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It’s surprisingly easy to let Orion Pax go.
To look him in his bright blue optics, watching them flicker on and off and on again, as he makes that unreadable face, his voice box spitting out choked up, undecipherable static. Where Orion’s left arm once was, now only a gaping hole surrounded by mangled, greying metal strips remained, as though they were desperately reaching for the missing half in the endless void below.
He tells himself it is rage guiding his spark, that it is a burning hate, one so scorchingly hot that it would melt even the hardiest of metals into a pure white ash, leaving nothing behind in its wake, as he planned to do to the entirety of his enemies once he relinquished his final tie to his old, worthless, and weak self.
It’s the only way he can possibly grapple with the cold numb feeling that has engulfed his very being as he feels his servos loosen their grip and Orion’s frame becomes weightless for a singular moment, as if to taunt him with that impossible hope that there is still time to pull Orion back up, before his bright red and blue frame plummets and is swallowed up by the pitch black black abyss.
Any trace of the Cybertronian known as Orion Pax is lost forever.
It was almost like the bot had never existed in the first place.
Physically, at least. That sad, desperate faceplate is still looping in his processor like a bad dream.
He pulls himself up to stand, his back facing Sentinel’s drones, all while his left arm still trembles before it finally stills, and that familiar heat starts crashing through his system. As he turns to face his adversaries, he can hear himself screaming, roaring, as he rips and tears through each of the mindless security drones with his bare servos. The few glancing blows that managed to strike him only served to temporarily blind him as sparks flew from the force of contact. It’s easy to get used to their plating buckling and bending under his might as they thrash about in a facsimile of pain, silently screaming as he throws them all aside to get to his true objective.
Sentinel Prime…how could he have ever admired–idolized even–such a pathetic, sniveling excuse of a bot? His garish blue and gold paint was scratched up and burnt from their previous confrontation when he had lunged at the false Prime’s back and sent them hurtling through the streets of Iacon city. He watches as the coward desperately tries to shuffle backwards, his leg struts unable to find any purchase as he scrabbles at the ground in a futile attempt to escape. The fear in his blue optics causes him to pause for only klik, if only because they remind him of–
It no longer matters.
He had already strengthened his resolve when he discovered the truth.
It was so, so easy.
Feeling for the seams in Sentinel’s frame.
Digging his digits deeper to grasp at the very core of his rotten being.
Fighting against the wires and tubes, desperately trying to stay whole.
It’s almost liberating.
The shower of sparks and energon raining down on him as he finally tears Sentinel in two.
Tearing open that gilded chest plate as if in a trance and then roughly pulling Megatronus’s T-cog out of the still-cooling corpse of Sentinel.
Declaring that he would bring an end to the tyranny of false primes and the shackles that had bound him and his kin to the dark since the moment of their creation.
The raw power and strength of Megatronus coursing through his frame as he blasts through every Primus-damned statue and image of Sentinel that he can see.
He is unstoppable.
He will bring Cybertron to a new age.
One where the strong will punish the wicked and pave the way for a new golden era.
One where he will no longer be tethered to the whims of those weaker than him.
One where Orion Pax will no longer haunt him with his foolish and naive plans for a kinder, impossible future.
Finally.
Everything he ever wanted is within his grasp at long last.
Megatron’s euphoria and peace were short-lived.
Energon still needs to be mined, and the cogless miners are still without transformation cogs.
The security drones that Sentinel used did help cover a third of the cogless bots, but that still left the other two-thirds under his command. Luckily, there was still the population of cogged bots who still needed to be punished for their complacency in the previous system; it wasn’t hard at all to start rounding them up in the factories that Sentinel had once used on bots like himself. The High Guard had obviously been excluded from the mandatory process due to their previous loyalties to him, but by the end of the cycle, he had hoped to have every single cogged bot’s transformation cogs transferred to a more worthy host before starting their new jobs as energon miners.
His enthusiasm was dampened even further due to the present looming threat of another Quintesson invasion and, even more frustratingly, the inkling of a rebellion movement being formed in the shadows, trying to bring his new empire down. Although only rumors for now, the thought of anyone still sympathetic to Sentinel’s past regime made his tanks churn in disgust. Ariachnid was still missing in action since confronting Elita-1…
He also hadn’t heard from Elita-1 or B-127 since the day he took over Iacon; it had been ages since he had even last thought of them.
Whatever, it’s not like they really mattered in the end, and it’s more than likely they were simply enjoying their new lives as free bots, doing whatever they wanted to after being given the power to do so. Even though they had tried to attack him before, he’s willing to be the bigger bot in the situation and let bygones be bygones. After all, Sentinel’s propaganda was subtly insidious; he had once believed it with his entire spark at one point, too. Once he had everything under control and the Quintessons were eradicated, they would come around and accept the new status quo.
He had the power to do it now, after all, he had Megatronus’s transformation cog powering him now, it was why he had discarded his old identifying number and rechristened himself–
“Dee, you can’t keep ignoring me forever. I know you can hear me.”
Ah.
In contrast with the other bots he had been reminiscing about, Orion Pax was one he had desperately hoped was simply just the hallucination of an overworked processor. He had dropped that annoying glitch down the Well of Allsparks, and now, perhaps in some kind of petty revenge, the bot refused to give him even a singular moment of peace.
At first, he was…not frightened per se, more like concerned that some foolhardy bot had tried to hack his processor to get him to act rashly. But after getting checked by both Soundwave and Shockwave, his processor was thankfully untouched by outside influences. Unfortunately, that also meant that the figure of Orion Pax’s final moments was most definitely real and invisible to all but him…which was even more aggravating because, once again, he is suffering in silence, and it’s all Orion Pax’s fault…again.
The whole situation might have been easily ignored if it weren’t for the very fact that, since Orion was most definitely intangible as well, he got extremely bored and would start talking and rambling at random moments of the solar cycle. Making the already tedious task of trying to listen to reports and debriefings even more annoying, as he had to tune out Orion’s musings about Starscream and what kind of wing polish he used.
It wasn’t so bad…at first.
When he first saw Orion, the mech would just stand around and face a corner for hours on end, making quiet sobbing sounds for the majority of that time. It was…discomforting, to say the least, to listen to when he was busy doing work and trying to draw up battle plans against the Quintessons. It's why he had originally thought it was his processor being drowned in unfounded guilt and exhaustion that had brought about this visage.
But eventually, even the strangest of events will become mundane if experienced enough, which is what led to him foolishly lowering his guard one day.
Because Orion Pax had to ask that ridiculously inane question.
One so stupid he can’t even bring himself to repeat it back.
And like an utter and complete idiot.
He just had to answer.
“No.”
He had never felt his engines go quite as fast into overdrive in his life as when he heard Orion’s neck snap towards his direction, those hauntingly blue optics narrowing with scrutiny upon his frame, studying the grey mech’s every move. This silent investigation continues for hours as he becomes even more focused on the bureaucratic nonsense that Starscream had piled onto his desk in an attempt to get his processor to explode, although the poorly thought-out attempt to weaken him was now a desperately needed lifeline, as it gives him the perfect excuse to look down and avoid that bright blue gaze.
He managed to escape that encounter unscathed, beyond a racing spark, wondering if he had cracked his processor somehow.
Nowadays, he wishes he could smash his processor to bits with the stress of running Iacon and also pointedly ignoring his former best friend haunting him.
