While I usually get a good laugh out of reviews bashing Arcee for being the only one not happy about Airachnid being Elita, I feel I have to ask that you keep them appropriate or I will have to remove them.

xx

As if Megatron's ego wasn't already battered enough by Airachnid's impossible survival, the loss of the Star Sabre was enough to made his spark crackle with a fury Unicron would have been proud of, if he was still awake in the purple veins of his herald's chamber. Though by now some Decepticons were convinced Megatron and Unicron were just two sides of the same sword, equally deadly.

Knockout thought so, at least, and certainly so did Soundwave while he was chained to the table. The disgraced officer must have hoped he'd just been forgotten about by now, but Megatron was turning the med-bay dark with his scowl as he marched around its walls.

"Let's not waste any more time, Knockout," the warlord growled, throwing very frequent glares down at Soundwave that he didn't bother acknowledging. "I will get the Star Sabre, if I have to slice off Optimus Prime's entire servo for it!"

Knockout was sure he'd do that anyway just to spite the Prime, but he knew better than to even mutter that as he tried to calibrate Soundwave's demise. "Be patient, my liege. Ever since that Autobot break-in the Patch has been put under much tighter security. I need to wait until the software has fully initialised."

"Just get it done." Even though Megatron didn't grab him, Knockout knew how close he was to tearing into the walls. So with enough prayers to Primus, or Unicron, or whoever the Pit was still listening to him, he was finally met with the software interface on his screen. Now all that was left was to plug the transfer cable in, heavy in his hand as he looked underneath Soundwave's cold frame to find his data port and-

Groan when he found the port sealed shut, just as Soundwave's processor scans went dead on the monitor behind him.

"Oh, come on, Soundwave, now you're just being childish!" The medic hissed the curse in his vents, yet Megatron still turned around like he was magnetised to bad news.

"What is the problem, doctor?" he said slowly, each word a death threat in of itself that had Knockout cowering in the safety of the table.

"Well, m-my lord, somehow he's... managed to put himself into stasis lock. And since it's self-induced, it's very unlikely the reversal methods will-"

Knockout hesitantly raised himself up from under the table, only to find Megatron-sized hole torn in the wall instead of the warlord himself. "...Work." He let the cable fall to the ground and weighed up the benefits of trying to weld the hole shut or just welding Soundwave to the table in petty revenge.

Megatron, meanwhile, was brushing seared metal shavings off his frame as he carved a warpath through the Nemesis. Each step forward was a quake, each vent a snarl flung out from the Pit, and the only thing that spared a thousand poor drones from getting in his way was Dreadwing popping up at the end of the corridor.

"My lord?"

Megatron stopped like he'd just hit a wall, one that managed to knock some lucidity into his burning processor. "Dreadwing. At least there's one mech I can still count on around here..."

The Seeker kept his frame solid, though his fallen wings betrayed his unease as he saw how much of his leader was on the verge of exploding into dark fireballs from rage. "I thought you were overseeing the administration of the Psychic Patch on Soundwave?"
"I was, but... he is much more stubborn than I anticipated. He's managed to induce stasis in himself, and the Patch refuses to connect." His anger only built on top of itself as he recounted it, and Dreadwing had to resist the urge to take a step back.
"That is unfortunate, my liege. Why not simply terminate him, if you are certain of his betrayal?"

And Dreadwing wish he did step back as Megatron leaned in, fire in his vocaliser and lava in his glare. "Because in that processor, he knows something I don't. And I will not let him slip away to the Pit before getting it out of him."

Dreadwing felt his vocaliser stall, turning his words to incriminating static before he managed to reboot it. "Is there anything I can do to assist?" He would have given his wings if it meant he never had to see such hatred in a bot's face ever again, even that of his leader.

But thankfully it seemed to evaporate as Megatron straightened, looking elsewhere as if wondering himself where the intensity came from. "No, no, continue with your duties. I have a more immediate concern to be dealing with in any case...for once, the Autobots are dangerously close to exceeding us. I will not stand for it. I must undertake... drastic measures." He'd moved past Dreadwing by now, towards the corridor that eventually lead to the flight deck, but the Seeker felt a rare curiosity pulling him around.

"Such as, my lord?"
Megatron stopped as he turned back to face him. "Robbing the grave of a Prime," he confessed, though more as an unpleasant task rather than an act of shameless heresy. "Only then will I be given the power of the Forge, and then the power to defeat Optimus."

