Chapter Text
Being in a war was tough. Being a Decepticon was even tougher. But being a Decepticon in the middle of a war, well…that was probably the toughest thing in the universe. Just ask anybody. Or you could ask Dirge. Not that anyone ever did, but he was still ready to tell any bot who came up to him and asked the age-old question:
“Just how do you survive in the Decepticon faction without dying your first day on the job?”
Easy! Dirge would respond, with a wide smile. Or maybe not. Everyone says his smile is creepy and makes him look like a dead fish—which was a dumb insult because Dirge doesn’t even know what a fish is. Maybe it was some kind of nut? There were so many nuts on Earth; they constantly got stuck between the seams of his thruster heels. But wait, dead fish implied that a fish could be alive. Were nuts alive?
Whatever. That probably wasn’t important. Anyway, what he would say to the poor, naive, unsuspecting bot trying to simply get through their day (while he himself sported a nice, easy grin that wasn’t in any way reminiscent of a dead fish/nut) would be something along the lines of—
“Easy! You don’t.”
Rule #1: Don’t get between Megatron and Starscream. Doing so will result in severe bodily harm, a fusion cannon to the face, verbal harassment, psychological trauma, and/or possible death. Stay clear of the top two commanders when they’re in a tiff!
Starscream was in a bad mood. Which wasn’t unusual, because Starscream was always in a bad mood. But he was in an especially bad mood, which means there was only one thing that could have happened.
Megatron pissed him off. This happened, like, a lot. It was understandable; Megatron and Starscream were the two highest-ranking officers in the Decepticon faction, and both were as agreeable as a bucket of rusting iron nails. So naturally, they communicated in the form of loud screaming matches to assert dominance.
This was largely because Megatron was the kind of mech who could only verbalize his emotions through loud outbursts, and Starscream probably got off to shrieking at people until their audials were ringing. Of course, they mostly argued with each other because, well, they were Megatron and Starscream. Dirge didn’t really get what was going on under Megatron’s helmet, (though he was morbidly curious at times) but being a member of the Air Force had taught him some things about the Air Commander.
See, Starscream had this weird, single-minded focus on the Decepticon leader that had mechs labeling him as an obsessive psycho (or they would if they had the courage) and had Thundercracker writing strange, out-of-depth erotica about the two of them. Dirge had read one of the scripts once. It was pretty bad. He hadn’t had the tanks to tell that to Thundercracker, but luckily, Skywarp did. Apparently Thundercracker cried for three joors straight.
But anyway, Starscream would often get angry when Megatron ignored him, dismissed him, raged at him, argued with him, stood too close to him, vented in his general direction, or looked at him, inevitably leading to some insane assassination attempt that would affect everyone except the intended target (Megatron) and the person responsible for the mess (Starscream). But of course, on the rare occasion that Megatron actually complimented Starscream on something, the Air Commander became paranoid, offended, suspicious, and accused Megatron of being a toxic manipulator, before trying to kill the warlord again.
In Dirge’s opinion, Starscream should just tell Megatron how he really feels about the tyrant; genuine communication would make things so much easier. But when he suggested as such to Starscream, the Air Commander had backhanded him so hard, there was a sky blue servo-shaped print on the side of his dented cheek for two weeks. The stupid Constructicons had taken one look and laughed him out of the medbay.
But Megatron and Starscream’s weird interpersonal drama aside, whenever the Air Commander was in a bad mood, it often spelled trouble for everyone.
“That stupid, imbecilic, rust-afted, waste disposal drone!” Starscream screeched, slamming a cube down on a table in the mess. Thundercracker glanced at his trine leader boredly, while Skywarp didn’t even bother to look up from the gaming console he was furiously clattering on.
Off to the side, at one of the tables near the door, Dirge watched the interaction cautiously. He sat alone, partly because no one but his trine ever wanted to sit with him, (though Thrust was probably out on patrol and Ramjet was…doing something, maybe) and partly because everyone found him depressing and tried to stay away from him. Oh. Come to think of it, the second reason probably explained the first…
Well, actually, the mess hall cleared out pretty quickly after Starscream stomped in. No one wanted to get caught in a room with the pissed-off Air Commander. Dirge would have left too, except he had been debating over whether or not to take his cube back to his quarters where someone (probably Ramjet) would steal it, and he’d missed his window to exit with everyone else. It would be awkward if he got up now and drew attention to himself, so Dirge was stuck in the mess until Starscream left.
Thundercracker sighed heavily, taking a long sip of his cube that was glowing a little too brightly to be regular energon. Oh, right. The blue seeker had recently taken up day drinking to “cope with life while being surrounded by psychos” as he once put it. Dirge was a little jealous.
He also privately thought the majority of Thundercracker’s problems were self-inflicted. After all, the mech had willingly trined himself to the faction’s biggest lunatic and biggest helmache. So go figure.
“What’s Megatron done now?” Thundercracker asked tiredly.
“After four million years, he has suddenly come to the realization that literally no one in this slag-pile he calls an army can be trusted,” Starscream fumed. “Like no fucking shit, you idiot!”
Oh. Starscream was using human slang, which was something he only did when he was extremely angry or extremely drunk. According to him, even speaking the words of such a “lesser species” left a bad taste in his mouth. But Starscream did like using them when arguing with Megatron, because the warlord would get this “doltish, constipated look on his ugly face” since he didn’t understand “the vernacular of the fleshy organics.” Direct quotes that Starscream probably would have patented if there had been a trademark office around, or, you know, actual laws that he cared about.
