"Hey, flyboy, what's eatin' you?"
                        
        Thundercracker snaps back to reality, startled by the sudden attention,
and looks up to meet Rampage's quizzical gaze.

        "Oh....it's nothing, Rampage.  Just...thinking," he replies trying to
brush him off.

        "'At's a bad habit to get yerself into.  Don't bother with it.  Jus'
slows ya down," Rampage offers proudly.  Then he suddenly leaps back.
"OH!  I gotta get back to the TV.  New Stone Temple Pilots video's comin' up
after the news, y'know.  GRAAAAA!"  Quickly, he bounds away and around the
corner, screaming all the way.

        "Moron," Thundercracker mutters as rises from his seat and resumes his
thoughts.  He hasn't been able to shake Octane's cruel murder of Thrust
from his mind since they returned to the base.  Doubts about what he is
fighting for often surface in his head, but this time, the usual
supressants; the Decepticon manifest destiny, the superiority of
Transformers over other beings, even the possible wrath of Megatron have
failed to remove the image of Thrust's pathetic pleading for his life.  And
the weight of that image on his mind is apparent to the rest of the
Decepticons.

        "Hey, Thundy, what's wrong?" Kickback asks, sounding genuinely
concerned.

        "Don't call me Thundy," he spits back, tersely.  "Go bug somebody
else."

        "Ha, ha, ha.  You're a riot," Kickback responds, sarcastically.  "But
seriously, you look like something's really bothering you.  C'mon, you can
tell me," he pleads.

        "No I can't and you know it," Thundercracker snaps.  "Buzz off."

        "You can stop the puns anytime," grunts Kickback, visibly annoyed, but
trying to calm himself.  "Hey, you know I'm your friend, ri-"

        "You are NOT my friend, Kickback.  You are a sneaky little blackmailer
hoping to draw something incriminating out of me to run off and tell
Megatron about to make yourself look better.  Now, your little ploys might
work on a Dinobot but they don't fool me, so just shut up and go back to
your hive."
        
        Thundercracker gives him a punctuating shove and begins to storm away.
Kickback returns to his feet, brimming with anger.

        "I AM NOT A BEE!"  he screams, bringing a smile to Thundercracker's
face.


---*That dirty little Insecticon weasel is not my friend.  But, come to
think of it, can a Decepticon even have friends?  I mean, if you're truly
friends with someone, you tend to have compassion for them.  And around
here, compassion is a glaring weakness.  I guess the way it works is that
you can work well with your comrades, or you can hate your comrades.  You
can't like them, or else you'll be ridiculed if it ever happens to show,
and it may be a hinderance in battle.  It's all business.  You can only
have allies.  No friends.*---


        Suddenly, he is once again shaken from his thoughts, this time by
crashing sounds from the other end of the corridor.  Running out to
investigate, along with a slew of other Decepticons, Thundercracker quickly
makes his way down the corridor and turns the corner only to nearly collide
with Blast Off.

        "Blast it, Thundercracker, you OAF!  You almost hit me!" Blast Off
shouts, indignantly.

        "What's going on?  What's all the noise?" Thundercracker asks, ignoring
Blast Off's insults.

        "Oh, it's just those ignorant ruffians going at it again."  Blast Off
replies in disgust.  "And to think, I have to share my mind with him.
Bah."

        Thundercracker looks past Blast Off to see what he was referring to.

        "Awww, ya gotta do better 'n that, buckethead!" taunts Blitzwing as he
easily slips out of Brawl's headlock.

        "Shut yer trap, ya greasy little sumbitch!" Brawl shouts back,
entangling with his opponent once again.  "Get back here so's I can strangle
ya!"

        The two of them fall to the floor, wrestling around, as a small crowd
begins to gather around them.

        "Any particular reason for this, Blast Off?" Thundercracker asks.

        "None that I can comprehend," Blast Off sneers.  "These simpletons seem
to enjoy beating on each other, for some sort of... primitive satisfaction
they derive from it."  He punctuates his last statement with an exasperated
sigh.

The two combatants spill all over the floor, laughing hysterically and
trying to gain an advantage over each other, while the crowd cheers them
on.

        "They better not have too much fun," Thundercracker mutters to himself,
observing their euphoria.  "They may get to like each other."

"ALL DECEPTICONS REPORT TO AUDITORIUM AT ONCE.  MEGATRON COMMANDS."