Megatron sighs, pinching his nasal ridge in exasperation as Orion continues to stare at him with pointed silence, looking at him with those beguiling blue optics that still blink in and out, just like when they last saw one another. It helps to focus on them because, if he doesn’t, then his own optics trail down, and it causes his spark to race into overdrive when he is forced to bear witness to the mangled, missing metallic parts of Orion Pax.
Primus.
He probably is going insane.
Beyond that part, Orion Pax still looks strangely the same, his face plate still as annoyingly expressive as ever, and is now twisted up towards him with an expectant glare.
Megatron sighs again, subtly turning his head to give the office a quick, cursory glance for any sign of bugs planted by Starscream or worse, before looking up and giving the “ghost” a withering glare.
“Fine, what do you want, Pax?”
The blue and red apparition blinks at him in barely concealed shock, as if he wasn’t expecting the other to actually respond, before recomposing himself into a pose of some paltry authority.
“What are you doing?”
What an anticlimactic response after all this time, but he’s not one to dwell on that kind of thing anymore; he has far more important things to worry about now, “I’m the ruler of Iacon and what remains of Cybertron now, what aren’t I doing?” he said sardonically.
It’s Orion’s turn to give him an exasperated look, as he tightens his remaining servo into a fist, “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“Oh, do tell. It's not like you to be so cryptic; I doubt even death has changed you this much.”
“Were you always this difficult, or did you always secretly dream of committing fratricide?” snarked Orion, making a valiant effort to cross his arms before continuing, “I mean this, all of this, is this really what you want to do?”
“Of course I do.”
“Forever?”
That gives him pause.
“Why shouldn’t I? He responded carefully, turning his gaze away from Orion, “I can’t trust anyone else to do this, who knows what Starscream would do with this much power…probably run this whole place into the ground by the end of the solar-cycle at the least,” Megatron continued with a barely contained snicker, “Besides, can’t you see all the good I’ve done for our people now? Justice has been served and soon even the Quintessons will be ground beneath my heel, I’ll make them pay for every cube of Energon they stole from us, tenfold–no, a hundredfold!”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“After you bring Cybertron to glorious victory against the Quintessons, what are you going to do next?”
Megatron turns his optics to stare at Orion Pax like he’s stupid, “That’s not important right now, it’ll take tens of cycles to eradicate every one of those tentacled freaks from this galaxy, I have more important things to focus on than what kind of places I want to ‘vacation’ to, like consolidating Cybertron’s military power before the Quintessons return.”
Orion seems to droop at his response, “Oh. I see.”
Orion’s dejected words irks him more than he’d thought as he rises from his chair and slams his servos on his desk, causing some datapads to fall to the floor with a loud clatter. Even Orion Pax jumps a little at the sudden outburst, which makes his own spark race with a kind of sick, gleeful satisfaction that the spirit before him could be so easily startled, like Orion was still here, right in front of him.
“What did you want me to say, hmm?” snarls Megatron, his servos curling up into fists as he starts to shake from the slowly budding rage flowing from his spark, “Did you want me to say that I had found a way to forget every painful insult hurled my way peacefully? That I had somehow managed to move on from 50 cycles of clawing my way out of the dark, only to find out that everything I did was for a lie? That I would forgive the bots that lived in their golden buildings, all the while blissfully ignoring the fact that it was built on the exploited lives of our uncogged brothers and sisters? That I wouldn’t hunt down each and every single being responsible for allowing this system to exist in the first place?”
“That’s not–”
“Or did you want to know if I regret it?” he said quietly, bright red optics softening just a bit, “If I regretted dropping you, for shooting you through the spark…for allowing you to be forgotten.”
“Dee…”
“Because I don’t. I would drop you a thousand times, a million times if that was the price for Cybertron’s safety,” declares Megatron, red optics hardening spitefully as he meets those blue optics once again, “Now begone, I have no time for ghosts to remind me of a past that no longer has anything to do with the future I will create,” he finishes by turning away from the other, and dispassionately making his way toward the grand and lifeless office doors to make his exit.
He tells himself that it is a trick of his processor when he hears Orion’s forlorn response.
“Then…Why am I still here?”
The energy shortage has only worsened with the passage of time, and it’s consuming all of his resources and military force to quell the unrest and occasional violent riots. He wants to shake someone and yell at them that he doesn’t have time for this bullslag, that there was no time for infighting for resources that would eventually come if only they would focus on the real enemy, and not on the one mech trying to actually solve everyone's problems.
At least, he's already drawn up plans to ambush the Quintessons, and now it was just a waiting game with bated vents as Shockwave finalizes the–
“Hey Dee!”
“Stop calling me that,” he said without looking up from his data pad, the only sign of his annoyance being the falter in the pattern that his digits were typing out, “My name is Megatron now,” he finished sending the final comm message to the rest of the High Guard before shifting his attention to the gigabytes of data about possible energon mining sites.
“I'm not calling you Megatron, it's embarrassing,” groaned Orion as he posed dramatically to really emphasize the point.
“You're dead, why do you care?”
“It makes you sound like a massive tool,” Orion said in a deadpan voice before waving it off, “But that's not important. I need your help.”
“Good to see that being dead has done nothing to stop you from being such a needy glitch.”
“Har har, very funny, but seriously, I do actually need you to do something for me.”
“I'm busy, can't this wait?” says Megatron in an irritated voice.
“I just wanna read one of your datapads.”
“Why?”
“I'm bored.”
“...That just makes me want to help you even less now, Pax.” Megatron finishes with a sense of finality before picking up another datapad to look through mindlessly.
“Come on! Look, just let me read over your shoulder or something, I’m dying over here,” said Orion with barely constrained excitement, before pausing in confusion and sheepishly tacking on, “Well, not any more than I already am, but that just proves how bad the current situation is.”
The silver mech gives his ghostly companion a deadpan look, “You never cared about energon mining before, I doubt you’d be able to find any kind of enjoyment from this information.”
“I probably won’t, but…” Orion trails off thoughtfully, his presence making its way behind the other, the icy feeling creeping up his spinal struts unnerving him inexplicably, “If I can help in any way to help as many Cybertronians as possible, then I’m willing to do anything.”
“Like you were willing to save Sentinel Prime?” he can’t help muttering bitterly, the datapad in his servo creaking from how hard he was gripping it, “Forgive me if I’m a little skeptical at the sudden change of spark.”
“That’s not what I was trying to do.”
“Really? Then what would you call jumping in front of a fusion cannon’s barrel?”
Orion Pax is silent for far too long.
“What? No clever comeback?” he said with a mocking sneer, “I’d think even you would have something to say about your own senseless death.”
“I have no regrets for what I tried to accomplish, but beyond that, I have nothing to say to you.”
The flash of indignant rage that explodes through his processor is quick to fire off as he snaps his helm to face the other, “You–!”
It dissipates as quickly as it comes, staring face to face into Orion’s pure blue optics, almost blinding in how bright they are. But that is not what arrests his movements and causes his spark to spin in its casing; it is instead the fathomless, infinite abyss of sorrow that has invaded the precious energon blue color of his Orion’s optics. It feels wrong that such a distasteful emotion would stain the simple purity of their original form, and yet…they captivate him nonetheless.
