The incident in New Kaon Arena hadn't been ignored. Shockwave had watched the security-feed, the manner in which he'd gained access to the cameras had hardly deviated from his typical activities.
Soundwave's network would fall - he simply needed more time.
Time.
Time, which Jetfire had just put into severe jeopardy.
The fight between Megatron and Jetfire wasn't anything Shockwave hadn't seen before - countless mechs had brutalized each other throughout the war. He watched as Megatron wretched Jetfire from his sorry cell and how Soundwave had followed along after his master without the slightest bit of hesitation.
While Soundwave had been distracted with his shockprod and Megatron, Shockwave had taken an opportunity to peruse the security-system he would decommission - soon, after Starscream made his moves.
Sadly, the lazy scrapheap was still asleep.
Shockwave had to make the annoying, suspicious detour to go wake the fraggin' loon up from recharge - fortunately they both worked and lived on the same floor - New Kaon's basement level.
He stood in front of Starscream's hab-suit door, keenly aware that Soundwave's omnipresent optics would later rover over the footage - criticizing his every move, his every action.
'Don't be suspicious.' But the wayward thought only caused Shockwave to shuffle awkwardly on the heels of his peds.
He entertained the idea of breaking into Starscream's room - a sleeping mech's room - which would look bad to everyone - Starscream technically outranked him in the Decepticon-hierarchy, and it would simply not be a professional look.
Shockwave wanted to laugh.
His optic-light pitched so high within its eyeglass, that it hurt.
'What a joke.' He mused - any laughter he internally manifested was contained within a strategic filibuster inside his mental-framework.
But with every passing cycle, he felt his holds around his emotional-center weaken ever so slightly. The shadowplay clamping down against his mind from his empurata-surgery - an old point in time, considered ancient history to many - was bellowing with steam and crashing fire.
One day his rolling emotions would boil over like radioactive-seepage.
It would burn him down from the inside, like a broken welding-stick.
He could only hope such a situation would only spillover to cause mild-discomfort to his surroundings - and wouldn't destroy him completely.
But his honest calculations did not lie.
His sparkeater-frame was hardly, sure, he could take beatings that would kill ordinary mechs twice-over - but a sparkeater's emotional-center was surprisingly fragile, fickle like a crystal flower when exposed to too much UV radiation. For all a sparkeater's armor and bravado, emotional turmoil could pierce through such a primitive creature most deeply - it was a hunter which never forgot a chase - it never forgot a bot who'd wronged it for any small sum - like a turbofox set on revenge towards a partridge that had once, vorns ago, had the audacity to fly away from its ravenous grasp.
There was little reward in pursuing the same line of dangerous thinking over and over.
After all, why hold an obsession with one prey-item, when there existed countless other mechs to consume?
Simply, being a sparkeater, at times, constituted becoming illogical.
The mere admittance.
Burned him up inside.
'Surely, it won't ever become a problem.' Shockwave sarcastically thought, in reference to again feeling a bitter-sour-laughter nip against his processor like a writhing parasitic worm - wanting to be acknowledged like the disowned, wayward child it was.
His servo hesitated only a nanoclick before he knocked against the door - the sound disturbed his sensitive audial-finials; ever since the incident of himself becoming a sparkeater, Shockwave's external-sensors picked up an overwhelming, almost useless, amount of information - like the exact thickness and alloy which composed the metal of the door - a cheap imitation titanium, weaker than cybertronian-steel, but it was easier to find and to manufacture during a war.
Shockwave didn't fault the Decepticon-cause for such a decision.
:"Starscream, wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Air Commander awaken.":
Shockwave tried to ping Starscream's commlink through the door, to no avail - the seeker must've been deep in stasis-lock if his messages went unanswered. Typically a spamation of ping-messages caused a mech to awaken - but if the method wasn't working - he'd have to manually awaken Starscream with his own servo and arm-cannon.
Shockwave internally sighed, acknowledging that his next course of action would be impossible to explain away to Soundwave in a satisfactory-manner.
'Soundwave has no power here. He can see, but he can't harm me.' He mentally affirmed. 'He could try.' If he had to, Shockwave would kill the security-officer himself, and skip the whole burdensome security-system meltdown he had to suffer colluding with Starscream to manufacture.
Truly.
It was suffering.
Shockwave could end the Decepticon-movement without much effort.