Usually Dreadwing would have offered to accompany him, but... his wings dropped low just at the thought. So with loyalty winning out against instincts screaming in his spark, he let Megatron go on as he continued on his way across the med-bay, pausing outside the huge rend in the wall that he was sure wasn't there before now. At first it was just to try figuring out how it ended up there, but then he heard something from beyond it that bolted him to the floor, hidden by the rest of the wall.

"Chop chop, Knockout, the skies have been missing me." However long he'd spent wandering Earth's wastes, Starscream still sounded as despicable as ever. Of all the things that had Dreadwing questioning Megatron's processor function, it was the decision to let the traitor live and, on top of that monumental blessing, give him a free T Cog that left him wondering what kind of effect Earth had on his leader.

At least Knockout was there as a rock for Starscream's waves of smugness to break up against into useless foam. "I'm sure they're missing you a lot more than any of us... if it were up to me, Starscream, I'd have you melted down into a T Cog."

"But it isn't up to you, is it? Megatron must have all his officers running at peak efficiency, after all... where has our exalted leader ran off to, anyway? I can see what direction he's gone..."
Dreadwing heard Knockout muffle a snort. "Knowing him, it will likely involve Dark Energon and a very, very bad idea. I'm sure you have experience of that, Starscream, minus the Dark Energon." Usually that kind of talk against Megatron would have had Dreadwing dragging the speaker into a stasis pod for a day, but eavesdropping had numbed his instincts of fealty, at least until he'd heard all they had to say.

Though it only took one mutter from Starscream barely breaching the edge of Dreadwing's audio range to make the Seeker's entire spark numb. "If only you knew, Knockout... Skyquake did, at least."

"What was that?" Knockout asked, as a slow realisation dawned on Dreadwing that would have sent him charging through the med-bay to tear Starscream's helm off if he wasn't still frozen to the ground by sheer will.
"Hm? Nothing, nothing, just... lamenting." Starscream was oblivious to the eruption barely holding itself together just a wall away, happily smug with all his failed experiments and acts against Primus.

"Well, don't strain yourself, or you won't have much energy left for sulking and scheming," Knockout said, and he seemed to finally make Starscream join Soundwave in stasis as that was the last sound Dreadwing heard before the distant whirr of a drill behind the thick thud of energon boiling in his helm, all over his shaking frame, that managed to thaw him free of shock.

In that instant, the nanoklick it took for him to turn and head for the ship's vault, Dreadwing made his decision. The Forge had been laying in there all this time, not even guarded by a lock when only three bots onboard were strong enough to even wield it. Dreadwing was included in that trio, yet he still struggled to pull the weapon from its suspension. Not just because of all his years of loyalty, the centuries spend toiling in Megatron's shadow only to find nothing at the end of the trail but a traitor standing over his brother's corpse, playing him like a puppet on Dark Energon strings. Rage, betrayal running deep in his cables, both gave him strength and weakened him with uncontrollable thoughts of staining the ship blue with Seeker energon. And then... then he would wait for Megatron. And with Solus Prime at his back, he'd demand answers and justice.

Or... perhaps he would seek it elsewhere. Away from the Nemesis, from Megatron, from all trace of Dark Energon.

"Out of all the bots I've expected to betray Megatron, I have to say you were never on that list."

Though shock laced through his frame, Dreadwing managed to keep a hold on the Forge as he turned towards Knockout's voice at the door of the vault. No doubt Starscream was abandoned in his stasis, and that Dreadwing's eavesdropping wasn't as subtle as he'd hoped.

"Do not attempt to stop me, Knockout." He tightened his claws around the divine hammer, but Knockout only shrugged.
"I won't. Though don't expect me to keep silent to Megatron when he starts interrogating us about your disappearance."

"Good." Dreadwing held the face of the Forge in his other hand as he marched slowly towards Knockout. "Let him know who plundered the vault. Let him know that he is running dangerously low on loyalty."

The medic gave no reply, but he moved aside as Dreadwing drew near, wincing slightly at the hurricane of his EM field whipping against him. Dreadwing followed Megatron's path to the flight deck, intent on leaving no Ground Bridge co-ordinates to betray him even more, but just before he reached the hallway junction he stopped. The first hint of Megatron's downward spiral into what he could only call madness came before the Seeker had even arrived on Earth and suddenly he wondered if perhaps he was just the last one to notice it.
"Knockout... did you know?"

The medic raised an eyeridge. "Know what?"

"Did you know Airachnid was carrying, before her exile?"
Knockout's optics widened visibly even with the distance between them. "...I did," he eventually confessed.

"Then perhaps you made the right choice," Dreadwing said, turning his back on the medic and the Decepticons.