Megatron stared out the window of the Nemesis, his scarred mouthplates twisting into a scowl, his fangs grinding against one another until faint sparks flew from his mouth.
But no matter how he raged at the sight below him, the bizarrely bright sky did not dim into a starry, cloudless expanse. The sandy deserts did not become smooth metal, nor did the mesas shift until they became bright towers, rising like clawed fingers to spear the darkened sky.
This wasn't home. This never would be.
"Do you feel as I do, brother?" he growled. "You drive on the very surface of this world, get its dust into your tires, onto your plating, into your internals. Does it disgust you? Or have you decided this backward, dirty little planet is home?"
He'd chosen it, so many centuries ago, as an ideal place to seed with energon precisely because no one would ever think to look in such a worthless place. And now, here it was, the final battleground for a conflict that could hardly be called war any longer.
Once it had been. There had been honor in that, at least, even though it pitted his Decepticons against their own cousins. Even though the glorious Cybertron he'd hoped his revolution would create had torn apart at the seams and dissolved into civil war.
His kind were warriors. In ages past, they had been conquerors, lords of a mighty empire. But when the empire fell, their less bellicose cousins seized control of Cybertron. They had forced their warrior cousins to lay down their arms. Mechs that once had been war machines became miners, laborers, and factory workers. The civilians who had once done those things had reformatted themselves into soldiers.
Megatron snickered, thinking of it. The new regime had needed a military, yes. But those who became it didn't understand war. Not spark-deep. They had reconstructed themselves, reinforcing their plating into armor and outfitting themselves with built-in weapons. But they had not been built for war from the beginning, and stood no chance against those who did.
At least, not once the true warriors realized what had happened. But by the time of Megatron's rise, no one remembered. They had all been built long after the Empire's fall. From the moment of their construction, they were told that they had been designed to be smelters and haulers and builders, given those functions by Primus himself when he first gave sparks to all machines.
Oh, there were whispers. Snatches of stories and half-remembered legends that said that once, their ancestors had used the old abandoned space bridges to fly to far-flung worlds and bring alien civilizations to their knees. But those were old stories, not history. History said they had always been here, slaving in mines and factories. History would never agree with what their sparks knew.
Fights broke out everywhere. In the mines, over scraps of energon. In the factories, over who'd produced what, and how efficiently, and how high-quality their products were, despite long centuries of mass-production that had all but killed any innovations in design.
And in the gladiator pits, for no reason other than the thirst for energon that hummed in everyone's systems, only halfway hidden. Built for fighting, denied the chance to serve their proper function as soldiers, the warrior castes had turned against themselves, killing one another for the entertainment of everyone else.
Even Megatron himself had heard that siren's call. Once a lowly worker in the mines, he had become the living legend of the arena. No opponent had ever defeated him, and on the scrap of their deactivated bodies he had built not only a reputation but a future. He had wrested control of the pits from the criminal syndicate that ran them.
But even reigning over Kaon's pits hadn't satisfied him. Not when the greatest fighters he knew tore one another apart instead of making something of themselves. He had sought out those snatches of legend, poring over them long into the night, disregarding the ridiculous and hunting for the real. And slowly but surely he'd found similarities in the stories, correlations, connections that could not possibly be coincidence.
And those, in turn, had led him to more stories. Detailed stories. Half-purged ghosts of historical documents that no one had ever intended any of his kind to see again.
From these, he had pieced together the truth. Not all of it, no. But enough. Enough to tell him that his kind had once been far more than they were now.
Enough to realize that the pits he ruled over were nothing more than a distraction.
"You feared us, brother. Even then. Even as you began uncovering the very records I sought. Even as your own spark swirled with shock as you realized what had been done to us. And to your own kind, forced to play at defending Cybertron when every circuit in your processors rebelled against the very idea of war."
He smiled, a bitter grin devoid of warmth. "And yet you joined my revolution anyway."
Megatron still remembered that first message. Seeing a communique from the northern hemispheres had filled him with rage; Soundwave had assured him that the rebellion's lines of communication were not only secure but completely hidden. And he had never before had cause to doubt anything Soundwave reported.
