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During one of Cybertron’s routine energy checks, they stopped all power flowing into Kaon. During one of Cybertron’s worst wet seasons.
Kaon was well used to such disregard, of course, but rage began to simmer in Megatronus at the surprised flicker of wide blue optics in the dark. The fools had stranded Orion Pax—one of theirs—in Kaon at its darkest and most dangerous.
Megatronus had held onto Orion as closely as he could, but the warmth of a mere bot was no match for the chill of Kaon’s tempestuous storms. With the cuts to all heating and such thin plating of his, Orion had fast fallen ill. The cold digging its claws into his deepest components.
They had forced their hand. They had left them no choice.
Bundling Orion as warmly as he could, Megatronus made the impossible decision to traverse the barren stretch of land between Kaon and Iacon. If Orion could just hang on, he could overcome the illness in a warm and functioning hospital.
Megatronus has travelled such a distance many times before, but during a storm…
“Stay within my tank form, Orion. Do not expend any needless energy.”
Orion, trembling, does not respond.
Under the last outpost of cover against the torrent, the gladiator scans the horizon to gain his bearings, clutching Orion tighter to his frame. Megatronus swears he can almost see the glimmering lights of Iacon from this blackened expanse. Or perhaps it is just the flashes of lightning between the two cities. Perhaps he has much more ground to cover than he anticipated.
Megatronus transforms carefully, nestling Orion deep into the one compartment that had—once—been reserved only for cargo of mere rock. Though Orion rests above the trailing edge of his tracked treads, Megatronus hopes any warmth radiating from his engines may still be enough.
Please, let it be enough.
Bracing himself for the sharp rain, Megatronus shoots out from the final shelter along Kaon’s border. Moisture has long-soaked the terrain, warping its surface. Megatronus despises this cruel dilemma between haste and smoothness. His treads were strong, and fast, but how the patches of softened ground grabbed and refused to let go… Wanting to claim and bury them both.
Lightning shatters the sky, its electric arcs keeping fuel rapidly cycling through Megatronus’ mechanisms. He feels Orion stirring. Unseen by the gladiator, the archivist’s optics stare wide through a tiny seam in the side of the cargo hold.
Sweet child of Primus… what injustices could keep you shackled to this realm?
“Megatronus, do you hear that? I can hardly believe it; the Matrix… is here…?”
Every wire set on edge, Megatronus can only channel his racing thoughts into pressing forward. He can hardly see the path ahead of him through this rain.
“I… I do not hear anything. Please, Orion. Rest.”
But how could Orion sleep, with such strange visions and voices calling for him?
The tank trudges on, jolting with the mounds of warped soil.
The cold is getting to Megatronus. Rain seeps through the gaps of his plating, but he is assured that Orion would at least stay dry. The cargo of metal and ore Megatronus carried once had been infinitely more valuable than himself; he couldn’t have survived long if he allowed anything to compromise his precious cargo.
He would surely rust, but he would survive.
Lightning rips the sky in half. A flash of sickly blue tearing through Kaon’s usual grey-violet hues.
Look how fellow Cybertronians have rendered you thus. How many more must suffer before they stop?
Come back to us, Dear Orion Pax. Your loveliness could thaw even Cybertron’s frozen core.
“Megatronus…” Orion’s voice trembles meek and uneasy. “You truly don’t hear them? They keep saying my designation. They’re saying the strangest things.”
“Rest, Orion! You cannot lose your strength over these visions!” Megatronus hates how he snaps. Thousands and thousands of battles in the Pits—all death tolls ringing for him—have never shaken him so. He is scared. He is scared. He can almost hear those death knells ringing again.
“I can barely hear you over this storm, my librarian. So, please…”
The tank trudges on, treads spinning and loosened rock flying out from underneath. He moves as fast as he can, and pushes himself to go even faster than that.
He can feel Orion flinch and shift with each clap of unnerving blue light. His faint cries for Megatronus fading into whimpers. Megatronus cannot make out any more of Orion’s words under the screaming of his overworked processes and the rain.
Megatronus aches to hold him properly, to comfort him. But to expose him completely to the violent clutches of the storm would be the biggest mistake of the gladiator’s life.
Cybertron awaits, Beautiful Orion Pax. Don’t you want to free them?
Free them with us.
We will be free together.
Kaon is trustworthy in that it simply kills and finishes the job—perhaps this overdrawn, dread storm was actually one of Iacon’s making. It grows stronger the closer they get to the city. Faceting and multiplying, almost. Megatronus begins to feel the strain of his mechanisms against a growing rust in his joints. No matter. He would keep moving until he fell apart, if that is all it took.
