Sparkeater apocalypse

A proposition

Starscream already had a bad feeling when Megatron decided to keep the Sparkeater alive for further examination.

It had been found while drilling in one of their smaller mines, Vehicons screaming and shooting as it tore their sparks out. Finally, the Decepticon leader himself managed to contain it, and, much to everyone's dismay, handed it over to Shockwave alive.

The scientist had decided to keep it in his laboratory on earth, as there was simply too much valuable technology on board the Nemsis. If the beast managed to escape, he didn't want his tech destroyed.

It went good for a couple of weeks. Shockwave worked on Project: Predacon and tinkered with the Sparkeater in his spare time. However, what exactly he did remained unknown.

Then Megatron, their glorious leader, had the bright idea to set up an ambush right where this horrifying creature was contained.

His reasoning was that the predacon they had on board the Nemesis was already getting too smart and too dangerous, and since he already knew of the other predacons, simply killing them wasn't an option

So the plan was to lead the Autobots to the still-developing Predacon younglings within Shockwave's lab, blow up the whole thing and blame it on their enemies. Those who'd survive the explosion would then have to face Predaking's wrath.

Of course, it all went horribly wrong. They did blow up the mines, yes, and the predacons were all terminated. However, all of the Autobots managed to flee and there was not a single trace of the Sparkeater.

Starscream had suggested searching and killing the creature, but Megatron had ignored him.

Several months passed, and eventually, the Autobots did show up again, in one of their larger mines.

This time around, the Decepticons did manage to catch one of them, their medic, which was a huge advantage.  Without proper medical care, the Autobots couldn't risk getting injured in battle, which drove them away for yet another couple of weeks.

Their victory wad short-lived, though, as the medic managed to explain to Predaking what really happened in Shockwave's laboratory and who was really responsible for his kin dying.

Enraged, the Predacon had slaughtered his way across the Nemesis, costing them almost a third of their troops Even Megatron struggled to defeat him, only managing to do so with the help of his Second in Command.

The loss of their forces and their strongest ally put everyone in a sour mood, and Megatron took out his anger on Starscream, as usual.

And as if things couldn't get possibly worse, he got a report from Soundwave, who'd been tracking earth media, about metallic creatures tearing apart power-plants and leaving whole cities in darkness.

They quickly came to the conclusion that it must've been the Sparkeater. These creatures fed off of pure energy, which is why they usually went after living mechanisms, the energy of their sparks drawing the monsters in like moths to light.

Since earth provided them with more than enough energy, they'd been able to multiply, and quickly their numbers went from a couple dozen to tenths of thousands of them.

Within a few weeks, they overran whole cities, and while they weren't one bit interested in the humans within them, if the fleshlings were unlucky enough to stand in their way or carry a phone with them, they were trampled over or torn apart to extract the small energy source in their pockets.

Since the situation had obviously escalated, they worked double shifts to get the energon out of the mines before they were inevitably taken over.