Sideswipe's metal feet clanged against the floor as he stomped through the arena grounds. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be here at this hour. No one was, except for a few staff. But none of the crew of Decepticons there now were willing to cross him. Not now that he'd proven himself a rising star in an arena where the winners killed and the losers died.
Which meant he was alone. In theory. Still, he could feel someone else's optics on him. Someone who he was damn sure wasn't a cleanup droid or security mech.
His lips drew back in a tight smile. I know you're here.
With exaggerated slowness, he turned back to the leaderboard. In the dim light of the darkened arena, its red and purple glyphs and numbers gleamed at him brightly enough to sting.
It was in large part thanks to Sideswipe's victories that the readouts showed the Autobots in the lead. His fellows cheered him. A true example, they said, of why this truce would work.
He kicked at a piece of scrap on the ground, wondering darkly whether it might be a piece of someone. Probably not. Security broke up any fights outside of the pit with the usual brutal Decepticon efficiency. Still, he knew Decepticons. They didn't keep things clean up here because they'd suddenly turned nice. They did it because the truce said they had to.
Truce. He scowled. He couldn't believe how quickly the other Autobots had turned idiot. As soon as they'd heard that word, they'd celebrated. Damned fools. After vorn upon vorn of stumbling into Decepticon traps, he would have thought they'd figure out what one looked like.
Oh, he'd expected Optimus to fall for it. Optimus was the Prime. The war was his responsibility, and he'd wanted nothing more than an end to it for vorns. Predictably, he'd jumped at any chance Megatron had offered to end open hostilities, even if it had meant just taking them here instead.
We killed each other before, and that was brutal and savage, Sideswipe thought. Now we kill each other one on one and everyone cheers, including our side. And that's supposed to be an achievement.
Does anyone really think Megatron isn't laughing like hell at us right now? he thought, turning to look into the shadows. He saw nothing, and heard nothing but soft sounds, any one of which could have come from the workings of the machines that kept the arena running. It didn't matter to him. When the time came, he'd know what the other was up to.
He was the big star, after all. He and his brother had always joked about that: who was the fastest, the most clever, the best. And he'd always loved victory. Most of the other Autobots were either too squeamish to actually take their war into the deathmatch arena, or too inexperienced to live past more than a few matches anyway.
The Autobots weren't gladiators. The Decepticons were. Most had fought in Kaon's arena before Megatron had decided terrorism was more profitable than pit fights. Even those Decepticons who had never fought in the pits - criminals and drifters and thugs that Megatron had released from Kaon's prison for the small price of their loyalty - had soon found themselves fighting alongside the pits' best. To survive, they had to watch them, learn from them, and learn to spar with them in practice bouts.
And Autobots who were skilled enough, or ruthless enough, to beat them at their own game were rare. The Decepticons had outscored them from the beginning. Mechs Sideswipe had known and loved, mechs he'd fought beside in the war, had died at their hands, and the crowd had roared in pleasure as they fell.
They'd consoled themselves, back then, with the thought that only a Decepticon would cheer watching an Autobot die. But even then, it hadn't been the truth. Even then, some of the younger or brasher or more belligerent ones had cried out, swept up in the elation, when a favorite fighter from the wrong side tore someone apart from the right one.
Then they'd whooped even harder for him, because he was one of them.
He barely heard it. He wasn't there for their cheers.
Funny how all the victories were his only now that he had no brother to share them with.
Funny how he wanted a brother to share them with, after so long in Sunstreaker's shadow.
If the Decepticons had simply shot him down, that would have been one thing. Sunstreaker had never exactly been kind to him. And it was a war. They'd both known they might well die in it. Hell, Sunstreaker had competed in Megatron's old arena back on Cybertron, and Sideswipe had gotten used to being angry at him for risking his spark and pretending not to be terrified. That was just the way things were.
What had happened had been different. Someone else, some twisted gang of power-hungry humans, had found his brother. Instead of killing him clean, they had done... what? Sideswipe had thought he wanted to know. But when Ratchet had tried to explain, he'd found he simply couldn't listen. Not back then. Not to what had happened to his brother.
He understood only the basic idea: that Sunstreaker's abductors had experimented both on him and on a human boy. They'd mutilated their captives not only in body but also in mind. Whatever torments they'd inflicted, Sunstreaker and the human had literally shared. Somehow, the experimenters had linked their two victims' minds. Sunstreaker had never liked humans, and suddenly he'd been forced to share his very self with one.
He'd never been the same after that.
Sideswipe growled into the darkness. He hated them all. It didn't make a difference to him that the ones who hurt his brother hadn't been Megatron's Decepticons. They might not have been the ones to destroy his brother's spirit... but they had been the ones to kill him once that spirit had been crushed.
And that was reason enough to blame them for it all.
Furious with the humans who had tormented him, Sunstreaker had sold the Autobots out to Starscream. He'd planned to give them the humans' whole planet, a nice little present, in exchange for otherwise leaving the Autobots alone.
They'd had their fun with the humans' planet, yes, but they'd never had any intention of leaving their ancient enemy alone. With the codes and keys Sunstreaker had provided them, they'd quickly routed the Autobots and sent them back to Cybertron to die at the hands of one of their own gruesome little experiments.
Finally remorseful, Sunstreaker had died to protect the other Autobots.