Orion Pax has always been beautiful to him, and even now in these continuously troubled times, that fact still remains true.
Perhaps it is because of that irrefutable law of the universe that he allows himself a moment of weakness, silently turning his helm away from Orion’s supernaturally arresting optics as he nonchalantly(gently) places his datapad in a way that will give the other a better view. Orion is silent as well at the gesture; it’s comforting to know, in a way, that if it wasn’t for…everything, the two of them could still indulge in some quiet companionship. As hollow as the gesture was in the end, it still felt like something was clicking into place at long last.
Still.
The unresolved question continued to nag on him until he breaks their hard-earned quiet companionship with his infernal need to know everything about Orion Pax, “What did you mean?”
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
What does he actually want to know?
He claws through his processor thrice at least before settling on the least revealing one.
One that will not betray his true intentions.
“What did you mean when you said you weren’t trying to save Sentinel?”
Orion sighs, like he expected his carefully thought-out question, “I’m not telling you.”
“That’s not fair,” he says in a voice a little too close to being a whine.
“I don’t have to tell you anything…it’s the least that you owe me after all.”
“I didn’t ask you to be here!”
“I know, and yet, I’m stuck here with you regardless.”
“Why do you think that is?” he asked, genuine curiosity covered up by his nonchalant tone.
“Perhaps it’s because I dreamed of freedom for so long that my punishment is to be trapped here with you for the rest of time.”
“It can’t be all that bad,” the silver-grey mech said softly, “You get to bear witness to the dawn of a new golden age of Cybertron, one where the mistakes of the Primes will never come to pass again. One where the likes of Sentinel Prime will never rise to power and spread his lies ever again.”
Orion says nothing.
“I will fix this, all of it,” he says with more conviction than he feels at the moment, “Your death…I will make sure that you are the last innocent one.”
He can feel a chill as the other leans into his right side; it’s unnerving in the comfort it brings.
“I wish I could believe you, I truly do.”
They spend the rest of the night in silence, neither of them really paying attention to the text on the datapads.
“Behind you.”
The whispered words from his ghostly companion were the only warning he had as he hastily sidestepps a blast of searing energy from some Quintesson’s gun. He’s quick to flash his own weapon at the creature before releasing a particularly powerful blast from it, incinerating the top off of its tentacled body. A disgustingly fresh smell of ozone and charred organic material wafts off the now lifeless corpse; the sight of the cauterized wound makes his tanks churn at the organic viscera splattered before him.
He comforts himself with the thought of finally eradicating every last one of them, ridding the universe of the scourge of organic life once and for all. Currently, he was all the way out on the surface, acting as both bait and as a "convenient" opportunity to attack Iacon directly for the damned monsters. His digits twitched at the thought of finally pulling the trigger, but unfortunately, the meter for the charge is still disappointingly only a quarter of the way to completion. He feels himself wobble on his pedes before catching himself before falling forward, the distressed sound that escapes Orion’s dermas in response makes his chassis tighten inexplicably.
“Are you alright?”
What an asinine platitude.
It doesn’t matter how he is, as long as he functions enough to destroy his enemies, then that’s all he needs to be for the good of Cybertron. It’s easy to do what needs to be done with that thought playing on loop in his processor. With his righteous anger fueling his spark and guiding his cannon for a better future where things will finally be–
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” says his constant annoyance of a companion, giving his aching frame a once-over, optics full of unimpressed judgment.
Megatron tries to wave his useless arm dismissively in response, “What do you know? You’re dead.”
“I know that you shouldn’t be leaking energon like that from a hole the size of your servo.”
He squints at the wound in his chassis and holds up a servo just to make sure. The blue electric liquid slowly drips down his frame as he stares at it numbly, that would probably explain the sluggish feeling in his processor for the past ten hours. Primus, it looks a lot worse than it felt. He hasn’t been able to feel anything in a very long time.
It’s strange.
He can’t remember when his servos were so large.
The hole wouldn’t be such a problem if it were the size of his servos when he was cogless.
Then he could easily plug it up by shoving a digit up there and breaking it off so he could continue fighting without weakness.
It’s almost time after all.
Cycles of planning and fighting the Quintessons on Cybertron’s surface have all been in service to a decisive blow against the monstrosities that had enslaved their race before he was even created. His spark spins and churns in an expectant, savage joy at the thought, as he’d finally be able to throw the switch for the fusion bomb rigged around the perimeter of Iacon’s main surface entrance. He’s filled with so much euphoria that he just barely suppresses the urge to laugh in wild abandon, he wonders idly, when the last time he had even laughed was…
“Dee…you don’t have to do this.”
He must.
“I have to, this, everything, can’t have been for nothing! I won’t let you convince me to waste Cybertron’s one chance to finally be free of these monsters.”
Orion stands in his way, again, frame still broken and beat down, looking somehow worse for wear, with the color of his frame chipping away to dull rusted metal. The only part of him that remains the same is those determined, bright blue optics still shining brightly with defiance after all this time, “If that bomb goes off, you won’t just be killing Quintessons, hundreds, maybe even thousands of innocent Cybertronians will be caught in the fallout! You don’t know the risks enough to launch a weapon of that much destructive caliber!”
He does actually.
Shockwave had given him a report of the predicted numbers of possible casualties and collateral damage, as the use of an evacuation notice could potentially lead to the Quintessons catching wind of their impending demise, with those in the energon mines most at risk due to the force of the blast. He finds that he can’t bring it into his spark to care; the former cogged bots would either adapt or die, just like he once did with Orion.
He has no use for a weak workforce.
“But the Quintesson’s will all be dead, and that is all I need to ensure a future for Cybertron.”
Orion gives him a look of abject horror, “Dee…you will be committing genocide, this isn’t something you can just wave off and hope for the best,” he finished, voice getting more and more distressed, “I understand the need for self-defense but to go so far…you’d lose too much if you go through with this.”
“And what is it of value would be lost exactly?” he coughed, energon spilling from his dermas as his optics flicked between the various hills, his paranoid processor checking for any enemy signatures, “You’re a fool to think they would ever change their ways, they live only to conquer and enslave us, or have you already forgotten?”
“Never.” declared Orion with a surprisingly hateful, pained look on his face, his voice the harshest it had been in cycles before softening to continue his desperate plea, “But does the thought of raining death upon our brothers and sisters not give you any pause at all?”
“If they die, then they were weak,” he says resolutely, trudging his way forward, heavy black pedes kicking up a small cloud of dust, keeping his optics on the meter ticking upwards steadily, “And in this new world I’m building, there will be no room for those unable to keep up.”
Orion’s flickering optics widen in shock, “Dee, you can’t mean that…we were also weak once, did we also deserve to suffer for something we couldn’t control?”
“And yet we survived,” countered Megatron, stomping down a little too hard, “Despite the countless cave-ins, and the abuse from our superiors, the only reason our sparks did not go dark was because we were strong enough to outlast them all.”
“The only reason we survived was because we had each other, Dee. I can’t even remember how many times you had my back in hopeless situations, whether it be in the energon mines or when I was sneaking into the archives to find the Matrix.”
“And that’s why you’re dead and why I…I’m still here, cleaning up after you once again.”
“Dee…”
He is filled with a sudden desire to punch something, if only to release this horrible tightness and burning in his chassis. “Unlike you, I didn’t need anyone to bail me out of stupid, idiotic plans that were destined for failure. But you never listened, and that’s why–That’s why–!”