His anger had soon subsided into concern and curiosity. If their lines of communication had been breached, it only made sense to try and discover who had breached them and how he had managed it.
And whoever it was had not simply hacked into the rebellion's network, but sent a message telling them he was there. Whoever it was had wanted to talk. To Megatron himself, from the content of the brief communique.
That had surprised Megatron, and impressed him. He'd assumed that every member of the decadent castes was a coward.
Very well, Megatron had decided, we talk. And if you are an enemy, I track you as you've tracked me... and then hunt you down for real.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected. A particularly arrogant member of the Council, perhaps, wanting to send a subtle threat. Or perhaps a member of Cybertron's new military, showing off his gleaming, polished plating and glaring at Megatron through brilliant blue optics, reminding him that anything you once had is ours now, you dirty, rusting thug.
He certainly hadn't expected the young mech staring back at him once the videofeed connected, his bright blue optics flickering nervously as he stared back at Megatron. The youth was neither soldier nor politician; he had the small, light build of the scholarly castes. His plain red and blue paint and his nervous demeanor suggested that whatever his function, he was probably only barely higher-caste than Megatron. A data-collector or an indexer, rather than an analyzer or a teacher or a philosopher.
Megatron had growled at the image. This mech had to be resourceful to hack into hidden sections of the Grid that few in Iacon would know existed. And he had to be intelligent to know he should be looking for them. Still, what would a scholar want with his revolution? "Why have you contacted me? Whoever you are, you don't belong here."
From the other's flickering optics and the nervous whir of his fans, Megatron had thought he would quail seeing the legendary lord of the pits threaten him. But the youth's optics only brightened, and although Megatron could hear his engines stuttering, he replied in a clear, even voice. "No, I don't. But you should know that your message is being heard all over Cybertron. You speak of freedom, of an era when machines seized their destinies rather than let caste dictate them. Do you really believe only the Badlands are listening?"
"I do not claim to speak for Iacon," he'd answered, hissing his anger at being found out. But as angry as he had been, a true ally in the north could prove invaluable to his revolution. He'd kept listening.
The young scholar, a librarian named Orion Pax, soon revealed himself to be exactly that. Where the rebels had to hack into the Grid to pass on messages or spy on their enemies, Orion's function gave him ready access to it. Things they had to painstakingly download and monitor, he could automatically observe and save and, with a little bit of ingenuity, pass on to his friends in the rebellion.
And Orion also had access to the histories - histories that proved that in vorns gone by, the pit fighters and smelters and forgers had been warriors. True warriors, disciplined and united and deadly, their whole sparks dedicated to excellence.
Asking his young friend for those histories had been easy, precisely because they didn't seem dangerous. But those innocuous treatises from a bygone age had taught Megatron exactly what he needed to transform a crowd of violent malcontents into a fledgling war machine.
He had given his army a name. He had called them Decepticons, to remind them that they had been deceived - and to show those who had deceived them that they would repay them in lies and war and in anything else it took to reclaim their destinies.
For the first time, the Council began to fear him.
"Did you realize it, brother?" Megatron murmured. "Was that what finally drove you to abandon the revolution? Was that what led you to betray me?"
His former ally would never have seen it as a betrayal. He would claim that betrayal was the sort of thing Megatron's kind did, not his. Betrayal was for Starscream, ever-scheming, skulking around the upper echelons of the revolution, waiting for opportunities to seize the power he felt he deserved.
And he would have a point. Orion was no power-hungry mech who compensated for small size with brutal cunning. He proved to be one of the bravest of the revolutionaries, and one of the most thoughtful as well. Where the others were eager to earn their rank through force, he preferred negotiation to battle. Where they wanted revenge, he fought only because he felt that violence was the only alternative left for a dying world.
Megatron's weapons systems hummed, his cannon filling with bright, heated energy. "I still remember when our armorers first fitted you with weapons, brother. How your engines revved in protest when you realized that the blasters we gave you were a part of your systems now, pieces of you just the same as your hands. When you realized that the same energon that fueled your limbs fueled guns and blades. I thought you might desert us then. I never thought you would turn that weaponry on me."