“He’s become so fragging paranoid recently!” Starscream cried. “He thinks I’m constantly out to get him. As if I have that much time on my hands! Despite what he accuses me of, I have an actual job to do—”
“Coulda fooled me,” Thundercracked mumbled.
“—and my hours are filled with doing datawork and making sure this faction of losers stays afloat! Like, does he think he’s the only problem I have to deal with? He’s so fragging entitled, seriously, it’s like he doesn’t believe I have a life outside of him—even though I totally do!”
“Uh-huh,” Thundercracker replied, taking a long sip of his high-grade.
“Asking me to turn out my subspace at random intervals, appearing in my lab to ‘check up on what I’m doing,’ literally stalking me in the halls—the useless lump has absolutely no respect for my personal space anymore!”
Thundercracker yawned. “Shame.”
“Just today, Megatron finally came out and asked me if I was going to try and kill him sometime this week! And he didn’t even believe me when I said no! All he said was that when it happens, I should schedule it off-shift so it ‘doesn’t bother anyone.’ Like I’m sorry that my assassination attempts occur at random, because Primus forbid you’re inconvenienced by them!” Starscream ended his rant with a flourish, waving his arms around like he wanted to smack an imaginary Megatron out of existence.
Thundercracker simply grunted.
“Megatron is absolutely impossible,” Starscream snarled. “How do I tunnel through that hideous bucket skull of his and tell him that I’m not one to just murder him whenever he feels like it? I still have my own autonomy! I’m not like the rest of his mindless followers!”
Starscream gestured broadly around the almost-empty mess, indicating his opinion on his fellow Decepticons—sorry, mindless followers. Dirge might have been offended, except Starscream wasn’t really wrong, and also, he wasn’t quite sure how many of the Decepticons actually possessed a processor to mindlessly follow Megatron with. Because he had seen some of the Stunticons right after a raid meeting and there was absolutely nothing behind their glazed optics.
“I mean, ‘s not like you can blame him for thinking that,” Skywarp piped up, the first words he had spoken since Starscream thundered in. The teleporter’s optics were still trained on his beeping gaming console, mashing buttons aggressively. “It’s been a while since you’ve done another one of your crazy takeover attempts. Maybe he just wants to reduce the damage this time.”
Starscream let out a growl of annoyance, snatching Skywarp’s game from his servos. Or, well, he tried to snatch it. Skywarp held on with all his might, the two seekers tugging back and forth, until Starscream managed to wrest the device from his trinemate’s hands. He hurled it against the bulkhead with more force than was probably necessary, where it smashed to small pieces, shards of glass and plastic plinking to the floor.
“Come on, Screamer!” Skywarp shot up out of his seat, wings shaking in anger. “I was just about to level up! And do you have any idea how much Swindle charged me for that? Do you?!”
Starscream scowled. “Does it look like I care?”
“Twenty whole credits!” Skywarp shouted, ignoring his trine leader’s disinterest. “But obviously I didn’t have that kinda cash on me! So I had to give him my berth since mine’s got the nice mattress and he made me promise to give him my real comm code ‘cause he wants to bang a seeker. Though I gave him TC’s number instead—”
“Wait,” Thundercracker gasped, sounding awake for the first time all day. “That’s where your bed went? And hang on, the mystery mech who’s been comming me for the last five days was Swindle?!”
“Uh, yeah?” Skywarp shrugged. “I mean, I wasn’t about to let him frag me. And he already has Screamer’s comm, so I just gave him yours.”
“Swindle,” Thundercracker repeated, sounding vaguely horrified. “I’ve been sending image captures of my array to Swindle of all mechs. And you knew this the whole time and you didn’t fragging tell me—?!”
“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re so easy, TC!” Skywarp responded defensively. “I mean, you haven’t even been on a proper date yet and you already sent sexy pics—”
Thundercracker groaned, muttering something that sounded vaguely like “kill me.” He grabbed his cube and took another massive gulp. Which was understandable, because Swindle had about as much appeal as one of the barnacle-ridden organics that swam in the salty waters surrounding the Nemesis. The other Decepticons found them disturbing, but Dirge hadn’t particularly minded. He privately thought they were fascinating, in their own strange, blobby way. Especially the ones with the tentacles and big eyes—those were pretty cool.
“Hey, this isn’t about Thundercracker’s pathetic sex life,” Starscream snapped. “This is about my boundaries and how Megatron doesn’t seem to respect them, because at the moment, he doesn’t believe that I’m not trying to kill him!”
“Well…” Thundercracker paused, setting his cube down. “Are you trying to kill him?”
That was actually what Dirge had been wondering too. The tell-all question, if you would: is Starscream, at this very moment, actively trying to kill Megatron?
See, this was actually a very important piece of information to know; if one wanted to survive being a Decepticon, it was always a good idea to be aware of when Starscream was staging another assassination attempt. At least then, you knew to flee the vicinity before something exploded.
“No I’m not!” Starscream screamed, voice reaching a dangerously high decibel. Dirge winced at the grating sound filling his audials. Being yelled at was generally bad, but being yelled at by Starscream was just the worst. Partly because the mech had the skills to verbally eviscerate anyone into a pile of titanium fragments, and partly because there was a good chance you’d be both insecure and deaf after your scolding. Not a fun combination.
“Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?!” Starscream howled furiously. He grabbed Thundercracker’s cube as the mech raised it to his lips and promptly threw it against the same bulkhead. The cube smashed against the steel wall, pieces of glass sprinkling to the floor while glowing pink liquid dripped slowly down the side, joining the pile of parts that was once Skywarp’s gaming console.
“Aw Pit,” Thundercracker whined, staring at what remained of his drink morosely. “Now how am I gonna get through the day?”
“You don’t need high-grade to do that, Thundercracker,” Starscream snapped impatiently. “You’ve practically turned into a seasoned alcoholic. Do I need to sign you up for one of Shockwave’s therapy sessions again?”
Thundercracker’s optics widened with fear. “No. Please don’t do that.”
Shockwave’s therapy sessions were notoriously invasive, crude, and uncomfortable. Mostly because they involved him staring into your soul with his one optic while you were strapped to a steel slab under bright floodlights. Shockwave sometimes used a cortical psychic patch to help mechs “process their trauma” as well. Dirge had actually been to a few. He had found them pretty helpful, but clearly others thought differently.
“Good, because I don’t want to spend any more time looking at that one-optic’d freak than I have to,” the Air Commander grunted, sounding vaguely disgusted at the idea.
Thundercracker glanced forlornly at the remains of his broken cube before dropping his helm onto the table with a dull thunk.
“Anyway, what’s important is that Megatron’s paranoia has grown tiresome, and his refusal to believe in my innocence is nothing short of insulting!” Starscream hissed, clenching his servos into tight fists. “He will pay for this!”
Dirge cringed reflexively; the use of the words ‘my’ and ‘innocence’ coming from Starscream’s intake in the same sentence was a little triggering.
“And how are you going to get back at Megatron for,” Skywarp coughed, “rightly accusing you of trying to kill him?”
“Well, obviously,” Starscream seethed, “I’m going to kill him!”
“Brilliant plan, Screamer,” Skywarp grumbled sarcastically, slow-clapping for effect. “That’ll really show him.”
“Ugh! Both of you are useless!” Starscream threw his hands in the air dramatically, like he was appealing to a deity he didn’t even believe in. “Would it be so much to ask that you support me in my endeavors? What else is a trine good for?!”
“Your dumb endeavors are going to get us killed one day,” Thundercracker replied, voice muffled since he was still trying to become one with the table.
Starscream growled in annoyance, picking up his cube to down it in one go, before throwing it against the bulkhead for good measure. Dirge watched it crash against the wall, joining the steadily-growing pile of trash on the floor.
The Air Commander stomped out of the mess hall, probably off to his lab to construct some psychotic killing machine that will totally, definitely, 100% offline Megatron this time. He passed by Dirge on his way out, and sneered when he noticed the other staring.
“What are you looking at, you cone-headed dud?!” Starscream’s taloned servo whipped out to grab him tightly by the helm, smashing his face into the table painfully. Which, ow. That hurt. He’s pretty sure Starscream broke something.
“Mind your business, you nosy little creep,” Starscream hissed lowly into his audial, claws probably leaving dents in the navy blue metal of his helm. Dirge really hoped Starscream had enough restraint not to outright puncture through his processor. That would be pretty bad.
“Next time, I’ll rip out your fuel tank through your ugly head,” Starscream spat. “So watch yourself.” His grip increased in warning before he abruptly let go; Dirge didn’t move until he could hear the seeker’s angry pedfalls echo out the door.
Dirge raised his helm slowly, noting how the table now had a sizable impression of his face on the surface. Drops of energon speckled the grey metal; he absently raised a servo to his face, hand coming back smudged with pink. Oh. Starscream broke his nose. Which probably explained why his face hurt so much. Ow.
Dirge glanced around the room, optics bleary. He blinked a couple times until his vision cleared, and he found himself staring straight at Skywarp, who was regarding him with an expression of mild surprise.
“Huh. Have you been here the whole time?” Skywarp’s brow wrinkled in confusion.
Dirge sighed sadly, face throbbing as energon dripped down from his olfactory to splatter on his cockpit. Judging by the ringing in his audials and the pounding in his head, he was also pretty sure he had a concussion. “Yeah.”
A few joors later, he was ambling along one of the many creaky, dripping hallways of the Nemesis. He had returned from the medbay, where the Constructicons had smeared some sort of nanite paste onto his nose and told him to stop whining, before subsequently kicking him out. Which, first of all, rude. It wasn’t his fault he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, staring openly at the wrong mech who was ranting about how wronged he felt. And okay, maybe he’d been eavesdropping, but that was something everyone did!
He traced the small, digit-shaped dents on his head absently. Starscream hadn’t actually exerted enough pressure to cut through the metal, though the threat of him doing so was very real indeed. And his actual threat was probably something to be wary of. Perhaps he should steer clear of Starscream for a little while…even though the mech was Air Commander, which meant Dirge reported to him daily for drills, communications, updates, etc. etc.
Oh well. Dirge sighed heavily, pauldrons drooping. Nothing could be done about that. Life was truly depressing.
The light chatter up ahead tells him he’s arrived. Every month, High Command hosted a faction-wide briefing, to update the rank-and-file on the state of affairs, make sure the troops still felt motivated to commit acts of violence, and convince them that fighting a war is still a super awesome idea. Or something like that. Dirge doesn’t exactly pay attention to any of Megatron’s speeches, mostly because they’re boring and Starscream interrupts half the time anyway.
