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Tarn was rather proud of his collection of memorabilia. Most, of course, were in honour of Lord Megatron, such as weapons he'd wielded during moments of triumph, and written-down creeds of inspirations and orders he'd bellowed to his soldiers before they sought out victory in the hectic jaws of battle. Or, on the odder side, old parts of his frame that he'd since had replaced, obtained through bribery of their surgeons and all handed over with raised brow ridges and intakes pulled into tight lines. To this day, Tarn's acquisition of Megatron's complete works of first editions still remained as his greatest source of pride, and that of which he showcased the most grandly, taking any opportunity to present them to guests upon his ship no matter how little interest they displayed in return.
But he kept other trophies too, all in some way to further prove his dedication to the Decepticon cause. And, unsurprisingly, high majority of this overt celebration of dedication manifested itself in the form of severed heads of Autobots and traitors alike, or as whichever part of their frame still remained after extensive torture and mutilation.
His latest addition to this particular collection had been a rather big one, in both senses of that word. He’d been tracking down this target for a while now, an individual who had eluded his justified execution by ending up in Autobot custody. But, they’d been graced intel from a spy recently, and finally Tarn and his team had managed to deliver unto Overlord what he deserved.
Though, admittedly, the death had come about far too quickly. The hulking brute of a traitor had been restrained, unresponsive except for the same utterings falling from his ridiculous lips, and in the end Tarn had put him out of his misery simply with a chainsaw through the neck cables.
Overlord’s head had been weighty in his servos, his optics glassed over and empty as his life ebbed from him. But even with the lack of appropriate torture, Tarn had still felt giddy in that moment. This immature and perfidious individual had dogged his thoughts far too often, and Tarn was glad to finally be free of him.
He felt so satisfied as he placed the hefty helm up amongst his other trophies, placed as a frequent reminder that, after years of bickering and rivalry, Overlord’s apparent “indestructibleness” had proved little more than bluster and arrogance.
For the first week of this trophy’s acquisition, Tarn had made sure to spend a minute a day just staring at it and feeling fulfilled. Just a brief moment of the day to have himself smiling smugly under his mask, to let his pride towards himself and his team fester.
But, eventually, the novelty of the experience began to wane, and Overlord’s head was given little more than a passing glance each time Tarn walked by it to leave his habsuite. Then, too quickly, it was hardly that, and Overlord’s face became no more than a background decoration, something that had become ingrained as part of the scenery, something that hardly caught Tarn’s attention anymore.
It’s place there was natural, stable, it had become part of the room.
And so, one day, as Tarn walked by his trophy shelves, he found himself stopping suddenly, his brow ridge furrowing, as he felt that his peripheral had been lacking something just now.
It was weird, the lack of a blur of blue in the corner of his optics.
He turned his helm towards the shelf, and he stared at the empty space that greeted him, a gap between the other trophies, a spot that bore nothing to stare back at him.
He stared, and his optics went wide as it dawned on him that Overlord’ head was missing.
He... definitely hadn’t moved it, he would remember that. Since being placed on that shelf the head had gone entirely untouched, left alone to be little more than a display item. There wasn’t even a splotch of energon left behind in the now empty space. Tarn had certainly made the effort to drain it of any fluids before placing it there, not wanting it to leak and make a mess of the metal surface it sat upon. But even with his best efforts, most helms he placed here tended to have a few hidden fluids that would eventually drip from them.
It felt strange that there wasn’t a single hint that Overlord had been there at all, the gap was the only evidence.
He pushed that thought away for now as he started looking around for where the head might be. He checked below the shelf at first, curious if it had simply fallen off at some point during some of the ship’s manoeuvres, but a glance upon the entire floor still offered him no sight of that wretched blue helm. He began looking under stuff then, anything that the head could have rolled beneath to obscure it. But, given the size of the stupid thing, there were very few places that would have been capable of fitting it, and kneeling down and peeking into those spots was a task that was finished very quickly. The most difficult thing that was offered throughout it all was simply trying to fit his wide frame into a narrow space between the wall and the berth to check for the helm in the narrow ventilation system there.
Another spot that had proven to be barren.
