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

»«

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.

»«

Dana heard him coming long before he actually opened the door, ignoring him once again as she sat on the floor, her right arm brace off and discarded to the side, gingerly moving her hand and arm to make sure nothing was out of place. Once she determined it was safe to move however she please, she picked up a full water bottle and did a few arm curls, pleased to see an improved range of motion.

Megatron watched her in silence, not quite sure what she was doing, but questions would only get him spat at. He wanted to talk to her, to somehow gain an understanding between the two of them, and get her to see reason. Somehow he would have to do that without provoking her into fighting him.

Carefully setting the bottle down the human then began to carefully unstrap her left arm, quietly hoping that her wrists were healed enough that they didn't need the extra support. They were supposed to, but in her current situation she couldn't afford to be completely immobilized. And besides, the braces were more inhibiting than they were helping, she thought.

When she turned her face to discard the other brace, Megatron was given a full view of the bruise which still remained on her cheek, now an ugly yellow color with a few patches of light blue. Her arms, too, had bruises on them, but those were also fading, along with her legs. He suspected that there was more underneath her clothing, but he would never dare ask to see them. The warlord found no perverse delight or temptation in the concept.

Doing the same with her left as she had done with her right, the human femme remained silent, a frown on her face as she watched his reflection in the Nemesis window. He was, in turn, watching her, but his expression carefully remained neutral.

Come to gloat? She wanted to snarl.

But the girl had told herself she would not give him the satisfaction of a conversation. She was done talking to him, acknowledging him. Doing so before had gotten her damaged beyond repair. She wasn't going to risk it again.

After what seemed like an hour of just pure silence, Megatron decided he would be the one to initiate the discussion.

"You're angry with me," he began, testing the words in his processor before he spoke, trying to tread carefully on the shards of glass than now divided them. "And I have an idea as to why, yet it is not the entirety of it, is it? I hurt you, broke you, but that is not the only reason you've chosen to hate me."

She turned her head slightly to glare at him. Her eyes did not sparkle, rather, they glittered with anger, her lips pulling back to show her teeth, an animalistic gesture that demonstrated just how savage the human race could be.

"I don't know how I didn't see it before," she growled. "But you are nothing but a monster. A coward, a warmonger. You are savage, heartless, and cold. I thought I was untouchable to you. I didn't think you would stoop so low as to hurt someone smaller and lesser than yourself; but I was wrong. If you could so carelessly hurt me, you must have hurt children as well. Killed them, tortured them. What about women, Megatron? Other, weaker men? Have you hurt them too?" With each word she was getting louder, more upset, more angry. "The Autobots tried to warn me about you, but I refused to listen. Now look at me, I'm nothing but a useless cripple! No one wants a nurse in a wheelchair. No one will want a girl in a wheelchair!"

He stood there and took each blow, his servo curling into a fist as he listened, also getting angrier with each word. How dare she question his morals, his place in this war. He all but ignored the last part of her rant, instead baring his teeth at her.

"I would never intentionally hurt a child." He snarled. "Much less a femme with one. I may be many terrible things, but to destroy the future of Cybertron and our race? I would rather perish by the hands of Optimus Prime than do such a thing!"

"And what about those weaker than you?" She turned to face him fully, one arm almost just throwing her legs in the direction she wanted them to go, irritated by their immobility. "You worked in the gladitorial ring. You killed there. You were trained to kill those weaker than yourself there. Men, women, I doubt gender matters to you-"

"I killed to survive!" He roared, one of his servos slamming into the desk close to her body and chair. She only flinched slightly, letting him go on. "The others were casualties of war. It was always killed or be killed to me on Cybertron! War, the gladitorial arena, the mines. I have known nothing else! And what of you? Have you ever had to end someone's life so yours could persist?"

The young woman didn't give him an answer, only looking at him with a stony expression.

