Chapter Text
We all have plenty to think about, don’t we?
His own last words to the Autobots rang in his audials as the talons at his chest dug deep, jagged lines into the metal. The pain and pressure was increasing, slowly, and then all at once he felt himself swept to one side – the pressure was gone, but it was replaced with the familiar feeling of flight until his body hit the wall and crashed down.
A pair of yellow optics regarded him coldly from in front of the throne as the other two Predacons raced towards him, eager to feel their share of carnage. He’d heard humans use this expression before: Predaking had thrown him to the dogs. And he was going to die here – inches from the throne he’d almost claimed for himself. Wasn’t that just typical?
No, this was no time to sink back into the old habit of waiting for it to be over. This was not Megatron – not anyone who would stop, who could be reasoned with, begged to, bowed to. It was a beast and its packmates, and they were going to tear him to shreds ceaselessly until there was nothing left. His wits wouldn’t save him, and shutting down would mean the end. The real end.
Starscream lifted an arm, attempting to push himself upright, but claws pinned him immediately, broke a digit under the weight, and elicited a cry he didn’t bother to hold back.
“Let me go! Let me go, you must have something better to do – someone else to rip apart – surely you’re-!” He cut off, against his will, as the claws moved from his arm to his face and stomped him harshly into the floor. Starscream scrabbled at the Predacon’s leg, trying to move its weight off his neck, but its beaked face ducked down in front of his and the sneer he saw there made him still.
The claws dug into his neck cables, slightly. Starscream didn’t move. Panic was starting to grip him, the realisation setting in that there would be no way out of this. Murdered in cold blood, not as an outlet for anger, but with a point. The goal was not for his attacker to lash out. It was to exact revenge. And that goal would be completed with his death.
A beast who could make calculated decisions was still a beast.
“Break him,” came the command Starscream had been dreading.
And the breaking began, in slashes and tears and bites and the sharpness of a beak puncturing his armour like a jackhammer and in agony, as the two Predacons flipped him, held him down, and tore his wings from his back. There would be no fleeing. A claw caught his face and mangled his right optic. Another set dug into his chest armour again and this time ripped it off with the creak of stressed metal and then the empty snap as it gave.
Starscream tasted energon, and didn’t bother spitting it out.
And then – as razor sharp Predacon claws dug into his internals, as he screamed like his namesake for anything that resembled mercy, it came.
“Stop.”
The agony didn’t subside, but the fresh wounds stopped appearing. Hesitation rippled through the air as the two Predacons turned their heads to look back at their king, and Starscream felt his unmangled servo twitch as the pressure of one of the beasts lessened on his shoulder.
There was a faint, screechy whine.
“The debt is paid. Starscream was tasked with breaking me,” Predaking explained, and Starscream heard the scissorlike sound of a hand gesture being made but could not raise himself up to see it; “and we broke him.”
The pressure eased off the jet’s torso and there was a clatter and whir of transformation somewhere above him. “But – your highness–“ Skylynx stuttered, clearly disappointed; “–his destruction-?”
“Would be pleasing,” Predaking admitted easily. Starscream flinched as Darksteel’s talons tightened again on his shoulder – then made a strained noise as it let go and happily ripped off the armour there instead. Predaking made an angered sound, a growl that was somewhere deep in the uncanny valley between beast and thinking individual, and it made Starscream feel sicker but it also made the Predacon cease again. “Pleasing, but not correct.”
Starscream felt his spark leap into his mouth, metaphorically speaking (it would drown there, with all the internal energon leakage) and the sharp edge of renewed fear made him cough. Blue specks spattered the chest of the Predacon still pinning him (as if it had to, Starscream could barely move if he wanted to), and its head tilted to examine the mess and then snarled at him.
What did that mean? On any level, what did that mean? He’d accepted it, finally, that this was where and when he was to die, but now this was presented to him as though it meant something else. His processor was failing to do its job and process. Probably the energon loss, he lamented to himself.
Judging by their silence and the confused glances they exchanged, however, the lesser Predacons were just as confused as he was.
Predaking moved forwards, his footsteps clanking ominously on Darkmount’s floor, and came to a halt looming over Starscream even as his two lackeys shrank away to give him room.
