Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The volcano erupted purple lava and spewed hot ash into the sky. Megatron laughed as it fell all around them.

“A part of me would love to see this planet reduced to rubble, but I know that is not an option.”

“The weather is out of control!” Bumblebee beeped. “June almost got swept away by a hurricane and I just barely saved her while you two were gone!”

Optimus stepped forward. “No more games. You will come to our base, give us the coordinates, and we will be rid of Unicron.”

“I have grown tired of him as well,” Megatron agreed.

“After he disowned you,” Arcee snorted.

Ratchet looked between Optimus and Megatron. “I’m sorry, you want him to come where? ”

“We must bridge ourselves into Unicron to defeat him, but only he can input the necessary coordinates into the base computer.”

Ratchet shoved his scanner back into his armor and clenched his fists by his sides, the anger in his field almost as hot as the volcano behind them. “Fine,” he spat. He glared at Megatron. “Don’t go ripping Starscream’s wing off again, it was a pain to reattach.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Megatron laughed.

“Fine, fine! But I need to let the humans know that we’ve got a warlord stomping through,” Ratchet muttered and sprinted back through the bridge.

Bulkhead scratched his helm. “Hey, why can’t Soundwave just bridge us there? He can create bridges out of thin air, right? He doesn’t need to go into our base!”

Megatron went deathly still. He averted his gaze and instead looked out across the windswept plains instead. “Soundwave!” Megatron spat out the name like it was poison. He thrust his sword out and slashed it through the dust, sending a cloud of dirt into the air. “Soundwave left,” was all he said next.

“What do you mean he left?” Bulkhead asked.

“He left, he skedaddled, he got the heck out of Dodge, how much clearer can I be? He left! ” Starscream laughed. “He did it!”

“This is not a celebratory occasion,” Megatron rumbled.

“Oh, but it is. Every time another mech escapes out from under your pede, it absolutely warrants a celebration.”

Megatron shook his helm. “He will see the error of his ways and come crawling back, just like you.”

“That’s true. I did keep coming back to you for a while. I always returned to you, over and over again. But then one day I didn’t, and Soundwave won’t either.”

“I met him in the Pits of Kaon. We were paired up and made to fight each other. He nearly deactivated me and I barely defeated him.” Megatron turned and stared at all of them. “I always knew we would have a rematch.”

The Autobots said nothing.

Ratchet came back through the bridge. “Alright. So, they understand that he’s coming through and will stand aside. I can’t make any promises about Miko, though.”

Megatron and Optimus exchanged glances, then walked through the bridge together, side-by-side. Their silhouettes grew smaller and smaller until they vanished with a flash of light. The sight of them together like that made Starscream’s tanks churn for some reason. The rest of the Autobots followed suit through the bridge.

The bright glow of the bridge cleared and Megatron blinked at the small, cramped base.

“...So this is where the magic happens. Quaint.”

“Hep hep,” Ratchet smacked the keyboard. “Coordinates. Now!”

The sound of soft, fast pedesteps came from around the corner. All of the humans were there for some reason, their eyes wide and jaws dropped at the sight of the warlord.

Megatron looked right at Jack. “I would never forget the face of a human.”

Miko flung herself forward like a rabid scraplet. “You ever cross anyone, mine is the face you’ll never forget again. Never!”

Bumblebee stepped in and shooed the children away with concerned beeps.

Optimus frowned. “Ratchet, obtain the destination coordinates from our guest. Starscream? I must speak with you for a moment.”

Starscream blinked, but followed Optimus into the corridor anyway. The rest of the team watched them leave, confusion in their fields.

They were alone in the hall now. “I have something for you,” Optimus continued.

Starscream tilted his helm. “Oh, more brunch from Megatron?”

“No. Hold on, offline your optics.”

“Uh, okay.” He complied and he felt Optimus slide something under his cockpit.

“Open them now.”

Starscream opened his optics and went to look down at just what Optimus had slid into his plating, but was stopped when Optimus suddenly raised his servo. 

“Look at it after all of this is over.”

“Eh, ‘this’?”

“Yes. ‘This.’ Once our defeat of Unicron is finished, look at it when you are back at base. Hold onto it in the meantime for safekeeping. Guard it carefully.”

“Why? Thank you for… whatever it is that you gave me, but why must I wait—?”

“Do as I say,” Optimus said firmly. “Please.”

“...Okay? Okay. Fine then. But you know I’m an impatient mech!”

“I do. But I think you will be patient for this.”

“Ah, fine then. Only for you, my favorite Prime.”

“I am better than Sentinel, then?”

“You’re leagues better than that old coot.”

Optimus turned to step away, but Starscream cleared his intake.

“About what happened on the Nemesis…”

“We can discuss that after this mission is over,” Optimus cut him off and left the hall.

Starscream just stood there. Did Optimus just interrupt him? And then leave? His wings hiked up on his back. The… the disrespect! The indignity! The—

The base shook as another earthquake rumbled through the ground.

Oh, right. He’d forgotten about Unicron. He grumbled and went back into the main room.

He walked past the bots and up to the bridge. Starscream could feel the presence of whatever it was that Optimus had just slipped into his armor. It would be so easy to pull it out and see what it was right then and there, but he wouldn’t disrespect Optimus’s wishes. But what was it though? And why was it given with such secrecy?

Megatron finished inputting the coordinates and opened a new groundbridge. He immediately marched through it with no hesitation and the Autobots rushed to follow after him.

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.

Unicron’s body was a hideous place. The acrid stench of dark energon bit at their vents and the air burned hot enough to make their armor burn to the touch. Something large creaked overhead. A massive eyeball watched them from above, its violet pupil narrowed right onto them.

Starscream looked up at the high ceiling and felt dizzy. His wings twitched, the air was stale around them, he needed to take off, to transform and to fly—he'd been grounded for far too long and had gotten only just the barest flight in only two days ago. He looked away from the ceiling and kept his gaze locked ahead. No, they would kill Unicron and then everybody would get out of here in one piece.

Bulkhead shuddered. “It’s so creepy in here. Does Unicron know how creepy his innards are?”

Megatron rolled his optics. “I shall inform him that he needs to spruce up his interior decorating.”

Unicron’s innards rumbled around them.

“See? See?” Bulkhead said. “Even he agrees that his organs are kinda dated.”

Megatron’s field flared in annoyance. 

“Oh,“ Starscream laughed. “Are you getting annoyed, my lord?”

“Of course.””

“Well, I was annoyed when you kept trying to wine and dine us!"

Megatron growled. “Nonsense. I was merely trying to have a civil discourse with you.”

“By wineing and dining us!”

Megatron’s armor flared, but then loosened. “Remember when we would talk? The two of us, deep into the night? About the state of the war and the future of Cybertron?”

“...I do.” And how could he forget? Most of their relationship consisted of assassination attempts and beatdowns, but there were civil moments where the two got along, moments that grew rarer as the war went on.

Starscream cleared his intake. “Ah, well. That’s all over now and your dinner sucked.”

“It ‘ sucked’ ?” Megatron rasped.

Bulkhead shuffled up behind Megatron. “Are you going to wine and dine us too?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No.”

“Stop playing favorites!”

The Autobots plus Megatron all made their way down a bridge that led deeper into the shadows of Unicron. A distant humming noise echoed up from the depths around them. They looked out over the edge of the bridge and saw thousands of lights appear that grew brighter with each moment.

“Antibodies,” Megatron growled and unsheathed his sword. “They know we have come with the intent to kill.” He blasted one clean apart with a single blow from his fusion cannon.

Hundreds came down at once and the Autobots raised their blasters to meet them. 

Arcee’s wrist-blades sliced through them one after the other. Sparks flew as Bulkhead slammed into them with his wrecking-ball. Dozens soon laid dead at Megatron’s blood-stained pedes as he cut through them like air.

A thick swarm of hundreds of antibodies crested the bridge and descended en masse. Starscream fired a missile right into the heart of them and blew them to bits all at once. He checked his arms.

Good, he had one missile left.

But one antibody had been blasted away, injured, but alive, and blazed right towards Starscream’s turned back.

Starscream heard a commotion behind him. Optimus slid in front of Starscream's back just in time for his frame to intercept the antibody's blast instead of Starscream's. He paused and his frame trembled with the force of the collision. Optimus wrenched his optics shut, only to open them and resume his spree.

Starscream stared at him as he moved away. He—he just went and did it again! His wings shot up stiffly on his back.

The stench of burnt plasma and spilt energon hung thick in the air and the ground was scattered with sliced and shot antibodies. Their legs twitched, and went still.  Starscream kicked one’s remains and sent it over the edge of the bridge. Starscream’s EM field thrashed around him as he stomped his way down the bridge back to the rest of the team.