He spotted his trine up ahead, the two of them heatedly discussing…something. He joined them where they’re leaning against one of the entryways to the hangar, standing behind in the shadowy space of the doorway.
“—and I’m telling you, I know what I saw,” Thrust said insistently, red and grey wings flicking outwards. “A whole bunch of ‘em, swimming along the coast line way up north! We gotta tell Command that they’re real—”
“Are you sure you didn’t snort some of Soundwave's headache relief powder again?” Ramjet said dubiously. His optics narrowed in suspicion, “It wouldn't be the first time you inhaled that slag and started seeing things.”
“I didn’t! That’s only happened three times!” Thrust stamped his pede. “Anyway, there was a whole pack of them lounging on the beach making these ugly noises—”
“Lounging on the beach? You said they were swimming—”
“They were doing both!”
“Let me get this straight,” Ramjet straightened up, pointing a digit in Thrust’s faceplate. “You’re telling me that when you were out on patrol, you saw a group of mermaids swimming around in the ocean? Like, out of nowhere?”
“Yeah!” Thrust said excitedly. “Can you believe it? See, I told you they were real!”
Oh. Thrust was going on about his fanatic obsession with all things mythological. Even back on Cybertron, Thrust had this strange fixation with proving to others the existence of creatures of legend. When Dirge had asked him just why he believed in such things, he had launched into an arrogant tirade about how he was “not like other mechs” and that he “sought to explore that which is unknown.”
Well, for all his bravado, Thrust had yet to find any proof of the “wild beasts” he claimed were very much real. There had been many close calls, (or at least, that’s what he claimed) but Ramjet and Dirge had long since learned to take whatever Thrust said with a very large servoful of iocane powder. Case in point.
“Really?” Ramjet crossed his arms, raising an optic ridge. “What did they look like?”
“Well, they were kinda round and fleshy,” the red seeker gestured animatedly with his servos. “And, like, a dark greyish color? Oh, and they had these long white horns sticking out of their intake! Probably to eat…whatever it is they eat, I don’t really know.”
“That doesn’t sound like a mermaid,” Ramjet muttered.
“It is!” Thrust insisted. “Look, I have a video of them here.”
Thrust took out a datapad from his subspace, tapping the screen a few times before flipping it around to show Ramjet; Dirge had to lean slightly so he could see. The feed was blurry, like it had been taken from a far distance and zoomed into as much as possible, but it was still possible to see some kind of large-ish creature flopping around on the icy shores.
They were all colored a dull shade of slate grey, with wide, beady black optics and two white appendages sticking out of their mouths. They had fins and flippers, which apparently did not let them move very well on land, judging by the way they slowly inched forward and rolled around. Some of them were diving into the ocean—probably to look for food. The video had sound too, and Dirge could faintly hear several throaty, warbling cries over the roar of Thrust's engines. All in all, they looked like fat, toothy creatures capable of swimming and moving on land, (though the latter was dubious at best) but Dirge wasn’t really sure they were mermaids.
“You idiot, those aren’t mermaids!” Ramjet snapped, shoving the datapad into Thrust’s cockpit. “You told me mermaids are half human, half fish!”
“But they have flippers and tails and everything!” Thrust protested, sounding confused. “And wait, what the frag is a fish?”
Ramjet rolled his optics. “How am I supposed to know that?”
“I think it’s some kind of nut,” Dirge added helpfully, finally finding a way to contribute to the conversation.
Ramjet and Thrust both paused before whirling around to stare at him with twin expressions of shock (Ramjet) and fear (Thrust) on their faces.
“H-How long have you been standing there?!” Thrust squeaked, wings flicking rapidly in trepidation.
“Um…” Dirge paused, glancing up at the ceiling. How long had he been standing here? “Maybe a few minutes.”
“Why do you always have to emerge from darkness like some kind of gloomy ghost?” Ramjet grumbled, crossing his arms to hide how tightly his fists were clenched. “It’s so fragging weird.”
Dirge didn’t bother saying anything to that, because one, there was no point, and two, everyone already thought he was weird anyway. Weird, dreary, depressing, creepy, and a bunch of other creative adjectives he would rather not repeat. Most of them came from Starscream, because the Air Commander had a way with words few others possessed, but also because he was just a mean person in general.
“Anyway, those probably aren’t mermaids,” Dirge pointed at the datapad, trying to change the subject. “I think they’re just another animal that lives on this planet.”
“What?” Thrust frowned, looking at the video again. “But I was so sure…”
“Well, I dunno about the fish, but those things definitely don’t look half squishy to me,” Ramjet muttered, rolling his optics.
Thrust pouted, subspacing his datapad as his wings drooped sadly. Dirge gave him a conciliatory pat on the back.
A sudden rumbling sound has them migrating to the center of the room. Faction-wide briefings take place in one of the upper hangers that can actually fit everyone, and has the added benefit of being one of the drier parts of the ship.
All around, Decepticons are grouped into their respective cliques. The seekers stand towards the middle, triple-changers right behind them, leaning against the back walls. To the left, the gestalts, to the right, the Insecticons and the rest of the unimportant grunts who weren’t special enough to belong to anywhere. Dirge was always a little thankful to be a seeker in times like these; at the very least, there would always be a group he belonged to. Well, kind of.
