After Starscream's little deathwish surprise, Arcee wasn't quite sure what to expect in the belly of Megatron's stronghold, the heart of his war machine and the invincible symbol of just how much the Autobots were outmatched against the Decepticons, but Starscream charging helm first into it at least got the doors open as they sensed his frantic approach.
And on the bridge over the chasm of empty computer banks, Megatron was suspended in a mad lunge, like he was trying to swim through the air with his claws trying to slice through the frozen fabric of time and carved denta trying to bite something. Starscream had to skid to a stop before he ran right into the trap of talons and the glare of the plasma cannon mounted behind them, heels screeching into the floor as he flinched back from Megatron's grasp. Arcee would have been doubled over in laughter at the surreal sight, if it wasn't aimed right towards her with optics staring through her with a hatred that almost washed over her like lava, and if she wasn't painfully aware that their time limit was running out with every slowly increasing nanoklick.
Once Starscream toppled backwards and recovered from almost spearing himself before the fight even began, he shoved the outstretched servo aside and stared up at Megatron's rage-warped features. "It looks like he was expecting us... or someone."
Arcee kept back from the frozen warlord partly out of caution, and partly because she wasn't sure if she could be so near Starscream with her lips still tingling. "So what now?" she asked after clearing her vocaliser more times than should have been necessary.
Still standing in Megatron's shadow, Starscream seemed to be stone still in his own kind of frozen realm. Only his wings and claws moved, subtle twitches that only Arcee would have noticed even without red energon almost running out in their tanks. "I... I never thought I'd get this far," he said quietly, almost laughing that he'd proven himself so wrong, right in Megatron's snarling faceplate. And Arcee realised that for all his acid threats and grisly promises, he really had no idea of actually how to go about getting Megatron's spark out. Though she couldn't really fault him, and wasn't sure if she wanted to, since getting close enough to do anything was an achievement in of itself.
"Can't you just... tear through his chest armour or something?" she asked, half expecting the cavity behind it to just be a hollow space, or a core of dark energon.
Starscream scoffed those thoughts away, though the fists his claws curled into said how much he would have liked to do just that. "If it was as easy as that, he would have died from a stray bullet eons ago. No, the armour's too strong for my claws to get through and rockets are too unpredictable with red energon. But... your sword might work."
"Already on it." Arcee had missed the smooth swish of her blade sliding out her servo plating, nestled in between her blaster components and slicing through the light that caught its edge. She actually believed it could end Megatron's life. "I'd get out the way if I was you."
Starscream did the smartest thing he'd done all week and obliged, hanging backwards as Arcee took her stance and hefted her sword back. She had to take aim quickly, bring the blade down as straight as possible to cut through the seams of Megatron's armour, maybe even right through the panes of his spark chamber and the evil core inside it begging to be torn out...
But she didn't even get through the first layer of steel before time tore off its shackles. The resurgence of reality was so sudden, so jarring compared to the tranquility of time turned to ice that Arcee hardly dented the armour before her blade skidded harmlessly off the thrumming plates that crashed into her and slammed her backwards against the floor. Her helm screamed and all colours became a blind mess of pain, winglets spasming wildly, and something kicked into her side before falling sideways over her. Megatron recovered quickly from tripping up, turning the fall into a roll that ended with him kneeling and facing her. Confusion and sheer bewilderment was the only thing stopping him from turning where she lay groaning into a patch of charred metal and melted plating.
"What in the name of... how did you get in here?!" He was already aiming at her, claws stretched outwards in a jagged accusation and the humming barrel of his cannon almost blinding her. That was the only reason she closed her optics, in the face of the burning death and failure that would come a nanoklick later by the sound of the plasma leaping out of the gun... but it never reached her. Though she had to squint with every movement causing aching tremors in her battered frame, she saw a circle of ground just to her left burned black and smoking with the dull sludge of residue. But behind it, the source of mad grunting and frantic gasps, was Megatron stumbling back and forth like a puppet on broken strings, barely keeping to the edge of the bridge, with Starscream fastened to his back; wings flattened along his spine, one set of claws lodged into a bleeding spiked shoulder while the other grasped for the cannon and left leagues of scratches along the barrel. Arcee took the chance to roll away, towards where the bridge spanned out into a flat circular platform, where she could force the pain away in cover and let Starscream take the spotlight he so desperately wanted, just for now.