“Uhh, Star?” Bulkhead asked.

“What?”

“Are you upset about somethin’?”

“Why yes, I am. Someone,” Starscream hissed as he pointed at Optimus, “decided that he just had to be a martyr!”

Bumblebee gasped. “Optimus, no!”

“Oh, yes! He! Did! ” Starscream shouted. “He did it again just now! I did not need to be shielded from that antibody, thank you very much.”

Optimus said nothing and looked down at the energon stains on his chestplates. He activated his windshield wipers and swept the blood away. Silently, he resumed his march forward. Starscream picked up his pace and sprinted ahead to be side-by-side with Optimus. 

Unfortunately, Megatron was also there.

“Shoo,” Starscream swatted at him.

Megatron raised an orbital ridge. “Excuse me?”

Optimus shook his helm. “We can’t afford to wait—”

“Leave us alone for a moment, Megatron.”

Megatron glanced between the both of them for several seconds. Then he smiled. “Perhaps you two aren’t the perfect team after all.” He shrugged and continued ahead without them.

The bridge under their pedes shook and Starscream had to balance himself to stay standing. Unicron’s biolights pulsed purple and the stench of dark energon grew stronger. “We must complete this mission. Unicron will only grow stronger,” Optimus turned away from Starscream.

“You did it again. You took that shot for me, just like how you did on the Nemesis. I am worried about what I saw happen back there,” Starscream said. The rest of the team was still a ways back, just out of earshot, concern still evident in their fields.

“Unicron—”

“I currently don't really care about Unicron. I know we can defeat him. What I do care about is you. I saw a side of you that I didn’t like, Optimus. The way you tried to fling your life aside, both yesterday and just now…”

“...were necessary risks that I had to undertake.”

“No,” Starscream flared his wings. “You said you would stop. When you went off alone in the middle of the night to duel Megatron, you promised us that you would stop. That you wouldn’t go off alone anymore. You broke that promise the moment we set foot on the Nemesis.”

Optimus offlined his optics and his field roiled with thought. Starscream sensed it again—the presence of a second EM field that was buried beneath the first, cold and sharp unlike Optimus’s gentle and warm one.

There was no warmth in Optimus’s field at that moment. It roiled with turmoil and then—

It just stopped, suddenly smothered, now completely flat. Optimus onlined his optics. “I have broken promises before. When I had to. When it was necessary.” He glanced at Megatron up ahead. “This is one that must remain broken. There are tasks that I must do myself, that I might not walk back from. It is… how things are supposed to be. If it must be someone, then let it be me.”

Optimus marched off to rejoin Megatron.

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.

.

It felt as if they had been walking for hours. Swarms of antibodies came and went. All of them were easily slain by Megatron and the Autobots. Starscream's sparkbeat grew deeper and slower and the airself felt hotter and thicker. They had to be close to the core. Starscream glanced at Optimus up ahead. He was unsure what would happen when Optimus unleashed the Matrix, but he was sure everything would turn out fine. The object Optimus had given him would be so easy to pull and just take a quick little look at—

Starscream’s vision suddenly swam and he stumbled over his own pedes. He felt a firm servo steady his pauldron and looked over to see a concerned Bulkhead.

“Hey, you okay there, buddy?”

“I,” he screwed his optics shut as another wave of nausea swept through him, “am just fine, thank you.” He felt his spark pulse in his chestplates. The dark energon. Unicron. The networks of veins across the walls pulsed purple at the same rhythm as his own frantic spark—

Oh.

“Buddy, you do not look good,” Bulkhead said. The rest of the bots paused and looked back at him.

Arcee frowned. “If you’re not feeling good, then just go back to base. We can’t have anybody messing this mission up.”

Starscream’s helm felt thick and heavy but he was still able to muster the energy to glare at the two-wheeler. “Okay, first of all, you are not being subtle, and second of all—” He felt Unicron’s frame pulse all around him in sync with his own sparkbeat and shut his optics again. He took a deep vent, and opened them.

Bulkhead swore. “Oh, frag.”

“Let me guess. My optics are purple?”

Bulkhead bit his lip and nodded.

“...Figures,” Starscream muttered.

“But, how?”

“Remember when I tried to use a shard of dark energon to resurrect Skyquake but then he just turned into a violent, shambling zombie?”

Bulkhead gasped. “Ohhh! Yeah, I really hated that.”

Laughter broke through the air. Megatron turned around and strode right towards Starscream. “You also embedded dark energon into your spark, is that correct?”

“That was a long time ago!”

“Was it? There are clearly still traces of it in your systems.” He shot his arm out and gripped Starscream’s neck cabling in a tight grasp, his thumb right over one of Starscream’s main veins. “Yes, I can feel it. Your sparkbeat is in rhythm with mine. What a little hypocrite you are.”

Bulkhead transformed his arm into a wrecking ball. “Back off.”

“Calm down, Wrecker, I intend him no harm.” He let his grip slacken and Starscream felt the sharp tips of Megatron’s digits graze his neck as Megatron let his arm fall back to his side. “No need to worry at all.” He spun on his pede and resumed his march to Unicron’s core.

“I’m fine, really,” Starscream said. But was he? He felt a tingling in the back of his helm and turned to see if someone was behind him, but all he saw was darkness, dimly lit by the purple glow of his blood. The same blood still in Starscream.

Optimus stepped up to them. “If you must go back to base…”

“I must not. Nope.” He walked right past Optimus and down the bridge as if nothing had happened. “I’m just fine, actually.”

A low voice spoke in his audial. Starscream. Starscream. He looked to his side, but yet again there was no one there except for the edge of a bridge and a long, long drop below.

“The whispers,” Megatron rasped.

Now that voice was real. “Gah!” Starscream screeched. Megatron had walked up right next to him and he hadn’t even noticed.

“You hear them too, don’t you?”

... a world forged from chaos… the 47 spheres…

Starscream shuddered. “So this is the scrap that goes on in your helm all day.”

“Yes. It’s almost like having you around again.”

“Ha ha, hilarious.”

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.

.

Unicron’s spark chamber soon loomed ahead. The bridge leading up to the doorway was completely covered in more fallen antibodies. The Autobot's exhausted, frazzled fields dragged around them, yet Unicron still laid ahead.

They all paused and Optimus strode forward.

“Oh, speech time?” Megatron laughed.

Optimus ignored him. “We will conquer Unicron. The Matrix will make quick work of him, and this will all be over. I must ask this of you: stay outside until he is vanquished. The energy might be strong enough to harm your frames.”

Protests rose among the Autobots.

“No way, boss!”

“We can’t leave you alone in there!”

“Not happening, Prime.”

Starscream remained silent.

“He will not facce the god alone,” Megatron said. “My frame will be just fine.”

“We don't care about your frame. Wait,” Arcee said. “You’ll be alone with Megatron in there?”

Optimus nodded. “Ensure that no antibodies fly in and interrupt us. I will soon return. All is well, although I may return... later than you expect.” He swept his gaze over all of them, paused when he saw Starscream, and then turned around and walked right into Unicron’s spark chamber.

Megatron smiled and it was full of teeth. He followed right after Optimus.

Unicron’s spark was a hideous thing, a sphere of plasma webbed over with pulsing veins, colored the shade of a purple bruise—and the heart of Earth itself. Megatron straightened his bristled armor and held his usually massive EM field tight and close to himself. He strode slowly towards the spark and approached it like an altar.

“Unicron, my lord, I must speak with you,” he asked, his voice uncharacterstically soft.

Optimus frowned. “Megatron—”

“Let me speak to him one last time!” Megatron growled. He stepped up to the edge of the spark chamber and stood almost directly underneath it. He spoke softly, so softly that Optimus could hardly hear what he said. “My lord, what did you do when Primus and the Thirteen rose up against you? What did you do when you were cast adrift, betrayed by your most loyal mechs, and worst of all, when you lost your brother? What happened?”

Unicron’s spark hummed in thought. It dimmed, then blazed with light. “What happened? You see what happened. I was buried, never to be untombed. It seems you have suffered a similar fate.”

Megatron grimaced. “When Starscream left… well. Treachery was always his strong suit. But Soundwave…” Megatron punched the ground. “He has to return!”

“He won’t,” Unicron’s voice boomed. 

“But—”

“He will not. You are alone. I will not help you. No one can.”

Megatron nodded and took a deep vent. “I… see. Now I must destroy you.”

Unicron laughed and laughed and laughed. Unicron’s EM field overwhelmed both of them, but the emotion in it was distinct: it was pity.