And so, fruitless and irritated, Tarn frowned as he lifted himself back onto his pedes again, his servos finding perch upon his hips as he gave the room once final gaze, a brief search that gave no further information about the question blaring in his processor.
Just where the hell was Overlord’s head?
His scowl deepened as he activated his comms, sending out his words to the frequencies of his entire crew.
“Emergency meeting,” he bit out, his tone heavy with his frustration.
The shared call was ended before any of them could respond, he’d hear their replies in person. Thus, he promptly made his way towards where his statues of Megatron awaited him, the room already declared as the gathering point for commands such as this. Kaon had arrived before him, looking over with concern as he inquired to what this meeting was called for. Tarn brushed off the question, muttering out that he would discuss it when the whole team had arrived, which, thankfully, was not a long wait at all. The crew gathered quickly, all wearing expressions of confusion and wariness, some murmuring unsubtly amongst themselves as they tried to guess why they had been brought here.
Tarn quietened them with a clearing of his vocaliser, and all optics fell onto him as he began to speak.
“Thank you all for your prompt reactions,” he began, “This is a matter of great importance, one that cannot be overlooked with simple complacency.”
Most of his team hung on each word, waiting with bated vents and curious optics. Nickel, however, looked already bored, one brow ridge raised as a frown tugged at her lips.
“What is it?” she urged, clearly wanting to hurry the conversation along.
Tarn allowed her the abruptness, he respected that daring confidence of hers. He vented though to try relieve his earlier irritation, training his voice back into something more dignified and calm.
Appearances were important in a leader, after all.
“Overlord’s head is missing,” he declared then, which was an arguably undignified gripe to be having.
Or, at the very least, his team certainly thought so, given the confusion and exasperation that suddenly fell over their expressions.
“What?” Helex asked dumbly, his tone making it clear he had assumed he’d misheard.
Tarn grimaced, but he pressed on all the same.
“Upon viewing my trophy shelves earlier,” he continued, “it came to my attention that Overlord’s helm no longer resided in the spot I had reserved for it.”
“That’s uhh,” Tesarus began to mumble out, “... unfortunate,” he finally supplied.
Tarn’s optics narrowed further, clearly his team was not getting the full picture.
“Given I had left it untouched since placing it there,” he pressed on, “its absence can only mean that one of you has decided to take it.”
He saw his team all flinch at the accusation, their faces all ranging from irritated to shocked.
“Tarn, why the hell would any of us want to steal that of all things?” Nickel glowered then, “Are you sure you didn’t move it to clean it?”
Tarn set a glare upon her.
“I would recall if I did,” he excused adamantly, his tone daring her to challenge him on that any further.
“Maybe it rolled off?” Helex shrugged then, both sets of arms crossed with his boredom.
Tarn’s stare was quick to move to him instead.
“You presume I hadn’t checked that already?” he questioned irately.
Helex grimaced at the attention, one servo moving up to scratch nervously near his audials.
“N-No,” he stammered out, “I just... don’t think any of us would take it without asking you.”
Tarn vented again then, yes, it was certainly hard to think that any of his team would act maliciously against him like that.
“Maybe your damn mutt took it,” he suggested then, his gaze falling upon Kaon even if his comms officer could not see it.
It was certainly easier to believe that lobotomised Autobot would act against him, whether purposefully or not.
“He didn’t! I swear,” Kaon was quick to argue, his empty sockets looking wider with his shock, “I would never let him touch any of your trophies!”
Tarn didn’t doubt that, Kaon always kept the pet on a tight leash if he ever brought him inside his quarters. But he allowed the mutt to roam loose sometimes, and it could have snuck off without his notice.
“We did do a resupply yesterday,” Vos interjected then in defence of Kaon, in voice coming out as soft a smooth purr in his preferred vernacular, “Maybe someone snuck aboard and took it?”
Tarn paused at that. It was a ridiculous suggestion, really, who the hell would dare break onto their ship to plunder something as useless as Overlord’s remains? But it wasn’t a possibility he could entirely dismiss.