And Megatron's fury, his lagging vents and popping optics were turning the thin air into a furnace. "Get your fragging... filthy Autobot hands off my-!" Something fizzled, something else squealed, and the latter was probably Starscream as he tumbled off Megatron's back, taking half of the main barrel of the cannon down with him. The lethal glow down the center was snuffed out the instant Starscream tore the cannon away from its mount, and he kicked it over the edge of the bridge while flicking his stained claws and meeting Megatron's glare with all the cold calculations flashing across it. From Arcee's view she couldn't see the warlord's expression, but the low chuckle from his vocaliser sent rumbling aftershocks through the floor.
"Starscream…" Megatron growled through his vents, a beastformer trapped in gunmetal plating that seemed to swell larger with every breath he took. He tilted his helm towards the spark mass of mangled metal and ripped wires where his weapon used to be, almost amused at losing it so quickly. For now, he seemed to have completely forgotten the Autobot from less than a klick ago, and that suited Arcee just fine with the echoing pound in her helm finally starting to fade.
Ahead of her, Starscream stood straight and stiff as a monument before Megatron, as if daring him to attack. Arcee saw him struggling so hard not to flinch as Megatron took a single step closer, that one ped almost halving the distance between them. "This isn't like you, actually managing to succeed at something," the warlord sneered. "Or perhaps you've finally given in and went crawling to the Autobots for help."
Every word was a barbed taunt, lashing across Starscream's expression, perhaps because of the half truth it carried and stabbed him with. But the Seeker had wasted enough time standing and talking and wishing instead of doing, so his reply only took the same amount of time he needed to aim a rocket at Megatron's face.
"Oh, just shut up." He clicked his claw and the air exploded into an inferno with the smoky smell of singed armour. Megatron had ducked sideways of course, just in time for the missile to only clip his servo and impact mostly on the ground. And in the burst of fire, Arcee found the perfect cover to ambush Megatron from. With a smaller frame and no heavy wings, he couldn't just writhe and buck her off like Starscream, especially with her servos wringing his neck and a sword sawing through the thick cables the more he struggled. That wasn't to say it was easy; Arcee's helmache returned tenfold as the bridge and computers and walls all blurred together into a dizzy mess, and Megatron snarled so intensely she thought his ragged denta would try and chew through her hands if she didn't watch where she put them. Starscream was a cloud of grey and the muffled sound of thrusters, as if he was drowning in red energon, though Arcee was just too focused on holding on to track him. More explosions wracked the air, plumes of heat hitting her face and shrapnel flying like swarms of insects. At some point Megatron's own sword shot out, taller than her whole frame and a razor monolith that could have cleaved her in two if she set one ped on the floor, but just out of reach of her while she had a strangle-clutch his neck.
But the mottle of colours that was Starscream was slowing down, the flares of light less frequent, and her own servos were close to agony from having to stay so tense. Yet Megatron wasn't even fazed, the tangled miles of cable and muscles bulging under his armour still terrifyingly strong under her, his vocaliser barely hoarse from his endless chorus of roars and stubborn grunts, or from Arcee's grip.
She had no choice. She had to let go before she fell limp and let Megatron simply trample her. Her sword left a deep groove near his spinal strut as she leapt down, already rolling aside of an anticipated sword strike. But with his freedom regained, Megatron didn't even seem to notice her, not when he could just pluck Starscream out of the air like a butterfly as he came past in his alt mode, not expecting the blade that sliced right through his left wing and emerged out the other side dripping energon. The pain was so sudden, so blindingly intense and nothing like Arcee could even imagine that Starscream's engine screeched to a halt in mid air, forcing him to hang there and dangle from the sword as his T Cog choked, forcing him into bipedal mode with his faceplate streaked and creased and in an expression Arcee almost recognised from a time she'd tried so hard to forget, Tailgate's torture. And somehow the panic and stinging ache seizing her spark was worse now than it was back then. A Seeker's wings were the most precious, most sensitive part of their frame. A thousand node clusters for detecting wind and weather and everything a flyer had to know. And every one of those nodes was on fire if it wasn't spared from the hell by just shutting out altogether.