“Do not pity me!” Megatron snarled and raised his fusion cannon. “I can tolerate being despised, feared, dreaded, but pitied? ” His optics were bright purple, his field huge and frazzled. “Do not ever feel bad for me.”

“Do you know why I feel bad for you, Megatron?” A blast of wind rushed out from Unicron’s spark and made Megatron stagger back. Unicron’s spark swung around to face him and blazed like an optic. “Because I know that you will never escape me!”

Optimus immediately ran forward and flung his chestplates open. A ray of the purest, whitest light shot out from within him and struck directly into Unicron’s spark. Unicron’s spark jolted from the sheer impact of the collision and trembled and flashed. A glitched scream echoed through the air, not from any of the ‘bots or even from Megatron, but from Unicron himself.

The scream's volume grew louder and louder, and then, it died out all at once.

Unicron’s spark snuffed out and left only darkness behind. The air went from being hot enough to burn to freezing cold in an instant.

Optimus’s chestplates snapped shut and his entire frame stiffened. The light in his optics dimmed and his frame went down with a clang loud enough to echo through the spark chamber.

His engine rumbled with effort and he looked up, optics wide, field no longer calm but now frazzled. “I’m forgetting ,” he said.

.

.

.

“Is there really nothing we can do?” Arcee said.

“What could we even do? Only Optimus has the Matrix,” Bumblebee beeped. “I don’t like being stuck standing out here either.”

Starscream paced back and forth a short distance away, his frame tense and wings flat against his back.

…unburied… fate…

He shivered. Unicron’s whispers only grew louder.

“Can ya hear what he’s saying in there?” Bulkhead asked.

“Bits and pieces. I can't understand that much, though.”

…you are alone…

A small part of Starscream felt pity for Megatron. He knew what it was like to idolize somebody, only to realize that they are not who you thought they were. To pay respect to your hero, and be spit upon in return. Now Megatron finally knew how that felt.

Unicron would be dead any minute now, right? Starscream reached his talons into his plating and felt the tips of them tap against whatever object it was that Optimus had given him. Well, they’d reached the core, Unicron was almost gone, soooooooo the mission was technically over. He carefully slid the item out and—

The key of Vector Sigma.

The key. Of Vector Sigma. In his talons.

“‘For safekeeping,’” Optimus had said.

“‘Look at it when you are back at base,’” Starscream mumbled to himself. He went very still. “‘Look at it… when you are back at base.’”

Bulkhead looked over at him. “Star? Did you say something?”

He clutched onto a confused Bulkhead’s chestplate armor with one talon and waved the key in front of Bulkhead’s faceplate with the other. “‘Look at it when you are back at base!’ He’s not planning on coming back! Oh, I’m an idiot!” Starscream shrieked. The team turned and stared as he ran right for the doors to Unicron’s spark chamber.

“What has Optimus planned?” Bumblebee beeped. 

“He’s being all sacrificial and noble again! We just let him walk right on out!”

Arcee frowned. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘although I may return later than you expect…’ what if he does not return at all?”

The rest of the team was there in an instant. Bumblebee held his servos out placatingly. “Okay, okay, let’s think about this, don’t panic—”

Starscream groaned as he held his faceplate in his talons. “My fault, all my fault—”

Bumblebee lightly nudged Starscream’s shoulder. “Hey, c’mon, don’t talk to yourself like that.”

“This is my fault, all of it—! ”

Bumblebee slapped Starscream.

Starscream dropped his talons immediately. His intake dropped and he stared at Bumblebee. “Did you just… did you just smack me? You little yellow fiend!”

“Yes. I had to.” Bumblebee crossed his arms. “You know why? Because I know that the pain I caused you just now was nothing compared to the pain you were just putting yourself through.”

Starscream’s entire frame deflated. “But this is my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Arcee said. “We’re going to save him. Put the key away and stop crying. We’ve got this.”

Bulkhead transformed his servo into his wrecking ball and smacked it into his palm. “Up and at ‘em, no more moping, no more slapping—we have a door to break through.”

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.

Bulkhead’s wrecking ball tore through the door. He sent it flying inward with a strong kick and all the Autobots rushed into the sparkchamber.

Starscream’s tank dropped at the sight before him.

Optimus was prone on the ground and Megatron loomed overhead. Optimus slowly lifted himself to his knees, each bit of movement an act of monumental effort. His frame shook with the sheer effort it took to raise himself, inch by inch.

Megatron looked right at him, a waver in his field, a strange and distant look in his now-red optics. He unsheathed his sword and hovered it right above Optimus’s delicate neck cabling. He lifted it up—then paused. He looked back and forth between the edge of his blade and Optimus.

Megatron sheathed his blade.

Starscream ran between them and knelt beside the fallen mech. “You stay away from him!” He turned to look at Optimus. “Are you injured? Can you rise?”

He groggily lifted his helm and squinted up at Unicron's spark chamber. Oh, thank Primus, he was just fine—

Optimus’s field was instantly infused with the cold shock of pure fear, a sheer terror so sudden and strong that it made Starscream reel back. Optimus’s emotions were always completely obscured, never completely exposed.

Optimus's helm snapped over to look right at Starscream. “Who are you?”

Starscream froze. Those words echoed around in his helm. Who are you? Who are you?

“I don’t… it’s me, ” Starscream said. Optimus continued to observe, his field infused with caution, caution.

Starscream didn’t speak. He couldn’t speak. Megatron grabbed Starscream by the wing and just tossed him aside like a piece of scrap.

The Autobot’s blasters whirred up in unison. Megatron aimed his fusion cannon right at them in return. “You wouldn’t risk shooting your precious leader, now would you?”

Optimus looked up at Megatron and gasped. “Brother?”

Megatron’s optics went wide. “ What did you just call me?” 

“You look so different! Where are we? Who are these mechs?”

Megatron’s faceplate contorted into a snarl. “What sort of ruse is this? You have attempted to trick me many times, but never have you sunk this low.”

“Brother?”

“You lost the right to call me that a long time ago!”

Optimus sat up and held his servos out. “Megatronus, it’s me!”

Megatron glared at Optimus and the two mechs silently regarded each other for several moments. 

“What is your name?” Megatron asked.

“Megatronus—”

“What is your name?”

Orion stood and scrambled back. “Who else would I be? I’m Orion!”

“No, it cannot be.”

Orion blinked and took a good look at Megatron. His faceplate wrinkled as if he had smelled something nasty. “Why do you look so… crusty?”

Megatron gasped. “Orion? Oh… oh. Orion? That is you, Orion!”

Orion just smiled, confused, but happy. Relieved, even. 

He immediately ran towards Optimus—Orion?—Optimus, no, Orion, and looked him over as if seeing him for the first time.

“Where are we? Is this the core of Cybertron? Who are they? Friends, maybe?” Orion looked at the Autobots, no recognition at all in his optics.

Megatron smiled. “Well, they are enemies, of course! They had you in their grasp, but now I have you back. They are the slayers of Cybertron! Vicious warmongers who incited the Great War, bombed Iacon, and who have driven our kind to near-extinction. One even drank the blood of Unicron himself.”

Bumblebee gasped. “We did none of that!”

“Well,” Starscream said, “ I did do all of that.”

Bulkhead jabbed his elbow into Starscream’s side. “Not helping, bud.”

Orion looked at the void where Unicron’s spark had once hovered. “Cybertron is dead? But how?”

“How? Because…” Megatron paused and looked at the Autobots. His vents came in faster and his optics shined brighter, his field a flurry of thought around him. His optics lit up with revelation. He turned back to Orion. “Oh, Orion. I spent millions of years trying to reach out to you in some desperate hope of returning you to your former self, but I began to lose that hope. Until now.” He pointed at the Autobots and leaned in to growl into Orion’s audial. “I was left with no choice but to temporarily ally myself with them so that we could destroy the mad god who they foolishly awakened.”

“Why don’t I remember anything?!”

Unicron’s spark chamber rumbled all around them.

Bulkhead scratched his helm. “If we killed Unicron, why’s he still moving!?”

“His frame is collapsing in on itself!” Megatron shouted. “You should be glad that you don’t remember, Orion. Such horrors.” He activated his comm. “Breakdown! I require a bridge.” Nothing happened. He activated his comm again. “I said— ”

“Ratchet!” Arcee shouted into her own comm. “We need a bridge, now!”

“Ar—” Ratchet’s voice fizzled into static. 

Static hissed through her comms and she swore under her breath. “It's Unicron's spark chamber. His spark chamber is sending out stray signals that make it impossible to send a bridge.”

“What if we moved farther away from the spark chamber?” Bumblebee beeped.

Arcee nodded. “That might work. But…” She looked at Orion.

