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He just about had it with the arrogant bastard. He was way worse than Starscream, if that were possible. Dirge oversaw a small group of very young and very green Seekers who had just graduated from one of the Decepticon War Academies. They had no experience and no true idea of what fighting Autobots was about. They were all good kids, though, except for one snot-nosed, know-it-all prick who got in and out of the war academy because he came from a well-to-do family and had enough credits and energon to get anything he wanted. Even good grades for the right price. That was what Dirge hated about the kid.
As Dirge looked at the trainees, he started thinking to himself, 'At least Starscream earned the right to be so arrogant. This punk-ass kid didn’t. It took a lot to be a Seeker in the Decepticon army; especially a Seeker under Starscream’s command. Primarily, one had to be great at what they did; either have a talent or brains; or better yet, both.
Out of all the Seekers in Starscream’s command, Ramjet had the lowest intelligence, but that never meant that Ramjet was stupid. He followed Starscream’s orders, and when it came to crashing into things, Ramjet always had a knack for finding a weak spot in anything.
Thrust, as cocky as he was, was no dummy either. When it came to filling out reports, he was your mech. He would triple-check everything, and he would dot every lowercase 'i' and 'j' and cross every 't' on a report. Thrust also had a knack for following orders; sometimes to the letter; and sometimes he asked for permission to do almost anything.
Then there was Skywarp; our loyal goof-off and class clown. Many thought he was stupid, but he really wasn’t. He did have a serious side, and that was a side that a rare few had seen, and I had seen it. When he showed it, he was a totally different mech. Not a guy I would want to meet in a dark alley without being fully armed to the teeth, with at least two patrols with me.
Thundercracker was one guy any Seeker in his right mind would be thankful to have on their team. He would always have your back; he was very trustworthy, dependable, and loyal. For such a good-natured guy, one had to wonder how much negative crap he could emotionally take before he exploded. I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that when it did happen.
Speaking of explosions, Sunstorm was a mech with his own unique problems. He wasn’t what I would call totally there. With delusions of being the next Cybertronian messiah or something, with powers to back it up. Well, he was pretty badass, and what made matters worse was that he was Starscream’s clone. Somehow, I felt sorry for the guy.
Then there was me; the fear guy. And the one thing I knew how to do well was scare the shit out of people. My reputation was infamous when it came to causing fear in others; I was good at it and the second smartest in the group.
Lastly, there was the air commander himself. Starscream may be an overly arrogant prick, but at least he had earned the right to act like an ass. He was a famous explorer and scientist before joining the best Decepticon war academy on Cybertron, earning the highest grades in the school’s history. At least Starscream didn’t pay his way to get a diploma. Starscream scraped and worked his thrusters off to become the best Seeker there was; and don’t ask me how he ended up as air commander without fighting his way to earn the position—literally.'
Clearing his thoughts, Dirge then focused back on the cocky young Seeker again when he heard that very same kid saying something about taking on the crème de la crème of the Decepticon Seekers all by himself, and that Megatron needed newer and superior warriors, and that Dirge and his fellow elite Seekers should go to the old bot’s home.
Walking up to the stupid kid, Dirge asked him, “What did I hear about me needing to go to the old bot’s home?”
“Yeah, you do, old man. You want to make something of it? Because I’ll take you on right now—if you have the meta-processor to face me,” said the punk-ass kid in such a way that he should be giving arrogance lessons to Starscream.
That was when Dirge agreed to the fight. “Only one thing, punk.”
“Yeah? And what is that, old man?”
“No mercy—short of killing. Got it?” snapped Dirge, then he hit the stupid kid in the chest hard, making the kid stumble backward a bit.
Gaining his balance, the kid ran at Dirge full bore to tackle him but failed. Dirge quickly moved out of the way, tripping the kid with his right leg and elbowing the back of the kid’s neck hard enough to cause the young Seeker to slam to the ground. As the kid was about to get up, Dirge body-slammed the young punk back toward the ground. As soon as the kid jumped back up, Dirge started to shoot at the kid’s wings so that he couldn’t fly off.
“What?! Fucking A! You spike-sucking prick! I’ll get you!!!” screamed the kid in pain.
“Pathetic. And here you say you can take the Seeker Elite Corps? To me, it looks like you can’t even handle one of them,” said Dirge coldly.
The punk-ass kid snarled as he got up, “You can’t do this to me! Do you know who I am, old man?! I’m…”
Suddenly, Dirge took the opportunity to put the cocky Seeker in a chokehold and slammed him into the wall. “No, I don’t give a fuck who you are, and neither will an Autobot who is fighting you on the battlefield,” Dirge cruelly responded as he started ripping the armor off the kid’s right wing.
“What shoddy construction! If you are as rich as you say you are, then you should be built with stronger materials.”
Turning the young Seeker around, Dirge slammed his fist into the younger Seeker’s canopy, shattering it as he started ripping wire after wire from the kid’s body. “Shame. Shoddy wiring too. You’re sure that you’re not a cheap Earth DVD player that cost less than 20 Earth credits? Because I’ve seen Earth electronics survive more from a beating than you are right now.”
Then the kid gave Dirge a nasty look.
“Don’t even give me that look. You haven’t earned the right,” replied Dirge as he shot out both of the kid’s optics, then he quickly shot the kid’s throat, ripping out the kid’s vocalizer to almost nothing.
“Now listen and listen good. No one—and I mean no one—can become a Seeker Elite under Starscream without proving themselves, having some form of intelligence, and the skills to back it up. Then they can say they can kick someone’s fuel line. But you didn’t even prove yourself. All talk and no action. You don’t deserve a warrior’s death, and I seriously doubt that you can survive long enough to think about this valuable life lesson. Bye, asshole.” That was the last words Dirge said to the arrogant young punk of a Seeker as he walked away from his trainees and the now smoldering wreck that was the smart-ass young punk.