There was a reason Megatron was heading to the rec-room for his Energon cube. Primarily due to a traitorous SIC who wouldn't hesitate to try to assassinate him with poisoned Energon if given the chance. While in theory he could order someone loyal like Soundwave or Shockwave to get it for him, Megatron didn't see the point to have them pause in their duties towards the Decepticon cause to do something he was perfectly capable of doing himself. It was the same reason why he also didn't order a Vehicon to bring him Energon.
Today was no exception. It had been a couple solar cycles after the Terrorcon fiasco and the last traces of the incident were quickly being scrubbed off the halls of the Nemesis by the remaining Vehicons, who scattered out his sight and fusion cannon range with a respectful bow and a 'Lord Megatron, sir'. It was nice to see someone on this ship still knew their place.
Now Megatron didn't do "happy" or any other sappy Autobot-ish emotions for that matter, but today the warlord had to admit he felt slightly less furious at everyone and everything in the universe.
As the leader of the Decepticons, one of his many duties and obligations was to sit menacingly at his throne and glare down at all the incompetents below him. Then, once the most intimidating sitting position had been achieved, and the trick was to have one leg casually thrown over the other with a constant drumming of his claws against the arm rest. The best way to nail it was by petting Laserbeak, of course on the times the symbiote wasn't on some mission. They were both very busy mechs and sometimes their schedules just didn't match up.
Oh, and the final touch: lighting. Megatron had to make sure the throne room was perfectly darkened with only a dark purple eerie glow and his red optics to give any illumination.
Anyways, it was his job to hear the negative events, hear the slightly less negative things, and order someone to figure out if the babbling incompetent who informed him should walk out of this one unscathed. If it was a certain screechy Seeker, the answer was an of course not, duh!
Recent negative events: thanks to the idiots Knock Out and Starscream, half the army had been turned to Energon sucking monsters, and all the Insecticons were gone.
Slightly less negative events: Soundwave, as per usual, managed to make the awful situation slightly better by banishing Airachnid to some desolate moon no one had heard of.
Even more recent negative events: all the Predacons had to be destroyed because it turns out they can transform and would have been a threat. Shame, because it would have been really cool to have an army of fire breathing monsters at his beck-and-call.
Slightly less negative events: they managed to successfully frame the Autobots for destroying said Predacons, and now Predaking had his rage towards them and loyalty towards him.
The mixture of both bad and slightly less bad events sort of cancelled each other out, leaving him feeling his default angry self. Megatron didn't focus all that much on his surroundings, relying more on memory to get to the rec-room while he stewed in his thoughts. Mostly due to the fact anyone walking in the same hall would move out of the way for him, and simply there wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. The Nemesis was designed to confuse by having all the long winding halls look exactly the same. Any intruder would run around in circles with no idea where the important things were. Only Decepticons who have spent plenty of time onboard could find their way around.
The rec-room was like the rest of the ship. Large, dark, and thoughtfully sinister with a hint of glowing purple. Evil purple, of course; they had class. It was a large enough space to fit everyone with plenty of energon dispensers throughout, but Megatron didn't have time to walk more than strictly necessary. Thus, he headed to the closest one as he usually did. Megatron was honestly so caught up mulling over these incidents Starscream could have stabbed him in the neck, and he wouldn't have seen it coming until he was on the ground in a pool of his own energon with Starscream doing a victory dance around him.
Therefore, he almost crashed face-first to the back of the mech in front of him. First off, how dare whoever it was beat him to his energon dispenser? It was technically meant for everyone, but there had to be some rule that as Megatron, he could claim whatever he wanted as his own. He'd have Soundwave look into that later. He growled, about to give this mech the beating of the century when it hit him. The back?
He didn't get the chance to think more on it. Apparently what he thought was a mental growl was very much audible. Megatron never forgot a face, but he couldn't say the same to a backside. Red and gray armor with touches of gold. Long elegant spikes on the shoulders. Red wings. It could be anyone. The mech in front of him turned around, a single cube in his claws. Predaking. In hindsight, the warlord probably should've known.
"My liege," The Predacon gave a respectful bow. "Apologies, I did not know you were there. You may take my cube if you wish, Lord Megatron."
_
Pacing back and forth across the empty throne room, Megatron kept recounting the events.
"You may take my cube if you wish," Megatron said in a whiny voice, poorly mimicking Predaking. "Pfft, of course I wanted the cube, but that's not the point. The point is that Predaking is…" He paused pacing and practically crushed Soundwave's servo in his grip.
"T-T-T….!" His yelling was reduced to the closest thing to a whisper he could pull off. Megatron knew he could tell Soundwave anything, but it hurt having to say it out loud, even to his most trusted confidant.
"He's taller than me!" He finally blurted. And once it was out, he was back to his ranting. "Not even a little taller that you wouldn't be able to tell, no, he has the audacity to be so tall he had to look down at me, and I had to look up, Soundwave! UP!" The Lord gripped the communication officer's shoulders and shook him back and forth like a rag doll. "It was humiliating! Everyone was laughing at me!"
(In reality, the presence of the two most intimidating Decepticons had made everyone flee ages ago.)
"To rub it in more, Predaking pretended he had no idea of the situation and only wanted to be considerate. In my processor, I was like 'Oh, oh! So that's how you want to do it huh?', so I pretended like I didn't notice either. What was I supposed to do anyways, take the cube? So then I told him I had a super important meeting and got the Pit out of there. That's when I called you. It's just not fair!" The warlord only barely resisted stomping a pede like a sparkling throwing a tantrum as he stormed towards his throne and plopped across it, with his servos laced together and resting over his chest.
"I've always been the tallest Decepticon. I'm taller than Shockwave, taller than Dreadwing when he was online, taller than Makeshift - also when he was… online. Huh." He shook his head and kept ranting. "I'm taller than Starscream and Shockwave and you! I make the Vehicons and Eradicons look puny in my presence. I'm even taller than Optimus fragging Prime!"
Granted, it wasn't by a lot, maybe only about an inch or two. But still.
"How dare Predaking be taller? Just who does he think he is, prancing about with his superior height?" Megatron huffed, staring up at the dark eerie ceiling.
Megatron interpreted the silence in the room as Soundwave agreeing with him, as if the TIC was saying 'Yes, I see'.
"Ah! What am I doing?" He sat up straight. "I'm a strong, competent leader. I'll just have Predaking destroyed! Yeah! That'll show him for mocking me in front of everyone. I'll make it official that being taller than me is an offense punishable by off-lining!"
Silence.
Megatron sighed. "Yes… I know what you're going to say Soundwave, 'but Lord Megatron, you're so great and powerful, you shouldn't let an inconsequential matter like this affect me' and yes, it's true, I am great and powerful."
Silence.
"No, you're absolutely right, I shouldn't let anger cloud my judgement. Predaking is, after all, a valuable asset to the Decepticon cause. One of these episodes he's going to betray me, and then I'll have the satisfaction of utterly destroying him and regaining my position as the tallest Decepticon to have ever lived!"
Silence.
A grumble echoed. For a split nanosecond Megatron thought something had malfunctioned with the engines, until his painfully empty tanks emitted another growl as his frame tried and failed to work without Energon. Soundwave moved for the first time since arriving, taking out a cube from his sub-space and giving it to the warlord.
Megatron sighed, sinking into his throne "Thank you Soundwave, I don't know what I'd do without your advice."