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Optimus was riding Starscream’s contrails, gaining, his jets spitting out flames that scorched his lower back and legs. His turbojets had never been pushed to this extreme, driving his heavy, bulky frame forward after the seeker jet at a speed that could combust his engine. He had abandoned firing at Starscream, he was set to catch up to him, get his hands on him, halt him in his escape.
“GAHH-! I need a groundbridge, NOW!” His target shrieked, twirling and weaving, dancing to evade capture.
You are not making it to that bridge. You are not making it home. Optimus squinted against the wind and ordered his systems to fight, to hold on just a little bit longer.
Starscream’s portal to safety spun to life just ahead, but massive servos were already closing around his tail end. Optimus swung both of them off track from the bridge, rocketing upwards into a blanket of flashing clouds. The crackling of lightning and the booms of thunder drowned out the seeker’s terrified racket. Smoke billowed around them as Optimus’ turbojets sighed down to just enough power to keep him floating upright. He shook Starscream hard, and the seeker transformed, swiping with razor talons.
Energon dripped to the world below in the places he landed, deep slashes in thick armor, but Optimus did not let him strike for long. One wing was crumpling in one of his servos, and with a little twist, Starscream gave a glass-shattering bellow of pain. He gripped Optimus’ wrist, pried at the grasp on his neck and shoulder, piercing into what he hoped would be energon veins, but the grip was stone.
Another twist, sleek metal warping under blunt fingertips, and a horrible wrench, and the wing was dangling from Optimus’ hand, torn from its owner. The scream was a harrowing, broken sound, Starscream’s clawed grip became entirely involuntary, his control lost in his blinding agony.
“Call home.” The Prime ordered. He dropped the wing, and it plummeted, spinning its way to the ground below.
Interference crackled as Starscream’s comm connected, Optimus just barely picking up the sound. He drew Starscream closer to thunder into the channel, “Connect me to Megatron, now.” He nearly had to shout over the seeker’s sobs and keens.
A long moment passed, and Optimus had to listen to the pain he had inflicted. He kept his expression hardened, his jaw set, his mind made up.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Prime?”
Optimus met Starscream’s fearful eyes, his servo finding the other wing.
“No-no-no PLEASE-!”
The comm link was flooded by wretched screams.
“Megatron, you will return my medic to me,” Optimus seethed. “Or Starscream will lose more than his wings. And he will not be the only Decepticon. I will take and take from you, all the way to the top. You know well that I keep my word.” He crushed Starscream’s plating enough to make him wail tearfully and plead. “Soundwave will be next, for taking Ratchet, if he is not delivered to me without harm.”
The uninhibited threat clung to the stormy air around them, and Optimus wore it in his eyes and on his shoulders and in his spark.
When Megatron stepped off of his hood and windshield, Ratchet transformed, gasping, his systems hissing from the blunt pressure. His pride screamed at him to stand, to refuse to kneel before Megatron, but he knew he could not stay upright without taking a moment to recover.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so certain, Doctor. My experts are working diligently to disentangle your false trail as we speak.”
Well, that is it, then, Ratchet realized, expression betraying him, showcasing his panic to the warlord. Earth is done for, and you are of no use to him. Would he be executed right here in the hall? He swallowed the dread of these being his final moments, and his role in exterminating humanity.
The warlord’s attention was not on him, however. His optics were narrowed, pointed at Ratchet, but he was processing something else. He was listening to his comm, expression tightening, jaw clenching. “Put me through.” He snarled, and his focus returned to his eyes and the captive before him. Ratchet drew back, but there was no escaping the talons closing around his neck and upper chassis. He yelped as he was hoisted up, prying at Megatron’s wrist. His back hit the wall hard enough to make his backstruts creak, Primus he was too old to be thrown around like this. He feebly tried to return his pedes to the ground, but Megatron kept him at eye-level, trapped. One knuckle pushed into his throat, his voicebox, with firm, unyielding pressure, threatening to crush it. Ratchet could only spit out static and a few syllables. He choked on the pain, optics flickering, suffering the indignity and humiliation to be held silent like this while Megatron took a call.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Prime?” He rumbled. He watched Ratchet for his reaction.