The door at the very back opened with a light chime, and Megatron stormed in, Soundwave following close behind. The crowd quickly parted to let him to the front, because Megatron had a nasty habit of crushing limbs underpede when he wasn’t paying attention and it made for a very uncomfortable trip to the medbay.
The Deception leader thundered to the front, climbing onto hastily-erected dais that creaked ominously under his weight. He placed his servos on his hips, surveying the sea of unenthused red optics with his trademark scowl on his face. Off to the side, Soundwave stood as still as a statue, probably judging everyone behind that visor of his.
Dirge shivered slightly. Everyone said he was the most dreary Decepticon on the Nemesis, but Dirge would have liked to argue that that specific award to go to Soundwave instead. Like, the mech does nothing but spy on everyone else and lurk in the background. Yet somehow Dirge was the odd one? It made no sense.
As if he heard what Dirge was thinking, Soundwave turned his helm to pin the seeker with a cold stare. Dirge flinched back in fear. Maybe Soundwave had heard what he was thinking; it was a millenia-old rumor, of course—that the reason for Soundwave incredible competence was due to a certain invasive outlier, but nothing had ever been confirmed. Dirge was inclined to believe the gossip around the ship, though. It would certainly explain the mech’s strange omniscience.
“Decepticons!” Megatron bellowed, vocals deep enough to send vibrations across Dirge’s wings. It was a pretty neat trick.
“I understand the war has been long, our supplies low, and our numbers small. But that is the very reason we must fight! This battle goes on in the name of the comrades we have lost, and our dead planet that drifts aimlessly among the stars!” Megatron paused here for a moment of solidarity. In the back, someone coughed lightly.
“But fear not, my fellow Decepticons! We shall soon triumph over the accursed Autobots, ridding the universe of their sanctimonious nonsense once and for all!” Megatron continued, really getting into it now that the A-word had been said.
“It is our destiny! Our birthright! And I, for one, shall see it through to the end! Never again will we—!”
Megatron cut himself off suddenly, glancing around the room in befuddlement. His brow furrowed, darkened red optics narrowing in anger as he realized…something. He glared down at the audience, towards the front of the seeker group.
“Where is your choleric wretch of a trine leader?” Megatron demanded, fists clenching as he bared his dentae. Dirge blinked, mildly confused. ‘Choleric wretch of a trine leader?’ What does that even mean—oh. Wait. Duh. Starscream. Of course it would be him. That’s the only mech Megatron ever talked about for more than three seconds, with the exception of Optimus Prime. And Prime definitely wasn’t a trine leader, last Dirge checked.
Megatron had probably realized he had spoken more than two sentences without being interrupted, which only happened when Starscream was absent or…well, that’s the only time it ever happened, really.
Dirge thought about what he heard earlier today in the mess hall and realized that Starscream not being at the meeting was probably a bad sign. Hmm.
“Dunno,” Skywarp replied, sounding bored. Dirge couldn’t quite see him or Thundercracker, but he assumed Thundercracker shrugged as if to say ‘same’ or ‘I don’t really care.’
“Bah!” Megatron snarled, waving his arm in agitation. His canon arm. The entire room took one synchronized step backwards, because Megatron was known to be a little trigger-happy, like, all the time. And getting shot with a fusion canon really, really hurt.
“That pathetic, feckless, treacherous seeker! He thinks he can shirk his duties, does he? When I get my hands on him, I’ll wring his scrawny throat—”
Megatron mimed strangling someone a bit more aggressively than Dirge would have recommended. Either that, or he was trying to open some kind of overly complicated jar. Though given his knowledge of Megatron and Starscream’s…relationship (which was already too much—and could Dirge even call it a relationship? It felt wrong), he’d say it was likely the latter.
“—and he’ll beg me to let him off, but no! Not this time! I have had enough!” Megatron began to pace, still gesturing wildly as he laid out, in a strangely detailed explanation, everything he was going to punish Starscream with for not being here. “The assassination attempts, the disrespect! The insubordination! I am through with it, do you hear me Soundwave?! Through with it!”
Soundwave stood off to the side, and acknowledged Megatron words with a nod of his helm. Privately, Dirge thought he was trying hard not to roll his optics. Wait. Did Soundwave even have optics?
The rest of the crowd shuffled awkwardly, shoulders slumping and optics dimming. When Megatron geared up for a rant, he geared up one shift too many (was that how you say it? Dirge didn’t know anything about grounder idioms). He could go on for hours about how much he hated Starscream, found Starscream useless or annoying, how Starscream polished too much, how his voice was too screechy, and a lot more Dirge didn’t really remember. Megatron’s latest record was three joors straight on how it makes him angry when Starscream “does that thing with his face.” To this day, the entire Decepticon faction still didn’t know what that certain thing was.
But it still was nowhere near Megatron’s seven joor rant about “the hideous sparkle in Prime’s crystal-clear azure optics.” Now that was a doozy.
Still, what a waste of a meeting, Dirge thought, trying and failing to stifle a yawn. Yeah, these things weren’t interesting, but he had hoped that there would be more to today than being punched by Starscream (via table) and hearing Megatron grumble about his second—
“Fear not, Mighty Megatron,” a nasal voice sneered at the back. “For you won’t be around to deal with it much longer!”
It was like something out of a bad holofilm. Everyone turned their heads in sync to look at the doorway towards the very back, the triple-changers stepping out of the way to clear the space. Standing in the threshold next to what looked like an overly complicated ballista was Starscream, a cocky smirk on his face and his servos planted on his hips.