“Dee, I know you’re in pain right now, but there’s still time; you can still choose a different path.”
“I–You don’t understand!” he cried, “How could you? There is no different path! Do you know how much I’ve sacrificed to have this moment at all? I’ll never have another chance like this again!”
“Dee.” Orion says softly, bringing his right arm up to try and fail to cradle the silver mech’s face, his digits harmlessly passing through the other’s steely gaze, “You know that’s not true, you are the strongest mech I know, and you’re capable of so much more than this wanton destruction. You’ll find another way, I promise.”
A long, quiet follows as the two bots come to a tense yet intimate stalemate.
Their silence is broken by the blaring alarm of the meter being fully charged, signifying that everything has finally fallen into place. The Quintessons had arrived, and there would be no time for any hesitation anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Orion’s face falls into crestfallen horror as he can only watch helplessly as Megatron sends the signal to detonate the fusion bombs, “I can’t.”
The sky explodes in a flash of bright white.
“Do you hate me, Pax?” slurs Megatron, his processor spinning from the excess amount of engex circulating through his frame, said frame slumped against the large throne-like chair in his office turned temporary(?) berthroom, “You won’t hold me anymore.”
“I haven’t been able to hold you in cycles, I’m a spirit in all the ways that matter.”
“Oh. That sucks. Still…You…didn’t answer my question.”
“It’s complicated,” sighed Orion, remaining servo listlessly playing with the dying light from the windows as he leaned against the back of the chair, looking off into the distance.
“I thought–I thought it was quite simple.”
“How so?”
“I’d hate me if I were you,” he said with a somber look in his bright red optics.
“Then I guess we’re lucky that I’m not you then.”
“Thank Primus–I was so so worried that you were something–a hallucination my processor cooked up.”
Orion Pax is silent at that.
“I’m so–so glad that you’re still here. I…I felt…I felt awful when I dropped you down the Well of Allsparks,” he barks out a bitter laugh at the memory, “I should–I should have known better, we promised that we’d always watch each other’s backs after all.”
“It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad,” said Orion, turning to look down at the mess, eyes crinkling into a forlorn smile, one so fragile that it would shatter even under the softest of touches, “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we had never met.”
“Ha! You’d be in Sublevel 50 within a cycle!”
“And you’d probably be in a safer job position, and maybe you’d even find a better friend to hang out with, and you’d finally go exploring the cosmos like you wanted to.”
“I still do that,” pouted the gunmetal bot, crossing his arms in a sulking position, “Wasn’t the Andromeda galaxy beautiful?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But…?”
“What?”
“You said that like you–you had some kind of problem with that.”
Orion sighs again, bringing his arm up to lean his oil-splattered helm against, “What is there to say? You’ll just terraform all the planets there for energon anyways, anything beautiful found there will be gone by the next cycle.”
“Right, but that galaxy only has organic-bearing planets anyways…so no big loss,” shrugged the grey mech, “It’ll give the miners you’re oh-so-concerned about a break…Honestly, I don’t know why you’re so fixated on their well-being so much, only about like…a third? Actually suffer any irreparable damages from mining.”
Orion Pax gives him a cold, withering glare, and Megatron can feel himself shrink a little at the sudden shift of temperature despite himself.
“It’s better–It’s better than being under Sentinel,” he blusters defensively, feeling off-balanced, he brings another cube of engex to his derma to avoid staring at his red and blue frame, “At least cogged bots are banned from interacting with them, so no more repeats of Darkwing, right?”
“Amazing, you did such a good job,” snarked Orion, gaze softening in defeat before continuing, “Is that what you want me to say? I can barely bring myself to think that even you would believe that.”
Megatron’s sharp ruby gaze shifts away, the engex is slowly losing its potent numbing touch, and he doesn’t know what to say except, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Orion gives him a look of exasperated disbelief before sighing, and the temperature in the room returns to normal. “Fine, what do you want to talk about?”
He racks his processor for something that won’t send his companion into another freezing rage and settles on his current pet project, “I’m almost done with the plans for your new frame, once I finalize the details you–”
“It won’t work.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!”
He vents heavily as the ghost stares at him like he’s some pitiful thing, and it makes him want to purge his tanks.
“I appreciate the gesture for…whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish,” Orion says finally, looking away, and Megatron feels as though something important has been lost again, “But as made abundantly clear before, I’m dead.”
“You don’t have to be, you’re still here, talking to me, laughing with me, you can’t just give up on living because it hasn’t worked before,” he pleads, unable to look the other mech in the optic, “Don’t you want to touch me again?”
Orion visibly flinches at the question, hesitation and discomfort clear on his face.
“I’ve…I have already accepted my fate; perhaps you should finally accept it too.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? I’ve been dead longer than you’ve known me alive at this point.”
It’s true, not by much, of course, maybe by ten or so cycles, but they had just recently passed Orion’s death date again, it was hard to remember that he had even died in the first place, the red and blue frame of his best and currently only friend had shown little change and wear.
“You know what they say, insanity is just repetition while hoping for a different outcome,” Orion said breezily, like he was enjoying Megatron’s emotional turmoil despite himself, “Even your high guards are becoming more and more concerned at your constant attempts to make the same bot over and over again…well, except Starscream, he’s been petitioning for your retirement after the fourth one you had commissioned.”
“I don’t care about them,” he snarled, fists tightening around the glass container, causing it to creak under his curled digits, “As long as they follow my orders, they can think whatever they want.”
“You should, maybe then Starscream would take a break from trying to throw a coup every single day.”
“His coups suck, I’m not concerned.”
“He only needs to get lucky once.”
“He’s such a fool that he wouldn’t even know what to do with it if the luckiest of charms fell into his lap,” snickered the grey mech, “And besides, Soundwave would make sure to cut down any dissenters amongst our ranks before they had any ideas, much less the resources to pull it off.”
“You shouldn’t take advantage of his love for you.”
“Like you did with me?”
That causes Orion to freeze in place, and he brings his hand up to his mouth as though he were trying to hide behind his flustered face. Orion was rarely ever embarrassed by anything when he was alive, and even harder to get off balanced while dead, so the thought of finally catching him off guard was viscerally rewarding.
“I–! I didn’t know you loved me like that before everything. I would have been more considerate towards you if I had,” says Orion, trying his best not to become a blushing mess in front of the other.
“You loved me too.”
“Well, obviously.”
“I guess not to everyone, It took me a while to figure that one out.” he finishes with a wry grin, useless groping around the floor for another bottle of engex, frowning once he realized that he drained the whole supply before giving up and slumping back into his seat, “Do you want to know what finally gave it away?”
“Would it even matter at this point?”
“No, but I bet you’re curious, aren’t you?”
His reading of the other, still spot on for all the things about the other, except for the parts that actually matter after all these years, is rather impressive. As Orion tries to resist the urge but eventually nods for the other to continue, curious to a fault, even when it came to his own expense.
“Do you remember the Fusion Bomb incident?”
“Yes? It was only twenty cycles ago…what does that–”
“You were so desperate to stop me at the time, it genuinely hurt to see you like that, trying to stop me from fulfilling my destiny and that’s when it hit me.” he says with nostalgia in his optics, “You could have stopped me before then, multiple times actually, I remember once when my troops had all fallen except for me, there was one more Quintesson gunner and it would have shot my head clean off…if it wasn’t for you warning me about that shot, well, who knows what would have happened.”
