Megatron snarled at the lifeless heap of metal lying before him, a twisted mass of silver that had once been beautiful. Now it was blackened and burnt, the plating warped and scorched, the few places left intact sliced by mighty blows from massive blades.
"Starscream," he growled, "you idiot."
His arm rose by pure instinct, the air crackling with ozone and the cannon on his arm humming as his weapons systems fed it. Heat roiled through his systems, searing away the cold of the all-too-empty room.
The mangled frame laid out before him gave no response. No squeal of dismay. No cry of protest. No hiss of anger. No wide-opticked, whining plea for mercy.
Not even a faint stir of wings to show that he had seen, and heard, and feared.
Megatron's knife extended from its place on his arm, stabbing uselessly at air. He lowered his arm, but did not retract it. To pull back his weapons now seemed somehow obscene.
"You fool," he raged, kicking at the inert body. Sparks flew from the point of impact, and the already torn metal dented. But no screech of pain followed it, and the broken heap only looked worse with the mark of his pede added to the damage.
Irritated with Starscream's body for so easily buckling and with himself for making things worse, he looked away from the new dent. His burning gaze moved to Starscream's face. That was more or less intact, darkened and sooty but otherwise whole. The optics were frozen wide in surprise or fear, the mouthplates open in a grimace of agony - or shock.
Megatron could guess easily enough what that was about. Only one Autobot loved bombs and explosions as much as his own forces did. Only one had blades like the ones that had dealt Starscream his deathblow.
"Wheeljack," he snarled, the word like spoiled energon in his mouth.
Starscream had nearly killed the Wrecker during their siege on the Autobot base. Wheeljack was a skilled pilot and handled his craft well, piloting it with skill few Autobots could hope to equal. He'd thought that skill would be enough to evade Starscream.
Megatron chuckled coldly. An Autobot in a ship was no match for one of Vos's Seekers. And Starscream was the most graceful, swift, and deadly of them all.
Megatron frowned, staring at the twisted, scorched wings of the lifeless frame in front of him and thinking of the sleek slanted expanses of metal that had risen from the Seeker's back.
Of course Starscream had shot the Wrecker down.
His craft had crashed into the side of the mountain, the wreck a flaming fireball. But apparently Wheeljack was as good at walking away from explosions as he was at creating them.
This, then, must have been his revenge.
Part one: a bomb, intended to offline Starscream with neither muss nor fuss.
But it hadn't worked. Megatron chuckled wryly at that. He knew better than anyone exactly how easily Starscream could sneak out of the line of fire.
And how much the fragile-looking Seeker could survive if he didn't manage to get away.
That must have been when the Wrecker chose a different strategy.
Part two: his swords. No doubt he'd wanted to finish things close and personal.
Megatron laughed again, a hearty, rolling guffaw of mirth that faded into a sharp bark of bitter amusement. He understood that impulse as well.
And if the bomb had already damaged Starscream as severely as his mangled body revealed, even one as slippery as he couldn't evade the Autobot and his blades for long.
Knowing Starscream, he would have tried his last defense: his voice.
Megatron could hear it now: the snarls of anger and pain shifting to high-pitched appeals to the pity all Autobots seemed to possess. Mewling, whimpering prostrations as he begged. Then, if and when that didn't work, promises of aid, clever little schemes dreamed up on the spot. I can show you where Prime's body lies. I can help you steal energon, weapons, anything you want.
I can help you take down Megatron.
Of course he would have said that last. Half in desperation - and half in hope his destroyer would actually take him up on it.
Megatron gave another staticky, bitter laugh.
Of course it hadn't worked.
Not on a Wrecker.
Not on a mech who did the job he intended - quick and clean and tidy - with no plotting or scheming or little stratagems to pull his attention from the objective in his mind.
Wheeljack's answer would have been - must have been - the two diagonal gouges sliced through the already blackened and broken frame.
Starscream had died waiting to hear the Wrecker's answer.
"You're an idiot, Starscream," Megatron rasped, the words fading to a choked burst of static. "The one mech who would never listen to your tricks and your plots and your lies - and you let him kill you.
"Pathetic wretch," he growled, kicking out again. He was not looking now, not caring what his mighty foot hit or whether it even connected at all. "Worthless, treacherous fool. Idiot - failure - you deserve everything you got - you damned fool -"
He felt something crumple and a curl of heat spun through his spark, warm as satisfaction but corrosive as an acid.
He stopped, drawing back from the lifeless scrap metal at his feet and lifting his head.
"The Wrecker is mine," he rasped, his voice quiet now, quiet and deadly.
Whatever spying and surveillance Soundwave might do to find the surviving Autobots - whatever force of Decepticons flew forth from New Kaon to overwhelm them - whatever deadly inventions Shockwave created to hunt them down and destroy them one by one - Wheeljack would be Megatron's kill, and Megatron's alone.
The warlord raised his arm, staring at the still-readied blade. It glowed with its own faint purple light, the same energies that fed the cannon crackling through it.
Megatron smiled, his face lit by the eldritch lavender light, his fangs glittering.
If the Wrecker had killed Starscream with a blade, he would die by one.
Better still, he would live to lose his, one after the other.
Then, and only then, would Megatron destroy him.
Megatron doubted that Wheeljack would beg. He would see no use in doing that, just as he'd seen no use in listening to Starscream's wheedling.
Very well, Megatron thought, not saying a word. Then let him die in silence.