“No-no-no PLEASE-!”
The screams that followed were piercing, and Megatron flinched at the pain in his audials from the volume.
“Megatron, you will return my medic to me, or Starscream will lose more than his wings. And he will not be the only Decepticon. I will take and take from you, all the way to the top. You know well that I keep my word. Soundwave will be next, for taking Ratchet, if he is not delivered to me without harm.”
Megatron and Ratchet watched each other, listening, processing, gauging reactions.
He ripped Starscream’s wings off. Ratchet did not bother to hide his shock, but it was likely unreadable through the pain in his face. When the medic had tortured a miner, it was bad enough, a war crime, in fact, a slap to Optimus’ face. He had struggled to swallow the fact that his closest friend had stooped to Decepticon morality. But here and now, Optimus had ripped the wings off of a seeker. Had he even asked questions or made any demands? What had Starscream done that had pushed him to this extreme? What other options had been exhausted?
Megatron’s talons tightened, and his vents let out a pathetic wheeze. “That is the emptiest attempt at deception you have ever given me. You, the noble Optimus Prime, are going to slaughter a defenseless captive? One that you have crippled?”
“No, NO! PLEASE!” The sound of warping metal and snapping of circuits and armor.
The warlord’s face twisted into a grimace. Nobody was under the delusion that Megatron valued Starscream’s health, rather the value of his chess piece, and the audacity the other king had in making demands, using his underlings for his own side of the board. “Your timing is impeccable.” He drawled. Ratchet withered when Megatron smirked at him with vile intent. “You will never guess who is helpless, throat in my hand, at this very moment.” He moved closer, and Ratchet kicked and thrashed at the sound of his sword hissing forth from beneath his fusion cannon. “Shall we let him hear you, Doctor? Shall we trade blood for blood?”
“No-no-no, Lord Megatron, he-!” The sounds of Starscream struggling and the hum of an activating blaster were obvious.
“If Ratchet bleeds, I take Starscream’s spark.”
“I remain unconvinced.” Megatron doubled down. “I was seconds from taking dearest Ratchet to the lab, to show him the fruits of his labor, before I offer him to my predacon. I pity the poor lapdog that ran yapping too far from his owner and made himself a target.” He pressed the tip of his blade delicately to Ratchet’s cheek, just below his optic, forcing him to be still as stone despite the pain of being crushed. “How slow will it be, I wonder? Will he lose limb after limb? Will he be disemboweled or ripped in half? Shall I leave whatever is left of him for you to find and mourn?”
“Every Decepticon your empire stands upon hangs in the balance, Megatron. I will rip every single one out from beneath you. The snake’s head is nothing without its spine and rattle.”
The pressure against Ratchet’s voicebox eased up, and he coughed and groaned in relief. He bit his glossa and inside of his cheek as Megatron’s blade pushed in and carved into his faceplate, making a slow journey diagonally towards his opposite jaw. Hot energon ran down to his mouth and chin, and he clenched his expression with the effort of staying silent. Megatron hissed in agitation when he failed to produce a noise. He slid his blade under one of the doors on Ratchet’s chassis, and the medic gasped, taking energon into his mouth and then spitting it out. He shook his helm, a wordless plea.
The warlord let out a low chuckle. “There’s the spot.” He wedged the blade in, and then prised the door away from his chassis, cutting deep into him while tearing the door off simultaneously. Ratchet cried out, nothing compared to Starscream’s wails, but it was enough to make the comm run cold. Optimus freezing at the sound of his medic’s pain, Starscream wondering if this was his final moment, Megatron drinking in the way Ratchet writhed and gave him the sounds he wanted. “I would take your optics, but I want you to see your death approaching you, I want to see the fear in your eyes.”
Starscream did not have the time to shriek. The gunshot, the sound of armor shattering, the explosion of a spark, the splatter of a point blank execution, and then a hard silence.
Megatron threw Ratchet to the ground and kicked his side, striking out his fury. “I intend to keep my promise to the predacon,” he fumed. “But it is oh so tempting to let you hear Ratchet die, right here.”
“I am coming for you.”
It could apply to either Megatron or Ratchet, a promise to both, with entirely different meanings.