Or maybe he had just thrown himself at the enemy. Sideswipe didn't know which. He'd seen his brother just before he'd driven off to die.
And once Sunstreaker had died, had given his life to try and save worthless fools like him who'd grown every bit as violent as their enemies... there was nothing else left. He felt nothing, nothing at all, until he had an enemy's torn cabling crackling with energy, his frame spattered with its mech fluid, as he watched its spark dim and die.
It went against everything he was supposed to stand for. He didn't care. Not when the Autobots were eating this up, hailing their new era and their supposedly hard-negotiated peace. This wasn't peace. This was exactly what Megatron wanted.
He couldn't beat us, so he decided to change us instead.
And he, himself, was perhaps the most changed of them all.
Gritting his dental plates, he turned. His shadow was damned good at hiding, but not that good. All he had to do was watch for movement, for the gleam of an optic somewhere in the black - there -
He cried out as he lunged, sure more than ever of his victory -
- and landed hard, the cold metal of the floor scraping against his frame, his chest aching where the other's broad foot had collided with it.
Snarling, he twisted his head to look up, and found a cannon as familiar as it was enormous pointed at his chest, right over his spark.
"You want to kill me, Megatron?" he spat. "Then come on and get it over with. You know I don't mind."
The red optics staring down at him gleamed. "No, I don't think you would. But I have no intention of killing you. It would be a waste."
"No intention of slagging an Autobot? Do you think I was built yesterday? Save the truce speeches for the damn fools who've forgotten the war already. I'm not one of them."
"Truce speeches?" The warlord chuckled, lowering his arm. "I wouldn't insult you with such nonsense. I meant exactly what I said: killing you would be a waste. You are the best in the arena right now, whatever symbol you wear. It would be a shame to destroy you without good reason."
Sideswipe's optics widened. "I've killed how many of your mechs so far?" A glance at the leaderboard would answer that question, but he wasn't about to be foolish enough to look away.
Megatron smirked. "If they cannot survive, they never deserved to in the first place."
"Then you're just going to let me keep doing it." He kept his optics trained on the warlord as he got to his feet. "Just going to let your enemies keep winning. Until I get scrapped and you all laugh, is that it?"
"Oh, I don't expect you to die any time soon," the warlord rumbled, a strange note in his voice that sounded almost like pride. Sideswipe shuddered.
The red Autobot willed himself to stop shaking. His stare hardened as he recovered control, meeting the other's gaze without flinching. "Then you expect to lose."
The crimson optics widened in genuine surprise. "What -?"
Sideswipe grinned in grim satisfaction. "You heard me. Next mech I fight in here will be you." He chuckled. "If you'll take me up on it, that is."
It felt good to talk that way, the old bravado filling his voice. It reminded him of Sunstreaker, of the way things had been a long time ago, before this war. No. I'm the best. Just you try me. Is that the best you can do, bro? Come on. Again. Again. Come on.
It reminded him of the way things had been before they'd both become bitter enough to mean it.
A calm voice interrupted his thoughts, a voice he hated all the more because it really was beautiful.
"If you insist on challenging me, I will accept. But make no mistake. If you challenge me, you will die."
Sideswipe's engine revved in defiance. "You just said I am the best."
"I did. You are, perhaps, one of the best the arena has ever seen."
He glared down at the smaller mech. "But the arena is mine. It belongs to me. I am its very spark."
Sideswipe stepped forward, jabbing a gray hand at the Decepticon badge on the other's chest. "Then stop talking big and kill me."
Easy, he told himself again. This was so slagging easy.
The warlord's hand clenched over his own and tightened, slowly, until Sideswipe felt the metal of his fingers give, pain flaring through his sensors.
"Is that really what you want, Autobot? Death at my hands?" He snarled. "I am not the one who destroyed your brother."
"Your swarm killed him," Sideswipe shot back, his dental plates grinding together hard enough to spark, determined not to react to the pain. "It was there on your orders."
"And you think you want to make me pay." Megatron smiled, a cold smile that gave no warmth. "But you don't, do you, Sideswipe? It's not rage that compels you. It's despair."
Sideswipe jerked his trapped arm hard, twisting his wrist, seeking the weak point in the other's grip. "You've seen what I do down there. You've seen me tear the sparks out of your mechs' bodies -"
"Yes. I have." The Decepticon nodded, his expression mild, as if it meant nothing to him.
"Then you know I will rip every last one of you slaggers apart - !"
"No." He smirked. "If you wanted that, you'd keep going as you had been, and let your points, and the twisted metal in your wake, build. You would not challenge me like this. You want to die."
"Maybe I do," Sideswipe hissed, a cold feeling spreading through the spark beneath his chest.
"Then you have a choice to make, Autobot," the warlord said, letting go of Sideswipe's hand and looking down at the dented metal.
"You can challenge me, give in to your anguish, and die by my hand."
"Or?" Sideswipe spat the word. I don't want to live in a galaxy with slag like you in it, he thought.
The warlord chuckled again. "Or you can despise me, live, and grow stronger yet."
Sideswipe flexed his injured hand, his optics narrowing to bright slits as he roared his hatred at the warlord. Ignoring the flare of pain, he tightened his hands into fists.
Then, still snarling, he turned and walked away, knowing the other was watching him go.