Author's Note: So how many people cried from the last chapter? Sorry about that, it was a last minute decision to have Megatron die, and yes he's really dead. Just about everyone asked me to have him come back…well, you'll just have to keep reading to see if he does or not. I'm not guaranteeing anything though. ; )

Chap. 7: Don't Cry

Starscream carried Astrid to the command center of the Atlantis where Sideways was still working on Jolt. The black bot looked up as his commander walked in. Starscream looked down at him.

"Something wrong sir?" Sideways asked curious to know what was going on.

An evil grin went across Starscream's face, "Nothing is wrong at all Sideways. Are you finished with that minicon yet?"

Astrid helplessly looked up into the face of her lover's killer. Her body felt weak, numb, and useless. She knew she couldn't fight Starscream and didn't bother to struggle as he held her in his arms.

"I've gotten every scrap of information I possibly could out of his worthless CPU. Including all the information you wanted," Sideways explained and then looked at Astrid, "Why do you have her?"

"She's injured, and I need some tools to fix her,"

"Right," Sideways remarked taking out some tools from what looked like a toolbox and handing them to Starscream, "How did she get injured?"

"My, your full of questions,"

"Well I wouldn't be if actually told me what happened,"

"If you insist Sideways," Starscream responded looking down at Astrid.

Sideways waited for him to say something and when he didn't the black bot impatiently asked, "Well?"

Starscream turned his attention back to him, "To make a long story short, Megatron and Astrid had gotten out of their cell, I found them, and then killed Megatron."

"No way!" Sideways and Jolt both said in unison.

"If you don't believe me, keep going straight down this hallway and you'll come across his body,"

"But Megatron doesn't die that easily," Sideways protested, "Are you really sure you killed him?"

"Go look at the body yourself," Starscream retorted starting to get angry. He left the room with Astrid and the tools.

Sideways glanced down at Jolt who was restrained to the table and decided the minicon wasn't going anywhere. He left the room to get proof that Megatron really was dead. However, he failed to notice that Coby, Bud, and Lori were up in the ventilation system. As soon as he walked out of the room, the kids slid down into the room with a rope. Jolt noticed them right away.

"Guys, guys!" he called, "I'm over here!"

"We know Jolt, we're coming," Coby exclaimed coming over to the imprisoned minicon and pressing a button that made the restraints pop off.

Jolt stood and jumped down from the table asking excitedly, "Did you guys hear?"

"Hear what?" Bud questioned curious to know the answer.

"Starscream killed Megatron! Isn't that great news for the autobots?" he noticed the expression on the kids faces, especially Lori's, turn into sad ones, "What's wrong guys? I thought that would be good news."

"Well in a matter of speaking it is good news," Lori explained, "But it's really sad news too."

"What do you mean?" wondered the confused minicon.

"Look, you can't tell anybody we told you this," Coby continued from where Lori left off, "Megatron and Astrid were, oh how do you say it—

"In love Coby! Is that really a hard thing to say?" Lori questioned.

"Really?" Jolt asked surprised, "I've never known Megatron to have a heart."

"He did with her," Lori added, "We were the ones who freed them from the prison cell that they were being kept in. Astrid promised that if we let her and Megatron out that they would help us find you, Reverb, and Sixspeed and get us out of here."

"Go on," Jolt said interested.

Lori continued, "Once we let them out, I don't know how it was brought up, but they told us they loved each other, and you could tell that they really did care about each other. They were sticking to their promise too, and then Starscream came. Astrid put us up in the vent over there and we made a run for it. Then we ended up here."

Bud burst into tears suddenly, "I can't believe Megatron's dead! Poor Astrid probably had to witness his death too."

"Aw, Bud calm down," Coby remarked and then an idea popped into his mind, "Hey Jolt, did Starscream or Sideways say where Megatron's body was?"

"Yeah, down this hall," Jolt remarked, "Why?"

"Maybe I can fix him," Coby exclaimed.

"But even if you do fix him, he still won't magically come back to life," Lori protested.

"It's worth a shot," Coby fired back at her, "Don't you want to help Astrid?"

"Well, yeah," Lori answered, "Just where is she anyway?"

"Starscream has her," Jolt piped up, "He's always wanted her so he could, well, make her his queen I guess."

"So that's what this is!" Bud shouted, "This is all some bizarre love triangle! I say we get out of here and tell the autobots what's going on even if Megatron comes back from the dead and kills us for it."

The other two humans seemed to agree to this and then Coby added, "First things first though, we've got to find Reverb and Sixspeed before we leave."

"Yeah and let's hurry before Sideways gets back," Bud exclaimed and the four of them ran out of the room in search of the other two minicons.


Starscream had taken Astrid to his quarters and laid her on his bed. Astrid still wasn't going to put up a fight, she was still in shock from what had happened to Megatron and she was going to be in shock a long time.

On the other hand, Starscream was quite pleased that Astrid wasn't fighting him and that he could do probably anything he wanted with her at the moment. Smirking he decided not to. He liked it better when Astrid fought back against him. Starscream thought now would be a good time to try and win her over.

"Astrid I need you to sit up," he spoke calmly and gently.

The femme obeyed his command and sat up on the bed. Starscream sat down to her right, the side her injured shoulder was on. He took out a couple tools and gently began repairing her.

"Don't touch me," she whispered suddenly.

Starscream did a half smile, "So you still are resisting me."

"Does that surprise you?" Astrid asked angrily, "After all that you have put me through and all the ways you have made me suffer, did you really think that once you killed Megatron I'd come running into your arms?"

