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Mercury oceans were uncommon, if not simply for the sheer size required. The Dromedon System had three planets with such a feature, and of those only one was inhabited. Dromedon ε - so named due to its strikingly small size compared to its sister planets - was nearly seventy-five percent liquid mercury. Hidden under its silver waves were argentuatic creatures that twisted and curled around in looping patterns until they would breach the surface to flare out their layered gills.
It was these very creatures, nicknamed 'quickslithers' from their agility and thin bodies, that broke through across the surface as the two cybertronians jets sailed across the sky. The smaller of the duo pivoted into a dive. The churn of gears and sliding metal gave way to the cybernetic body with a pulse as it remained airborne - just above the rolling quickslithers beneath the mercury. Within a matter of moments, the larger of two joined them.
"You certainly did not lead me here for - what are they? Serpents? Serpent-watching?"
"Of course not!" There was a pause, "Besides, these aren't even ideal conditions for 'watching'."
The silvered mech, with a brief glance to the ocean below, narrowed his mouth into an unamused smirk.
"You haven't tamed these have you? Treated them with living metal like a scraplet so they will aim for my limbs?"
"You are impossible ! Did you not listen to a syllable I said on the way here?!"
On a good day, Megatron only bothered listening to half of what Starscream told him. The few keywords that he kept logged to tune his focus back to the conversation kept him from hearing the same grandiose story in between actual reports.
It wasn't that he was particularly uninterested (he was generally disinterested in such things), but he found it more efficient to focus elsewhere. Such on body language - it had saved his neck more times then he could count to pick up on precise twitches and clicks instead of spoken words. Starscream was not lacking in that either - every word was punctuated with movement. For his own systems sake, he assigned those to a key trigger as well. He had never met anyone else with such … expressiveness.
"Mmh, I did not. Did you happen to say anything important?."
Starscream's entire frame bounced as he brought his hands to his head. With a scowl, he muttered something about how he was an 'upstart with an attitude' as Megatron's smirk sharpened with amusement.
" Well , my lord ," his grimace deepened as the leer across from him widened, "if you had paid attention , you would already be aware of the abandoned golden era sub-argentuatic research station that is beneath our very—" his grand gesture paused as he looked down into the silver below, "— beneath these very waves !"
Megatron tilted his head, feigning a consideration of the information.
"And this abandoned station is useful to us, how? You expect me to believe they left priceless artifacts here ? There isn't even a blip on radar."
"It's a manual."
He stared at him.
And then he turned around.
"I'm going back to the ship."
"That wasn't a joke!" Starscream slid through the air to cut him off, "It was designed to be hidden!"
"And yet you know where it is down to the exact coordinates?"
"Of course I do! It was one of my earliest routes as an Energon Seeker Knight."
He puffed out his chest as if the title was meant to impress his commanding officer. Megatron, however, was already too aware of the ranks of Energon Seekers. Seeker - as Starscream would probably claim, was a title granted only to the best of the best with fliers. Seeker - in truth, was the general term of a commissioned officer of Cybertron's Air Command. A "Seeker Knight" was the lowest rank of them.
"...This was a punishment route, wasn't it?" Megatron leaned forward.
"Eugh…" Starscream's wings dropped first before the rest of him followed into the slump, "... Yes ."
"And you know it's exact coordinates because—"
"—Because I got saddled with it constantly , yes , I am aware of how hilarious that is!"
The dry chuckle did not raise a single bolt in his frame.
"Now that you've had your fill of carelessly mocking me—"
"I would never carelessly mock you, Starscream. I take great care in personalizing each and every mockery I make."
"— then start diving before I shoot you down myself!"
The null ray pointed at his face was only as threatening as Starscream's personality was. Which was to say - an indulgent that Megatron let him get away with for the sheer amusement it brought himself.
"After you ."
Starscream rolled his head as he dove down into the mercury. After a moment - to ensure he was not in any risk of being attacked by the serpents - Megatron dove in after him.
There was a slight delay as his sensors shifted to better suit the new, liquid environment. He could feel the tug of the mercury along his plating, and feel it fighting to send him back to the surface. Activating his thrusters allowed him a far more maneuverable descent. The quickslithers danced around him - hooking horns into smaller creatures before rising up to the surface.
The dark form of Starscream through the near infrared was his only guide through the opaque ocean, until it finally came to a stop. A dark spot - the *sheer* depth of it seemed to consume any light around it, was their target. Following through the opening, they came out into a dry landing.
"How you would willingly go through that —" It came out as a hiss as his armor flared to remove the offending mercury intent on latching onto his plating.