“Unicron is real? We’re in his corpse?! ” Orion looked down at his frame and grimaced. “I’ve been reformatted?!”

“You need to be kept safe. You were lost to me,” Megatron repeated. It was the softest he’d sounded in eons.

Orion closed his optics as he took a deep vent. He opened them. “Let’s get out of here,” he smiled weakly.

Megatron lifted his fusion cannon and aimed it right at the Autobots. He looked over his shoulder at Orion. “Run.”

“But—?”

“Run.”

Orion nodded, transformed, and then swiftly drove off.

Arcee aimed her blasters. “You’re not taking him again!”

Megatron laughed. “I already have.”

Orion vanished outside the door right as Megatron fired his fusion cannon at the Autobots.

They threw themselves out of the way of the fusion bolt and converged in on Megatron as Unicron’s collapsing spark chamber rumbled and rained fire down onto them. Megatron laughed and spread his arms out as if to welcome them.

Arcee extended her blades and slashed at Megatron’s legs. He swept out with his arm and slammed it into Arcee’s frame and sent her small frame airborne. She struck the ground, hard, and skidded across the ground in a shower of sparks. Megatron spun around and jerked backward right as Bulkhead’s wrecking ball swung by, only to just barely graze the side of Megatron’s helm. The ground buckled beneath them and Megatron leaped backward from the new rift that divided him from Bulkhead. Bulkhead roared and lunged forward, then screeched to a halt and tossed himself to the side to dodge a blast of Megatron’s fusion cannon.

Arcee rose to her pedes and activated her comms. “Ratchet, we need you!”

Starscream activated the crosshair on his HUD and centered it on Megatron. The warlord was right in range, but so were the Autobots. He just had to wait for the right moment to fire his missile and then Megatron would be nothing but an ablaze chassis.

Bumblebee fired a volley of blasts at the warlord only for Megatron to effortlessly dodge each one. Bulkhead moved in again, field wide and optics ablaze, arm swung out to punch, only for Megatron to laugh and step aside in time to avoid his oncoming fist. He slid out his blade and sliced it upward. Bulkhead jerked away. He stumbled back, a new shallow slice gouged along the length of his chestplate.

Static crackled. Starscream continued to stand on the sidelines, missile aimed to fire, ready for the right moment to shoot.

Arcee darted in again under Megatron’s blade as it swung right over her helm and she slashed right at Megatron’s ankle. Megatron roared in pain and snatched onto her back kibble before she could get away. He shoved her into the floor hard enough for it to crack under her and left her crumpled frame behind. Bumblebee ran in again and shot Megatron’s backplates several times, but the bolts only singed Megatron’s thick armor. Megatron spun around and did a roundhouse kick right into Bumblebee’s faceplate and then immediately punched the dazed scout hard enough to send Bumblebee’s frame across the floor and right towards the void in the center of the room.

Launch, Starscream thought to himself. He grit his dentae. Not yet, not yet. He had failed to kill Megatron a thousand times before, but he couldn’t kill him now that it actually mattered?

Bumblebee slammed down onto the edge of the pit where Unicron’s spark once blazed. The edge crumbled away into dust where Bumblebee’s body struck it. A crack formed under him and began to split the floor underneath Bumblebee away from the rest of the room. It tilted at a sharp angle and Bumblebee beeped in alarm. He leaped off the loose rock, caught himself on the edge of the pit, and watched the loose rubble he’d just been on careen down into the bottomless pit below. He gripped tightly onto the edge and dangled, helpless.

Starscream jumped into help—

Megatron backhanded him hard enough to send Starscream sprawled out onto the ground.

Megatron strided over to where Bumblebee clung on. He aimed the barrel of his fusion cannon right at Bumblebee's helm.

But then, he reached out with his talon, grabbed Bumblebee’s wrist, and hoisted the scout back onto stable ground.

Bumblebee froze, his broken vocalizer completely silent.

Megatron leaned in. “When you die it will be at my servo. Not at anyone else’s.” He slammed his talon into Bumblebee’s throat and clutched it in a tight grip. Bumblebee sputtered a string of panicked and incoherent beeps.

Starscream jumped onto Megatron’s back and hooked his claws around his throat from behind. Megatron’s grip on Bumblebee immediately went slack and Bumblebee scurried away. Megatron slammed his frame backwards against the ground and crushed Starscream between him and the floor. Starscream felt his vents wheeze under the sheer weight of the warlord.

Megatron rolled away from Starscream and rested his weight on a single knee. Starscream outstretched his arm and pointed his missile right at Megatron. Megatron glanced at something behind Starscream and smirked. He ignored the smug look on Megatron’s faceplate, steadied his shaky arm, and aligned the crosshairs on his HUD so that Megatron’s helm was dead-center. Activated, aimed, and ready to fire.

Starscream’s intake went dry. His arm began to shake again.

Small pedesteps shuffled behind him. “Please don’t,” a soft voice said. It was spoken with Optimus’s vocalizer but sounded completely unlike him. Starscream was used to that voice being deep and grand, not small and unsure. He paused and looked over his shoulder at Orion.

Megatron’s frame shook with exertion as he slowly drew himself up to full height. He winced when he put his weight on his slashed knee.

Shoot now and—

Megatron stood up on both pedes now, his and his enemy’s blood swept across his frame, and glared right at Starscream.

The shot.

The shot .

Starscreeam had lost the shot, and Orion with it.

Megatron stomped towards Orion. “I told you to wait outside!”

“I, uh, wanted to help?”

Megatron pointed at the door. “Go back outside. I have business to attend to.”

Orion shakily nodded and shuffled back outside. Megatron’s gaze swung back onto Starscream and he strode right towards the Seeker. 

Starscream barely had any time to react before Megatron grabbed his arm in a vicelike grip and lifted him up into the air. He squeezed and Starscream felt the delicate circuitry of his arm buckle under the sheer pressure of the warlord’s grasp. Megatron pulled Starscream so close that he could feel his dark energon-infused breath rasp over him. The faint light of the spark chamber reflected across something on Megatron’s chest. 

Starscream looked down at the dents he’d pounded into Megatron just two days ago.

“I let you get a hit in on me once. That will never happen again.”

He slowly let Starscream down surprisingly gently and then ran outside to meet Orion.

Starscream blinked and watched him leave. “Ahhh!” He shrieked and rushed after him. A servo yanked his wing and he turned to yell at whoever held him back, but saw only Bumblebee. 

“You can’t take him on alone!” Bumblebee whirred.

Starscream ripped himself free of Bumblebee’s grip and ran to the door, only to skid to a stop. Megatron and Optimus’s— Orion’s— alt-modes were already distant gray and red specks.

The Autobots all shakily rose to their pedes and came back together.

“We have to go after him,” Bulkhead smacked his wrecking ball against the wall.

“Not without a plan,” Arcee wheezed.

Starscream flapped his wings agitatedly. “I can fly, I can find them instantly!”

“You’re not going in by yourself.” She narrowed her optics at him, glanced at his missile, but said nothing else.

“We can’t form a bridge, not while this close to the spark chamber’s interference. If we can pursue them, rescue Optimus, form a bridge before the Nemesis can…” Bumblebee beeped. He nodded. “We’ll find them. You’re not going in alone, Starscream. We go after him together.”

Bulkhead moaned. “Even when we all worked together we couldn’t take down Megs!” He frowned at the new gash sliced into his chestplate.

Starscream looked off in the direction Orion had vanished in. “We’ll just have to convince Orion to come with us willingly. Megatron wouldn’t dare attack him. ”

“He doesn’t remember anything?” Bulkhead said. “He shoots a laser out of his chest and gets amnesia?! That makes no sense! What the frag happened to the Matrix?”

Arcee crossed her arms. “I don’t understand it. But we will fix it.”

That mech was in Optimus’s frame, but was in no way Optimus. Orion had a fear in his field that Optimus never had, except—what if it had always been present there, just hidden away?

He pushed that thought out of his helm. “Megatron will definitely come up with some lie to deceive Optimus,” Starscream agreed. “If we just show him how awful Megatron is then we’ll get Optimus to turn tailpipe and come back to us! It will work fantastically! Yes!”

A wave of irritation brushed against Starscream’s field. He turned and saw Arcee right behind him, field thick with anger, servos clenched, with nothing but hatred in her optics. But, she said nothing.

Bumblebee and Bulkhead both exchanged glances and stepped back from Arcee. Bumblebee nodded. “Er. Yes. We’re going to find him. We need to convince him that Megatron has changed for the worse. When Orion realizes he’s a Prime I’m sure he will realize that he is on our side!”

Starscream glanced at her, but shook his helm. Whatever that was would have to wait.

