PREDATORY (Megatron x Starscream)

Chapter 15

"Alright. I have some news for you, but I don't think you're going to like it."

Starscream thought that sounded lame after the words came out, but by then it was far too late to take back. Besides, it certainly seemed to get their attention.  Soundwave and Switchblade both angled their bodies towards her immediately, following the persistent tracking of their level optics—what she could see of them, anyway. If Shockwave's face was creepy, Soundwave's was borderline dreadful. His hollow face was impenetrable. The featureless void still appeared to stare so intensely... or maybe those were just her own optics, reflecting back onto her.

"What is it, my liege?" Switchblade practically jumped to attention upon being addressed. Starscream coiled and flashed him a disapproving sneer. On cue, he dialed his enthusiasm back to an appropriate level. "Does it have something to do with the Predacons?"

"Yes. Er, it's... it is about the whole situation from earlier, yes."

"Did the Predacon escape again?"

"No, not quite..."

"What's the matter, then, your excellence?"

"If you'd let me finish my damn sentence!" She was already losing her patience. It had been a long day. "Primus, I'll just cut to the chase. I'm going to be letting Megatronus out of his enclosure. In other words, he has earned the honorary status of a Decepticon soldier."

Her declaration preceded a stunned silence. She read it as stunned, anyway—with Soundwave it was always unclear, but she imagined he was alarmed, for her own sake (it always got a little stressful when he seemed to know things about her she hadn't even come to grips with yet herself). Switchblade's faceplates were warped with more emotion than she'd seen him express for nearly his entire tenure as second-in-command. "What?" He spluttered. "I'm sorry, Starscream—did I mishear you?"

"Only if your audials are short circuiting."

"You're telling me the Predacon is getting let out of its cage?"

"His," she corrected subtly.

"The creature that ate seven of our Vehicons?"

"Well, technically, he just crushed them," she huffed again. "He didn't even drink much of the energon."

"The beast we just spent the better part of an hour trying to contain? The one that nearly slaughtered you?"

"Actually, he didn't—"

"You want to... set it free?!"

"HE, you moron!" Starscream wondered for a short moment if that really was Megatronus' preferred method of address. Had he clarified that? She assumed it was true by his lack of protest, but it never hurt to ask. Well, unless he got mad about it for some reason, and bit her, maybe—it was probably a mostly risk free question. You never thought to ask such things of a twenty-ton pile of rust and claws. "He's a Mech—I think—and he won't be let go, just... made free-roam. He'll have reign around the base, just like one of the Vehicons."

"With all due respect, my liege... why in the Pit would you want to do that?!"

"I've consulted thoroughly with Shockwave and we've both decided that this is the best course of action. Megatronus will get to experience the life of any other soldier, and we'll be able to train him. There's benefit in it for both of us."

"It has a name?!"

"Don't you?" she snapped. "Primes, it's not a big deal. It will be just like when we first on-boarded Breakdown. Just another ordinary recruit."

"I'm..." Switchblade gaped at her, opening and closing his lips dumbly like a beached warwhale opening its ventilator tubes to the stinging surface air. His wings were stiff with alarm, occasionally hiking and drooping while he struggled with his next words. He seemed hardly capable of stringing together a coherent sequence of sounds, let alone a multi-word sentence. If he tried to form a full-baked reply Starscream figured he'd burst a fuse somewhere.