Chapter Text
A benefit that gladiators have over miners - they get to die above ground.
D-16 (because he can't be Megatronus, not here, not now) is falling, falling, falling. Deep under the surface of Cybertron, deep into the Well of All Sparks.
Of course this is where he's going to offline.
Underground and alone.
Disposed of.
Forgotten.
The sheer speed has his audials malfunctioning as his frame careens downward. The sensors on his plating churn out data, battered by every particle he sinks past.
Above him, the top of the Well is growing smaller.
The chance for his offlining taking place under the stars has been lost.
There's a sudden jerk - and a servo with a tight grip on his pauldron. He's… not falling anymore; he's being pulled upwards, towards the surface, out of the Well.
He's gently let down on the edge, and he collapses, welcoming the feeling of ground beneath his servos and knees. But he can only devote half his central processor to the sensations: just a few steps away, Sentinel is holding Soundwave in the air by his neck cabling, the Prime's digits digging in and dripping with the deployer's split energon lines.
Both mechs are staring at D - who, by all accounts, should probably be dead right now.
"Sentinel!" a voice calls.
D looks up.
The mech standing above him is small, barely waist-high, if D was at his full height. He can't label him as a two-wheeler, though.
He has no kibble.
There's not a single piece of extraneous material on the mech's frame.
He's mostly covered with uncoated metal - the majority of his crimson-and-navy paint has been scratched off or faded away, plating marred with the evidence of dozens of poorly hammered out dents. His legs are shaped like a Predacon's, the strange limbs jointed in a way he's never seen on a bipedal mech before.
The mech raises his arm, his servo rapidly shifting into a plasma blade. "You are a usurper," he says, gazing out at Sentinel.
He has a battle-mask. D can't see his expression. He can't read his field; the mech is keeping it pinned far too tight.
"You are no leader; you are a watcher. You have stolen the name of that which does not belong to you. You are not the chosen of the Matrix of Leadership. You are no Prime."
There is a monoformer warframe, newly emerged from the Well of All Sparks yet somehow covered in the scars of decavorns of battle, standing over D, accusing the Prime of heresy. The mech's glyphs are heavily laden with semi-tone, sharpening his accusations.
His strange legs bend backwards, and he rockets himself forward, blade humming as it moves to cut into Sentinel's outstretched arm. Soundwave is quickly dropped in favor of forming the Prime's own weapon, engaging the warframe in combat.
D shoves himself off the ground, rushing to Soundwave's side, using the heat of his plasma cannon’s barrel to cauterize the severed neck capillaries. The memories of cave-ins, of pulling broken cohorts out from under rubble, come crawling back. He hisses out instructions for his friend to turn his helm, exposing more damages that he quickly seals.
His servos and an optic remain on Soundwave, as his coprocessors dial in on the fight happening before them.
The warframe is dancing circles around the Prime, his disjointed legs bending in awful ways as he ducks and dives under and around Sentinel's blade. There's almost something… preternatural about the way he moves, seemingly knowing where Sentinel is aiming before his blows even come close to landing.
For all his time spent as a gladiator, D has never seen anything like this.
Sentinel is thrown onto his back, and the warframe levels his blade at the Prime's faceplate. "Surrender, Sentinel, and you will live to face trial. The Matrix of Leadership must be returned to the Well, so that it may choose its own Prime," he says. His glyphs are as sharp his sword, but his voice is soft. Pleading.
The mech's affect modals have to be glitched. Crossed with his sentiment compilers. Because there is no way that, with his marred plating and fierce skill, this seasoned warframe that has just come out of the Well is this overtly compassionate.
How -
The Prime -
Sentinel has launched himself off the ground, blade aimed for the warframe's spark chamber, and D finds himself crashing into the Prime's frame, ripping the transformed servo off of his arm, pinning the leaking and battered mech to the ground.
He cycles his optics as he spits at the warframe, "There. Now we're even."
They're definitely not.
With the level of precision the mech had shown, D doubts that Sentinel would've been able to even land a scratch on him with that last bid for control. He doesn't know why he did that. He's in debt to this mech either way. Soundwave is in debt to this mech, either way. And Sentinel -
Sentinel's spark chamber is tearing itself open. The Matrix of Leadership - because what else could that faintly pulsing, metallic-handled crystalline relic be - is ripping itself from the Prime's spark, out of his frame, and into the waiting servos of the warframe.
Split from the Matrix, Sentinel's spark spins itself out of existence - D watches, transfixed and horrified, as the Prime's seizing halts, those awe-inspiring colors giving way to cold, dead metal.
The warframe moves. D keeps his optics locked on the mech as he pushes himself away from the Prime's frame, and steps back to help Soundwave.
"I return your relic to you, Primus," the mech calls, cradling the Matrix in his arms while he walks towards the edge of the Well, his pedesteps measured and certain. "I return to you the right to choose your own bearer, your own Prime." The mech stops, his back to D. "The Senate will limit your freedom no longer!"
A wave of light passes over his frame as he initiates a transformation sequence unlike any D has ever seen - instead of dropping into alt-mode, the mech's plating moves and expands, his struts reformatting themselves as he rises up, up, up, until he's nearly rivaling D in height. The scratches on his armor seal over, paint expands over his frame, and his joints shift into something far more normal than they were. Kibble - smokestacks and tires - emerges from within his limbs.
D finds himself clinging to Soundwave just as much as he's holding the deployer upright, as the warframe - no, not a warframe any longer - the freighter turns back to face them.
His battle-mask is different - no longer a solid, full-face visor - instead, a simple silver mouth-plate rapidly folds away into his helm, stowing itself next to tall, blue finials. The mech's bright blue optics bore into D's, his expression solemn.
"D-16," the mech says, stepping away from the Well and towards them. "Megatronus Prime is honored that you have chosen to take up his name. He grants you his blessing, that you be known as Megatron."
…Who does this mech think he is?
Besides him, Soundwave's vocoder whirs and clicks despite its damages. "Query: Designation?"
"I," says the warframe, "am Optimus Prime."
Oh, sweet spike of Solus Prime. D-16 - Megatronus - Megatron - he can't even -
Frag.