He’d always hated this particular outpost. It was a small station that some Decepticons had set up on an organic based planet, and Tarn could always see weird rodents and critters running around the rooms in his peripheral, their presence so profuse but harmless that the station hands had simply opted to ignore them. It was a base run by deplorable and selfless individuals, their loyalties lying not with the cause, but rather with the money they gained by being the only nearby respite for other Decepticons. They gouged the prices too highly, and benefited by a lack of other options.
Tarn despised them, and such petty thievery was certainly not something they were above of.
He tried to recall if he’d seen Overlord’s head after the resupply, if that hint of blue had been in his sight when returning to his quarters. But alas, he could not confidently recall it.
“Would they really be so foolish?” he thought aloud instead.
They may have been cheapskates and crooks, but surely they weren’t so suicidally stupid.
“We have cameras, don’t we?” Nickel prompted then, cutting into his thoughts, “We could see if anyone came aboard.”
Tarn hummed thoughtfully at the suggestion. None of the quarters themselves bore cameras, and their surveillance system was very rarely checked in general. But the lenses in the hallway would surely have a visual on his door, and so, if anyone left holding that damn head, whether it be some intruder or one of his own crew members, then they would surely see it.
“Good idea,” he concluded, glancing subtly at his team to see if any had gotten tense at the idea, “Let’s see what evidence we have in film.”
No one seemed particularly opposed, however, and so if one of his crew were guilty then they were doing a fantastic job of hiding it. The only disagreement he faced was when they all moved to gather in the surveillance room instead, only to find it rather crowded for a group their size, especially given the two hulking figures in their group. Helex and Tess ended up with their helms poking in from the doorway, all while the others studied the recording at a much closer vantage.
They began watching over the recording during the time they had left the ship, watching closely for any figures or shadows to appear, only to be left confounded by a complete lack of any sort of motion in front of Tarn’s door. No intruders appeared, no changes were made in their absence, all the recording offered was nothing.
“Seems it wasn’t an outside job,” Tarn quipped darkly, his frustration building once more.
Some of his team were starting to look worried.
“We should keep watching,” Nickel retorted, and Tarn was sure he caught a glimpse of her rolling her optics, “fast forward until we see anyone near the door.”
Another good suggestion, and so they followed it, speeding up the footage until finally someone appeared in it. They slowed it again to see Tesarus walking through the hall, and Tarn glowered as his crew member drew closer to the door, only to then knock innocently upon it. Tarn watched himself appear at the doorway, watched them both converse for a moment, before Tesarus left once more.
Oh, come to think of it, the tank was sure he remembered that discussion.
He heard Tesarus let out a relieved vent from the doorway, as though he’d been judging his own innocence in that moment.
They sped up the recording again, resuming it at a normal pace once more as this time a smaller figure appeared, one accompanied by a much lower being. And, again, both senses of that word applied. Kaon walked down the hall with that mutt of his in tow, the animal pulling on its leash as it poked its nose around at the walls, clearly distracted by something and rejecting its master’s urge to keep walking. Kaon had to tug harder on the lead to encourage it to follow, but even then the mutt resisted a little, before finally giving up on whatever had its attention. It wasn’t unusual for the pet to focus on strange scents like that, but Tarn could not see the cause of its distraction from the view of the cameras.
In the end though, it hardly mattered, and both Kaon and the pet passed by Tarn’s door without acknowledging it at all.
It seemed they were innocent, for now.
They let the film play longer, pausing whenever someone drew near, only for them to depart each time with empty servos. By the time they reached the recording of Tarn stomping furiously from his quarters, there had been nothing on the cameras to suggest an explanation to where Overlord’s head had gone.
They paused the footage, and for a moment they all just remained in tense silence.
“But...” Tess finally broke the quiet, “That doesn’t make any sense, where did his head go?”
Despite their earlier dismissal, it seemed the gravity of the situation was finally beginning to sink in for his team, and Tarn watched as all his crew exchanged nervous glances.
“It has to be somewhere,” Helex muttered bluntly, but there was an edge to his tone that gave away his own barely suppressed concern.
“That’s so weird,” Nickel murmured, sounding more like she was thinking aloud to herself, “How did it get out of the room?”
An excellent question, considering the doorway was the only way in and out of Tarn’s quarters. Even if they had been parked at the time, there were no windows for a possible thief to sneak in through.