“And your point is what exactly?” says Orion, through gritted dentae, his only servo clenching and unclenching as though he was unsure of what to do, only that he had to release his emotions in any way possible, “That I was a fool to have ever let you get away with making the Fusion Bomb?”
“Yes, but not quite, it's merely the continuing trend you exhibit towards me,” he stops to slowly lick his glossa against the top of his derma as he tries to find the words to explain their troubled story, “I suppose the best way to say it is that I'm your weakness, something that you could never bring to harm even when it runs against your morals and ideals…and that's why you do nothing while I fulfill my destiny.”
“I’m right, aren’t I, Pax?”
Orion won’t even look at him, and his tanks churn with a sick kind of glee, the type that brings the urge to purge up to the forefront of the processors. It’s this disgusting emotion that fuels his impulsive desire to act and see that beautiful face twist up even more into disgust.
“Do you want to interface with me?”
“What?”
“We love each other, isn’t that what lovers do?” he asks, leaning forward, studying the other’s reactions. Pleasure surges through his spark when Orion takes an uneasy step back in response, “It’d be a miserable way to end the night without some way to take it out on each other.”
“You’re overcharged, you don’t actually want this.”
“Funny, I think this is the first time I’ve ever wanted something so badly,” he says with a mischievous grin, his frame wobbling as he gets to his pedes. His gait is a stumbling mess as he tries to keep his gaze on the other bot, frozen in place.
“How would it even work?”
“You could come sit on my lap and we could pretend that you’re snug little incorporeal valve is sucking on my spike,” he says half-sarcastically, because he really, really wants to do that, just the thought of feeling Orion’s cold presence against his overheating frame would be heaven. Maybe Orion would even oblige to letting out some breathy moans as he strokes his spike to completion, it didn’t matter as long as they found pleasure together.
That somewhat shy, yet contemplative look on Orion’s face is doing wonders for his ego and bolsters him to step with more confidence towards the red and blue mech.
And then because he can’t help but be cruel to the other, he refuses to just shut up and take the opportunity for what it is as he leans down into the other’s audial and whispers, “Or you could just watch me overload,” and he watches in exhilaration as Orion’s face morph into one of shocked mortification, and that delightful shaking from his mangled frame just fuels his bravado as he continues his barrage, “You’ve been helplessly watching me all this time, what difference does it make now? I could probably call in Soundwa–”
The slap is unexpected.
He can’t remember the last time someone struck him, in the face no less, perhaps in an energon mine, a very long time ag,o but more importantly…
He studies Orion before him, his servo limp at his side as he just realized what had happened, shining blue optics blown wide in shock at the change. It’s strangely amusing to see that the ghost before him also had no idea what had just happened.
But all that matters now is what to do now with this brand new, delicious development in their fraught dynamic.
His stumbling steps bring him before the other bot again, face to face; he needs to turn his head down in order to look the other in his optics. Orion had always been shorter than him, weaker too, whispers a particularly dark part of his subconscious, as he deliberates on what he should do now.
It’s tempting to slap him back in retaliation, but it feels…quaint for the first time they’ve been able to touch in fifty-two cycles. Perhaps he should rip those spark-blue optics out of that lovely face, so that he could never look at him with that sad, pitying expression whenever he committed acts of necessary evil for the good of Cybertron. Strangulation sounds fun, wrapping his massive servos around that small, delicate neck. He had found out recently that organics are dependent on gases in the air to even function, restrict their airway enough, and they’d be dead within kliks.
Yes, that’s the decision he comes to as he brings his servo up to Orion’s face, gently cradling his small, fragile form before him like any errant touch would shatter his blue and red frame into a thousand intangible pieces. Orion’s remaining arm curls around his back, freezing to the touch and yet he could never imagine pulling away. He leans down to get a better look at Orion’s face, his expectant expression makes him nervous for some reason, as he steels himself to do what must be done. He sees Orion shutter his optics, and not long after, he does the same, for a single moment, the entire world has gone dark.
He’s used to the dark; it’s comforting, actually, feeling around until he can find a way out.
This scenario is no different.
Their derma finally make contact as he steals Orion Pax’s breath away.
And he feels light.
“Will you really stay with me?”
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
“Of course.”
“I…I don’t need forever…will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”
“I will be here. Sleep well.”
“I–I…thank you.”
“See you in the morning.”
Elita-1’s prized pink finish is scratched so deeply that she looks more grey than pink; the only color still left on her frame is her dulled, blue optics, more akin to the sky during twilight hours than the energon blue of Orion’s.
It’s a sad sight to see his former superior fallen so low. Especially after the interrogation from all three high guard commanders, and even his own methods were met with nothing beyond screams of pure rage until her voice box could no longer keep up with the demand.
And yet defiance still burns through her entire being, even as she stands before him, arms bound in stasis cuffs. There was no need to cuff her legs as an entourage of guards was waiting just outside the throne room, ready to rip her to scrap if she even manages to get a single pede out the door.
He sighs, it made too much sense that Elita would be the one in charge of the Autobot rebellion, it was far too organized for some ragtag band of disgruntled Cybertronians displeased with his more heavy-handed approach to the running of Iacon.
It would also explain why over half the trains in Iacon went missing over the many cycles…
He’s distracted by Orion, who has remained shockingly silent by her presence, the shock of finally seeing her after all this time was probably too much even for ghosts it seems.
Or maybe the scream of horror when he slashed B-127’s throat had done something to the other’s voice box.
It didn’t matter.
“I’m amazed you can still stand after Shockwave got his hands on you. I’m even more impressed you even have legs to stand with in the first place,” he observes, studying her, waiting to see what she’d do with bated breath.
She’s silent before a rough yet whispery sound leaves her voice box, it continues as she continues to cough until a glob of energon escapes her dermas, before spitting it out onto the floor, barely missing his pede.
“I have nothing to say to you or Blinky.”
“Blinky?”
“Shockwave,” she says dismissively, rolling her optics, “We go way back; he finally got back at me for punching him in the eye.”
“I didn’t know that he could strip the color of your frame to such a degree.”
“He didn’t. I stripped it down shortly after you came to power in order to hide myself from your lackies; far too many optics have seen my appearance from our previous encounters.”
“Ah, when we overthrew Sentinel Prime, right?” he says, the memory of a large train crashing through the walls jumps to the forefront of his processor, “I never would have thought you’d be able to pull something off like that.”
“I…I had some help.”
“Care to explain?”
“No.”
“I see.”
Silence.
A beat.
Then another.
And then–
“You do realize that you’re not leaving here alive, right?”
“I wasn’t planning to,” she says as plainly as if discussing the weather, “My comrades are not so helpless as to need me holding their servos after all this time, they will continue where I left off.”
“I take no pleasure in ending your life, but–”
She burst into laughter, an incredulous, mocking kind of laugh, like she can barely believe what she’s hearing.
“You? You take no pleasure in–Ha ha ha!–Oh that’s rich! I feel so honored! Did you hear that, everyone?” she cackles, scratchy coughs escaping her throat as she continues her rant, “Oh wait…they can’t because you killed them all.”