Step one: Walk up to Soundwave and eat his spark - ta-da, the security-system was now under his ownership.
Step two: Punch a keyboard to reawaken Trypticon A.K.A "The Nemesis" ship - an old grumpy cybertronian-titan brainwashed to ferry the Decepticon-forces around like it was a space-cruise party.
Step three: Trypticon kills Megatron, or leaves him stranded on Earth at the mercy of the Autobots - and neither Shockwave or Starscream would have to get their servos dirty.
Though that was exactly the problem, wasn't it?
The plan was too easy and unappealing.
The outcome was too predictable and unsatisfactory.
Starscream expressed interest in eating Megatron's spark himself, and Shockwave wasn't about to rob him of the well-deserved pleasure.
Secretly, Shockwave really wanted Starscream and Megatron to fight.
He wanted to see them fight to the death.
If he told Starscream, he figured the mech would agree...or maybe not?
And on occasion, Shockwave himself loved to bash some skulls in: to turn mechs into husks he could later use up as parts, to transfigure their once useless lives into his endless roller coaster of indecent material curiosities. He called them projects.
Shockwave wanted to be logical - he really did.
But Shockwave and Starscream were just too old - over 1 billion years old to be exact.
Mechs that age.
Naturally, always.
Became illogical.
Unfortunately, working with dear ol' ancient, nagging Starscream was always like pulling teeth from cybertronian-mice - full of useless little rewards, each slippery and hard to get.
"Starscream, wake up!" Logically, the next step he tried was shouting. "Wake up, Air Commander!" With every vent, he felt Soundwave's optics manifest within the hallway cameras. "Wake up!" The noise attracted the attention of vehicons who patrolled the halls. They stopped walking, staring at him with much too curious optics. Then mechs carrying bulky construction supplies were forced to stop, unable to get by the parked vehicons safely.
Everybot there eyed him nervously - as if they instinctively knew what he was.
Shockwave wanted to command them away, but he knew not allowing them to look would simply paint him as more suspicious - perhaps they'd report right away to Soundwave then, and Starscream wouldn't have the time to do what he needed to do.
Now.
At that very moment.
Shockwave knocked his knuckles against the door - slightly mortified he hadn't done the logical, common action consistently, as he was thinking.
'Overthinking will be my downfall.' He noted.
Still, the berthroom door did not move aside, despite his polite knocking.
He needed Starscream awake.
Now.
Regardless of the growing vehicon audience, and mechs of the less memorable variety - Shockwave revealed his sparkeater claws and began to mangle the door open. He only had one servoful of claws for an imperceptible application of telekinesis, which he used to gingerly steady the door for his next move. His arm-cannon transformed into a humming-buzzsaw hell of teeth - it used to be a drill-attachment to burrow tunnels throughout the Earth - but Shockwave replaced it a while ago - seeing it as more agreeable to have his arm serve as a mouth - he enjoyed to eat his prey whole - not to be forced to suck their mere juices like a butterfly.
The cannon of hell-teeth worked beautifully, chewing through the door as if it were mere cheap Earth-steel.
Shockwave entered the room, refusing to swivel his head to acknowledge the gossiping, scandalized crowd.
He found Starscream curled atop his berth, like a squirrel within its nest. For a handful of nanoclicks, Starscream remained peaceable, blissfully unaware in recharge, before Shockwave placed his clawed servo atop him.
Then the screaming started.
"Get out, you oblivious buffoon!" Starscream, by all accounts, was mortified to see him there. He'd quickly stood atop his berth, perched to attack. "Shockwave, you utter walking crimescene!" Starscream shrieked, as if terrified - yet he was completely awake as he hurled himself upwards to blind Shockwave in his one-optic.
Starscream failed of course.
As he always did.
A swift kick from the purple mech was all that was needed to send Starscream careening into a wall. His spine clanged painfully as he slid down the metal, flopping down onto his belly. Any drowsiness from being in recharge had washed away completely - his wings twitched dangerously, sharply.
Starscream screeched.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
The sound was an ultrasonic-droning, powerful enough to shatter weak glass.
But it was meant as a distraction, not as an attack.
Starscream didn't use his sparkeater powers often, only making use of his armor's durability and little else.
He liked to be unseen, lowkey on the battlefield.
He didn't have the energy for anything else.
At least ever since Shockwave had cleaved him into three mechs: Skywarp, Thundercracker, and a lesser version of himself.