        Soundwave's statement finds its way into each Decepticon's head, via
inter-Con radio, and interrupts the festivities at hand.

        "Aww, shoot, Brawl!  And I was just about to finish you off!" spits
Blitzwing, picking himself up.

        "Sez you!  I had you down for the count!" Brawl spits back, standing.

        The rest of the crowd chuckles at the exchange and begins to head
towards the auditorium.

        "This is not gonna be fun," laments Divebomb, loudly, changing the mood
of the crowd.

        "Yeah," concurs Ramjet. "I betcha we get chewed out for getting
plastered by the Autobots today."

        "No doubt about it," responds Dead End.  "I wonder which one of us
he'll destroy as 'an example of what happens to failures' or whatever."  That
statement brings an abrupt end to the mutterings of the crowd, replacing
them with an eerie silence as each Decepticon begins to ponder his own
fate, and some begin to fear for their lives.

        "That is such a ridiculous form of motivation," murmurs Blast Off,
finally.  "I can't believe he does that."

        "Happened before," Dirge inserts, somberly.  "Runabout."

        The eerie silence returns, this time incurred by the Battlecharger's
gruesome destruction flashing across their memory circuits.

        "Well, here we are," Dead End says with sarcastic cheer as he opens the
doorway to the auditorium, an enormous, breathtaking, almost cavernous
room, adorned with the banners and flags and sculptures that are
characteristic of these assemblies, prominently displaying the Decepticon
symbol and  "Peace through tyranny"  written in Cybertronian.  Other
Decepticons from all over the base are filing in on all sides to take their
seats.  Thundercracker moves down the center aisle towards the front to
take his seat with the "Aerial Elite" as they are sometimes called.
Glancing towards the stage, he sees Soundwave standing calmly above them,
watching the Decepticons enter with his cool stoicism and smug arrogance,
basking in his assumed indispensability.

        "Two-faced suck-up bastard!" Thundercracker mutters to himself,
reflecting the general opinion of the Decepticon populace towards Megatron's
right-hand man.  But most other Decepticons have learned not to voice their
opinions of him, even to themselves, for his abilities to overhear are
legend.   And with the sound of that remark came his glare of anger,
falling upon Thundercracker immediately and intensely, and not leaving
until long after he had taken his seat.
        
        After shifting about uncomfortably under Soundwave's optic sensors,
Thundercracker eases noticeably when the communicator finally resumes his
monitoring of the crowd.  He sits down between Starscream and Skywarp, as
is always the case in these gatherings.  As he settles in, he can't help
but glance down the row at the empty seat between Skywarp and Dirge.

        "I despise these asinine little pep rallies," Starscream says with a
sneer, directed at anyone within earshot.  "They are such a waste of
valuable time."  As usual, Starscream proclaims his discontent.

        "Right now, we could be in preparation for our next strike, keeping the
Autobots on their toes, disorienting them with the sheer rapidity of our
attacks.  But no, our esteemed leader insists on squandering our
opportunities with his senseless braggadocio.  Now, if I were in charge..."

        Just like clockwork.  If Thundercracker hasn't learned to watch his
mouth around Soundwave, he has certainly learned to ignore Starscream's
prattling.  Once or twice he has actually pondered what Starscream's
leadership would be like, especially considering the fact that most
Decepticons consider him the most grating, insufferable being that they
have ever had the misfortune of laying optics on.  He has always realized
that, the way Starscream views things, braggadocio is only senseless when
Starscream is not the one doing it.

        The muttering of the amassed Decepticon army begins to die down as
Soundwave breaks his motionlessness and moves towards the podium; his usual
call for silence.  Soon, not a voice is heard, save for the juvenile
chuckling of Rumble and Frenzy, oblivious to their surroundings.  They
suddenly look up and realize what's going on, and they straighten up in
their seats and try to look innocent.   Soundwave's glare is fixed upon
them.

        Finally, the communicator looks up to the rest of the crowd and begins
to speak.

        "Decepticons," he begins, as his voice hums over the audience.   "As
always, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce the mightiest of all
Decepticons, past, present, and future.  The esteemed lord of the-"

        "Soundwave."

        The addressed stops in mid-sentence, confused at the interruption,
feels a hand on his right shoulder,  and looks behind him.

        "Your words at this point," Megatron growls, "are unimportant."

