Chapter Text
A brawl breaks out two klicks after Megatron and the High Guard are exiled to the surface of Cybertron, and although all of them swore their loyalty to him just a few joors ago, not a single one of them listen to him when he tries to break it up.
Soundwave, damn him, even dares to try to stop him.
Not worth the effort, he is told. Necessary even.
Megatron doesn’t see what’s necessary about trying to kill each other, when they have much more pressing issues, and pressing enemies on hand.
The brawl didn’t even have a reason. The maniacs just descended on each other the moment they found a shelter for the night.
Megatron has enough pride not to beg for advice from the Guards previous management, so the fight continues until he shoots his fussion cannon at the commotion with enough force to leave a crater.
The misbehaving mechs growl and hiss at him, but ultimately disperse.
And that’s supposed to be the end of it, or at least it would have been back in the mines, but then some brave and stupid spark decides to linger.
“Screamer would have let us finish it.” The purple jet says, while crossing his arms like a sparkling.
Megatron glares, but the jet doesn’t even twitch, the only sign of movement from him being the purple sparks that start dancing around his armour as Megatron takes a step closer to growl: ”I am not Starscream.”
“Yeah,” The mech laughs. “We noticed.”
He’s gone before Megatron has the time to raise his new gun, leaving only charged air and purple sparks behind him.
Great.
The High Guard can apparently teleport.
-
Megatron does not expect the loneliness that comes after he manages to settle down enough to take a break.
He has no friends here, no loud, over-ambitious, smart-mouthed fools to converse with, to play 20 questions with until recharge finally takes ahold of him.
He doesn’t regret anything, of course. That would be admitting he was wrong, which he wasn’t.
Orion was the one who was wrong. Always with his processor in the stars, this type of stupid stunt was something Megatron should have predicted really.
He’s not really sure how he could have possibly predicted any of what happened in the previous solar cycle, but it was very important to Megatron that Orions betrayal was extremely predictable, and that their friendship didn’t mean anything, really, at this very moment.
Otherwise, he thinks, the aching loneliness he feels in his spark every time he looks at the symbol carved into his chest, and thinks about a long gone sticker, would eat him alive.
So he does what he’s done ever since he’s learned that Sentinel is a dirty, lying traitor – he turns that hurt into simmering anger.
-
“You broke up a fight,” Starscream says apropos nothing one morning, daring to sit right besides Megatron, who has sat down to enjoy his morning meal in peace, away from the High Guard.
His voice comes out mangled, the damage to the voice box apparently having been untreatable without a proper medic. Still, Megatron feels the touch of disapproval under all the static and immediately straightens up, glares and tries his best to emulate the powerful way the Primes always carried themselves in the recordings he had watched, when he was young and stupid.
Starscream, proven coward that he is supposed to be, doesn’t even lower his wings at the display.
“And?” Megatron asks, already furious, and not knowing quite why.
“That’s not really how things work around here.” Starscream has the gall to lean into Megatrons space as he says this. He pats Megatrons arm, with all the detached amusement of an older mech imparting his wisdom to the younger generation.
The disrespect stings. “Oh?”
“They were just figuring out the new pecking order.” Starscream grins. “But don’t worry, there’s no need to wrap your little miner processor around all this.”
Megatron feels his hands curl into fists, a burning pressure seizing his spark, as the need to hurt, break something becomes unbearable. “And why is that?”
“It’s not like you’ll last long enough for – “ Starscream doesn’t have the chance to finish spewing his filth, because Megatron punches him in the face.
Starscream crumples like zinc, clutching his face as he falls to his knees.
“I am your leader,” Megatron says and kicks Starscream in the abdomen. “You forget that I killed Sentinel Prime, and that me leaving you alive is not a mercy I’ll grant twice.”
“Of course, m’lord.” Starscream wheezes out and that is that.
Except Megatron doesn’t feel better.
He still feels angry, buzzing inside.
Later, sitting alone, outside the cave the High Guard has claimed as it’s own, while the rest of what are supposed to be, but don’t feel like, his comrades recharge in a pile of limbs that reminds him of the mines, Megatron allows himself to doubt, for just a second, if all this anger is justified.
It scares him, when he realises that he doesn’t know.