So it was an easy matter for Shockwave to simply pick up Starscream by the scruff of his neck, a mane of spikes had grown there from the meat of his protoform, but outside of the prickly appearance, little else had changed to show Starscream was a sparkeater.
Starscream was still Starscream.
Shockwave was still Shockwave.
"Let me go you brute! I scheduled this cycle off! You're being very unfair right now!" Starscream whined, not unlike a child as he was dragged out of his room. Then Starscream saw the gathered crowd of Decepticons right outside, and his sleepy petulant expression morphed into a horrifying, bristling scream.
"Get back to work you despicable slackers!" He paused to reset his vocal-cords. "Now!" The sound was deep and hypnotic, like a scream done underwater. The Decepticon crowd didn't scatter and leave, but they scrambled out of Shockwave's way as a kicking and scratching Starscream was held out in front of him like an unconventional shield. Any bot who didn't get out of the way soon enough, found themselves hit by Starscream's elongated, serrated claws and talons. Most mechs screamed, as their purple-blue energon splattered about, but others stepped away, looking at their new injuries bizarrely, almost giddily, as if it was a blessing to be scarred by their Air Commander - some kind of twisted souvenir.
Once past the crowd, things proceeded like normal. Vehicons returned to their duties as if nothing had happened and Starscream had removed himself from Shockwave's grasp, walking in front of the mech normally with hands clasped behind his back.
Starscream opted for a commlink-conversation.
:"So, do tell me why you so rudely barged into my room and destroyed the one bit of peace I'm granted once per deca-cycle?":
Shockwave rolled his optic as he scrolled through countless other messages Starscream had thrown at him - each contained a variety of insult-combinations crafted specifically for him. He deleted the majority of the one-sided conversation, taking note of Starscream's still-dented helm to bring up later.
He decided to cut to the chase.
:"Jetfire bit Megatron.": He said simply.
Starscream froze, not taking another step further. With an internal sigh, Shockwave grabbed Starscream again by his neck spikes, dragging him along the hallway like half-eaten meat - both appeared like strange unruly animals to the Decepticons brave enough to keep watching.
"I suppose the repairs should be done quickly." Starscream was there besides Shockwave, stroking the neck-plates of a stasis-locked predacon. The berth it was on took up front and center of the room - it was the distraction Shockwave and Starscream were betting on.
They needed to have a dangerous, open conversation which could give away their collusion - their unwarranted familiarity with the other, when Shockwave was supposed to be missing on Cybertron for four million years. They had commlink-conversations whenever possible, but working in pure silence would come off as even more suspicious to the likes of Megatron and Soundwave, especially when Starscream was a gregarious mech known to talk his glossa off.
So they used the predacon as the driving-force behind their conversation - Shockwave and Starscream were merely co-workers working on a project together - not a suspicious activity at all - it was considered perfectly innocent, when placed under Decepticon-scrutiny.
'Nothing suspicious at all,' reiterated Starscream, to himself, smirking unpleasantly or perhaps nervously as he continued to pet the unconscious predacon. The beast terrified him, but his fears lessened somewhat when he felt its softest scales beneath his servo - it kindled within him reassurance that his claws could pierce the underbelly in battle - and win.
A predacon awoke within him his most ancient memories.
Those of when cybertronians walked atop a planet name Kaon, a time before Cybertron or Primus himself had ever existed.
Perhaps he was more easily influenced then he would ever admit.
Starscream could only think of killing the predacon in front of him, even though it was a harmless newborn.
He felt some outdated, jaded instinct to protect his family, his sparklings in their dark cavernous home - a habitat ancient predacons would stalk and plunder.
Starscream had been obsessively watching Jetfire's arena fights ever since Shockwave had shown him the recordings a joor or so ago. There were only three fights in total: the one with the predacon, the one with Soundwave jumping everywhere, and the one with Megatron punching Jetfire - over and over.
The last one was particularly upsetting for obvious reasons.
Starscream wanted desperately to sit besides Jetfire, to hold his hands in his lap, to tell him everything would be okay - like he'd used to tell the sparkling.
But Jetfire wasn't a baby anymore.
He hadn't been a mechling for much longer either.
Jetfire and his brothers had grown up fast to survive.
