Burned (Transformers Prime)

Chapter Twenty-Two | Hurricane

"I'm the violence in the pouring rain,
I'm a hurricane."

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Megatron ignored the call for a third time, not wanting to give the Autobots the satisfaction of an answer. He was still puzzling over the bitterness of the human femme in his care, able to grasp that he was the cause, but finding little logic in why she was so intensely angry. She lost her legs, that much was clear, but it wasn't the end of the world. Surely she would heal, or come to terms with the development.

As the call finally ended the monitor beeped with a notification: an embedded message, likely having been bounced around multiple times so the Decepticons couldn't untangle their whereabouts. But at the moment Megatron didn't care. He had what he wanted.

"Sir, a message-"

"I know." He snapped at the drone who dared to state the obvious and interrupt his train of thought. "Don't open it. It is obvious that the Autobots want their human back."

"Yes sir." The Vehicon paused as something ran through its simplistic processors. "Do you want me to delete it?"

"No." The offending Vehicon received another glare. "I will listen to it another time, when it suits me."

"Yes sir." After a few taps the message notification disappeared from the screen.

As silence fell back over the bridge the warlord let his thoughts wander again, most of them focused on the human in the wheelchair. He thought over tactics to gain her acknowledgement and provoke her into revealing exactly what the core of her bitterness was. In their previous conversation, she spoke of mourning the loss of her future life plan. Well, that seemed relatively easy to adjust, so it had to be something else. Or perhaps it was a combination of things.

Regardless, it made him frustrated that she refused to see such reasonable conclusions. It made him even angrier that their former play seemed to be nothing to her but a game, and when she got hurt, she didn't want to play anymore.

He lost time, relics, and Orion Pax to her and her spitfire words, yet he had persisted. And now when she suffered a loss it was as if her world was coming to an end. He found the situation hardly fair. But in her defense, he supposed, humans were much weaker in comparison to the Cybertronian race. Physically, mentally, and oftentimes emotionally weaker as well.

His servos curled into fists. Just thinking about how bitter she was made him mad. It made the effort to capture her seem worthless, but Megatron was not about to give up just yet. He would find a way to tease out the fire again, and perhaps in the meantime he would also discover what exactly about her made him so intrigued with her.

And if her usefulness ended long before it began, he had another reason to keep her alive: a bargaining tool. Her guardian was the medic, Ratchet - Optimus Prime's lapdog. He most certainly would not let Optimus get away with leaving the human femme to die. Not if he truly cared about her.

Megatron gazed at his reflection in the screen in front of him. Much to his surprise, the thought of using her again did not appeal to him as much as it did before, when the Omega Lock was just four keys away from being his to command. In fact, the plan seemed . . . Terrible. He didn't like the prospect of bargaining her life again.

Why?

"Soundwave," he commanded. "Monitor the bridge. I have something else to attend to." After a silent affirmative from his third in command, the warlord stalked off of the bridge, heading back to the human femme he had left in his room.