Megatronus can feel all the air leaving him at Orion’s sharp gasp.
“Megatronus! I think they’re—”
A shard of lightning strikes the peat next to a tread, nearly collapsing the robust tank into the chasm scorched into the ground. But Megatronus cannot differentiate between the aftershocks and the fear coursing through his fuel lines. As the deafening boom of thunder ripples from that gash—for that horrific moment—Megatronus cannot seem to sense Orion Pax.
But at the soft scrabbling of little servos finding purchase on him, Megatronus’ fritzing spark is set somewhat at ease.
“It’s alright, Orion. Please hold on, it will be alright. We are almost there, I can see the lights ahead now.”
Orion does not seem to move nor speak for the rest of the treacherous journey. Still, Megatronus repeats his reassurances, a crazed mech with a mantra—it soothes the jittering of his own processor, at least.
Iacon is so close. Megatronus has never put so much faith into this distant, haughty city before.
They would help Orion, they had to. They had to save him. It was the only fair reparation after they all but cursed him with sickness.
At an abrupt change in path, rough terrain undercut by smooth and glossy tiling, Megatronus knew that it was only a matter of moments with the speeds his treads reached. His desperate hopes could not quash the churn of his fuel tanks, ruminating on the dull thunk that echoed hollow from his cargo hold, upon the sharp shift to paved road.
“I apologize for all the bumpiness, Orion. It is all smooth riding from here—I promise. I promise.”
There are no sentries posted outside the edge of Iacon City. Only a mad bot would be found outside in this weather—no one worth fending off. Megatronus skids to a painful halt, scraping his sides along Iacon’s outer wall. Rust and healthy paint alike spark off the tank.
Even Iacon is not so cruel as to provide no shelter at this boundary, gates sealing interlopers out only deeper within their spectacle of crystal tunnels. There is some modicum of warmth in these channels, emanating from the city’s heart—an insult that struck Megatronus deeper than the lightning ever could, knowing how Kaon had to die to keep Iacon flush with life.
But he forgets himself in his pride. He is here for something greater than even these two cities. Shifting forms is a painful ordeal with the rain’s cunning damp threaded through his transformation cog, but it would not do for Kaon’s champion to concede to mere elements right outside Iacon. His cog creaks and screeches and aches through its rust, and Megatronus at least did not have to think about slowness—he is not sure if he’d ever be quick on his pedes or treads again.
Megatronus holds back a groan as he steadies himself in his root mode, the rain striking dull on the glass encasing them.
“Orion… we’re here…”
The tunnel is quiet as it echoes his voice. As though he made this journey alone.
“Orion…?”
Slowly dipping his helm, Megatronus spots where the transformation unceremoniously deposited his companion on the ground beside. With the loosened blanket about his still frame, his back facing the world, Orion looked deep in slumber.
Megatronus gently shakes him with a servo. “Orion, wake up. I can continue carrying you past the gates, but I’m not sure they’ll let me in if you are not conscious.” Truthfully, Megatronus simply wanted to see the archivist awake again.
“Orion, please…”
Frightened, Megatronus pulls at Orion’s pauldron to grasp at his face. That’s when the blanket shifts aside to reveal the state of Orion’s spark chamber.
Windshields shattered beyond repair, Orion’s plating furled and splayed out like the radiation of a new star. A cruel parody of his openness, his brightness at his healthiest. Energon no longer flowing, biolights dim before Megatronus’ very optics; sleek black servos already faded to a hungry grey, gnawing at precious red.
His spark chamber is completely empty. Not a shard or splinter of his core remained as evidence it was ever there.
Megatronus does not quite remember how to draw air into his systems. This must be some sort of absurd nightmare—a spark could not just disappear. There was nothing else out there that could’ve taken it.
Once-strong arms shaking, Megatronus drags his optics away to finally look at Orion’s face.
Preserved in a mode of fear, Orion’s widened optics are just blank dark mechanisms under the saddened slant of his expressive ridges—the brightest of his lights the first to be extinguished. His intake is parted on a word left unspoken or unheard. Megatronus fears to know whether the streaks of coolant on his cheeks had been from pain or terror.
His helm bowed, Megatronus carefully shutters Orion’s optics closed, digits trailing on his face to wipe the tears away. It did not matter what happened, Megatronus had failed. He was not fast enough. It was not enough.
Pressing his forehelm to Orion’s, Megatronus selfishly indulges his frame in the wracking of stifled sobs. If it would always be for naught, he wished he just stayed put with Kaon’s quiescence.
Where Orion Pax could have faded gently in his arms, frame left undesecrated.