“I have been asked before whether I am proud to consider myself sentient.”
If he expected a response, Starscream noted bitterly, he was a fool to expect him capable of giving one. The warm drip of energon from his injuries was making a fine pool on the floor beneath him. Let that speak for itself.
“My answer is yes,” he continued after a moment, his yellow optics never leaving Starscream’s face. They didn’t hold the disgust of someone who was thinking about the injuries he was sporting – just the cold lecturing glare that went with an explanation Predaking expected him to take to spark. Starscream would have shuddered with disgust, if he had the energy to do so. “But I have learned that sentience is a process, not something granted once and kept.”
“…Your highness?”
“If we are to truly call ourselves civilised, Skylynx, the worm must be left alive.” He turned away, his interest in the situation already lost now that he had made his point clear. “Our only example of the way civilised beings act is the Autobots. And so as much as it irks me: for now, and until we can truly say we know better… we follow theirs.”
There was a hissing, animalistic noise from Darksteel – and then the beast stepped away, leaving Starscream to make a wet wheezing noise and cough again, feeling something shift in his chest. Probably more energon if he was honest with himself, which would be a rare thing. He found it difficult to care any more. Was Predaking aware of the damage his minions had done? Noble speech or no, Starscream was going to die, and it would be by their talons, in the end. Predaking’s self-proclaimed mercy just meant it would happen a little slower.
“Beast,” he managed to choke out, because in all his solar cycles his processor had never known when to quit and it was hardly going to learn now. The receding sound of three sets of claws on the floor halted, and he couldn’t even bring himself to curse his old habits.
For a long moment, nobody moved.
“As you can see, Predacons,” the dragon king declared loudly, “civility is learned.”
The sound of transformation and the roar of Predacons taking to the sky had never sounded so loud in his audials. And yet, as the wingbeats faded into the distance, the silence they left behind was even more deafening.
Old habits had brought him this far. Why try to fix what was broken beyond repair?
The encoded message he sent through was no less clipped and demanding than it ever had been. Until he got a response (or until the inevitable happened, he supposed), Starscream was oh so happy to just lie there and bleed.
***
Wingtip to wingtip with the others – he supposed the correct terminology was wingmen, wasn’t it? – Predaking tried his best not to reconsider. What was done was done. His decisions had to be final, or else what was the point? And how would he learn?
Besides, he had other concerns. If he was to lead, even the meagre two that squabbled when he wasn’t looking, Predaking understood that he had duties. The first, to find somewhere to call home. He’d thought the whole planet would do, for a while, but with only three Predacons and the others intent on reviving Cybertron, maybe he was setting his scopes too wide. That was irresponsible. And a king must make responsible decisions. He had learned from Megatron, and decided that that particular leader had done quite a few things wrong.
Still, that was the freedom of choosing neither side. Forming an entity all his own meant that he could make his own decisions – and cherrypick the ideals he liked from everyone else. Good and bad choices were his to observe from a distance, and emulate or dismiss as he saw fit.
So far, his leadership had been earned with force. It was what Predacons understood best. But – and this was the important part – Predacons were evolving. Changing with the times, to put it simply. Which meant if he was to keep his leadership, in a way that he judged to be more civilised, Predaking would have to change things up. Start winning over his companions with words, not might… at least for the most part.
Still. The night was not yet over. And, as he maintained, a dawn was a new beginning. Perhaps he could leave it just a little longer before starting fresh. There were a few things Predacon that he wanted to indulge in, at least once.
Dipping a wing, Predaking circled down and led the others to a high spire, open to the winds and (presently) unoccupied. Cybertron would welcome others, soon, but for now at least they had their pick of roosts and vantage points. He landed neatly, metal claws clinking against the floor, and turned to scan the horizon as Skylynx and Darksteel landed behind him with a metallic clatter.
From here he could see the Sea of Rust, laid out like a scar just beyond the building limits. He pushed out the territorial thoughts, not wanting to think about the future right now. There would be enough planning and heavy decisionmaking later. Just for tonight, Predaking decided, they would be neither beasts nor civilians: just three minds in company. The simplicity would be a well-earned break from confusion and concerns.