They all transformed and sped off in the direction Orion and Megatron had vanished in.

.

.

.

Orion slammed on the brakes. His tires squealed and smoked with the sheer force of his brake and he immediately unfolded back into root mode. “I’m not taking another step until you tell me what’s happening.”

Megatron did a sharp u-turn mid-air and blazed back towards Orion. “Now is not the time for a temper tantrum! They’re almost upon us!”

“Who? Soldiers?”

“Yes! Enemy soldiers, so we need to keep moving!”

“There’s a fragging war? ”

Megatron dropped back down into root mode and ran up to Orion. Megatron gripped Orion’s shoulders in a tight grasp and began to shout again. "Listen to me! We have to—"

But Orion tuned out his voice and only paid attention to how Megatron’s optics flashed between purple and red. Purple to red, then back again. Not blue, not like how Orion was used to.

Orion recoiled. “You’ve changed.”

Megatron laughed, his breath heavy with the stench of energon. “...Well. So have you. Yes. There is, in fact, a war, as you have so cleverly noticed,” Megatron spat. “Along with some lovely enemy soldiers who wish to snuff my spark and enslave yours, so we really should keep going, please. ”

“Between who? The castes? The public versus the government? Aliens? Who are we even fighting?”

Megatron clenched his fists so hard that his mesh split at his knuckles and droplets of energon dripped down over his servos.

Orion paused and took in the sight of Megatron’s frame. Megatron had always been covered in scars due to the lifestyle of a gladiator. But now there were so many more, evidence of slices and stabs and shots fired all written into Megatron's metal. Orion looked down at his own frame. He traced a shaky servo over the countless ancient dents that had been scored into his own red and blue frame. 

“Now we match,” he laughed weakly. He furrowed his brows and glared at Megatron. “Who are we fighting the war against?

Megatron looked at his own reflection in Optimus’s windshields. He looked away. “We… can discuss this later.”

“What happened when we confronted the Senate?”

Megatron hummed in thought. “Is that the last thing you remember?”

“Well, yeah. We were outside the doors, ready to walk in and confront them, and now I’m in some creepy hallway with you being chased by enemy soldiers.” Orion’s faceplate wrinkled. “And you look terrible for some reason.”

Megatron offlined his optics.

Orion sighed. “Uh. I’m assuming it didn’t go over well?”

“No. Not at all. But that is all irrelevant now—”

“What happened? Surely we convinced them that Cybertron required reform?”

Megatron avoided eye contact. “Yes, the corrupt council heard our pleas and you made your case before them.”

“The verdict?”

Megatron stepped back and thought. The haze of dark energon had already begun to fade from his systems. He felt cold and shaken. He shook his helm. No, he had to be strong now. But neither his sheer physical strength nor skill of his sword could aid him here. This was the moment he had fantasized about ever since their meeting with the council ended, this was the moment Orion would finally stop and listen to Megatron and realize how utterly wrong the Autobot cause was and how absolutely correct the Decepticon one was. 

If only Soundwave were here. It had always been Soundwave who came up with the best schemes.

No. He would not think about him right now. Soundwave’s betrayal—

Ah, betrayal.

Megatron stopped and thought . He had no one left who would do his thinking for him.

He had to pin the blame for the war on somebody—not on himself, obviously. A scapegoat was necessary. Someone who Megatron could point at and say here is your enemy, Orion, this is who we must fight. 

He needed to find a bot who could take Megatronus’s place. The pin had to be blamed on somebody who Orion had been friends with, someone who he knew inside and out, a bot whose supposed “betrayal” would cut deep and leave Orion forever doubting himself.

But who should the target be painted onto? That Wrecker was far too dumb, the annoying scout was still a sparkling, Orion never even met the two-wheeler before the war, there was no way in the Pit he’d ever let Starscream take credit for inciting the war—and as for Ratchet—

A warlord Ratchet. He snorted. The image was no doubt hilarious. He would be an ideal choice.

But even that plan came with its problems. Orion would obviously be best suited to data clerk work aboard the Nemesis. The Iacon Archive was still in desperate need of decrypting. But Orion would surely discover the files on himself and the entirety of the war.

Well, he could just have Soundwave hide and alter those files, what an easy solution. 

Except.

Of course. Why did he keep forgetting? If only Soundwave were still at his side… a better lie would be necessary, Megatron realized, one that could not be easily snuffed out by the clever Orion. If only Starscream were at his side, the Seeker could craft the perfect deception.

Of course, Megatron was alone now.

Megatron glanced down at his reflection within Orion’s windshields again. He saw his own faceplate, his jagged teeth, his wide red optics. Orion was right. He was terrible to behold. 

Ratchet saw that long before Orion did.

“Who was the new Prime?” Orion asked.

Megatron paused. “I—we do not have time for this.”

“You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you? I can handle it, whatever it is.”

“Oh, can you now?”

Orion stepped back. “What… what did I do to you that I don’t remember?”

Anger burst into the air, hot and staticky. Megatron’s field burned with a fire millions of years old. “I was betrayed,” he bit out.

“Wha—”

“There they are!” Bulkhead shouted.

They both turned and looked over at their new guests. The Autobots stood not too far behind, their blasters active and hot.

Starscream leaned over to Bulkhead and whispered in his audial. “I can take him!”

Bulkhead looked at him. “Uhhhhh. Listen, buddy, has that ever worked out for you?”

“I can take him! I can distract him long enough for you to grab Orion.”

Bumblebee beeped. “ We’ve already lost one teammate, we can’t afford to lose another.”

Megatron and Orion transformed and sped off. Starscream reacted on instinct and instantly transformed into his jet mode. He rammed himself right into Megatron’s side and sent both of them over the edge of the bridge and into a freefall down into the abyss below. The Autobot’s and Orion’s panicked voices echoed in Starscream’s audials but all he could focus on was Megatron. Antibodies swarmed them and bit at their frames as they both reverted back to root mode. They fell onto another, lower bridge below in a heap of tangled limbs and spilt energon.

Starscream landed right atop Megatron’s frame and shoved his talons right down onto the warlord’s neck cabling. “Don’t you dare move,” he breathed as drops of energon welled up from where the tips of his talons cut into Megatron’s mesh.

He blearily looked up and saw the Autobots above, fear on their faceplates. Orion stared right at Starscream and for a brief moment, the two mechs made optic contact.

This wasn’t Optimus, Starscream realized. He had logically known that ever since they left Unicron’s spark chamber, but now the reality of it had settled in. Those weren’t the blue optics of Starscream’s new friend and now best companion, they were the optics of a frightened, confused stranger who saw only an enemy.

Orion looked between Megatron below and the Autobots, his field thick with panic. He transformed and drove away at full speed from the Autobots who quickly transformed as well and gave chase.

Starscream ripped himself off of Megatron and stumbled away from the warlord. He looked at how the tips of his talons were stained blue-purple. The distant red tail lights of Orion and the Autobots vanished down the length of their distant bridge high above and the echo of their engines grew faint.

Megatron rolled his optics as he rose to his pedes. “You can scream at me and kick me and choke me all you want. I will win. You just guaranteed that.”

Starscream instinctively leaned back and prepared himself for the inevitable blow. He shuttered his optics so he wouldn’t see it coming.

“Mhmm. No,” Megatron hummed. “I could strike you. But I won’t. I’m about to do something that will hurt you far more.” Megatron began to walk down their bridge as if he were on a stroll.

Starscream glared at him and he transformed, ready to fly back up to the Autobots, but suddenly heard Megatron laugh.

“That would be unwise.”

Starscream ignored him and blasted off anyway. He felt something land on his right wing and skitter up to his cockpit. One of the antibodies. Another joined it, then another, and soon his whole frame was inside a cloud of them.

“Scrap! It’s like a hundred tiny Ratchets!” He ducked and backflipped through the air to lodge them free, but more just kept coming. He gave up and landed back down onto the bridge back beside Megatron. "Ew, ew, shoo!"

“Now it’s just the two of us again,” Megatron smiled. “I suppose we’re walking, then. Our path will meet up with theirs eventually.”

“So I’m stuck with you again?!”

“Correct. I am actually not in the mood to kill you, and we both know you cannot kill me. We both wish to reunite with the others. So, we shall walk.”

Megatron continued to stroll down the bridge. Starscream groaned and ran up to him so they could walk side-by-side.

The warlord sighed and looked up to stare at the glow of Unicron’s biolights high above. If Starscream squinted they almost looked like stars. They went dark one by one.

