-1Here it comes…
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Just then, a huge explosion shook literally everything, deafening the both of them as the lights abruptly flickered, barely staying on. The floor shook, nearly throwing the Arbiter off his feet and jolting Megatron's broken limbs, drawing a soft hiss from him. He was starting to pass beyond the reach of pain, gradually beginning to leave everything behind. It took a bit of concentration, but he managed to push the growing haze aside enough to hear the Arbiter talking into his communicator. "…What? How did he find us?" This drew Megatron's full attention. "At this rate my plans will be ruined! Curse Prime… He spends eons fighting Decepticons, only to save the lot of them when it comes time for them to face their sins? And here I thought he was all about justice! Primus, what a farce!"
Those few words drove all thoughts of death from his mind. My brother… here? That settled it. The end was in sight; all he had to do was cling to life a little bit longer and the pain would end, he would survive and see Zephyr again… "Well, I can think of at least one Decepticon he'll fail to save!" Well, that was a bad sign if he'd ever encountered one. A moment later the Arbiter was back in his blurry field of view, scrambler once again in hand. "It's said that the highest setting on these things is powerful enough to literally burn out a victim's spark. Let's see if it's true, shall we?" Carefully adjusting the settings to their absolute maximum output, he roughly pressed the scrambler's tip up against Megatron's already heavily damaged spark chamber and switched it on.
He would have gone into convulsions had he still had the strength to do so. As it was, his head fell back as he clenched his jaw as hard as he could, trying vainly to keep silent. A choked cry escaped him as he felt life fleeing from his broken body, being driven out by the wicked, seemingly unending blast of electricity ripping through him. The ceiling and the Arbiter's face blurred above him as he shivered, claws twitching feebly as he tried and failed to find enough strength to fight back. Consciousness flickered, his thoughts slowing and growing dimmer even as he clung to life. Beyond the relentless buzz of the electricity ravaging every inch of his frame he could just barely hear the distant sound of people shouting and running, weapons being fired, not too far off and coming closer… Hurry, Optimus… Please… Hurry… That thought seemed almost to echo in the growing darkness that filled his mind, his vision dimming, slowly fading out… I'm… going to… He knew he had only one chance left to at least try to save himself, one hope to survive this, and that was to somehow alert his brother to his location before it was too late. And to the best of his knowledge, there was only one way for him to do that. Gathering what little remained of his strength, taking as deep a breath as his broken armor would allow, he waited for the Arbiter to push harder on his spark chamber, then channeled the pain that act produced as he disregarded his pride and threw everything he had left into the loudest, most throat-rending shriek of pain and suffering he could have possibly imagined.
Zephyr and Optimus turned as one at the sound of a truly terrible scream. Laden with incredible pain and suffering, it was a desperate plea for help from someone, anyone, and though the voice was rough and shrill, it was also familiar… "Megatron!" Neither was sure which of them shouted that, but they didn't care as they turned as one to face in the direction the sound had come from and took off sprinting as fast as they could go. Both prayed frantically for the Decepticon's sake as the scream they'd heard died away, leaving echoes in its wake, echoes that mocked them and filled them with fear as they faded into a thoroughly chilling silence. Would they arrive in time to save him? Would he be beyond saving by the time they reached him? "Spare him, Primus, please…" All pleas stopped as they rounded a corner pretty much in unison and stopped dead in their tracks, filled with equal parts horror and disgust at the sight that lay before them.
A cloaked figure knelt over a thoroughly mangled wreck, inserting something unseen into an opened-up chest despite the sound of sizzling and the black smoke streaming forth. Broken, energon-stained limbs shuddered as thick ropes of blue-white electricity scoured shattered armor. Claws curled into weak fists and legs kicked slightly as the victim of the brutal ongoing electrocution still tried to fight despite all this. The head was thrown back in a scream silenced by incredible pain, emitting only a series of wavering gasps. What little armor wasn't coated with spilled energon or fractured to the point of being nearly unrecognizable sparkled with every feeble twitch, showing its original color… silver.
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