"It would've been nice," Starscream breathed into her audio receptor.

Astrid moved away from him and glared at him, "You can keep dreaming then."

Starscream crawled over to her and pinned her to the bed. He lie over her and grinned, "Why keep dreaming when I can have all my dreams come true right here and right now?"

"You disgusting pig, get off me,"

Much to Astrid's surprise Starscream did as she said. Using the opportunity, Astrid sat back up and got off the bed. She headed for the door when Starscream grabbed her from behind. He encircled his arms around her waist and put his lips to her audio receptor.

He whispered, "Where are you going my dear?"

"I'm leaving so get your bloody hands off me,"

"You're not going anywhere Astrid, now let me fix your shoulder,"

"No," she retorted, "No one is going to fix my shoulder."

"Why? Does your injury remind you of your deceased lover?"

"Yes," she answered trying not to cry.

"Then I shall take away that injury so you won't remember him," Starscream stated removing one of his arms from her waist.

Astrid couldn't see behind her and failed to notice the former second in command take out his sword. Starscream turned her and pushed her against the wall suddenly. He pinned her there. That's when Astrid noticed the sword.

Megatron's energon and mech fluids were still on the long blade. Astrid couldn't watch as Starscream sunk his sword into her shoulder and carved out the wound Megatron had accidentally inflicted on her. She bit her lip and refused to let herself cry. It seemed like forever had gone by before Starscream finally finished.

Putting his sword away the bot asked, "Now do you want your shoulder fixed or not?"

Astrid glared at him with a lust for his blood in her optics. Starscream saw this and smirked. Furious, Astrid made a fist and punched Starscream in the face. The surprised bot stumbled back a couple feet. Before he had time to recover Astrid jumped on him knocking him to the ground.

She punched him over and over again in the face. She didn't stop until he was out cold. When he was, she got up and thought about killing him with the same sword he had used to kill Megatron. "No," she thought quietly, "Not yet, this isn't his moment to die."

Thinking a better time to kill Starscream would present itself Astrid ran out of the room and straight into the humans. "Coby, Bud, Lori?" she asked surprised, "And Jolt? Are you guys all right?"

"Astrid!" Bud exclaimed hugging her foot, "You're alive! Starscream didn't kill you!"

Astrid swallowed back more tears knowing that not everybody had been spared from Starscream's wrath. "Yeah," she nearly choked, "Let's just find Reverb and Sixspeed and get out of here. Jolt, do you know where they are?"

"You bet, follow me,"

The three humans and femme followed Jolt down a series of hallways and to a set of locked doors. Astrid warned everybody to stand back and proceeded to kick the doors down. Reverb and Sixspeed ran out of the now unlocked room.

"That was incredible," Coby stated completely blown away by Astrid's move, "Where'd you learn to kick doors down like that?"

Astrid bit her lip and answered slowly, "Megatron taught me."

"Oh," Coby remarked, "Sorry, I didn't mean to—

"It's okay," Astrid said wiping her optics, "I'm guessing you heard."

The kids nodded sympathetically and Lori spoke up, "For what it's worth, we're really sorry."

"Please," Astrid whispered trying to keep her voice steady, "It's not your fault he died and you don't need to be apologizing. Now let's get out of here before I start sobbing like a baby."

The kids lightly smiled at her joke and Astrid scooped them and the minicons up in her hands. "Jolt, do you know where the exit of this ship is?"

"Yeah, you're heading right towards it,"

Astrid ran down the hallway and soon came upon a room that held escape pods. She placed the minicons and humans on the floor and said, "Get in one of the escape pods, I'll transform and fly out behind you."

"What about your shoulder?" asked Coby concerned.

Astrid glanced at it before replying, "I'll be all right, now hurry up and go."

The kids and minicons obeyed her commands and all squeezed into one of the escape pods. It launched and Astrid transformed and flew out of the ship behind it. Once out of the ship and in open space did the femme finally feel safe.

Ignoring the escape pod floating a few feet ahead of her, Astrid turned and took one last look at the Starship Atlantis. A pain ripped through her spark at that moment and Astrid swore her spark had just shattered.

"Megatron," she whimpered helplessly and sadly.

The kids watched her from inside the escape pod feeling bad for the poor femme. Lori felt tears on her cheeks and whispered, "We've got to find a way to bring Megatron back to her. Even if he is the enemy." Coby, Bud, and the minicons silently nodded their heads in agreement.

Astrid felt like she was betraying Megatron just leaving his dead body behind like she was. Looking down at her feet she told herself not to cry and slowly regained her composure. Astrid turned back to the escape pod and said loud enough so the kids and minicons could hear, "C'mon, let's get you back to the autobots."

She opened a dimension gate for the autobot base on Cybertron after Jolt gave her the coordinates for it. Then with the escape pod Astrid went through.


Sideways kneeled down and examined Megatron's body. Running a quick systems check on the decepticon leader he concluded that the decepticon really was dead. "Well I'll be," exclaimed Sideways, "Starscream really did kill him." Sideways stood and kicked Megatron's corpse just for the heck of it. Satisfied the black bot then walked away.

A faint humming birthed from within the fallen leader.


Author's Note: That has to be one killer cliffhanger laughs evilly Okay, I got to explain this cliffhanger. You know how when you get mad at a computer or soda machine so you hit it or kick it to make it work? Well Sideways kicked Megatron and guess what? He…aw I'm not going to tell you and spoil the story. Just because Megatron started making a humming noise doesn't mean he's alive again either. If anyone believes that Megatron's body will take a trip down the porcelain express. Please be kind and take time to review.