"I thought not." He pulled away from her, servo still clenched tightly. A long ex-vent escaped him, the anger slowly clearly away as he realized that she had intentionally gone this route. Judging by her unsurprised, not even remotely terrified expression, she had anticipated his outburst. The human femme had wanted this to happen.

Her words were true; what she had said was what she believed, but there has to be a reason she was so bent on getting him raging. It would make sense that since she felt resentful she would also feel like antagonizing him, so he suffered with her. Yet her words weren't planned out and strategized. She just exploded and hoped to also make him angry. There also was no clear pleasure derived from their fight. She was doing this for some other reason.

Her eyes drifted from his face to the servo that had just moments ago smashed into the desk next to her.

"I'm surprised you didn't just crush me." She returned to making eye contact with him, but her expression was . . . Non-existent. There was no gleam in her eyes. "Finish the job you couldn't do on Cybertron. I'm just a human, after all. You're not above destroying me and thinking nothing of it."

Realization hit Megatron like a fist in the gut. His optics widened in surprise, servo relaxing as it became very clear to him why she was so bitter, so angry.

She's hopeless. She wants to die.

Once again the human femme was proving reckless. But this time it wasn't because she enjoyed pushing his buttons, seeing just how far she could go with him. She had already reached that limit. Now, everything seemed to be taken away from her. Now, she was reckless because she no longer cared about her own life.

For once the Decepticon warlord no longer knew what to do. He anticipated hundreds of scenarios, most of which ended in her throwing herself off the desktop. The fall was survivable, he was sure, but she had just revealed to be a nurse, something of a medical expert. If she wanted to die, she could do it.

But as of right now, she didn't want to do it herself. To her, he was this close to just mindlessly hurting her, possibly killing her, and then moving on with his life. She didn't want to be responsible for her own life just yet.

A feeling swelled up in his chest, one he only felt a few times during the war. It was a rare occurrence, and Megatron prided himself in being able to keep it down. This time, however, it felt uncontrollable.

He began to panic.

In his processor, there was some surprise. He didn't think himself capable of caring if a member of a lesser species died. They were weak, fragile; death was common and to be expected.

There was also something akin to frustration. Not only was her spark and soul wasted in a human body, but now she had no desire to live out the rest of her short lifespan. To him, it was utterly unimaginable to only live for a few short years and then decide it wasn't worth the effort.

It was infuriating, how she evoke such complex emotions with only a few sentences and words.

"I'm not going to end your life just yet." He finally said, giving her a small glare, a warning. "You are still useful to me. I'm sure the Autobots will have something to bargain with."

She grit her teeth, hands curling into fists and pressing against the metal. "See, you never cared about me. Only what I mean to the Autobots."

"And did you ever care about me?" He challenged. "I doubt it. Why would you care for a monster, as you enjoy pointing out?"

"I didn't think you were a monster." She snapped, crossing her arms and looking away, signalling that she was very much done with the conversation. "I actually thought you were someone great, someone powerful. But I was wrong."

He felt a hot flash of anger heat up his systems, but he shoved the feeling aside and instead turned away from her. "I will return later to recharge. I expect you to remain here." And with that he left her alone, stalking out of the room and down the hall.

She wants to die.

She wants to die because she is hopeless.

She is hopeless because her future seems to be shattered, destroyed.

It is that way because she herself is damaged, broken. There must be some way to fix her.

Fix her.

Megatron stopped on his way to the bridge, coming up with a mad idea. It was crazy, but he knew of a scientist who would be more than willing to try such a thing.

"Shockwave." He called over the com-link. "If you are not already there, report to your laboratory immediately. I have another experiment I wish for you to accomplish."

"I will be there shortly, lord Megatron." The scientists replied, and with a click Megatron disconnected the com-link. It would take some time and most likely a lot of trial and error, but he was confident in Shockwave's abilities. The scientist had impressed many times before, most certainly he could do it again.

With this, Dana would get more than just her fire back. She would get her legs.