" Oh , too much for the poor, fragile gladiator? You're lucky you didn't have to come down with delicate materials."
"I came down with you, didn't I?"
The loud sputter of the jet's engine broke a smirk across his face.
"Just—! Eugh! Where is that keypad…" Starscream threw his hands up before scurrying the wall for the entrypad.
It was obvious that before its abandonment that someone inside would ferry in visitors - and likely they never had it unmanned for that very reason. Now, as it slumbered in the sea, however they originally managed to enter needed to be found again. The issue was—
"What exactly does the keypad look like ? As far as I'm concerned, this entire wall looks like a solid block of metal."
"Well," he started, "it…uh, it—"
His head slowly turned back towards him, an unconfident smile stretched across, "Looks like a keypad?"
"You have no idea what it looks like."
"I do too! So I only saw it once, my memory could put even Soundwave to shame !"
" Even Soundwave ? Have you cleared that with him?" Megatron leaned forward, "I'm sure he would have quite the response for that. He may even say it himself!"
"Must you spend every second picking apart my words!"
"Must you spend every second making such extraordinary claims?"
Whatever snark would have snapped back is cut clean from the air by the click of panel flipping towards them. With a newfound confidence, Starscream turned to Megatron with a flourish of his wings as he bowed extravagantly.
"What did I say? To put even Soundwave to shame!"
"Oh yes," he crossed his arms, "By hitting every inch of a wall - you've put my friend's intelligence to shame . I will dismiss him immediately and have you as his replacement."
"Uh," the flier twirled back to the keypad, "I couldn't bear to take such a position from him! After all, we can not all be savants in everything like I! It's only fair that he be allowed as the second-best."
The next challenge of the keypad - the code , stared Starscream in the face. He didn't … no, he just needed a few minutes to remember the exact string of digits. After all— there were just so many he had to sift through. Yes, he'd say that if he was questioned on how lon—
Ping .
"Huh."
He cycled and recycled his optics as the door opened slowly. Megatron's hand hovered over the pad, pulling back with a rather smug grin.
"I suppose I should consider a career in espionage."
"How did you—?!"
"Guess the oh so secret code? I guessed ."
A mumbled response that wasn't audible enough to be decipherable came from the second, which only fueled the smug glint across Megatron's features. Really, he only memorized a single old code for keypads. 0451 — it wasn't his fault that apparently everyone independently had decided it was their favorite code to use. He preferred a five-digit code himself, 23564 to be exact, but what was he to do when four digits remained most popular.
Stepping past the threshold, the room was dark. And empty. And a single room. When it closed behind them a blast of cold, concentrated solvent hit Megatron straight in the face. Before the laugh could even exit Starscream's mouth he was also hit square in the face. Decontamination, he guessed (again, he seemed to be rather good at that), which luckily removed any lingering mercury on him.
In front of them, another door 'pinged' and unlocked, beckoning them in further as the lights slowly illuminated the pathway. Starscream took the first step forward. When he was not immediately fired upon by an automated security system, he faced Megatron with his wings held high and his hand on his hip.
"Now then, I believe I am owed something…?"
"If there is anything of use here, I will gladly shout your praises for all on this planet to hear-" never mind that it was uninhabited except by wild beasts "-Why, I'll even give you a pat on the head."
"Mock me now all you want, Megatron. When this mission is over, you'll regret making such promises."
He turned on his heels with an all too confident strut as he walked down the hallway, hands crossed behind his back. Megatron gave himself a wonderfully silent minute to roll his head- as though it would suddenly provide him clarity on why he was indulging this specifically. Then, he followed in his own long, heavy strides.
Perhaps it was the lack of scientific background, but he could not see the bubbling excitement from Starscream as anything less than odd . Not suspicious (for once) or even curious - just… odd . Normally, his excitement was volatile like lightning. There and suddenly gone as quickly as it struck. Yet here, in these dull halls that Megatron had only the faintest idea of what they were used for (he never was versed in 'secret laboratories' beyond 'Shockwave'), the seeker seemed incapable of having his joy smothered. It was making his wings flick and twitch constantly - and Megatron had to manually reset his personal triggers to prevent them from overloading.
"What exactly has you so excited about this lab? Reminiscing about being a glorified courier?"
"Hah! No such luck, my Lord ." Even his barbs were not striking down his jubilation, "You see, while I may have been a Knight on paper during my time here, I may as well have been an acting scientist!"
"A scientist. You' ." He tilted his head. That was an image indeed. "How did you ever convince them of that ?"
