[OPEN] We do this every time...

[vosseeker]

WHO: Starscream & OPEN
WHEN: Throughout July
WHERE: Garage, R&D Labs, Library, various
WHAT: Starscream is keeping busy this month. And hopefully staying out of trouble. Maybe.
WARNINGS: A corpse? A corpse! Otherwise, just his normal sour disposition...
NOTE: Will match prose or brackets, your choice!

A. Garage & Mechanic Shop

Starscream goes outside of the colony regularly, every few days. He has less to fear than most from the radiation, and the thin atmosphere doesn't bother him since he doesn't need to breathe. Of course he's just as susceptible to the red shifts as anyone, but he counts himself fortunate that he's only fallen afoul of them a couple times. Usually he returns with a crate of glowing energon crystals to convert to fuel, but today he's returned through the decontamination process dragging something very, very different: the rusted out corpse of another mech.

The body is unmistakably the same species as Starscream, although their body structure isn't too alike: this is (was) a land-based frame, shorter and stockier than the Seeker's narrow, lanky physique. Though the corpse is heavily rusted, even on the less corroded patches the dead mech is unnaturally, uniformly grey, as if all the colour had been sucked out of them. They're also considerably heavier, if the way Starscream is huffing and heaving to get the body up on a flat slab usually used for vehicle repair like it's an autopsy table in any indication.

... it appears he is absolutely planning to use it for an autopsy table.

B. R&D Labs

This is most often where Starscream is found, having converted one of the larger but unused indoor rooms to his own housing. Old equipment has been shoved aside, the door repaired, the lighting upgraded. It's not much to look at, to glimpse inside: what appears to be some kind of nest in the corner, a
low metal table that he's pillaged from one of the labs, a slowly growing stack of refined energon cubes piled in the corner.

Sometime later after he has dealt with the other mech corpse, he's back in the R&D section with a new crate of energon crystals from the crevasse out in the wastes that he'd located some months ago. Lacking the resources (and the cooperation) to undertake any kind of mining operation, he'd been making do by retrieving small batches for processing. The distiller looks... well, exactly like a distiller, with an unrefined chunk encased in the top portion and a slow drip of liquefied energon — blue and luminescent — slowing trickling down into the lower tank. It's a tedious process, but it has to be done. That doesn't mean Starscream isn't tapping one frightfully long bladed talon shiing-shiing across the workbench surface, leaving little curls of metal piling up like shavings in boredom.

C. Library

When he needs a change of pace however, he takes on a project which — for anyone who knows him — would probably not have been expected. After surveying the collapsed portion of the library, making some notes for himself (literally he'd just carved the notes right into the nearby wall), Starscream starts digging out the toppled area. He doesn't offer any explanation, nor request (or demand) assistance.

It's still slow going, even with his size and strength. Sometimes he'll start on a section and it'll be unsteady, so he has to move off and try somewhere else. The removed debris has to be carried out and dumped in an unused corridor, so there's a lot of going back and forth, dragging material that easily weighs several tonnes. He grumbles a little, low and pitched, but it's not the theatric complaining that one would usually expect from him.

Still, progress is being made. When he finally stops for a break, perhaps just noticing that he's gained an audience, he flicks his wings irritably to knock the dust from them. "What?"

D. Wildcard

Anything that doesn't fit in the above prompts, or poke me on Discord or at sojourney for other starters!