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What precisely had happened to the scraplet, Megatron didn’t know.
Scraplets had simple processors, their code amounting to little more than “if living metal, then eat.” Scientists like Shockwave, who were both obsessive about their studies and a bit mad, might have said they also had some rudimentary ability to communicate with their swarm. “If living metal, then we eat.”
That this one had bitten him and then stopped was remarkable. That its swarm had not come after it in a great cloud of snapping jaws was more remarkable still.
It had done some damage to his plating, its fanged mouth digging deep enough into his armor to tear a line of fire through his sensornet. And it had clung on despite the claws and fury and singleminded spirit of a former gladiator many times its size thrashing and tearing to dislodge it.
The mindless, basic code of instinct, he’d reminded himself — but even then, something had seemed different.
And after that, without warning, the scraplet had looked up, its optics flickering, meeting his — and abruptly froze, its fangs still sunk into his plating.
He’d thought at first that it had shut down. That its failure to call the others was a glitch. Perhaps even a virus, if it had code complex enough to fall prey to them.
But as soon as he pried it back off, it had nipped at his fingers almost playfully, snapping and nearly catching them as though it were missing on purpose.
That had intrigued him, and he’d dangled his claws in front of it to see its response — the same as before.
He let it catch them. It clamped down hard, its optics flaring again, as though it were somehow insulted by being so obviously allowed to win.
A coil of warmth had curled through Megatron’s spark, seeing it. He was a warrior; it seemed so was this creature he had found.
"Where are the others?" he had asked. It had stared, and leapt up at his hand as though impatient to play their little game again.
He'd repeated his question, more forcefully this time. It had stared blankly at him, its enormous optics wide. Then it had jumped again, nipping at the tips of his claws.
"Well then," he had said, laughing and waving his fingers so that they shimmered in the light. It probably couldn’t see them shine; it detected the heat of living metal. But it saw the movement, leaping eagerly at his hand. It had caught one claw and bit down hard. Megatron had growled with pain, and it had wriggled as if in response, its jaws still clamped around its prize.
That little victory had been legitimate.
And the scraplet had never left.
He’d forbade it to follow him around, of course; he had better things to do during his long days on the bridge of the Nemesis than play games with his new pet. But it had understood quickly enough to stay in Megatron’s quarters and to wait for his return.
He fed it pieces of the damaged, the brutally disciplined, the dying, the freshly dead. It devoured them with the usual hunger of its kind, consuming what Megatron put before it in moments. But it seemed satisfied enough.
Glitched as it might have been, it was still attracted to the warmth of living metal. It had a damnable habit of trying to climb onto Megatron’s chest to recharge — something that even the fearsome Decepticon warlord couldn't always discourage.
Sometimes he tried to, demanding that it power down in the appointed location, reminding it sternly that its little berthing spot was also heated.
Sometimes their little game ended because it didn’t have the power to leap and bite and pose any further threat to Megatron’s fingers. Slowly, it would slip into recharge right where it lay on his chest.
More often than he cared to admit, he let it.