“Someone must have taken it somehow, right?” Helex questioned then, “like, it’s not as if the damn thing could get up and walk off.”
Tarn scowled at the comment. If someone were guilty, then they certainly were not fessing up, and, even then, he still had no idea how the culprit would have committed it without the cameras seeing them.
Why would any member if his crew go through so much effort?
“Maybe...” Tess interjected then, glancing at Helex to make it clear he was responding to his previous words, “Maybe it could.”
All optics turned to stare at him, and Tess faltered a little under the attention.
“Could what?” Tarn snapped the question, feeling frustrated by his own confusion.
Surely he’d misunderstood, and Tesarus wasn’t seriously suggesting what Tarn thought he was.
“G-Get up,” Tesarus answered, much to Tarn’s disdain.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tess,” Nickel vented then, “How would it do that?”
Tesarus bit timidly at his own lip then, he’d never been particularly fond of using his words. He was intelligent, of course, but not very articulate. Though, at this moment, Tarn found himself questioning the former.
“Well,” Tesarus mumbled out, “Overlord could split in half right? Which already made no sense, how did he even control both parts at the same time?”
Tarn’s frown deepened, he didn’t like where this was going.
“But, maybe it was worse than that,” Tesarus continued, even as all the stares upon him made him grimace, “maybe he could split into three parts?”
Another few seconds of silence fell over the group, as Tarn opened his intake to argue, only to realise that he didn't really have any evidence that the suggestion was wrong. He barely understood Overlord’s weird body and how it functioned, so he could not confidently debate whether existing as little more than a head was outside of the brute’s abilities.
But, ultimately, he shook his helm at the idea, a heavy vent falling from his lips.
“There’s no way,” he muttered, but his voice didn’t quite carry the confidence he wanted, “He couldn’t live without a spark. It’s not possible.”
And the head had been dead, he was sure of it. Drained entirely of energon, with optics that reflected nothing but emptiness. Plus, there was no way someone as easily bored as Overlord would just calmly sit there for so long without doing anything.
... Unless he was waiting for them to land so he could make his escape.
The thought left a bitter taste in his intake.
“Did his legs have an extra spark?” Nickel questioned then, sounding so unsure herself.
Something in Tarn snapped at that moment, and he slammed his fist down against the desk of the surveillance system, perhaps far harder than he should have as the buttons beneath his servo began to spark under the pressure.
“Overlord is dead,” he snarled, “If he is gone then it is because he was pilfered. I refuse to believe that traitor is still alive!”
His team all looked unsure, but they did not press the matter further. None of them seemed to know what to say, none of them seemed sure how to address this bizarre situation.
Tarn left before they could find their glossas, and he returned to his room, tearing the shelf off the wall and ripping his berth off the ground in search of that accursed head.
But, no matter how much he tore his quarters up, he did not find Overlord.
~☆~
Falling into recharge that night had proven difficult, his agitation still running too high, making his spark pulse with a frenetic energy. He felt restless, scowling at himself as he willed his consciousness away, wanting nothing more than to forget his woes and let darkness claim him.
He’d finally begun to drift off, finally had settled enough for his frustration to wane, when suddenly he heard a scratching noise.
His optics shot open quickly then, his processor rapidly becoming alert again. He listened to that weird noise, grimacing as he realised that it sounded nearby, etching itself so close to his audials.
What the hell was that?
He studied the sound for a while. It was so soft, barely audible really, something that would have gone entirely unnoticed if his stress had not already been so high. He slowly sat up in his berth, looking around for whatever the source of this noise could be, only to find his sight lacking in any cause. He grimaced as he focused on it again, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from, and he grew tense as he realised it was ringing out from behind him.
He turned in his berth, staring at the wall that his berth sat against. Of course, his sight offered no information, nothing but solid metal met his optics. Carefully, he brought his servo against the wall, and he could feel the gentle purr of the ship’s engines resonating under his digit tips. It was an expected feeling, one he had grown accustomed to, but he swore, even with that humming, that he could feel the vibrations of something else whenever that scratching sounded out. It may have been a placebo, it was just a subtle difference, but he was sure he felt it.
