Notes:
1. This is my origin story for Megatron (at least part of it. ;)) Since there's not really that much interaction between this story and my other stories, it technically stands alone, but there are some heavily implied spoilers for Many Voices, and it will have more impact if you've read at least through chapter 69 of that. Just warning you.
2. Another warning: This story has some violent/unpleasant stuff in it, including fighting, torture, death, etc. And, just like in Quantum, the main character doesn't always make good decisions.
3. That said, I hope you like it. It's been one of my favorite things to write so far.
His systems booted up slowly—as if they hadn't in a long time. Someone was screaming in the distance. A nagging in the back of his processor told him he needed to get up because someone was in trouble and he needed to help. He needed to help…
His optics came online, and he cycled a vent full of choking, grinding dust. He coughed and got to his knees, still coughing, and got up, still coughing.
And then he realized he didn't know where he was, or how he had come to be there, or why it was so dark.
He did not know his designation.
His first instinct was to panic, but he fought back the fear and looked around, trying to make sense of things instead. Everything was dark, and there was dust in the atmosphere, and there were others around him, lying still.
He looked down at his hands and the light from his optics illuminated them. He needed to do something… something he couldn't remember. He shuttered his optics and was shocked when he could no longer see, so he opened them again, fighting off panic a second time. He needed to figure out… who he was. Or maybe where he was. Which was more important?
That noise in the distance was still there. He wasn't really sure what it meant, but it felt wrong somehow, and he wanted to stop it. He took a step forward and tripped over something. It moved and something grabbed him.
"Get off…" the thing he'd tripped over grumbled, and yanked on his leg, bringing him crashing down to the ground.
"Shut up!"
"What the frag?"
He got up again, and backed away. He didn't understand what they were saying, but he could tell they weren't happy he'd… why had they been lying on the ground anyway?
"Go back to recharge, or I'll put you there permanently," a pair of optics glared at him.
He sat down, still trying to figure out what was going on. That wasn't just random sounds, was it? It was language. This thing was talking to he didn't understand what it had said to him, only that it had been angry.
Had he done something wrong?
Looking back, he realized he could remember everything he'd done since waking up with clarity. There was nothing before that, though. He looked down at himself, but it was too dark to see just by the light of his optics.
The screaming stopped. Good, something had stopped it, and now he didn't need to go do something about it so badly.
He waited for whatever was going to happen next, all the while trying to figure out why he was here, wherever here was.
Light blinded his optics for a moment, before he figured out how to turn their sensitivity down. A small, stinging pain lingered behind them for a few moments. It was his first taste of pain. He decided he didn't like it very much.
"Everymech up! Shift starts in two breems!"
The nameless mech looked around, surprised when everyone got up almost at once. What was going on?
"I said get up!" one mech approached him. There was something different about this one. He was a different color, the nameless mech realized. Everyone else was all scratched up and dull gray, but this one was blue.
"Get up!"
It took the nameless mech too long to react when the other mech's pede swung out and kicked him, sending him flying. He gasped when the pain from the crumpled plating on his arm hit his processor, but something kept him from crying out.
The attacker came toward him again, and the nameless mech scrambled up and backed away. The blue mech shook his helm with a scowl and turned to walk away, much to the nameless mech's relief.
Everyone seemed to be going somewhere. The nameless mech wasn't sure whether he should follow, but he didn't want to be alone, so he moved with the herd.
He was different too. He was brown and white, for the most part, though there were scratches here and there that showed dull gray underneath. He wasn't sure what to make of that.
They left the room and went out into a wide passageway with jagged walls. The nameless mech stared in wonder at the tunnel stretching before him. Did it go on forever? It was different from the cave they'd been in before. He slowed down and reached out to touch the wall, but was shoved forward by someone behind him. He stumbled, but stayed on his pedes and kept moving forward. Apparently, he wasn't supposed to stop.