He knew what those his old friend led had to say about it. Alarmed by the violence and by those from both the north and south who saw fit to employ it, the Council had finally agreed to meet with Megatron and Orion. The outcome - so Megatron's enemies said - had splintered the Great Revolution, pitting those who had come together against one another, dooming the world both mechs had hoped to save.
Megatron hissed. That wasn't how that meeting happened.
From the start, the Council had liked Orion better. The young scholar had spoken of his desire to end the violence, to usher in a new era of prosperity and peace. His followers rejected the Decepticon name and called themselves Autobots, for "autonomous robots." They emphasized that in the new age they would control their own destinies. This, Orion said, was all they wanted. In a new Cybertron free of caste, they would forgive rather than curse those who had once controlled them.
To an old, rusting Council that had never been built for war, such words had been far more convincing than the Decepticons' threats.
And Orion Pax was built in Iacon. He was one of their own.
Megatron had not begrudged his young friend anything. When the Council agreed that Cybertron needed new leadership, he had been pleased. When they'd named Orion leader of the once-civilian castes, his spark had surged with pride. When they'd baptized him with a new name - Optimus, the greatest of their kind - Megatron had inclined his head in respect.
"I did not believe in caste," Megatron murmured. "So the Council thought I must have wanted the whole planet. But I was not the one who decided the planet should belong to only one of us."
The Council had given Optimus the title of Prime, ruler of all Cybertron. They had cursed Megatron as a renegade and his Decepticons as a terrorist organization.
He grinned, his fangs gleaming. It was all true, of course. He had risen in the pits over the bodies of those who opposed him; revolution was no different. If the Autobots agreed to renounce him, they would be in for exactly what the Council had been.
But Optimus had been Megatron's friend. He offered the Council a compromise instead. Megatron would retain control of the territories he already held, and those already loyal to Megatron would be subject to no other authority. The Autobots would control the rest.
Anyone who chose to would be free to live in either society, and the two would agree to lasting peace. "The new Cybertron," Optimus had said, "belongs to all who fought to forge it, Decepticon and Autobot alike."
Megatron's optics gleamed. He knew what the Autobots said, now that long years of war had made history into rumor. They claimed that he had refused the deal, declaring Cybertron itself Decepticon territory and turning his war machine, then and there, on his closest ally.
He shook his head, the light of the alien sun glinting on his rueful smile. The other Decepticons would have preferred that Megatron do exactly that. "But I would never have denied you leadership of your own kind, brother."
It was their peace that had not lasted.
Even in the days of the revolution, the Decepticons had made preparations for their victory. The greatest of the ancient space bridges had lain dormant in the Hydrax Plateau, and Megatron's scientists had researched how to reactivate it from the very beginning of the revolution. Shockwave, Soundwave, and Starscream had worked tirelessly behind the scenes to prepare it for Megatron's ultimate plan. By the time the Decepticons had seized control, his space bridge was fully operational, ready to send legions of warriors to any known world in the galaxy.
"It was you yourself, brother, who gave me the history of the Age of Empires. Did you think all I wanted was a handful of stories to inspire my armies?"
The Autobot territories had two space bridges. Since the Autobots had not researched the ancient technology, their bridges had remained dormant. After Optimus had begun his own research project, hoping to use them as hubs of trade and exploration. Under the old government, Cybertron had long been an isolated world, disconnected from the rest of the galaxy. Optimus had hoped to use his space bridges to forge friendships, alliances, and connections with alien civilizations.
"I would not have begrudged you that, had you activated your space bridges. Every empire needs allies, and who better than you to make them, brother? I might even have shared the space bridge technology with you, if you had asked. Instead, you chose to interfere."
"The space bridges belong to all of Cybertron," his old friend had said, his blue optics blazing with the same light Megatron had seen as they fought side by side. "They will not be used for conquest."
"The active space bridge is in Decepticon territory. By terms proposed by you yourself, it is Decepticon property," Megatron had answered. "It will be used as the Decepticons see fit."
