"Quit pacing."
"I'm not going to quit pacing until we do something," Mikaela snarled. In front of her, Megatron raked his talons languidly across a slab of rock, sharpening his claws and staring at Mikaela with a less than amused expression.
Starscream was loitering back, hidden in the shadows, his red optics standing out the most. The moon seemed to cast an eerie glow on everything it illuminated, the shadows suddenly seeming as if they were going to jump out and strangle Mikaela.
Paranoia. It did that to people.
But Mikaela had every right to be paranoid, and she hoped Megatron knew the same. She was practically on the brink of combustion, fist clenched so hard that they hurt. And Megatron could see that, yet here he was, lounging back as if nothing were wrong?
Starscream….he would come to Mikaela's defense, right?
"Do what? You obviously aren't on board with my original plan, so I guess Starscream and I will just have to sit here and let you suffer," Megatron said, examining his talons. "It's not like there's anything else we can do."
Mikaela opened her mouth, and then closed it.
"Cat got your tongue?"
"Don't use human sayings," Mikaela snapped. "They don't work well for you."
"My, my," Megatron purred. "Someone's a little riled up today."
"I am, and you know why," Mikaela replied bitterly. Yesterdays events came back to her in a tidal wave of anger, fear, hurt, and revenge. With a savage howl, she lashed out and kicked the nearest rock, sending it tumbling and bouncing down the cliff and into the ravine below. Her head whipped around and she turned on Megatron, then Starscream.
"What do you want us to do?"
"Carry out the plan," Mikaela said. "I don't care, as long as he suffers."
It were the words Megatron was waiting for, and he eased up with a groan, gesturing for Starscream and Mikaela to approach. Reluctantly, Mikaela knelt beside his massive frame, gulping at the way he gently touched her back, an icy talon running down her spine.
"Don't touch me," she said coolly.
He did not recoil, and instead ignored Mikaela and said, "Listen carefully, my devoted little followers."
Mikaela shivered.
"This is dangerous," Starscream murmured.
"No shit, Sherlock," Mikaela replied. "We're sneaking into enemy territory, here."
"Enemy territory run by humans," Megatron pointed out. "Remember that well. They are nothing but insects beneath out feet. Fisher's political position and financial dominance mean nothing to us."
"They have Barricade," Mikaela remembered suddenly, her head shooting up, fingers digging into the ground as the thought of ways to incapacitate the mech, to strangle him, stab him, shoot him, something. He was just at fault as Fisher way, having had the opportunity to pick a side long ago.
"So? He has turned into the very beings he was built to despise," Megatron spat. "Fleshlings. He sided with one of them, and therefore he is as weak as one of them."
"He was a coward then, and he still is now," Starscream added, raising a finger.
Mikaela gave a small snort at the hypocrisy of Starscream's words. He was the last person she would expect to comment about cowardice. He practically lived by it.
"All insults aside," she said, "How are we getting in? Go up and knock on the front door? Starscream and I saw it myself; they have guards and security camera's all over the place."
Megatron narrowed his eyes. "When were you alone with Starscream?"
Mikaela brushed the matter away by saying, "it isn't important. What important is the plan."
"Your Prime would be proud," Starscream suddenly said, "making plans as if you were the one in charge. His leadership habits have rubbed off on you."
Mikaela was silent. And then, her words laced with an eerie emptiness, said, "yes. They have."
Megatron cleared his throat. "These are humans. Weak little bags of flesh. The compound is small, and I don't trust Starscream's overview of the security. I need to see it for myself to judge."
Starscream made an annoyed little noise in the back of his throat, with Megatron promptly silenced with a shove to the chest.
"Our biggest obstacle will be the Autobots," Megatron continued. "Fisher, no matter how arrogant–"
"Sound like someone I know," Mikaela muttered.
"– and pitiful he is, he has the sense to know when he's been had," Megatron tapped his chin. "And we want him alive."