Just as he thought this, the line slowed down. He wasn't ready for it so he bumped into the mech in front of him, which earned him a threatening growl. Getting too close to anyone seemed to be an offense. The nameless mech resolved to avoid it in the future.
The line progressed slowly, and the nameless mech didn't see what was going on until he got near the front. A bored-looking femme stood off to the side with a rolling cart, handing small glowing glass cubes to everyone as they walked by. One or two muttered what were certainly words as they accepted their cubes. The nameless mech wondered why some said them and some didn't.
"Thank you."
The mech in front of him didn't say it, and he wasn't sure whether or not he should. He clumsily accepted the cube, and was pushed forward from behind when he tried to stop.
It was made of some sort of smooth, clear material, and the blue glow was a liquid inside the crystal container. The nameless mech stared at it for a few moments as he walked, barely recognizing that it smelled good before someone else snatched it from his hands.
He looked up as the other mech grinned at him, and then tilted his helm back and poured the contents past his own lip plates. The nameless mech stared, confused.
Had he done something wrong? He looked back at the line just in time to see a smaller mech receive his cube and sprint away, trying to drink it as he ran. Several others converged on him, trying to take it, and the cube fell to the floor of the tunnel, where it bounced, spilling the last of its contents.
The blue mech who'd attacked the nameless mech earlier pulled out some sort of glowing rope and approached the pile. He swung the rope a few times and shouted, and the mechs dispersed, leaving the small one huddled on the ground, licking glowing blue liquid off of his fingers.
Something struck the nameless mech—in his spark he knew something wasn't quite right, but he wasn't sure what it was. He tried to assign something about the situation to it, and couldn't—not having any other experiences to compare this one to.
When the whole line had come through, the blue mech stepped forward.
"All right, team gamma five, you're in drilling and debris removal this orn. Get moving."
Everyone started walking again, and the nameless mech hurried to go with them. He didn't care really where they were going next as long as he could escape the wrongness of that pile on top of the small mech, and the empty cube dripping on the floor.
They put their empty cubes in a bin that sat by the side of the room. Since the nameless mech no longer had one, he couldn't. He felt like there was something wrong with that too.
But then again, the blue mech hadn't taken any. Maybe it was because he was a different color, and wasn't supposed to have it.
But if he was different, why was he just moving among the group? Wouldn't they pull him out and explain to him what he ought to be doing? Or had they tried? Did they know he couldn't understand?
They got onto a platform, and the nameless mech jumped when it started to sink. No one else seemed to care, though a few of them shot him annoyed looks.
Maybe he was misinterpreting that. It seemed everyone gave everyone annoyed looks—were they really annoyed, or did he simply not understand?
Eventually, the platform, which had gone down a long tube, came to a stop at another level, and everyone walked off. The nameless mech did so as well, and followed them. He could hear sounds in the distance now—low, loud rumbling noises that he wasn't certain he liked. But no one else seemed afraid, so he kept going.
They started passing other groups—mechs carrying ragged-edged sheets of metal, and mechs riding transport vehicles piled high with large blue crystalline things. They were a different shade from the liquid they'd been drinking—a deeper blue—and their glowing was a little dimmer.
Then they walked further and the nameless mech got to see what was making the sound. Machines with spinning, ridged cones at the front bored into the solid metal walls, sending sparks and shards of metal flying in every direction. Others crowded around, clearing out the pieces of metal, and dragging piles of it away from the wall for other mechs to load onto low transports, which were taken the other direction from the large transports that carried blue crystals. It was fascinating, but mystifying.
They kept walking until they came to a wide side passage, and went down it. A group of mechs there were drilling into the end of the passageway and moving debris off to the side.
A black and green mech approached, and the blue mech went to converse with him. After a few moments, the black and green mech turned around and shouted something at the mechs working on the wall. The machinery quieted, and that group abandoned it and walked past the group the nameless mech was in. They looked a lot more tired and broken down than the nameless mech's group, which made him feel a little better—he must be in a superior group.