And now, Jetfire was finally growing into his adult-frame, or the façade of one - whatever ugly compromise Shockwave had finally devised. Shockwave hadn't been forth coming about the details of Jetfire's upgrade, much to Starscream's chagrin; but considering the horrifying nature of Shockwave's projects, Starscream easily decided he was better off not knowing, least he robbed Jetfire the joy of growing up.
Starscream was forced from his musing by a servo slapped atop his shoulder - cursedly purple and familiar. He shrugged off Shockwave's servo, disgust plain written across his features.
"So, what do you think of Cliffjumper?" asked Shockwave.
The word "Cliffjumper," was a stand-in for "Trypticon," a name infamously banned from all Decepticon-discussions. Just the mere mention of the name put a mech on Soundwave's automated watchlist - it was a ridiculous system.
Yet the term "Cliffjumper" wasn't misapplied, regardless of the situation, it was appropriate.
The predacon wasn't a newspark - the beast's spark was Cliffjumper's; albeit, could he really be considered the same mech?
Cliffjumper was left with no memories and imprisoned within a new body.
'My Cliffjumper, look what we've done to you.' He shook his head, correcting his line of thinking. 'Or I suppose more appropriately, what Quasar and Seaspray decided to do with you.' Those sparklings of his - he tisked - each had become so innovative and evil.
His spark swelled darkly with something resembling pride.
"Starscream?"
"Yes, yes, Shockwave! I hear you! Just let me think!" Starscream snapped and finally stopped petting the predacon, stepping away to look at the gash upon its leg.
'I can't believe Jetfire just did that. He typically...wasn't so aggressive.' Starscream thought, stitching the wound closed with a spraying scrap-filler, delivered from a fingertip. The wound would heal on its own, but it was unsightly.
Starscream reflected further: compared to his brothers, Jetfire had always been considered a kind sweet-spark, and a most generous and brave child.
At least compared to the others.
It was easy to look good when everyone around you was a demon.
'Compared to the others...' Starscream had to sourly remind himself, that he had many failures as a Ma-ker...
...
...
So many children he had to put down himself, simply because they insisted on killing too many, too often.
They'd ignored countless warnings - nothing could deter the most unreasonable little monsters - besides death itself.
...
...
'But Jetfire is different.' He insisted. 'Jetfire held back from killing Megatron.'
Starscream was certain he could've finished the job.
Megatron wasn't exactly preforming proper maintenance or fighting mechs on the daily anymore.
'Megatron is just a sad, washed up gladiator.' Starscream smirked - unlike Megatron, since the war began, he'd never stopped fighting. He'd' never stopped wrestling the sparks out of mechs twice-his-size - when no one was around - besides the victim and him.
But Megatron.
Starscream chuckled.
Megatron had gotten rusty, atop his throne.
He again looked at Jetfire's arena recordings, particularly a clip of him biting Megatron's servo - replaying the sight of sinking fangs into that particular flesh, over and over - that one clip Starscream saved countless copies of, to ensure it would fester within his processor to become a future, cherished memory.
'Serves that filthy jackaft right. Becoming a sparkeater will destroy what's left of his pathetic mind: either the transformation process will drive him over the edge, or Unicron's energon will.
Starscream shuddered, giddy with pleasure.
He wouldn't have to be a Decepticon anymore, soon.
The war was over.
Again, a purple servo slapped his shoulder, taking him away from his blissful daydream - he was suppose to be asleep, peacefully in recharge. The last thing he wanted to do was to cooperate with a monster that used to be his brother.
"Fine, Shockwave. Proceed."
They would talk about the predacon, in reference to their plans for Trypticon.
"The repairs are no issue. I can make the replacement parts in a matter if joors; then we'll consider it my favor repaid. Is that correct Shockwave?"
"Yes, your debt will be settled. Your blunder for abandoning me on Cybertron will be forgiven. I simply want to save time on this operation." Stated Shockwave.
"Really? Do you think this predacon - this Cliffjumper - will obey you?" asked Starscream.
"Yes. Yes. He. Will." Shockwave paused, his optic roved a little too closely over Starscream's dented helm. Such an injury could put the entire operation in jeopardy, but the concern went unsaid - time was of the essence.
"He will obey you too, I am certain." And only then he looked away from Starscream - the dent had somehow grown deeper than when he'd last seen it.
Defensively, Starscream held up his claws, glaring at Shockwave with all the hatred his tired body could muster.
"Good." He snarled.