“Is this some kind of joke to you, Elita?” he threatens menacingly as if he could hide how unbalanced her outburst made him, “Your comrades are an enemy to Cybertron and will all be dealt with accordingly, my personal feelings towards you are no exception.”
“The real joke is that you still believe that, but what can I expect from a mad tyrant?”
“A tyrant that has led Cybertron to its current golden age,” he says, composure slipping a little at her frustrating little jab that meant nothing to him at all, “Even with my harsh policies, you can’t deny that the lives under my rule have improved tenfold from Sentinel’s.”
“Of course, you’re nothing like Sentinel,” she sarcastically agrees, “He was a sniveling coward that could barely step a single foot outside Iacon, you, on the other hand…you’re going to set us all back by fifty cycles with your hatred and rage.”
“You’re wrong,” he snarls, servos clenching tightly into rolled fists, “You and your band of vigilantes are the reason why everything hasn’t fallen into place yet. Once I deal with you, they’ll fall into line at last!”
“And then another will rise to stop you,” she answers evenly, “As long as one of us under your pede yearns for freedom, hope will never die, and you will fall, it’s only a matter of time.”’
“Too bad for you then, that you will never see such a world come into being,” he says, raising his cannon level to her frame, charge racing through the barrel of the Fusion Cannon as it rumbled to life to end hers, “For old time's sakes, do you have any last words that you’d like to say? Or are you content to spit your spoiled energon on the floor before my pedes?”
She’s silent, her dark blue optics cycle for a mere nano-klik as she sucks in some air.
“Actually…I do have one singular regret in my short, miserable life,” she whispers, her voice barely heard over the whine of the deadly weapon before her.
He’s silent, but the fact that he hadn’t fired the gun yet was all the confirmation she needed to keep going.
“I regret…I regret letting Orion Pax die by your hands,” she coughs, her optics not even deigning it worth the effort to look up at him, “I wish I hadn’t let him give me this hope that stubbornly refuses to die despite everything that’s happened.”
Her frame starts to shake with an unknown emotion as she continues her confession, “And most of all…I regret letting him talk me into saving you.”
“I wish I had just let you die when I had the chance,” she finishes with a solemn, tired smile.
It was the happiest he had ever seen her.
His optics burn, but right as he pulls the trigger–his vision is filled with the red and blue frame of Orion Pax, in front of his cannon once again after all this time.
“Please…Dee, there’s no need to kill her, she’s already been defeated, she can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Get out of my way.”
“Lock her away in the deepest pits of Cybertron if you must, but if you kill her, there truly will be nothing that can save you.”
“I don’t need saving.”
“Dee…This can’t be what you want, this isn’t you.”
What a laughable statement.
Of course this is who he is.
He’s been this way longer than he’s ever been D-16.
D-16 was merely a mask for who he was truly meant to be, and he had never felt more free ever since tearing it free from his spark.
The loud ringing sound of white-hot plasma against Cybertronian steel echoes in the chamber as Elita falls backwards, limbs limply splayed brokenly on the cold, hard steel of the ground.
Half her face is missing, shattered into melted pieces of metal slag, strewn across the floor, as her remaining optic blinked on and off, cycling in and out, as they focused on nothing.
The primal screaming cry that tore through Orion was even worse than when he had mortally wounded B-127, the ghost almost falling forward as he scrambled to kneel by her side, desperately trying and failing to use his remaining servo to comfort her. Her glitched voice box is still spitting some staticky, garbled gibberish as her dark blue optics seem to somehow focus on her only friend left in the room.
“Or–Orion…? Wha–Wh–Wh_what…are you–Is–Is–Is-Is it–?”
He stands before them as Orion’s sobs echo throughout the entirety of the room when he watches the final spark of blue go dim in her optic, as if his tears could somehow flood the room in his unending grief. He silently strides before the mourning mech before crouching down to whisper into his shaking audial.
“You made me this way, my dear.”
He handily dodges the flailing strike as if Orion Pax still somehow foolishly believes that he can protect his friend’s cooling corpse.
“Don’t touch her! Get away! Go away!” The mournful spirit screams and cries, unable to close that final distance because of his inability to leave her side. Or maybe even after all this pain, he still can’t bring himself to hurt the one who had stolen his spark all those cycles ago.
“Did you love her?”
Orion’s sobs are his only answer.
“Even after everything I’ve done, will you ever hate me?”
Orion won’t even look at him.
“Even like this, broken before me once again, you’re still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Orion can only try to tighten his grip on Elita’s corpse.
“Don’t cry, I will find them all and crush them for you.”
“Please…Please, no more. I can’t bear any more of this.”
“Oh. But you will, you must atone for your sins, but despite your helpless, useless nature, I will always love you.”
He stands before Orion’s prostrated form, a mix of affection and disgust roils through his spark at the pitiful sight. His red and blue chassis covering up the broken body of Elita-1, the only form of dignity she had left and will ever receive by anyone in this world.
His comm comes to life, and Soundwave’s robotic, monotone voice floods his audials, thankfully drowning out Orion’s cries.
“Query: Elita-1 has been dealt with?”
“Yes, I see why both you and Shockwave couldn’t rip any information out of her; she refused to part with any information about the rebellion, even now.”
“...Death: Affirmative?”
“Yes, I had no use for her any longer.”
“Query: What should be done with the body?”
Megatron turns his head to look down at her body, mind lazily contemplating before settling on–“Hang her body above the Well of Allsparks. I want her to be a lesson to what will be done to those who oppose my rule.”
“Understood: Your will shall be done…What should be done to those who will try to take her down?”
“Have them shot on sight, if they care for her that deeply, then they can join her.”
“Of course: Commencing operation in due time.”
After Soundwave hangs up, relief races up his spinal struts as he bends down once again before dragging Orion’s gasping face to face his own. The smaller mech’s tears illuminated those hypnotizing optics he could never escape. Nor would he ever want the overwhelming urge to lick them up and taste his pure grief and love until he had nothing left to give racing through his spark as he declared–
“I promise you this, Pax.”
“I will crush everything you deem beautiful, anything you believe you love…”
“And force it down your retching throat until all you can think of is me.”
–before crashing their derma together, the closest he’ll ever come to devouring Orion Pax.
Sometimes, he wonders if Sentinel had to deal with this nonsense.
Surely, dealing with the high guard was in some way easier than dealing with the roaring mob of Cybertronians trying to force themselves through the gates. He had thought that Elita-1’s death would have cowed the masses into some kind of complianc,e but it seemed that she was far more popular than he thought, and her death seemed to have only riled them up instead. Even that blasted Starscream had deserted him with a very long-winded resignation letter telling him to get bent and that he had taken a third of the high guards with him to frag off who knows where.
Not to mention that Orion had been missing ever since Elita’s death.
He never showed himself again to Megatron.
No matter how much the tyrant pleaded and begged(not that he ever did, of course).
It had gotten so bad that out of the corner of his optic, he had thought he witnessed the spirit embracing Elita’s hanging corpse, high above the gaping pit, the frame being too short to do anything beyond hugging the bottom of her pedes. But when he turned to get a better look, the silhouette had beelined into the darkness, shots from energy rifles just barely missing them.
He had decided that, for his peace of mind, after that would be to cut her loose and drop her down the Well, hopefully to never be seen again. He should have expected that it wouldn’t have worked, considering the other example of the last time he did, continuing to haunt him despite his wishes.