"If you must know, I dazzled the head scientist with my intellect!"
Megatron allowed him to bask in his own self-agrandization, instead imagining what the real reason could have been. He had the faintest understanding that Starscream had an interest in science. Beyond that however, it was always a contradicting matter. He would hear a debate between his lieutenants, and Starscream would match Shockwave with little difficulty. And yet, every time, he would shrink back when prodded for his own work or evidence. When the debate was proving more argument than scientific, Shockwave would strike what Megatron could only infer was an open wound — "As the scientist you once were" — and Starscream would retreat like a wounded turbofox.
It always pegged him as a strange comment. He had never known Starscream as a scientist . Even Soundwave had only shrugged when searching for such a thing. Perhaps Shockwave was aware of something even his old friend was unable to find. Yet - he never brought it up beyond those arguments.
"'Dazzled' you say? And what exactly did you help with?"
For a moment, his wings dropped. A single moment before they popped back up, and he waved his hand as though it never occurred.
"I would never bore you with such a tale." A complete and utter lie. "What you should be focused on is what this laboratory holds in its core!"
"Yeees?"
Starscream kept walking. The sheer oddity continued. Normally - he would spoil whatever his plan was out of pure impatience and that volatile excitement. Yet now… now he seemed completely in control of his habits. Just what was he so focused on finding here?
The walk became a cradle of white noise. Only the sound of their strides, the faint buzz of decades old energon running, and the still air rocked around them. Not even an unidentifiable hum from the seeker as they walked. It would be- no, it was completely unnerving.
Megatron took to glancing at the walls and entryways they passed. Cold, refracting walls that seemed to stretch on endlessly . It itched at him like peeled paint. There was nothing about laboratories that enticed Megatron, nothing but what he could receive as a final product at least. It was always an almost ghoulish talon that dug beneath his plating until it reached his wires. An incompatible discomfort no matter how long he tried to ignore it. Perhaps that was what grated on him the most right now. That Starscream of all mechs was comfortable in this setting.
He was so lost in his own thoughts he didn't notice Starscream stopping, clipping his shoulder into the seeker and tipping them both. As he righted himself, he was even more baffled by the utter lack of snark about it. He peered down, and moved his head to look at each side of the seeker, as though it would answer his question of what was wrong with him.
Ping .
The door opened with a clean 'whoosh' and Starscream twirled with a flourish. Megatron's face was the picture of bafflement as Starscream gestured his hand towards the room.
"After you."
He narrowed his optics, and mentally adjusted his internal triggers for any signs of an assassination attempt. He stepped forward into a-
- a not lab. It looked like a recharge suite. Or, perhaps a storage unit. It was haphazardly stacked up and pushed into every corner until it was practically tipping over.
"What is this?"
"Well, you felt how difficult it was just to get down here. As their favorite Energon Seeker, they set aside an entire room just for me to recharge after I arrived with their precious cargo."
He sidestepped the gawking mech, peeling through the boxes to find whatever it was he was searching for. How he was determining what was and wasn't an important container, Megatron did not know. Nor did he have any idea why this whole room was even filled up like this. If this was for recharge only, where had Starscream found the time to throw so much as a single keepsake around. It was also so…so…claustrophobic. Even he felt like it was too much, and every second Starscream spent in a city was a ticking clock until he demanded to be stationed elsewhere. And yet- here, he seemed completely at ease.
"Ahah! Here we are!" Starscream lunged up a case from under a box that tipped over and spilled out datapads onto the floor that he ignored in favor of presenting his find to Megatron with a glowing smugness, "There's no need to thank me too graciously."
Megatron glanced down at the case, debating with himself. He reached out and unclipped its fasteners, lifting its top to reveal its contents. His processor stalled as it took in what he was seeing. A fusion cannon - not unlike the one he already had; but larger, bulkier, and most likely, more powerful. He picked it up, turning it around in his hands.
"Rendered you utterly speechless have I? I'll answer your burning questions then. This —" he tapped the tips of his claws against the barrel —"is your new weapon. A little bit of polish and rewiring first, of course. But this is even greater than your current cannon. One of a kind, of course. They deemed it too expensive to actually manufacture on a large scale, but I was loath to let them just throw it out. Such good fortune that I held onto it, isn't it Lord Mega—"
His monologue was cut off by the hand being set atop his head. He looked up from the cannon at Megatron with his optics cycled wide.
"Thank you, Starscream." He smiled - without mockery or barbs.
"I- uh," he looked around quickly before tapping his claws against each other, "It's- it's no trouble, Megatron."