-
Next morning, it is Soundwave that sits next to him, nowhere near to how close Starscream sat, but still close enough that Megatron starts to feel his energon sizzle.
“Challenges: must be public.” Is the only thing Soundwave says, before turning to his morning energon and drinking it in silence like this is normal.
“I don’t see how this has anything to do with me.” Megatron says after a frankly awkward pause.
“Your Challenge with Starscream yesterday: was not public.” Soundwave says, and then does not elaborate further, even though he must know that Megatron has no way of knowing what a challenge is supposed to be, or why him beating up Starscream in a fit of rage was considered one.
Soundwave was making fun of him, Megatron knows it.
“That wasn’t a challenge, that was a lesson,” Megatron growls. “One I can very easily impart to you as well.”
“Negative: I am not Challenging you.” Soundwave says, and then stands up, takes his empty energon cube, and leaves.
Megatron is not fool enough to not hear the ‘yet’ Soundwave leaves unsaid.
-
Shockwave is his next guest, sitting down next to him, at the same polite distance Soundwave had.
“Don’t be bothered by the foolish masses,” Shockwave tells him. “Challenges are a nonsensical way of setting up a hierarchy. You did the right thing in breaking it up.”
And Megatron pauses.
Because this is the first praise he’s heard from the High Guard that wasn’t about his deadly gun or how hot he looked while tearing Sentinel in two.
Still. “I broke up a brawl.”
“Right, right!” Shockwave flaps his hand, not at all getting that Megatron still has no idea what he’s actually talking about. “A Challenge is basically just a brawl! That’s what I’ve been saying for cycles!”
“And what have the others been saying?” Megatron asks, because basically a brawl, wasn’t a brawl. Megatron learned the importance of that distinction first hand back in the mines. Basically safe, wasn’t safe. Basically finished, wasn’t finished.
Shockwave’s following rant reveals two things.
One – in the High Guard, rank is decided by Challenge, as in, your rank in the Guard is entirely dependent on how many mechs you can beat in a fight. Defeating Starscream had given Megatron his rank as leader, and left Starscream as second-in-command, which in turn, bumped the previous second-in-command – Soundwave - into the third-in-command and so on and so forth.
Two – a Challenge wasn’t a one time thing. It could be repeated as many times as needed. Which meant that Megatron’s position as leader wasn’t as stable as he had thought. The Guard respected him, Shockwave told him, he’d still be in Command, only now as the second-in-command, if he ever lost a Challenge. Command had switched hands enough that no one would bat an eye, he was informed. Soundwave and Shockwave both had had their stints as leaders of the High Guard before apparently.
Megatron listened to this and raged, all he heard was the thought that he would be the leader of nothing again.
He had not given up everything to have his command just taken from him one day.
“Both me and Soundwave could beat Starscream, and he could beat us,” Shockwave told him. “Which is why deciding rank by Challenge is just a foolish idea, really. We’ve known each other long enough to know how to win against each other. It’s just not a viable method of devising a hierarchy.”
Megatron had not seen Shockwave stop for air once during his whole rant. It seemed like Shockwave had a lot of pent up aggression in relation to this subject.
“Thank Primus I’ve found another mech with a processor on their shoulders. Honestly, not stopping you from Challenging Starscream was the best decision I ever made.” Then Shockwave paused. “I see the hypocrisy in this statement, but rest assured that my reasons for it are purely logical.”
And then Shockwave turns to Megatron like he expects an answer, and Megatron only hesitates a klick, before extending out his hand for a handshake.
“It will be a pleasure to work with you,” Megatron grins, having heard enough to know that he had finally found an ally in this place.
He had thought he found allies in the High Guard when they cheered his name and left to the upper side of Cybertron too, but Megatron choose to not dwell on that.
He was not slinking back to Optimus Prime or whatever he decided to call himself now just because he lost a fistfight with some treacherous snake, or some emotionless know-it-all.
Megatron refused to even entertain the idea, so what he needed was stability.
A stability, it seems, Shockwave shared a want for.
And that? That Megatron could use.
-
Megatron goes to sleep and dreams of participating in the Iacaon 5000.
When he wakes up, he destroys the side of a mountain.
It doesn’t make him feel better.