        The crowd stares in fear as Megatron's hand slowly crushes Soundwave's
shoulder as if it were clay.  For all his arrogance, Soundwave IS generally
thought to be indespensible, and it is a shock for everyone in attendance,
especially Soundwave himself, to see him hurled aside in a heap, gurgling
in pain, but at the same time, struggling to quiet himself so as not to
raise any more of Megatron's ire.

        Having removed the other occupant of the stage, the commander of the
Decepticons stands still, shifting his glare slowly over his amassed
subjects, sneering angrily and occasionally grunting contempt at them.
Finally, the scream wells up from within his massive frame, and frazzles
the receptors of his underlings when it reaches its peak.  And with the
unmistakable sound of his fusion cannon, the Decepticons gape stageward as
the podium explodes powerfully and leaves simmering rubble in its place.
Thundercracker edges as far back into his seat as he can.


---*Madness.  Sheer madness.*---


        "INCOMPETENCE!!!"

        "I WILL NOT... continue to TOLERATE... this GROSS INCOMPETENCE!!" the
Slagmaker bellows.  "ALL OF YOU!  Your COLOSSAL IMPOTENCE has set the
Decepicon cause back IMMEASURABLY!!"

        Megatron has not been this furious in ages.  And Starscream has never
been this dumb.

        "Do NOT blame US for this setback!" the conniving villain shouts,
standing in protest.  "YOU are to blame for your FUTILE --uuurk!"

        The familiar sound of the fusion cannon erupts once again with
Megatron's scream of rage, and Thundercracker shrinks back in terror and
watches the blast rip through Starscream's chest and send the upstart
careening over the rest of the crowd and smashing into the back wall of the
auditorium with a loud crash.  The shrill, piercing shriek of agony echoes
throughout the hall and slowly fades into the horrified silence of all the
witnesses.



---*I've pledged my life to this madness.*---


        Megatron continues unabated.

        "FOOLS!  DO NOT TEST MY PATIENCE!!  MY WILL IS NOT OPEN TO DEBATE!!!  I
TOLERATE NO DISSENT!!  YOU DO AS I COMMAND OR DIE!!!"

        The supreme lord of the Decepticon army finally pauses as he lets his
last statement linger in the minds of his minions.  At long last, he starts
again.

        "The course for conquest has been altered, due to your collective
uselessness.  The changes in the previously distributed assignments will be
made shortly, and you are required to report to Onslaught to receive your
instructions before sunrise."  Another pause.

        "Do not tempt death by failing me again."

        The abrupt turn and exit of Megatron coincides with the chilling of the
fluids of his cowering underlings.  The frightened silence remains for a
few moments before anyone in the crowd musters up the courage to speak
again.  A murmur slowly builds up as each Decepticon is comforted by the
sound of another's voice, and soon the room is smattered with hushed
conversations about what has happened.

        Thundercracker gets up and slowly makes his way up the center aisle, as
many Decepticons pass him by hurriedly, each one wanting to have somewhere
important to be, although few of them do.  The Constructicons jog past,
heading towards the back.  His optics follow Long Haul as he transforms
into his dump truck mode, and Mixmaster and Bonecrusher gather up the
wreckage of Starscream and load it into their teammate.  The slow and
constant moan of pain from his nominally-functioning form echoes in
Thundercracker's head long after it is carried away.

        As he looks on, he suddenly hears the clang of metal footsteps behind
him.  He turns and sees Soundwave marching up the aisle, clutching his right
shoulder with his left hand.  His arm is dangling hideously from his torso
by only a few cords and wires, but the way he is carrying himself indicates
that he has switched off his pain sensors.  He stomps heavily up the aisle,
surrounded by a cloud of anger.  As he barges through, he fires
Thundercracker a glare that reminds him of their earlier staredown.  The
minimal expression that Soundwave's face allows is more than enough to
unnerve the object of his ire.  But the glare does not last long, as the
injured communicator continues up the aisle and storms off, following the
Constructicons out the main doorway.

        Soon, Thundercracker is left alone in the monstrous auditorium.  He
slumps into a seat on the center aisle and ponders.  Soundwave is out to get
him, his life is in Megatron's maniacal hands, his allies are falling victim
to his allies, and no one seems to see anything wrong with any of it.  As his
mind wanders from one problem to another, one recurring thought ties them
all together.


---*I've pledged my life to this madness.*---

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