But, even then, he still did not know what it was.
Had something fallen out of place? Some inner mechanisms that was now rubbing against a surface it usually wouldn’t?
He wasn’t sure what compelled him then, but he rapped his knuckles over the surface then, just to see if the sound would change somehow.
But he was not prepared for the way the sound just stopped. For a few seconds everything was silent once more, broken only as some new sound followed, as rapid tapping suddenly rang out, the noise drawing so quickly away from him.
Tarn’s vent became trapped within his systems, as he realised that the sound was very reminiscent of pedesteps.
“Overlord?” he questioned with a breathless terror, the word falling free before he could stop himself.
By Primus, had Tesarus been right?
No, he scowled inwardly at himself, that still didn’t make any sense, how would Overlord have even gotten into the next room over without going through the doorway? Surely that noise was simply Kaon’s stupid mutt, just roaming freely in the room beside this one.
But then Tarn’s optics drifted down to the ventilation system near the foot of his berth, and it dawned on him that the noise had been coming from inside the wall.
Tarn’s intake fell open, his optics wide with disbelief and shock.
Overlord was in the vents.
Tarn shook his helm miserably at the thought. He... he was being ridiculous. There was no way, he simply needed his recharge, his processor was acting delirious in his exhaustion.
He laid his helm back down again, and he did his best to ignore any hint of scratching or scurrying his processor thought it heard.
He just needed recharge, and then he would feel better in the morning.
~☆~
Tarn didn’t recharge that night.
His mind lingered too much on every sound, it tricked him into hearing echoes and steps, it allowed his fear to fester and twist every innocent noise into evidence of Overlord’s survival. He would come so close to slipping into rest, only for a single tap of something to convince him that Overlord’s accursed head was about to leap from the shadows and attack him.
It was utterly foolish, how did he even think the head would drag itself around?
He tried to play it off throughout the day, dismissed any concerns his team presented towards his tiredness, simply shutting down any questioning without offering any reasons why.
He refused to let Overlord win, he would not beguile his crew with tales of that wretch in the walls until he had any sort of evidence to prove it. He knew he was simply imagining it all, he would not let them look at him as though he were deranged just because Tesarus put some stupid fantasy into his thoughts.
A few sleep cycles passed like that, with every innocent sound making Tarn jump, with every passing noise raising concerns that Overlord was biding his time to strike.
Tarn tried to follow the sounds one night, dragging his audials across the wall as he listened intently to every hint of scurrying. Sometimes he became so certain that he could hear pedesteps, and sometimes the noises sounded so disjointed and random, just like the regular clicks of machinery that came from living upon an old vessel like this.
He was starting to feel obsessed with the delusion, his optics remaining open and alert, even as exhaustion wracked his frame. He’d almost begun to grow used to it, his fear starting to die down, when one day, during refuelling with his team, Kaon very nervously asked if anyone else had been hearing that scratching noise at all.
And Tarn froze as every single member of his crew admitted that they had.
Still, Tarn tried to dismiss it, he refused to let Tesarus’ ridiculous suggestion be truth, and, that night, he’d actually managed to fall asleep for a while, before the scurrying noise awakened him once more.
He slowly got out of his berth, and he began to walk over to the vent that was across the room, his mind not even registering that it usually sat along the wall behind him. He leaned down, his orange servos pressing against the floor as he braced his weight, becoming purple once more as his helm drew down closer to them. He peeked into the vent, and it seemed far more spacious than it usually was, the hollow interior echoing with the winds that flurried throughout them. He looked in, and he saw a familiar shadow, a blocky shape that remembered a helm he knew all too well. It turned to face him, optics somehow both fierce and empty, shining bright with a furious and vibrant red. It gradually drew nearer on strange spider-like limbs, black spindly things that clawed against the metal of the vent, tapping upon the surface with the same noise that had dogged Tarn’s recharge earlier.
Those big lips pulled themselves into a too wide grin, stretching further than the space of the helm, denta shining brightly even with nothing to reflect that light upon them.
And then a high screech echoed out, bellowing and severe, all as the creature in the vents bounded forwards, its spindly legs looking pointed and sharp as they aimed for Tarn’s optics.