He stepped towards the edge, wings folding up tight against his body, and took a seat. His tail curled around and the spiked, weapon-laden tip hung over the edge of their temporary refuge. Behind him, following by his example, Darksteel and Skylynx settled down a little, the faint sounds of preening that started up oddly comforting to him. When the morning came (and it would, now that the planet’s greatest threat had been eliminated), he would not be watching it alone.
Silently, and with a calmness about him he had not felt since his awakening, Predaking lifted his head and turned his gaze to the stars.
***
Calling the place a ‘burial ground’ was not logical. The bones had never been buried, not actively; Cybertron had covered them in vorns of advancement and expansion and the shifting of metallic terrain had shaken them to the surface, but they had not been buried. And now the place did not hold any of them, any more.
His balance ‘shot’, as some medics tended to say over the top of the operating slabs, Shockwave let himself drop inelegantly onto his aft. One stabilising servo slid a little way down the incline that dipped into the empty Predacon gravesite, and he spared a thought for this lack of symmetry before deciding he didn’t have the capacity or reason to care about aesthetics right now. There was no army and no commanding officer to look active in front of. He continued sitting awkwardly on the edge of the hill.
Logically, he knew, it would be better to simply keep moving. There were few options, otherwise; either wait here with the slim chance of being found (and not terminated) by the Autobots, or for the Predacons to hunt him down and confront him over their creation. He had no way of predicting the outcome of either scenario; and with his ability to transform severely hindered by his injuries, a slow trudge towards one of his hidden laboratories where he could fix himself to a working capacity had been his mission all night.
And yet he had stopped. Shockwave knew he still had more than enough energy in him to get to a lab, but something had made him stop, made him stare out at the Predacon gravesite from behind the heavy crack in his optic; and something made him stay, even now, and think over events as though he had the time or the energy to spare.
He supposed he did, after all. Logically, if the planet was still intact and the fighting had ceased, he had all the time he needed. Because Unicron had lost his battle. Because someone (and he would admit this easily where others may not: he didn’t know exactly who) had won.
Shockwave was not the type to care about teams. He worked better alone, and with or without orders he was efficient and tactful. It also seemed as though teams did not currently hold any bearing. He had worked for Megatron, for the Decepticons, but Shockwave understood a need for unity when he saw it. Thus he’d encouraged two of the competing powers to unite. Would it not be more logical to employ your might elsewhere at this time?
There was at least one emotion Shockwave was entirely familiar with, and did not bother to isolate and purge from his systems. A scientist was entitled to take pride in his work. And, on occasion, he did.
Whether or not he could logically refer to the Predacons as his any more remained to be seen. Their sentience had been proven, and they did not classify as pets or slaves any more either. But they were impressive, and he knew they existed by his servo. That had been enough to sow a little pride in him, even so early; Megatron’s praise of the project had been welcome, but unlike Starscream he did not thrive on his master’s praise alone. Shockwave had long ago found it logical to accept his own prideful sentiment on his work over anyone else’s, not that sentiment usually had any place among his thoughts.
The final proof that he had reason to be proud had, perhaps not entirely illogically, sprung from watching the Predacons fight amongst themselves.
Infighting had destroyed the Decepticons’ cause time and time again, but this had been infighting with a purpose. The first Predacon clone – Shockwave reminded himself to use his name, now – Predaking had fought for his right to rule. And he had won it.
Somehow, watching the order establish itself had brought Shockwave another dose of pride. His creations had grown, and found their own sense of community. Sentience had come to the other two, the same as it had to Predaking. The natural order established itself quite easily even with clones introduced to the world long after the original race had perished. Interesting, scientifically speaking.
…Though Shockwave also wondered if there was a kind of poetry in that.
It was illogical, and an expense of energy on the processing power for a train of thought that surely had no bearing on his experiments of his learning. And yet here he was, staring out at the vast expanse of nothing that used to hold the bones of prehistoric Cybertronians, with broken parts and in obvious need of recharge, wasting time and energy on sentimentality.
As dawn broke over the horizon, however, Shockwave for once dismissed the programming reminding him to be logical. Watching the Cybertronian sunrise, for now, took precedence.