At last! At long last, Megatron was restored to them. No longer would he have to wait on petty substitutes, nor abide by others' contempt for his unwavering loyalty. Certainly he would be rewarded for such sentiments, for his steadfast belief. Megatron did not forget those who remained faithful to his cause.
And he always punished those who wavered from his glorious path.
The Pave Low trumpeted in glee, landing down on tarmac with a tremendous rumble. His optics fixed with reverent intensity upon the battle, upon the long-missed form of his one and only true commander. Now, now they could get back to what their original plans were, to what they had begun. No longer simply chasing rogue Autobots around the galaxies; no more settling on dead worlds to wait out their foes. They could finally be as they were programmed to be: warriors, taking the universe planet by planet, until all were crushed beneath the mighty Decepticon empire. And Cybertron would be restored to them, wiped clean of the Autobot filth.
His hands flexed, extending his fingers to their full length, his helicopter-bladed weapon clanking its way into position. Cautious – ever so cautious! – he approached the dueling pair, skulking near the shadows between the primitive hive buildings of the Earthean primitives. Megatron, of course, easily held his own against the pathetic Prime – but he wouldn't object to a little aid from one of his loyalists, surely? A chance to reaffirm his devotion, and place himself once more into his leader's good graces.
Ah, to battle beside his leader, after so much time! To rend and tear and break all who opposed them, to revel in the screams and wails of the dying… he had missed such sensations, missed them terribly. Too long had he and his fellows wandered the depths of space, pursuing an enemy long defeated and hopelessly scattered; too long had he gone without the clash and roar of true combat; too long had he existed as a pariah among his fellows, denied the honor of obeying a worthy commander's orders.
But now…
It would be sweet, to again be favored and privileged. All he had to do was—
What was that?
Incredulous, he looked down to the tiny pinpricks of green targeting lasers, shocked. The sheer audacity of these primitives, to try and attack him in such a manner. Fools!
Ah, they would pay for such presumption!
He whirled about, intending to take on their threat head on, to let them tremble in the long shadow cast by a Decepticon elite. Let them see death approach! Let their pathetic, squishy brains comprehend what little of terror they understood. He was Decepticon, and he was war incarnate.
Their heinously feeble weapons' fire pattered against his front and sides, doing little to faze the battle-hardened warrior. What could they hope to accomplish that hundreds upon thousands of Autobots – and Decepticons, if he cared to think of it – could not? Their threat was nominal, at best. A laughable show of bravado that would prove to be their undoing.
Gurgling out a disdainful chortle, he casually activated his weapons' system, locking his primary armaments into position and—
One organic – as indistinguishable from the horde as any other human he had seen – broke free, gunning down the narrow corridor with a small, shrill vehicle. Blackout took a precious second to attempt to cognate what level of stupidity such a maneuver would take—
Then his
world exploded.
Howling in equal parts rage and pain, he staggered back, endeavoring to escape the rocketing sensations of agony that welled up in him. One detonation set off a cascading sequence of consequent discharges, igniting his delicate internals and pushing upward and onward and his Spark, oh, his Spark was burning and—
Blindly, in the last, brief flashes of primal fear, he floundered for the fading link, desperate for some consolation, to ease his own pain as he had for the other so many times before. He felt bewilderment, and a void of understanding, mindlessly sympathetic in its own way. A question, a feeling of utter helplessness, and a cold, profound fear of the unimaginable coming into being washed through him, dimming as his body began to shut itself down, inch by anguished inch. With all he had left in him, he grabbed for that tenuous link, even as it slipped from his mind like waves from the shore.
His Spark guttered, failed, and life ebbed away.