Unicorn’s antibodies swarmed through the air and released a panicked buzz so high-pitched that it pierced Starscream’s audials. They smashed into each other non-stop, whirled around aimlessly, and many spontaneously went dark and just dropped dead. Starscream watched one die mid-air and then plummet down into the pitch-black darkness of Unicorn’s innards. He gulped. An antibody fell and splattered right down in front of Megatron's pedes. He did not pause at all and instead strode right through its remains, his legs stained purple.

“Unicron’s death is a tragedy,” Megatron said.

“He was horrible,” Starscream scoffed. “Even to you.”

“But he was still a Cybertronian nevertheless. One of the last few members of our dwindling species. He was one of the eldest, the wisest, and now he is just the latest casualty in this war. Funny, isn’t it? It does not matter whether you are an ancient god, or just another disposable drone. Our deaths are all the same.”

A cracking noise echoed from far away. Starscream turned and watched a distant bridge snap in two. Its shattered remnants tumbled into the dark pit far below. There was a deep rumbling that was so low and deep it shook Starscream’s struts.

“Why is his frame still so active?” Starscream asked.

Megatron shrugged. “It is cannibalizing itself. Soon it will go dark for good at any minute now.”

“We’re stuck inside the death throes of a giant corpse?”

“Yes.”

“How pleasant.”

There was another noise off in the distance, another distant bridge crumbled under its own weight and fell down into dust. Another light went dark overhead.

Megatron took a deep vent beside him. Starscream stiffened, ready for an attack—

—Megatron’s rigid posture went loose and he slouched. 

Starscream blinked at the sight. Megatron sighed. “You know…”

Starscream rolled his optics. He was in no mood to have to listen to another tirade. He grumbled and awaited Megatron’s melodramatic moaning.

“Do you remember what the Pit was like at night?”

Starscream blinked and looked over at him.

“It was so quiet when there were no duels going on,” Megatron continued. “No screams from a crowd, nor screams of the dying. The stands were empty. Desolate. Not a mech in sight besides us.”

“Why are you talking about this?” Starscream asked.

Megatron gestured around them at Unicron’s insides. “It was just like this. Complete quiet. I remember the smog from Kaon’s factories and how it would cover the Pit like a smothering blanket. But occasionally it would clear and you could see a star. Maybe two if you were lucky.”

Megatron’s field roiled around him in thought. He looked up and squinted at the ceiling. “...I can’t see any stars now.” His voice lacked its usual boom and instead had a slight wheeze to it.

“Yes, I do remember you taking me there. I did see your stars once.” Starscream said. “We agreed that every oppressed Decepticon should have a chance to see them.”

“Now the Decepticons are lost amongst them,” Megatron said. “Every Autobot, too.”

Starscream knew he obviously couldn’t see the stars, but found himself urged to look up anyway. The only “stars” were the god’s dying biolights. Yet another light went out overhead. It exploded in a burst of purple flame and they both watched the sparks wheel off into the darkness.

“Do you remember when the Nemesis fled Cybertron?” The warlord’s field was calmer now, no longer the angry static Starscream had gotten accustomed to, but now slow and thoughtful instead.

Starscream sighed. “Ah. Of course I do. We abandoned our home, how could I ever forget?”

Megatron's gaze was unfocused and his voice distant. “We pursued the Ark across the vast reaches of space. Ha! It was no match for the engines of the Nemesis. When we caught up to it—”

“—I led the assault against it myself.” Starscream instinctively puffed up his armor. “It was the combined strength of mine and my Seeker’s missiles that disabled the Ark’s engines and sent it adrift.”

“Ha! We sent the Autobots scattering like turbo rats!”

Starscream remembered how he had stood so proudly at Megatron’s side as they watched the panicking Autobots evacuate in thousands of escape pods, forced to scatter across the galaxy to survive. He had chased after those escape pods, led the hunt himself, made it a contest amongst his Seekers, picked them off one by one—

What if one of his new friends had been in one of those pods he blew up? What if it had been Optimus reduced to dust by his missiles? What would Optimus think of him if he saw him right now? Here he was, reminiscing about slaughtering Autobots who were of no threat to him, who had been fleeing for their lives from him. Starscream groaned and dragged his talons down his faceplate. Megatron said nothing and his field flowed around him contemplatively as he observed Starscream’s distress.

“I should not have done that. Any of that. Frag, I shouldn’t have even been on the Nemesis in the first place. I should have joined Optimus from the beginning, I should’ve been on the Ark. I was on the wrong ship that day.”

“You would have just gone down with it,” Megatron said. “Those were good days for us, were they not? You seemed moderately content being subservient to me and therefore behaved yourself. Your attempts on my life were far and few between. I did not have to beat you too often to keep you in line. Ah, why did it have to change?”

“Why did it have to change?” Starscream pointed his talon right at Megatron’s faceplate. “It never had to change! If you hadn’t gone mad, if you hadn’t gone gallivanting across the stars looking for Unicron’s blood, if you hadn’t…” His wings drooped.

“Oh, ‘if, if, if’! We can argue over ‘ifs’ all day, Starscream.” He sighed and flicked his servo. “If you had not left my side, then, well, maybe we could have returned to those good days.”

Not for the first time Starscream found himself wondering what would have become of him if he hadn’t gotten caught up in that cave-in with Optimus. Would he be currently poised right at Megatron’s side? Would he have left anyway? Would he be homeless?

He had been homeless for a long time, he realized.

“Those weren’t good days,” Starscream shook his helm. “I thought they were. I thought myself lucky for only getting beaten every once in a while instead of daily. In reality, I should not have ever been content to be beaten at all. ”

Megatron rolled his optics. “You forced my hand. You didn’t try hard enough to stop me.”

“I tried to kill you and when you survived I just tried again! Again and again and again!”

“So, I beat you. Again. And then again for good measure. What was I supposed to do? Not punish you? Fine then. I admit it. I should have looked for you. When you failed to return with Airachnid after your mission to the Harbinger, I should have gone to the canyon. I should have been the one to unbury you from that cave-in.”

“So that you could bury me under your pede instead?” Starscream laughed.

“Right where you belong. Those were good days,” Megatron continued with that distant look on his faceplate again. “The Nemesis, strong. The Ark, abandoned. The three of us, you, me, and. And.” He instinctively lit up his fusion engine. “Soundwave. Obviously.”

“Will you make Orion stand beside you? Will Orion hunt down and slaughter Autobots for you?” Starscream walked closer to Megatron. The voice of caution in his helm that sounded just like Optimus warned him not to, but he could not help himself. 

Megatron squared his shoulders. “He will stand beside me.”

“How long will it be before you begin to hit him the same way you hit me?”

Megatron was silent.

“Will you manipulate him into thinking he should be grateful for only being occasionally beaten instead of being often beaten?”

“I would never beat him!”

The two were now close enough to feel the heat of each other’s vents wash across their armor.

“How do I know you won’t just kill Orion?”

“Because I never killed Optimus , did I?”

“But why? ”

Megatron thought for a moment. “Because he hasn’t ever tried to truly kill me.”

"What about yesterday?! Do you not remember when Optimus stormed into your chambers, hellbent on taking your spark?"

"I refused to fight, of course. Why would I have engaged him? Our duels must be on my terms, never his."

“But if he changed his mind again? If Optimus tried to strike you down with another killing blow, then would you respond with one?”

Megatron’s faceplate was like a carefully crafted mask, sculpted to only ever show the emotion it was supposed to.

His faceplate twitched.

“Would you?” Starscream repeated.

“...No,” Megatron said softly. “I kill Autobots. But I will not kill that one. He must live, Starscream. Do you know why?”

Starscream said nothing.

“Because,” Megatron leaned down, “for some mechs, living is harder than dying.”

.

.

.

The upper bridge the Autobots were on naturally sloped down into a Y shape and fused with Megatron and Starscream’s below. Bumblebee was waiting for them right up ahead.

“We found him,” he beeped in a low tone.

“Where did Optimus run off to now?” Starscream asked.

Bumblebee pointed at something up ahead. “There.” The bridge narrowed into one of Unicron’s veins. A dark tunnel loomed ahead and the distant sound of arguing echoed from it. Megatron put on a burst of speed and ran right into the tunnel.

Starscream moaned. “Oh, Optimus just had to run right into the dark creepy tunnel, didn't he?”

They followed Megatron into the tunnel and saw that Orion was not too far ahead. He paced back and forth, his field unsure and erratic. He narrowed his optics at the sight of them, distrust thick in his field. The tunnel split into a fork ahead, both paths pitch-black, and Orion stood right between them.

“You understand that he is different,” Arcee pleaded. “I know this is confusing, but you have to come with us.” Arcee commed base. “Ratchet, we could really use a bridge!” 

“Arcee? What’s happening—?” Ratchet’s voice fizzled out.