Tarn jolted back from the shock of it, and his optics closed tightly to keep those jagged points from clawing into them, only for him to find his optics actually opening very suddenly, leaving him staring at the roof above his berth.
He lay there for a few moments, trying to make sense of what the hell had just happened. It took him longer than it should have to realise that what he had just seen had been little more than a dream.
He scowled as it fully dawned on him, and he rubbed at his optics with a mixture of tiredness and frustration, the motion ending with him pinching at his nasal ridge. He let out another heavy vent, and then he got himself to his pedes.
If Overlord was in the vents, then Tarn had a duty to finally put that traitor down properly.
He began to tear at the ventilation system in his room, tearing the metal surface off of the walls to reveal the hollowed-out spaces within it, snarling as his efforts revealed nothing to him.
That fragger could be anywhere, the vents ran along the length of the whole ship.
He left his quarters and began feeling around the walls of the hall, once again ripping a large panel of metal off as he swore he heard something beneath it.
The noise of breaking metal was loud and brash, as bolts were ripped from their sockets, as Tarn’s claws dug into the surface to get the grip and leverage necessary to tear it off, and it didn’t take long before members of his team were coming to investigate.
“What the hell are you doing?” Nickel shouted at him as she bounded over, staring at the scrunched-up metal sheets now lying upon the ground.
Tarn ignored her, pulling another panel off of the wall.
“That traitor is mocking me,” he snarled, “I know he is here somewhere.”
Nickel raised a brow ridge at that.
“I thought you said Tesarus’ idea made no sense,” she pressed.
Tarn glared at her.
“I’ve heard him,” he snapped, “we’ve all heard him,” declared as he gestured to the whole team, “What else could be making all that noise?”
Nickel grimaced at that, but it seemed she didn’t have a good explanation herself.
“Do you want help with... this?” Helex asked then, and there was a franticness in his tone that gave away just how much his own processor had been ruminating in the fear of the thing in the walls.
Tarn hadn’t noticed it before, but his whole team shared in his look of exhaustion.
“We’ll melt him this time,” Tarn growled out with a quick nod of confirmation, “I will leave no doubts that Overlord is dead.”
He heard Nickel make an exasperated sound then.
“How about we not damage our home?” She quickly interjected, “let’s just try narrow down his location first, before-”
Her voice trailed off then, as a rather loud scurrying suddenly echoed from above them.
Tarn immediately pointed his fusion cannons towards it, energy beginning to flicker and pulse within the barrels.
“Tarn! No!” Nickel screamed as she used her back thrusters to lift her enough to grab onto his arm, pulling on it as sharply as her little body could manage, “You’ll blast a hole in the ship!”
As frustrated as he was, Tarn knew the little doctor was right, and he willed away the energy in his cannons, lowering his arm and ceasing the attempt at firing.
“You’re right,” he hissed, his irritation building by the second, as the noise became distant once more. He turned his helm towards Kaon then, his comms officer looking nervous as he clung to the leash of his mutt, “Kaon, have the pet find Overlord’s location again,” he ordered then, “I’ll be back.”
He turned on his heel and stormed off then, all as a word of acknowledgement was uttered behind him. He made his way towards the armoury, a room of theirs that saw little use, given his team’s penchant towards simply tearing their victims apart, but one they had for battles they worried would be more arduous than others. He glanced through the weapons quickly, before seeing what he desired, and he grabbed it a little too tightly as he began to stomp out into the hall once more.
He received a comm barely a minute later, and he answered it hastily and promptly.
“Yes?” he urged.
“I think he’s in Tesarus’ room,” Kaon responded, his voice hushed so not to let their target know he was discovered, “The pet keeps sniffing at the wall here, even though I can’t hear anything.”
“Understood,” was Tarn’s quick response.
But he acted not with the same subtlety Kaon did, and as he walked the aforementioned room he did not hesitate to stomp over towards where the mutt was staring.
“Pull that damn thing back,” Tarn ordered then, with the briefest motion towards the pet.