"Preferably dead. But we'll see how it goes," Mikaela cut in, her fingers slick against the nighttime dew on the ground. The sudden change of events had her processors cooking up whole new plans even worse than the previous ones.
Mikaela sunk back and Megatron continued so speak, piecing together the puzzle faster than Mikaela would have ever hoped. She thought of Trina, and Optimus, and Ratchet.
So, so disappointed they would be. She told herself that they wouldn't understand, that this wasn't their fight.
No. This….whatever it was between her and Fisher….this was personal. She longed to speak to the man, the sickeningly handsome human with the honey voice and all the money. Not Optimus. Not Ratchet. Certainly not Trina.
"We aren't hurting anyone other than Fisher," Mikaela said.
"What?" Megatron's head turned briskly. It was one of those moments where he wasn't speaking because he hadn't heard, but because he was giving Mikaela a chance to change what she had said. But Mikaela didn't budge, didn't slink back down and cover her head with her hands like a scared little puppy.
"No one working for the Brotherhood is innocent, you fool," Starscream barked. He shot Megatron a look, and the Deception leader replied with a wave of a talon.
"Leave us," he said. "Circle the compound and see what you can see."
With a bow of his head, Starscream eased back and then, with a bellow of his thrusters, kicked up a cloud of dirt as he transformed, roared away into the night. The blast of heat buffered the grass and sent wet leaves flying.
"Now that out indigenous idiot has left us, I'll ask you again," Megatron leaned forward. "What did you say?"
"I said that nobody else is getting hurt. Or killed," Mikaela picked grass of her armor. "There's a difference."
"I know the different, you blithering imbecile," Megatron snarled. "I want to know why? Do you still think of yourself as one of them?"
"I never said that."
Megatron's hand shot out and caught her jaw, spinning her back so her head slammed into the grass.
"You are a fool."
"I'm trying to do the right thing," Mikaela grunted, inching up slowly. Megatron was over her, though, an iron talon clamping around her throat and lifting her up. Throat constricted, Mikaela managed, "Something that you've had the opportunity to do."
"There is a thin line between morality and immorality. It just depends on where you draw it," Megatron slammed her back down, hovering over her like a demon questing for a new soul to devour, to destroy….
And he was after hers. Mikaela struggled, fought, but his grip was to strong. His lip plates brushed across her audio receptors, one talon coming to tenderly touch her chest plates.
"She was always talking about 'doing the right thing,'" he whispered. "She believed that her way was the right way."
"Monogamy has a way of getting to people," Mikaela wheezed.
"It wasn't me. Or Prime," Megatron released Mikaela, and the smaller Cybertronian struggled to her feet. Megatron, too, was standing. "It was her," he tapped the side of his head. "Roadrunner wasn't like the others."
"How so?" Mikaela asked sullenly.
"She lived in her head. To her, body and mind were separate," Megatron gazed into the sky, optics searching for Starscream. He seemed to want the Seeker to return, to give him someone else other than Mikaela to pound.
"A body is just a body," Mikaela breathed.
"Has she been telling you that? No doubt she wants you to convert to her ways."
"But that's not what I believe."
"It's what she believes," Megatron gave a sad smile and reached out, brushing a talon against Mikaela's temple. "And she is a part of you."
Starscream chose that moment to drop out of the sky like a bird of prey, landing in front of Mikaela, causing the ground to shake. His armor was caked in dew, the liquid dripping down his wings, which he twitched, ridding himself of the moisture.
"Nice flight?" Mikaela inquired.
He shot her a dirty look. "I've had nicer. The compound, believe it or not, is clear of any guards. Given my expertise in technology, I should be able to disable the security camera in a matter of seconds."
Mikaela inhaled a gulp of air and glanced at Megatron.
"Remember what I told you," he whispered in her ear.
"I'll never forget it," Mikaela said, watching the two mech's leap into the air, each transformation quick and full of finesse. Mikaela transformed down, engine revving, a blast of heat, rocking the air around her.
"Let's kick."