Oh. Well now that’s not really what he meant.
“Starscream!” Megatron snarled, optics zeroing on the device with what looked like…glee? That was pretty weird, since Starscream was probably going to try and kill him with it, but Megatron had all kinds of odd tastes, so Dirge didn’t question it. He wanted to, but he didn’t. You learn with experience that it’s better not to.
“As I suspected,” Megatron huffed, tossing his head arrogantly. “You were plotting to assassinate me yet again!”
“For the last time, no I wasn’t!” Starscream shrieked, making everyone in the room collectively wince. “But you refused to believe me, so now you have to die!”
That made absolutely no sense to Dirge, and probably to most people in the universe, but Megatron seemed to get it. Somehow.
Starscream took a giant step to the side, taking out a small remote from his subspace and pressing a random button. The ballista let out a grating mechanical sound, parts shifting to reveal a large arrow already mounted on the bow, aimed directly at Megatron…oh, and the rest of the crowd that stood between it and the warlord.
Uh-oh.
It was like a switch had been flipped on in everyone’s processor. The Holy-Slag-It’s-A-Starscream-Doomsday-Device-Get-Out-Of-The-Fragging-Way-Or-You’re-Scrap-Metal switch that all Decepticons had to develop very quickly if they enjoyed being alive.
Someone yelled, “Scatter!” at the top of their lungs, and the room was immediately thrown into chaos. The triple-changers, who were closest to the weapon, dove to the side, not taking into account their enormous size and flattened several trines of seekers under their weight. Dirge could hear someone—Hotlink, maybe?—call Octane some very unflattering names while yelling at him to get off. The gestalts all backed up to the nearest wall, with the Combaticons and Constructicons ducking behind supply crates in the corner, while the Stunticons all tried to hide in the same storage closet. Mechs attempted to climb the walls, cower behind one another, and pile on top of each other for protection. It would have been comical if it wasn’t entirely valid.
The ballista let out a worrisome click, like the trigger was being cocked. Megatron aimed his fusion cannon at the device, the weapon humming faintly as it began to glow purple. He had this wild sort of grin on his face, like this was the most exciting thing he’d seen all week. Given what day-to-day life was like on the Nemesis, it probably was.
Move. He needed to move. Like the rest of the seekers, when faced with something large, immediate, and likely life-threatening, Dirge began to panic without specific instruction. Which was probably why Starscream was needed to keep them in line; the seeker was a lot of surprising things, and a competent Air Commander was indeed one of them. Shockingly.
From the corner of his optic, he can see a flash of purple—probably Skywarp teleporting both himself and Thundercracker far away from this nonsense. Not for the first time, Dirge lamented being unable to do the same.
He stumbled, tripping over someone’s thruster heel and falling to the ground with a soft oof! His vision of the projectile and everyone around him was blocked by bright wings and scrambling pedes. Someone stepped harshly on his ankle; in the rush of stampeding feet, Dirge couldn’t quite tell who. He struggled to get up in the chaos around him, mechs pushing and shoving to get out of the way.
Dirge got to his feet, wobbling unsteadily. His ankle throbbed painfully, and he felt vaguely dizzy—probably from Starscream’s beating earlier. With a start, he glanced around, noticing how everyone else had managed to clear out of the room through other exits, or were watching eagerly from the sidelines.
There’s another clicking sound. Frag, frag, frag, he needs to move, he needs to move—
Dirge looked up in panic, optics widened as the arrow launched forward at a blinding speed, heading straight for Megatron, who was unfortunately positioned right behind him. Meaning he was in the direct path of the projectile with no time to get out of the way. Dirge ducked at the last second, shuttering his optics tightly and hoping he wasn’t going to die because of one of Starscream’s ridiculous death gadgets—
Schling!
Silence. Cautiously, Dirge opened his optics, pleasantly surprised that was still alive, and was met with Starscream’s gobsmacked expression, staring in horror at…him? Huh?
Dirge stood up shakily, wincing at the prick of pain in his heel. He glanced down at himself: two arms, two legs, two wings, and no giant arrow sticking out of his chassis. His head hurt a little bit, but again, that was probably because of his mild concussion (that those dumbaft Constructicons refused to admit existed).
He glanced around the room, feeling self-conscious at the number of wide-opticed stares on him. He never did like being the center of attention.
Dirge caught Scavenger’s gaze, who wordlessly pointed a digit upwards, towards his helm. What?
Dirge glanced up to try and see what he was talking about before realizing that wouldn’t work because…well, it wouldn’t work. He carefully felt around the top of his cone with his servo, before his digits curled around a certain something sticking out of the metal.
…He had a sneaking suspicion of what happened. But only one way to be sure. Dirge’s digits tightened around the something, and he yanked it out in one harsh tug. It kinda hurt, but not as much as it could have since his cone was mostly hollow and there were no major pain receptors anywhere above his processor. He stared in slight amazement at the object clutched in his servo—the arrow of Starscream’s ballista, which had, apparently, punctured a hole in his conehead instead of in him.
Huh.
He looked up again at Starscream, whose shocked expression was gradually turning into a rather dangerous one. Like, murder-you-in-your-sleep dangerous. Uh-oh. That was really not good.
He shuffled his pedes sheepishly, holding out the arrow to Starscream. Oh, the shaft had splintered from the impact. It probably couldn’t be reused then. Shoot. “Um…here,” Dirge said awkwardly. “I think this, uh, belongs to you? Sir.”