Orion gasped. “Was that Ratchet?”

Bumblebee ran in front of Orion. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Who are you? What’s happening? I don’t…”

“Focus! What is the last thing you remember?”

“Megatronus and I were outside the Senate chamber getting ready to confront them.”

Bumblebee inhaled sharply. “That’s it? You can’t remember anything that came afterward?”

“No!”

Megatron activated his own comms. “Breakdown, you fool! Answer this instant!” All he could hear was static. “Useless fool!”

Arcee laughed. “Oh, no luck for you either?”

“We must venture even farther away from the sparkchamber to be able to get a signal.”

Megatron immediately ran past Orion and all of the Autobots and began to inspect the two tunnels ahead. He walked into one and stretched out his field, using the very the last of the dark energon within his frame to sense the flow of dark energon within Unicron’s. He scowled and shook his helm. “I sense a dead-end.”

“Only for you,” Starscream scowled. He pointed his blaster right at Megatron—then lifted it up and shot at the ceiling above him instead. The ceiling exploded in a shower of metal fragments and tons of metal rained down between them and the warlord. Megatron cried out in rage, his voice muffled by the debris that now divided him from them.

“No, no no no! ” Megatron cried out in—desperation?

Megatron was never desperate. He was the one who made bots desperate.

A wall of jagged debris stained in dark energon now blocked off the tunnel with Megatron stuck behind it. He could hear the sound of desperate, jagged talons attempt to break through from the other side. Starscream’s wings hiked up. He had spent so many years hoping that one day Megatron would once experience the same desperation and fear that Starscream had felt on a daily basis.

But he couldn't enjoy this. How could he? The terrified static in Megatron’s field, the hitch in his voice, the way he tried to claw and scrape his way—Starscream stepped back. Is that how he had looked? When he threw himself onto the floor at Megatron’s pedes and begged for forgiveness, fearful for his life, is this what Megatron saw?

Starscream forced himself to look away.

“Orion!” Megatron shouted from the other side. “You’re armed! Defend yourself!”

Orion glanced back and forth between both of his servos. “I’m armed?!” He stretched out one of his arms. The plating on his arm shifted and whirred, the Autobots tensed up—but then Orion gasped. His arm reverted back into his servo.

The screech of metal being struck against metal pierced the air. A tear suddenly opened up in the debris, then another. Long and narrow gashes formed in the debris pile wherever Megatron slashed at it with his sword.

Starscream approached Orion. “Do you even remember how you rescued me?”  

“No!” Orion held his servos out. “I don’t know who you people are!”

“The cave-in, Ratchet getting high, the moon battle? Therapy? The midnight duel? Not even brunch with Megatron?!”

Orion blinked. “Uhh?”

Starscream laughed hysterically. “Aha! This is great! You remember nothing!”

Orion squinted at him. “I… might remember you?” His optics lit up in recognition. “Your voice… you’re the Starscream who Megatronus introduced me to. Wait, why do you look so different?”

Starscream stiffened. He had forced those memories out of his helm, but all it took was Orion’s innocent question to bring them flooding back. All of the Autobot’s optics were on him. He opened his intake to speak, but no sound came out.

Megatron punched a hole through the debris pile. A slow laugh echoed through the tunnel. Megatron’s optics leered at them.

“Starscream has been reduced to this diminished form. He is a shadow of his former self, forced to live out the remainder of his function in a frame small enough to fit in the shadow of his past one.”

Bulkhead scratched his helm. “Star, what’s he talking about?”

Starscream’s wings swept down and his armor locked up. “That’s irrelevant! I’m the same.” He pointed at Orion. “You have to come with us.”

Megatron resumed his barrage against the debris. The pile shifted and loosened with each punch of Megatron’s fists.

“Can we get going, please?!” Bulkhead whimpered.

Orion pressed one of his servos to his chestplates as if trying to hold something in. “Oh, really? Who should I follow? My best friend and brother, or the enemy soldiers trying to take me away?”

Arcee sighed. “We’re not enemy soldiers. We’re your soldiers. Look at my badge.” She turned and extended her winglet on her back. The purple light in the tunnel was faint, but still enough to illuminate her Autobot badge. “Now look at your shoulders.”

Orion looked at his shoulder and his optics widened. A matching Autobot badge was branded right onto his own frame.

“We’re the soldiers trying to take you home,” Arcee continued. She held out her servo.

“I was really a Prime?” 

Arcee nodded. “You were and you were the greatest of them all. The Matrix is trying to remind you of that.”

Orion’s optics lit up and his field swelled with emotion. He opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut as he held his servo to his chestplates. He shook his helm and his whole field deflated. “Like Sentinel?”

“No,” Bulkhead said firmly. “You were not Sentinel. You were what Sentinel should have been.”

Orion looked back and forth between Arcee’s outstretched servo and the wall that divided him from Megatron. “I don’t remember anything.”

“We will help you remember,” Bumblebee said. “The Matrix blessed you, it trusted you, it took you in and made you its own! You’re like a father to me!”

The debris bulged outwards where Megatron’s fists struck hard enough to warp the metal.

“Do not make me resort to my cannon,” Megatron warned. “ I will risk shooting Orion only as a last resort!”

“The Matrix burns,” Orion hissed through gritted dentae. He held his free servo against the wall to steady himself as his field contorted in pain.

“Listen, Megatron is a liar. You were our beloved leader! You fought for justice and freedom!”

Megatron pounded his fists on the debris hard enough to make the whole tunnel shake with his rage. “Do not be deceived by their lies! You waged war!” Megatron’s muffled voice shouted.

Orion shook his helm. “I led a war? ”

Bumblebee scratched his helm. “...Technically? But—!”

“I’m the leader of an army?”

Bulkhead wrung his servos together. “Well, eh, yes—”

“I’m… I'm a murderer?” Orion asked so softly that his voice was barely audible.

Bumblebee paused. “You killed because you had to.”

“I’ve killed mechs?!”

“Well, you did. Because you had to . Megatron left you no choice,” Arcee said.

Megatron’s voice boomed through the gaps in the debris. “Because you left me no choice, Orion!”

Orion stepped back from everybody, his field heavy with turmoil. “Just leave me alone.”

“You have to come with us,” Starscream said.

“I said, leave me alone.”

“Please! You rescued me from him, now let me rescue you from him.”

Megatron shouted. “I am here to rescue you from them! Stand aside, Orion!” Megatron shouted. A whirrrr hummed through the air.

The air suddenly grew warmer and droplets of melted metal began to drip down the debris pile. It shook and a purple glow shone through it—

The Autobots jumped to the side just in time to avoid getting melted by the plasma bolt that exploded through the debris. Megatron’s frame became visible through the hole. He gripped the edges of the melted hole and pried the molten metal apart with his bare talons. He heaved his frame through, his knuckles dented and cut up, bloodied with his own spilt energon, and stumbled towards Orion.

Orion winced and clutched his chestplates even tighter. “Megatronus, what happened?” 

“Nothing to worry about.”

“No, Megatronus. What happened to me? Who even am I anymore?”

Megatron stared at him, his optics bright, his field heavy with thought. Starscream rolled his optics—just what lie would Megatron come up with now?

Arcee pointed her blaster at Megatron. “Do not listen to a single word he says, it’s all lies!”

Megatron’s helm snapped around to look at her, optics ablaze. “Is the truth,” he smiled, “a lie? ”

Megatron took a deep vent. Yes, he still needed to find the perfect scapegoat who could feasibly take Megatronus’s place. The blame had to be shifted onto a mech Orion knew intimately... a bot whose change of spark would make Orion question every single one of his ideals... a bot whose betrayal would leave Orion doubting himself for the rest of his function. He rolled that last thought over and over in his mind. 

Leave Orion doubting himself for the rest of his function.

Starscream recognized that smile on Megatron’s faceplate. It was the smile he had when he’d found Starscream crawling through the rubble of Vos and offered his servo out to him, the servo Starscream should never have taken.

Megatron stepped forward and gently held both of Orion’s shoulders. “Yes. You were Optimus Prime.”

Orion gasped. The Autobots looked at each other.

“We confronted the Senate together. But they manipulated you and you fell prey to their machinations. They turned you against me and you thought you could find a way to defeat me if you ventured into the core of Cybertron. You spoke faceplate-to-faceplate with Primus himself and he granted you the Primehood. You thought you had been given a privilege, but it was really a shackle. This war killed our homeworld, no, murdered it, reduced it to a corpse adrift in space, and so I was left with no choice but to take my forces away from our home and flee to space. I spent millions of years trying to rescue our world from the Senate, from the Autobots, and then—” Megatron looked Orion in the optic, “—from you.”