The mechs trudged past. A few of them limped, and several dragged their pedes. They were definitely inferior.
Then the blue mech got out his glowing rope and pointed at the machinery. The nameless mech watched, trying to figure out what was going on as the others in his group moved forward.
"What are you waiting for! Hey, fresh-paint, get going!"
The nameless mech turned to look at the blue one, who was approaching fast, flanked by three others who were all colorful like him.
He had just decided they didn't look pleased with him when the blue rope caught his shoulder. He gasped as something burned through him. The lightning was gone as soon as it had come, but his arm still hurt, and when he looked down at it, he saw several long, shallow scrapes.
"Get in line!" the blue mech said again, pointing at the others. "What is wrong with this mech?"
"Maybe he's got a faulty processor or something. Science experiment gone wrong, memory wipe that fried his CPU, who knows? Or maybe he's just really slow," one of the other colored mechs said.
The nameless mech stared at his arm, waiting for the stinging to stop. He had never felt this much pain before.
Blue liquid pooled in one of the scrapes-the same blue liquid they'd been drinking, though again a slightly different color.
"Go move debris!" the blue mech said again, pointing again at the others. The nameless mech went to join them, following their examples as they gathered pieces of metal into piles on the sides of the tunnel.
Choking dust and little metal fragments clogged his vents, and the sharp edges of the heavier pieces of debris bit into his armor. Before too long his hands were covered with scrapes.
After what seemed like forever, there was an exclamation from somewhere nearby. The nameless mech looked up to see that one of the drills had stopped, and was pulling out of the wall. In the hole it had opened up, he could see blue. Glowing blue.
Everyone converged on the hole, and from compartments in the drilling machines, wagons were unloaded.
It appeared they'd broken into a pocket of crystals. The nameless mech tried to get close enough to see as several others started removing crystals and placing them on the carts, which others dragged away from the wall.
The blue mech shouted and swung the rope. It made a nasty snapping sound. Some of the mechs left the glowing opening and went back to clearing debris. The nameless mech wasn't sure if he should as well, but he probably should be doing something.
He went back to moving debris, but watched curiously as a large transport came and they started loading blue crystals onto it.
So the question now was why. Were they trying to carve out more hallways, or were they looking for the crystals? The latter seemed more likely. Things started to fall into place. They found the crystals, which became the blue liquid, which became the liquid seeping out of his still-throbbing arm. It must be important, if it hurt so much to lose it. They were providing it for themselves…
No, that couldn't be right. Then they would only need as much mass of crystal as mass of the liquid they'd consumed, and this was already many times as much.
They ran out of debris to clear, and the nameless mech realized they needed the drilling machines to make more debris, so he went to one and tried to climb into it and get it started again.
"Hey! Pretty-paint! Get off of that! What is he doing? He's going to kill us."
The nameless mech didn't pay attention to the voice he could already recognize as the blue mech's.
"You can't run a drill with exposed energon in the area! Tatters, Spill, get him off of there!"
The nameless mech was pulled down from the drill and dragged—wide-opticed—to where the blue mech was standing.
"I can't work with glitched mechs," he said. "Kill him."
"You sure, Spiral?"
"Yes."
They dragged the nameless mech off to the side and blue, glowing ropes seemed to appear from nowhere in their hands. The nameless mech already knew to fear those. They dropped him to the ground and he curled up, arms over his helm, as the first blows fell. He wasn't sure what he'd done wrong—obviously getting in that drill had been a mistake.
Barbs tore through his back plating, and plasmatic energon burned through his frame. He screamed. Pain, he realized, could be a lot worse than what he'd experienced so far. It could be far worse than clogged vents and scratched hands.
The barbed whips fell again, and he remembered the screaming from when he had woken up. He heard the screaming again now. This time he understood what it was.
His only consolation was that eventually, it ended.