Starscream didn’t move. If anything, he looked even madder. Like I’m-about-to-gouge-out-your-optics mad. Oh slag, this is seriously the last thing Dirge wanted.
“I-I didn’t mean to get in the way!” he exclaimed, hastily backtracking because he needed to put some distance between himself and the homicidal Air Commander. “I was just trying to move aside, y’know, but then, uh, I fell and someone, like, stepped on me so I had to—”
“You,” Starscream whispered, all soft and quiet and nowhere near his usual screech. He pointed a sharpened blue digit in his face. Clearly, he was not in the listening mood. “You slimy, worthless, putrid little insect. You dare to—”
“That’s it?” Megatron interrupted with a scowl, looking a cross between bewildered and angry that he had been robbed of his entertainment. “Seriously? You only put one arrow in that thing? This has to be your most uninspired attempt yet—”
“It was made on short notice!” Starscream snapped defensively, wings hiking up in offense. “Not that you would care about how much time and effort went into crafting it—”
“Because I don’t,” Megatron clarified. Then, he raised his fusion cannon and fired at the ballista with a sort of casual ruthlessness, obliterating the weapon to a pile of smoking metal.
“Why would you do that?!” Starscream squawked, wings flicking in agitation. “I could have reused those materials! Or I could have replicated the design! Or possibly improved it to try again—!”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Megatron growled, crossing his arms irritably. “While your pathetic attempts at exterminating me are often as ostentatious as they are defunct, they at least carry some weight to them, however minuscule. But this paltry attempt? Perhaps you’re losing your edge, Starscream—”
“Lies!” Starscream hastily shoved Dirge out of the way so he could bluster at Megatron better, wings flapping in an obvious display of…something. Dirge couldn’t quite figure out what it was. His head was really starting to hurt. Probably a side effect of getting shot in the head while he had a concussion. Oh dear.
It would be fine. Probably. He just needed to remember his breathing exercises. Um…wait, what were they? Slag. One-two-vent? Or, no, one-two-three-vent? That didn’t sound right. Wait, it could be one-two-three-four-vent. Yes. No. Wait, maybe—
“It was a perfectly adequate attempt, I’ll have you know, and it would have worked fine if he—” Starscream pointed towards Dirge, who shrank under the weight of Megatron’s accusing stare, “—hadn’t gotten in the way!”
Starscream turned away from Megatron in an instant, zeroing in on Dirge’s cowering form. “You are so going to regret this,” he snarled, advancing towards Dirge, deadly claws shining under the light. “I’ll make you wish you never spawned from whatever waste pit you crawled out of—”
“Dirge,” Megatron frowned, stomping closer. Dirge had to bite his glossa and tried desperately not to cry. “You should know better than to interfere in matters that are of no concern to you.”
“—and then I’ll hang you upside down over a pool of acid while all the energon rushes to that empty, hollow head of yours and you feel like purging—”
“Starscream’s treachery is mine to deal with, do you understand?” Megatron demanded, apparently not even noticing that the traitorous mech he was talking about was standing right next to him.
“—or maybe I’ll just throw you in a smelter and watch you slowly melt into a pile of ugly, molten metal,” Starscream was still muttering, apparently not even hearing Megatron’s threats. Actually, Dirge wasn’t even sure either of them could hear each other. It was really, really not normal.
“After all,” Megatron continued, casually wiping a black smudge off the edge of his fusion cannon, the weapon beginning to hum lightly. “You never know when you might be caught in the crossfire, yes?”
Now, Dirge wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the gearbox. Or the second sharpest. Or the third, or fourth, or fifth. But he was a Decepticon, and knew a threat—or two threats—when he heard them. Starscream was plotting his demise, and Megatron was threatening his demise if he ever interfered with Starscream’s attempts to…plot Megatron's demise. It was kind of unreal.
It occurred to him then, that technically, by the barest, slimmest of margins, he had inadvertently, accidentally, foolishly…thwarted Starscream’s plans to kill Megatron. Something only Megatron was allowed to do.
Oops.
“Yes sir,” he squeaked out meekly. At least, he hoped that’s what he said. His vocals were shaking so badly, he probably sounded like a whining engine. Dirge was rooted to the spot in fear, optics wide as he glanced towards the rapidly charging fusion canon. Primus, was this going to be it? And he’d been so happy to have survived that ballista arrow too—
“Negative,” Soundwave interrupted, and Dirge had never in his entire life felt so happy to hear that dull, derisive monotone. He could have kissed Soundwave right then and there. “Dirge: has thwarted Starscream’s attempt to assassinate Lord Megatron. Dirge: should be rewarded.”
Starscream’s helm whipped around to glare at Soundwave. “But—!”
“Dirge: has done well,” Soundwave’s gaze hardened, pinning the flailing seeker with a look.
“Right,” Megatron gritted out, trying his best to look smug and powerful, when in Dirge’s opinion, he looked…disappointed? And he was staring at Dirge with envy, like he was jealous that he didn’t get to thwart Starscream’s plans to kill him. Go figure.
“Right,” Megatron repeated, definitely sounding petulant. “Dirge is to be…commended for his efforts. You’ll get doubled rations for the next week, and your choice of patrol for the next few rotations.”
Well, er, that would be a little nice. Huh. Maybe he would get something out of this disaster after all.