His musings are disrupted when a freight train crashes into the tower he’s currently in, missing him by a mere two stories below him. Shaking the entire building, as the roaring of even more Cybertronians storms through the stronghold, screaming for his head. The ceiling of the antechamber he was currently in was caving in as the rubble smashed a hole through the floor, once again missing him by a mere five meters.
He sighs, wondering if perhaps he was ruling Cybertron a little too leniently lately as he jumped through the floor to meet his adversaries face-to-face for the last time.
He had expected the energon miners, the previously cogged robots who were disgruntled by their current way of life, their presence at least made the most sense to him as they senselessly threw their lives away trying to take him down.
What had been the most irksome addition to the fighters in the Autobot rebellion were the many strangely familiar faces he half-remembered when he used to be a miner. His people were given the best of the best, new opportunities gifted to them on a silver platter, to stretch their limbs for the freedom they were finally granted after all this time.
And here they were, trying to kill him.
Truly, he was surrounded by ungrateful ingrates.
Why did he even fight so hard to protect them if they would turn against him so easily?
And it didn’t help that their overwhelming numbers were starting to push him onto the backfoot, as they were all individually weaker than him but even with someone being powered by the T-cog of Megatronus Prime, eventually he’d make a mistake or two…or even three and those mistakes were quickly catching up to him as he was shot and slashed at for the past hour or so.
Not that he wasn’t taking out his fair share of enemy combatants, any bot foolish enough to enter the range of his cannon were squashed into mere puddles of energon and scrap metal. He had even picked up a scrap of junk metal to use as a makeshift bludgeoning mace; anyone caught in the swing was lucky to escape in two complete pieces. Their screams of rage and agony mixed together into one cacophony of misery that followed him wherever he went, to the point that he hoped somebody would shoot him in the audial just to shut them all up.
He aims his cannon once again at the group of battered bots, their optics filled with an exhausted determination that he would sooner incinerate than live one more klik. The whine of the Fusion Cannon getting ready to fire once again, but before he could pull the trigger, he feels a solid presence ram itself into his body, causing him to release the blast harmlessly into a nearby wall, scattering rubble and dust onto the surrounding bots.
“I got him! Regroup and–ack!”
The mech that had tackled him was light, and more importantly, small enough to be lifted with one servo and smashed against the ground. His optics sputter out for several nano-kliks from the impact before coming back online just in time to feel Megatron’s boot stamp down on his chassis. The cry of pain is loud enough to pierce through the chaotic din as he aims the muzzle of the Fusion Cannon directly into the orange and red bot’s face plate.
The rioters are stopped in their tracks; it seems that even mechanical lifeforms have the same weaknesses as their organic counterparts. It had become quite useful to take advantage of it while conquering their planets, and when they had the combat prowess to keep up and almost defeat him in a direct battle to the death. After all, even the strongest warriors are unable to act when the ones they love, the ones they’re fighting so hard to protect, are in the dangerous hands of their enemies.
Well, in this case under his pede.
The crowd around him and his hostage shift uneasily as though they sense the sudden shift in power at this very moment. Their weapons still drawn as they try to figure out what to do, should they wait and see if they can bargain for their lost comrade? Or perhaps they could risk shooting at him and possibly damage the hostage. It’s a pity that they’re so easily cowed; killing them would barely give him the satisfaction of a job well done.
The quick pause in the gauntlet of enemies at least gave him some time to reposition, and after all, he still had one more gun on his arm, so he could carefully pick them off, one by–
He feels the bot underneath suddenly grab onto his pede.
“Like hell! It's the end of the road for you and me, Megatron!”
And his world explodes into flames.
Is that screaming coming from him?
Why does he feel so weightless?
Why is it getting darker?
Why are they falling so far?
Why?
Why?
Wh–
Pain explodes through his system as he falls through the final floor and hits the ground.
The orange and red bot has also fallen with him, his frame scuffed, and one of his pedes was ripped off in the fall as he struggles to pull himself upright.
Megatron roars in a blinding rage as he starts shooting haphazardly, as his enemy rolls out of the way to find shelter behind one of the many fallen pieces of rubble. He can’t move, the damned suicide attack had actually melted through his joints, and now he was stuck with his back to the wall as he thrashed futilely, roaring in a mix of pain and white hot rage.
“Kill you! Kill you! I’ll kill you!” he screamed, optics betraying him one last time as the flickered on and off, making his blasts veer far off course even more than they already were.
“Primus, you just refuse to die, huh?” shouted his enemy from behind a piece of rubble, jumping behind another one right before Megatron’s cannon blasted his previous hiding spot into a shower of shrapnel, “Guess we have that in common at least!”
Him?
Being in any way similar to a former cogged bot?
Impossible.
Blasphemus.
He’ll melt him into scrap!
He’ll grind his frame down until it’s nothing but metal dust!
“Not–hing like you! H–Hate you–u!” his voice box sparking and tearing his throat at the force of his screams.
“Feelings mutual, creep.” A blast from behind the rifle catches his arm, causing his minigun to spark and fritz, useless in combat now.
“Die! Die! DIEDIEDIEDIE*DIE*DIE!” he shrieked, scrapping his left arm uselessly against the ground as he tried to claw himself over to that awful voice in hopes of yanking it out of his worthless frame. His fusion cannon, also in critical condition and yet he forces all the remaining energy into one last explosive blast.
If he is to be destroyed, it will be by his own hand, not some upstart!
If he truly was so evil, then they can all rot in hell with him!
Starting with that infuriating orange and red bot before him!
His maddening laughter as the light gathering in the melted muzzle of the Fusion cannon becomes so bright that the dark arena where they had found themselves had become almost blinding in how much energy was about to be unleashed. He thinks deliriously to himself about how lucky he was to see a Fusion bomb’s detonation so up close; he was always too far away for his own safety, but now–
“No!”
That disgusting orange and red bot jumped on top of the muzzle right before the detonation. Shielding the upper levels from the blast with his body as he was blown backwards in several scorched pieces, but instead of hitting the ground as expected, he is caught in the grip of a single red and blue arm before being gently placed onto the ground in a sitting position.
Megatron can barely believe his cycling optics.
Orion?
Orion Pax turns his gaze to the tyrant, expression unreadable before gently kneeling beside the bot on the ground.
“*** ***, your noble sacrifice for the greater good, has proven you worthy in the eyes of Primus.”
Where have you been?
“He entrusts with you, the future of Cybertron.”
Why won’t you look at me?
“And, the Matrix of Leadership.”
I thought you loved me. How could you?
“Arise…******* *****.”
A flash of brilliant blue light floods the arena, and Megatron is forced to shutter his optics at the sight.
The darkness is all that remains.
Until a single pinprick of flame suddenly appears.
As the newest Prime of Cybertron pulls back a flaming arrow notched in his newly acquired bow, as Orion Pax points towards its first target, towards Megatron’s spark.
“Exterminate him with extreme prejudice and light our darkest hour.”
He needs to know.
This can’t…It can’t end like this…
“Ho-How-ow…Coul-ddd…you..?” sparks and energon leaking from his voice box as he uselessly tries to lift his arm up to reach Orion Pax.
The newly created prime mistakes his last words for ones directed towards him, “I…I can’t say I don’t understand how you became like this. I hate you, of course, but from everything I heard…from Elita, from Arcee, and Springer. I can’t imagine that I would have turned out any better in your situation.”