"The revolution is over, Megatron," his friend had answered. "The Decepticons no longer have any need for war."
Megatron fought down a chuckle, remembering. "You always did think you knew what was best for everyone, brother. Even those of us you agreed you could not control."
Then he did laugh, thinking of his old friend's naïveté. Leader though he had become, in some ways he was still that young indexer from Iacon, stumbling on something he would never truly understand.
"I myself gave you the history of the Cybetronian Empire and the writings of its generals," Optimus had said. "And I am the last mech to begrudge you pride in them. But please - brother. Friend. I implore you. Let them be reminders of a mighty past - not blueprints for a future tyranny."
As the Autobots told it, Megatron's response was rage - an all-consuming fury that hurled their planet in one brief moment into the fires of civil war.
They were not, strictly speaking, incorrect.
"Yes, Prime. I answered you with anger. But don't deceive yourself thinking that anger was all mine." His engines rumbled, his frame shaking with the memory. "That anger came from all of the Decepticons, not merely me alone. I held it at bay - in them and in myself - longer than you could ever have known."
His scarred mouthplates set in a grim line. "But by then, even I could no longer doubt that you deserved it, old friend."
He raised a claw. It glittered in the alien world's sunlight as he clenched it, his fist tightening slowly, so tightly his sharp fingertips bit into his own palm.
Optics flickering as he accessed his memory banks, he forced himself to remember. The Decepticon forces had gathered around the space bridge, exultation surging through their circuitry. Optimus Prime and the Autobots had marched to meet them. And Optimus Prime had said the fateful words that had dissolved the uneasy alliance and set the two races against one another, once and for all:
"Cybertron's technology belongs to all its citizens, Megatron. Autobot and Decepticon alike. And the Autobots refuse to use that technology to make war. If even one Decepticon attempts to cross that space bridge, we will stop him."
Megatron shook his great head, remembering, and repeated the words he had said so long ago. "You would fight us, Optimus Prime? You would attack your own kin?"
The other's optics had flickered more brightly than he had ever seen them. Then they had dimmed, as though the spark behind them were flickering out. "If you leave me no other choice, brother. We have learned the art of war, Megatron. From you."
"So be it," Megatron had bellowed in answer, his response drowned out by the thunder of the Decepticons' engines as they roared their rage and hatred. It had seethed through them all until it reached their leader, and as his weapon powered up he felt it roil through his systems and burst forth from his cannon as a bolt of lavender flame.
He shuttered his optics, not wanting to remember watching that flame speed toward his greatest ally. He'd shot at Optimus many times since then without regret. But that first shot was different. Remembering it was also different. Even now that their feud had claimed everything they once had hoped to defend.
His optics irised open again. "I did not rise to free Cybertron. Not in the way you hoped, Optimus Prime. I rose to seize the destiny my kind had been cheated of - by any means necessary.
"And they did not submit to my rule because I offered them freedom. They gave themselves to me because I offered them that destiny." He smirked. "Powerful I may be, brother, but I could not stand against the will of an entire race built for war. Not even if I'd wanted to."
He opened his hand, running his rough fingertips over the frame of the window. He turned, peering for a long moment into the violet darkness of the ship. It was to have been the Decepticons' flagship, greatest of the fleet. Sent through the reactivated space bridge, it was meant to hunt the farthest reaches of the galaxy, spreading fear and awe in the sparks of the cowardly... and snuffing out the sparks of those brave or foolish enough to stand against the Decepticons' might.
He leaned against the wall, his optics narrowing. He did not like this alien world, its searing sky at his back, the strange creatures scurrying across its surface. Those who knew of the Decepticons feared them, as any inferior being should. But they were not warriors, not worthy enemies to face on the fields of battle.
The only ones worthy of that had been other Cybertronians. Megatron laughed, a bitter amusement that made the fuel roil in his tanks. He turned back to the window, forcing his optics open, letting the foreign light fill them, intense enough to cause him pain.
"Do you understand, Optimus Prime, that those fires roared across Cybertron and razed our home because you chose to stand against us?"