“He’s a part of my armada!” Starscream screeched, leveling Megatron with a terrifying glower. “You can’t just—”
“This is my ship seeker,” Megatron barked. “My faction, my rules. You’d do well to remember that.”
Starscream let out a muffled scream of frustration, servos curling into fists. For one moment, Dirge thought he might be crazy enough to launch himself at Megatron, and from the tyrant’s anticipatory smirk, he clearly thought the same.
But Starscream simply whirled around, stalking closer to Dirge and completely ignoring his leader.
“I’m going to kill you for this, you pathetic little loser. Slowly,” Starscream crooned, vocals deceptively light given how he looked positively unhinged. He squeezed Dirge’s pauldron tightly, scoring dents into the dark blue metal. With that ominous promise, he stormed out of the hangar, mechs scrambling to the side to get out of his way.
“You get back here, Starscream! I’m not finished with you yet!” Megatron shoved through the crowd, stepping over pedes and treads as chased after his errant Air Commander, probably to go harass him over not trying to kill him passionately enough. As one does.
The door slid closed with a surprisingly loud whish. A hush fell over the crowd, as mechs glanced towards Soundwave for instruction, given that he was now the highest-ranking bot in the room.
Soundwave stared at the door Megatron and Starscream had just exited from, perhaps wondering why he was still picking up after the top two commanders and hadn't just gone on a killing spree yet. Many Decepticons often thought the same thing. There was a rather sizable betting pool gambling on when the spymaster would break. Dirge would say his odds were, well, not great, but not terrible.
Actually, he kinda really needed to win. He’d practically gambled all his life’s savings on Soundwave crashing out in the next year. Hopefully he’d get to collect his winnings before Soundwave decapitated him in an act of justified fury.
The TIC let out a long-suffering sigh. He scanned the sea Decepticons, apparently coming to a decision. “Meeting: adjourned. Personnel: dismissed.”
There was a smattering of applause joined by several whoops and cheers from the crowd. Decepticons did not like faction-wide meetings, even if this one was…slightly more interesting than usual.
“Dirge,” Soundwave started. The seeker in question looked at the tape deck, mildly confused. Was Soundwave going to yell at him? Beat him up? Ask for first-come targets for his death rampage? Primus, he really hoped not; his helm was killing him.
“Report to the medbay,” was all Soundwave said, sounding exhausted with reality. Dirge could honestly relate. Like samsies, Sounders. “Ramjet, Thrust: will accompany Dirge.”
With that, Soundwave joined the horde of mechs pouring out of the exits, somehow managing to leave in under two seconds, despite all the mechs pushing and shoving to get out. He really was something else…though perhaps not in a good way, hmm.
“Damn, I thought you were a goner at least ten times in the past five minutes,” Ramjet remarked, sidling up to his trinemate to pat him on the back. “But you’re still alive, huh? Good job.”
Thrust appeared in front of him, optics widening as he stared at the hole in Dirge’s nosecone. “Holy slag,” Thrust whistled, wincing slightly. “That does not look pretty. You feeling okay?”
“My helm hurts a bit,” Dirge admitted, shifting uncomfortably. “But that might be because Starscream sorta slammed me into a table earlier today and I got a concussion…”
Ramjet crossed his arms, unimpressed. “Were you staring at him creepily from across the room again?”
“Umm…” Dirge thought about it. In hindsight, maybe that’s what it looked like to Starscream? “Not on purpose.”
“Figures.”
“Let’s get you to the medbay,” Thrust said kindly, gesturing to one of the doors off to the side. The hangar had completely cleared out, Decepticons going back to minding their business and the business of others (because this faction was incredibly hyperactive and also nosy).
“For all the good that’ll do,” Ramjet snorted, following the other two seekers nonetheless. “Megatron’ll probably leave you alone, but Screamer’s coming for you Dirge. I think you really made him mad. Best of luck dealing with that.”
Dirge felt his spark sink. Right, threats from Megatron could mostly be ignored since the tyrant didn’t actually kill his troops (he only beat them half to death, but never, you know, to death). Starscream on the other hand, had no such moral dilemma. Or moral standards. Or any morals, really.
He sighed, helm hanging low. Oh well. He’d just have to resign himself to his fate, he supposed.
…After he went to the medbay, of course. His head fragging hurt.
In a single day, he’d gotten a concussion, a broken nose, he almost died, had a massive hole shot through his head, and received a death threat. All from/because of the same mech. That had to be some sort of record.
Wait, no, two death threats, from two different mechs, but really that was only one mech’s fault. That was definitely not a good thing.
But he had managed to live yet another day. Fantastic. All in all, he considered today a moderate success. Nothing too good, but, y’know, good enough. Which was, coincidentally, one of the three Decepticon slogans—‘peace through tyranny’, ‘you are being deceived’, and ‘good enough.’ Very inspiring words of wisdom.
Though, in hindsight, most of today’s issues were sort of his fault. Especially getting in between Megatron and Starscream’s routine ritual of trying to one-up one another in the most childish way possible. Apparently it was some sort of competition, and Dirge had ruined Megatron’s streak by accidentally-totally-not-on-purpose defeating Starscream. So he could understand why the warlord got pissed. Not really, but kind of.
Oh well. It would probably be worse tomorrow! So that was something to look forward to. But hey, he’d survived another day in the Decepticon faction with minor injury to his frame and his self-worth. So that had to count for something, right?