“I feel like I should have a more meaningful reason for why I fight, but honestly?”
He pulls the arrow back even further back before finishing his speech.
“I just wanted the chance to see the sun again.”
He releases his arrow.
It sings as it flies through the air.
Before finding its mark.
And shattering the tyrant's spark.
He had once thought that death would have been cold.
How wrong he was.
The last thing he sees before he is swallowed in darkness is Orion Pax, frame wreathed in pure light, as he turns away to stare up at the waning sunlight filtering through the rubble.
There is nothing waiting for him.
It’s not dark so much as it is isolating.
He doesn’t know how long he remains in this void; it could have been cycles, it could have been kliks, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is now currently dead.
He tried screaming.
He tried crying.
He even tried curling up into a ball just for something different to do.
It’s maddening.
To feel nothing, to do nothing, and at this point, he’d rather stop thinking, if only to escape himself.
He hears Orion coming long before he sees him, he refuses to look at the other bot.
“Hello, Dee, I’m sorry I took so long,” says Orion in an apologetic tone, “It took a while to even find you.”
The silver mech refuses to answer.
“Are you angry with me still?”
Nothing.
“I’m sorry that it had to end like this…I truly wished that this could have all been avoided.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Hm?”
“You were supposed to get the Matrix of Leadership all those cycles ago…right after I dropped you.”
Orion Pax’s silence is all the answer he needs.
“Why? Why didn’t you come back?”
“Do you remember when you asked me why I tried to stop you from killing Sentinel Prime?”
“No.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t,” hums Orion, optics looking beyond the impossible horizon, “It was so long ago, and I knew that you only asked it because you didn’t know what else to say at the moment…But I feel like now is the moment I want to tell you.”
“Do I even have a choice?”
“I wasn’t trying to save Sentinel, I was trying to save you. To save you from going down a path that would lead to more death and suffering…For as much good as it did in the end, I guess.”
“Oh.”
Orion looks at him in contemplation, “Hmmm, I thought that would have gotten a larger reaction out of you.”
“I’m tired, Pax, I can’t seem to muster anything up anymore except for this aching in my spark…or what’s left of it anyway.”
“Ah. I see, that makes sense, this isn’t the Allspark after all, you’ve fallen outside of its influence, I suppose.”
“I see, I’ve ended up in hell.”
“I feel like it’s definitely closer to a kind of purgatory than hell.”
“What difference does it make?”
“You’re right, I’m sorry.”
D-16 lets out an exasperated huff, “Stop apologizing, it’s giving me a processor-ache.”
Orion gives him a sad smile in response. “I can’t help it, I feel like this is all my fault.”
“What nonsense, I’m the one who actually did something horrible enough to end up here.”
“I suppose. Still…I was given the Matrix when I fell all the way to Primus’s spark and he gave me an ultimatum,” he said, pausing for a moment as he haltingly continued, as if he was confessing some kind of dark secret, “He told me that I would have to kill you…and like a coward, I couldn’t bear to bring myself to do it.”
“I don’t see how that has anything to do with you coming back as a ghost.”
Orion shrugs in response, “I don’t either, but I got to be with you, and that was enough.”
“...You’ve served your time, probably even more than you deserved…Why are you still here? With me?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
“You can’t possibly still love me after all this time, after everything.”
“I can’t help it.”
“You ruined my life. And then I ruined your death in return. Don’t you get it? I hate you, I always have.”
“I know.”
“I’ve hurt you, I killed you, I ruined our home, and killed innumerable people. How could you ever forgive that?”
“I don’t.”
“Then what good are you to me now?” cries D-16, shoving Orion Pax away, watching him as he falls onto his back, before hunching in over himself in despair, tears slowly falling down from his optics.
“When our people starved and our enslavers were on our doorsteps, what else should I have done?”
“When Sentinel tortured and branded me, what should I have done?”
“When the cogged bots would treat us like garbage, what should I have done?”
“When nobody would stay by my side even when I needed them most, what should I have done?”
“When the mech I loved abandoned me and left me alone to shoulder the burden, what should I have done?”
“When the High Guard only followed me because I had to fight for my place every day, what should I have done?”
“When the people I fought so hard to try and protect turned against me, what should I have done?”
“When you snuck into the archives and made me sick with worry that you wouldn’t come back, what should I have done?”
“When I realized that I was killing myself for a lie, what should I have done?”
“When you tricked me into running the Iacon 5000 with you, what should I have done?”
“When you filled my processor with hopes and dreams of a future that would never come to be, what should I have done?”
“What was I supposed to do?” sobs D-16, servos clutching Orion Pax’s sides, “Tell me, how was I supposed to turn to anyone about my burdens? Nobody ever loved me except for you, remember?”
“So tell me.”
“All of it.”
“All of it!”
“All of it!”
“What should I have possibly done?
“I don’t know,” says Orion.
“Huh?”
D-16 looks down at Orion underneath him in complete and utter shock.
Orion’s servos slowly came up to curl around his larger, shaking ones, intertwining the digits for the first time in what felt like an eternity.
“I’m sorry,” whispers Orion Pax, voice wavering and thick with emotion, “I’m so sorry that I couldn’t understand your pain when I was with you. When there was still time, while we were both alive and I could hold you like this.”
“Fuck you, that’s not an excuse,” he says, contemplating punching the other, but unwilling to let go of Orion’s servos, “Let go of me,” he said anyways.
“I’m sorry,” Orion’s optics welling with tears, “I’m sorry for not listening to you when you needed me.”
“I’m sorry for leaving you when you needed me most.”
“Shut up.”
“I can’t, I’m sorry, I have so many things I want to talk about with you, so many things I want to hear you say, and so many things I regret putting off until now.”
“It’s too late.”
“Dee…”
“Leave me alone!” he snaps, tightening his grip on Orion, “Just go! Don’t you have people who love you? Who are waiting for you in the Allspark? Are you really just going to give all that up to spend eternity in this hell for someone like me?”
“The people I’ve killed won’t come back no matter how much I apologize.”
“The lives I ruined won’t be fixed just because I’m dead either.”
“The dreams I chased will never be fulfilled in the way we wanted them to.”
“Don’t you see? It’s too late for everything.”
“I know, Dee.”
“And still you remain?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a fool.”
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“You will get nothing out of this.”
“I have you.”
“And I will have you…not an even trade in my opinion.”
“I don’t mind, as long as we’re never separated again.”
“Do you truly not mind?”
“Yep.”
“I will not let you change your mind in the future.”
“Good, because I won’t,” says Orion, with a slight, somber grin, “I want to be with you until the end of existence…and maybe even further than that?”
“You’re a glutton for pain, aren’t you?”
“Only when it’s you.”
D-16’s response is to pull Orion up to a sitting position, their frames side by side as they lean on each other. D-16’s helm leans ever so slightly to rest on Orion’s as they lace their digits together in the oddly companionable scenario they’re in. Pain and sorrow still make up the majority of their beings, and perhaps they’ll rear their ugly heads again to ruin this tentative peace they’ve made for themselves, but for now, their love prevails, and peace reigns over their pocket of existence.
Nothing surrounds them on all sides.
But that’s alright.
Everything he’s ever wanted is right here.