever it is you want, ask quickly, we don't have much time."

"When I was alive, I've never doubted myself, not even for a nano-klik. I regret nothing I've done," started Starscream.

"If you have nothing to regret, then it is good," Primus said.

"I regret nothing, but I wonder how things would have been if I would have acted differently at some point. Something I've done and that gave me remorses in the long run after I died. I want to be there again and see for myself how it would have been if..."

"This is a wish I can grant you, as I have nothing else left to do and you are my last child. Where and when is it you want to be?"

"In the shuttle, Astrotrain, as we escape Autobot City on Earth."

"The day you first died."

"The day everything went hayware: Galvatron was created that day."

Primus nodded. There was no need for him to remind Starscream that "Galvatron" was due to his doing.

"I can show you the past, but it's not going to change a thing. What is done is done: the past I will send you to is just an illusion. It may help you find the answers to your questions, but whatever you will do will have no effect on the timeline."

"I understand."

"Farewell then."

"Farewell."

To be continued in "I'll never make it to Cybertron".