Kaon obeyed, pulling the mutt away quickly, and the second the space was clear, Tarn lifted his arm, and he pulled the trigger on the shotgun he had acquired, sending shrapnel rupturing throughout the surface of the wall. Heavy and jagged spurts of metal burst into the vents behind the solid panels, leaving a mess of jutted bits and holes in its wake. And, very satisfyingly, Tarn saw a liquid beginning to seep out through out of the lower tears, a fluid of warm colouring just barely started to drip through.
He grinned in a way that was almost manic, a laugh tugging at his vocaliser, relief crashing over his processor in a high and frenetic wave.
“What the hell?” Tesarus suddenly yelled out from the doorway behind him, “My room,” he concluded in a much sadder tone.
Tarn turned to see the rest of his team now peeking in through the doorway, crowding it and pushing each other to try and find the space to peer in.
“Did you have to damage the ship?” Nickel scowled then, which Tarn simply rolled his optics at.
He had switched to a less destructive gun, he didn’t understand why she was complaining.
“Did you get him?” Helex asked then, completely ignoring the concerns of his teammates.
Tarn let out a heavy vent, his frustrations all ebbing away as a feeling of satisfaction crept over him.
“Of course,” he purred, stepping aside and gesturing to the liquids pooling beneath the ruined wall, “You can see his energon.”
Nickel’s frown deepened then, staring at the fluids with her optics scrunched up in scrutiny.
“It looks... wrong,” she commented.
Tarn paused at that, and he looked back at the liquids, his optics narrowing as he realised that Nickel was right. With more of it leaking out now he finally had a better view of the substance, and it was certainly a darker colour than energon usually was, taking on a hue that looked unnatural.
Yes, looking at it now, it certainly looked red.
Tarn frowned, and he stepped closer, gripping around the edges of the damaged area of wall, denting it in further as his claws ripped through it. He pulled the panel from the wall, and he stared at the thing now lying limp within the wall.
He blinked as he took in the sight of stripey brown fur and stubby legs.
“What... is that” he muttered, the word slipping out in his shock.
His team crowded in around him, with Tess and Helex each resting their weight over a shoulder each as they tried to lean in and get a better look at the cause of their woes.
“Is that an organic?” Helex asked then, sounding equally as dumbfounded.
Tarn couldn’t manage a response, too stunned by the view before him.
“How did that get on the ship?” Nickel mused then, shifting around Tarn’s frame to draw closer and get a better look at it.
Tesarus hummed, as realisation washed over him.
“Wait, I’ve seen those before,” he perked up, “It’s one of those rodent things that are always running around that station we just resupplied at.”
Everyone went quiet as they continued to stare, a collective “oh yeah” falling from their lips as their recollections caught up.
“I guess that’s when it got on,” Kaon murmured, a fact they had all deduced by this point, words likely spoken simply to break the weird silence that had fallen over them all again.
“To think,” Nickel let out a tired laugh, “the DJD was being terrorised by some little rat thing this whole time.”
Tarn scowled at the thought. Being made a fool by Overlord was one thing, but some mindless organic being the culprit instead certainly didn’t feel any better.
“Clean this up,” he snapped then, “and let’s never speak of this again.”
His team had no desire to argue that demand, their pride was likely a little wounded as well.
This whole situation ended up being so unfathomably stupid, but Tarn tried not to let it bother him too much as he got himself back into his berth. They’d finally figured out the source of that mysterious noise, they’d finally quietened it, and for that, he felt relieved.
How he could finally rest without worrying about some thing trying to get him during his recharge, he could let himself relax without dreading some enemy that didn’t exist.
Yes, the result may have been embarrassing, but it was over now, at least.
Maybe this would be a funny story one day, one his team could bring up with some form of fondness. Who would have ever thought one organic creature could cause so much damage?
As bitter as he was, Tarn could almost see a humour in it.
And so, he rested his helm, his optics falling shut, feeling so heavy with his tiredness. So quickly he could feel his thoughts beginning to drift off, his processor lulling him into a sense of peaceful darkness, his recharge reaching up to claim him.
So quickly he could feel himself almost slipping into a sense of closure.
But then a thought occurred to him, and he sat up sharply, his optics wide and alert once more.
Because, after that whole fiasco, they still didn’t know where Overlord’s head went.