“ Lies!” Starscream shrieked and flung himself at Megatron. Bulkhead threw his arm out and shoved Starscream back. 

Orion flinched away from them.

Megatron cleared his intake and continued. “You went into the core of Cybertron as one mech… and left it as a very different one. You gladly accepted the accursed Matrix and allowed it to delve into your very being, to unmake you and remake you. The Matrix stole you, deceived you, took you in and made you its own! You were lost to me!”

Orion numbly pressed one of his servos to his chestplates. “I can still feel the weight of it,” he said.

“You were their figurehead, the posterboy of their war machine, the defender of the unjust status quo. Orion was gone and only Optimus remained in your place.”

Arcee growled and Orion looked at her. “You were not our puppet, you were our leader—”

Megatron grabbed the side of Orion’s helm and gently turned it back to face him. “And you were a fantastic one. A fantastic leader, and a terrible tyrant. You were dead inside.”

Starscream froze.

“You have been trapped in a vicious cycle,” Megatron continued, “but now I am here to free you from it.”

Bulkhead smacked his fist into his palm. “The only thing Optimus needs freeing from is you. ”

“The Matrix rewired your thoughts, reshaped your frame, and reforged your spark.”

“No, no—”

“Look at yourself! Do you even recognize your own faceplate?” Megatron unsheathed his sword and lifted it up so Orion could see his own reflection on its surface. “You were unmade and then remade into its image of the perfect leader.”

Orion stepped back, his field thick with emotion. “What have I done?”

“Orion, I had countless chances to kill you over the course of this war, but I refused to deliver a killing blow. I never lost hope that you would see the error of your ways. Here we are now, together again in the core of yet another dying world. I have a question for you, Orion.”

Orion sniffled and stayed silent.

“Who will you be when you walk out of here? Will you be the cold, unfeeling Prime, or will you be yourself?”

Orion flinched and shifted his arm into a blaster. His optics went wide and he frantically scanned the sight of his own blaster as if he had never seen it before.

Because he hasn’t, Starscream realized.

The Autobots stepped back. “Please be careful with that,” Bumblebee said.

Orion’s faceplate hardened. “I said, leave me alone.”

“Please—” Starscream reached out.

Orion fired. The boom of the blast echoed down the tunnel.

Orion stared at the smoke as it drifted away from his still-hot blaster barrel. He looked down at his barrel—then up at the new wound burnt into Starscream’s shoulder. 

Orion stumbled backwards at the sight of what he’d done. His blaster jerked and shifted, but remained locked in weapon form. “Turn back, turn back.” The blue glow of his weapon illuminated the raw fear etched onto his faceplate.

Starscream touched his talon to the new blaster hole burnt into his shoulder. His palm came away slick with energon.

Orion squared his shoulders and looked Megatron right in the optic. “I… I will be myself again.”

Megatron’s plating loosened in relief and he pressed his forehead to Orion’s. “You were buried, and now I have unburied you.” 

He activated his fusion cannon again and obliterated the debris further ahead with just one blast. They both transformed and raced down a tunnel together. The rest of the Autobots transformed and pursued them.

They soon saw light on the other side and emerged from the tunnel into yet another vast cavity within Unicron.

There was a flash of green high overhead. They all looked up and saw it at the same time—a groundbridge had formed on a steep, distant bridge.

Megatron and Orion both blazed ahead towards the groundbridge together, Megatron’s alt-mode right behind Orion’s. The Autobots put on the speed and their tires screeched as they gave chase, but it did not take long at all for Megatron and Orion to quickly pull far ahead of them.

“Whose bridge is that?” Bumblebee asked. Static continued to crackle over their commlines.

“Breakdown!” Megatron shouted into his own comm, his field strained. “Whose groundbridge is that? Autobot or Decepticon?”

“It’s—” Breakdown’s voice dissolved into static.

Megatron spiraled around Orion in an erratic flight path, and bobbed and weaved above Orion’s alt-mode.

Bulkhead revved his engine. “I bet I can blast Megatron right out of the sky!”

“No!” Starscream shouted. “He’s using him as his shield! If you shoot you’ll just hit Orion! If I could fly ahead—”

Bulkhead honked. “You’ve been shot, you shouldn’t even be flying at all!”

Starscream grumbled and ignored the stabs of pain that shot through him where Orion had shot him. His vision staticked out and he dropped in altitude before he corrected himself.

“Stop your pursuit, you need to rest!” Arcee scoffed.

“I can do this,” Starscream would have rolled his optics had he been in his root mode. He ignored the alarms on his HUD and pushed even more power into his turbines.

Bumblebee shouted through his comm. “What are you even doing?!”

Starscream flew up directly behind Megatron. Megatron backflipped mid-air, his aim now directly at Starscream, and began to fire his fusion cannon point-blank. Starscream narrowly swerved away and felt the plasma just barely singe his wingtips.

Starscream surged power through his engines and darted ahead so he was directly above Orion’s speeding alt-mode. Alarms flashed across his vision, but he dismissed all of them. “Haven’t you noticed how he’s changed?! ”

Megatron let loose a volley of blasts that Starscream flipped out of the way of. “Stay away from him!”

Orion’s wheels screeched and he swerved right into one of the bridge’s railings. Starscream flipped his frame away from the eighteen-wheeler just in time to avoid being pinned between Orion and the railing. Orion’s frame collided with the railing and sparks flew from where his metal scraped along it. He jerked his frame away and shakily steadied himself, his field thick with the static of panic, the bridge now covered in his black tire-tracks.

For a brief moment Starscream slowed down enough to be right beside Orion, just close enough for their EM fields to brush each other. Confusion bled through Orion’s field, confusion and fear and so many other emotions Optimus had never let slip out. Starscream let his sense of desperation ring out into his field—Orion began to slow down and Starscream felt hope—

Orion’s engine boomed as he put on a burst of speed and blazed his way up the steeply curved bridge. Orion’s frame veered to the side, struck Starscream and the screech of metal-against-metal broke the air.

Starscream tumbled nosecone over engine as his jet engine spat useless bursts of flames. His frame rapidly lost altitude and HUD alarms continued to flash over his pixellated vision. He could distantly hear the Autobots shout at him.

Megatron rushed right into the glow of the groundbridge. 

Orion skidded to a halt right before it and transformed into his root mode. He turned and looked at the desperate Autobots as they raced towards him. Orion was right there, scared, hesitant, they just had to reach him in time—

Megatron emerged through the bridge again, now also in his root mode. He smiled at the Autobots, then held his servo out to Orion.

Orion took it.

Megatron and Orion’s silhouettes grew smaller and smaller until they vanished with a flash of light into the groundbridge. The groundbridge whirred shut and darkness fell on the Autobots.

Arcee commed Ratchet. “Did anybody come through the bridge?”

“What is happening down there?!”

“Did anybody come through the bridge?!”

“No one.”

.

.

.

Megatron walked out onto the deck of the Nemesis with Orion right beside him.

Knock Out rolled his optics. “Oh, not again!” He opened his intake to make a mocking comment, but paused.

Something about Optimus felt… off. Optimus’s field no longer radiated certainty, but now fear. His stride, once wide and sure, now felt timid and forced. Optimus looked out over the bridge, not preparing to attack, but preparing to be attacked.

Knock Out took a step back. That was not Optimus.

The vehicons turned as one to look at who came through the bridge. Hostility bled into the air, intense and sharp, each vehicon’s field bright and bitter. Voices murmured from every corner of the room.

Orion’s optics darted everywhere as he took in the sight of the Nemesis. Megatron stood up tall in front of the vehicons, Orion at his side. Megatron looked out over his army and glared.

The murmurs stopped.

Megatron hooked his arm around Orion’s back and silently shepherded him away from the glaring mass of mechs and off into the dark halls. 

He led him away and into a meeting room complete with a large table and a vast viewport.

Megatron gently nudged Orion into a chair and walked over to a cabinet. The first thing he saw when he opened it were several cubes of dark energon. He instantly shoved them aside and cast a quick glance over his shoulder. Good, Orion was still distracted by, well, everything. Megatron shoved the dark energon into the back of the cabinet and grabbed two regular cubes instead.

“It’s Cybertron!” Orion said and pointed at the viewport. “When do we return home?”

“We return when I win.”

“When you win?”

Megatron cleared his intake. “When we win, of course. A victory for me is a victory for us all.”

The viewport flickered and Orion grimaced at the murky ocean outside.

“No,” Megatron sat down at the chair across from him. “Your destiny lies here now, not out there.”

Orion looked away from the viewport and at his cube instead. He raised it and clinked it with Megatron’s.

The Matrix burned.