This is probably an odd concept. Hopefully people enjoy it.

The small cavern was wider than it was tall, and would force most mechs to hunch over in order to navigate it. This made it somewhat optimal, as it was easier to hide the energon, which lay behind oblong chunks of metal. They did little to hide the faint glow, which cast shadows around the small rocks and pebbles scattered across the floor.

The cavern had one entrance which gave way to a larger spacious cave. Daylight streamed within from the entrance, revealing the slightly orange tint the dirt held. Many more tunnels could be seen within, all of them leading deeper into the earth. Only one tunnel had moderate sized boulders decorating its entrance, providing only a slight hiding spot for the mech that lay in its entrance, the soft glow of the energon illuminating them from behind.

Starscream had changed since he had defected. The two missiles he'd been armed with had fortunately long since been used, which prevented complications when the growths began to appear. They were mostly small but thick sturdy spikes of metal, and a protrusion replaced what would have been his missile, ridges growing along it in wide increments. His digits had grown fatter, but no less sharp, the palms of his servos growing thicker. His peds had grown slightly flatter, the tip widening significantly while his heel strut shifted in position.

His wings were useless now, as large growths had emerged along his back strut, unbalancing him. They could still shift around, but most of the wings had stiffened, which would make flight impossible, even if he was able to remove the growths. This was all assuming he could transform into his alt mode, which had proven impossible. Even his blasters were unusable, the mechanisms in his arms seemingly solidified.

These changes were only visible however, and Starscream could feel where many other changes were occurring. His denta, for example, hurt often, and the next day he found that he could open them just a bit wider, found that they jutted out just a little bit more, not past his dermas but growing a bit close. If he prodded around with his glossa, he found that there was small, new line of denta growing into the same area as the old. The rest of his frame had similar pains, but most of the changes were hidden from his view. He could only feel where and when the changes were happening, a painful experience that was becoming frighteningly more common.

Starscream sighed. The datapad had said that the main process would take 20 solar cycles. In that time he would either change, his frame growing and contorting into something… else. Or, if he were lucky, he would die, sparing him the pain of having to endure the final stage of the transformation, saving him from a future that he feared just as much as death.

He had read the entire datapad several times over. There was no way to tell what subjects would become. The mutagen, even if from the same batch, would interact differently with the CNA, making prediction and duplication impossible. Evidently, the scientists never got to perfect this error, as that particular section ended with a request for further research.

The uncertainty only helped to fuel Starscream's anxiety. The datapad left many questions unanswered, both old and new. When he first read it he had spend the night in a volatile state, first filled with rage, then curled up in the corner as he sobbed. Frag dignity, he didn't want to go out this way. To die either as a beast or curled up in agony somewhere, to weak to move even a digit. And the seeker was too much of a coward to take his own life, too scared of death to simply wait it out. The energon and scrap was the result of this, the efforts of the past deca-cycle.

So now, as he lay here in the tunnel, softly intaking as the pains slowly spread throughout his frame, he curled around himself, knowing it was the only comfort he would ever receive. He was alone, and though he was without factions, he knew any cybertronian who had any care for him had died long ago.

He waited, for either death or his transformation, desiring neither.