Screams trickled past what gasps of agony he could voice, every inch of his frame trembling so violently that the sword cut in even deeper, cutting upwards through the wing like a knife dragged across oil, until there was no metal left against the blade and Starscream fell to the floor in a sobbing heap of energon and coolant. Arcee would have already been there to catch him if Megatron didn't stand like a wall between them, one quaking with laughter as he watched Starscream's energon drip over the bridge edge in a blue waterfall.
"I didn't think it was possible, Starscream, but you've managed to sink lower than rock bottom." He turned himself slightly to place one optic on Arcee now, daring her to try one last time to tear his helm off but knowing all she could do was glare a thousand death threats at him. Though the scowl that scarred itself into her faceplate, carved by thousands of years of suffering, only made Megatron chuckle more. "Your only friend, a weak Autobot only slightly less pathetic than you. And your only accomplishment, being an example for all that come after you. No one else will dare defy me with you the result of even trying."
Starscream managed to control his vents and blinked enough that the coolant stopped flowing from his optics, but his spark pulse was an earthquake against Arcee as she desperately looked from warlord to… her friend? Her teammate… whatever to call someone who made her energon boil and spark burst all at once, another one about to die right in front of her.
Starscream must have saw it coming just as she did, staring down Megatron's cannon just as he was staring down the infernal glaze of his optics. "Go on, then," he spat, energon gurgling under his glossa. "Finish the job you started with my brothers."
"Funny that you mention them," Megatron said under a fringe of laughter, his sword still wet and bright as he hefted it across his chest, pulling back for the final strike. "Despite your name, they screamed much more than you."
He never heard Arcee retreating, never heard her peds slapping the rumbling floor as she ran up to him and only barely felt the air whistle as she leapt. But he did feel the kick landed right on his spine, the crack of the interlocking plates snapping out. He didn't hit Starscream or even the floor as he fell, too shocked by the impact to rebel against the class on his servo, on his sword, hauling it towards his chest until the tip pierced the thick plating and cleaved it apart as gravity cruelly pulled him down his own blade.
He knelt, energon pooling underneath with his sword buried so close to his spark chamber, vocaliser clogged and spluttering, his jaw loose and dripping. By contrast Starscream's was wired with cement between his clenched denta, as he kept hold of Megatron's servo stabbed through his frame despite his lights going dim and every shiver making him want to just lie down and die.
The warlord wasn't dead yet, not even with the wound draining his tanks in just five nanoklicks of shock, and it would have been so easy to just pull his servo back out of him if it wasn't paralysed, and if Arcee didn't deliver another kick downwards. She slammed her ped down just above where the sword re-emerged, dripping tainted purple-white plasma and dying arcs of electricity on top of the cyan coating down its length. All that was left of Megatron's spark as it died, the last pulses fizzling in his mouth and behind his optics.
Then he sagged, falling forwards limp and lifeless like a hollow drone, not even Unicron's influence lingering on his peeled frame. Arcee still stood over him, certain that if she looked away he'd just rise again as something even deadlier, but… this was it. The death of Megatron, Unicron's Herald and the catalyst of Cybertron's demise. And they didn't even need a Prime to do it.
"We actually… we did it?" Her disbelief formed a blank trance over her optics, as she collapsed on her knees despite the slick carpet of energon all around her. Starscream broke it not long later by his ragged vents, hissing curses and laboured groans as he tried to stem the huge scar left open on his wing.
Saying anything would clearly be painful for him, but this was Starscream. Nothing would ever stop him being a smart aft, not even the brink of the Allspark. "That was... much easier than I was expecting."
That exhausted tone coupled with the smirk that wouldn't go away even now practically forced her into laughing, a rich sound that she wanted to let out forever in the echo of the near deserted room and blood stained bridge underneath them. "Yeah... I've met Minicons who put up a tougher fight," she said in between mad chuckles. They were both lying from the pits of their sparks, but with how much their chambers swelled and simmered with pride and hope, it really didn't matter.
Though Megatron's corpse still lay between them, Arcee managed to step over the mountain of dead metal as she sat by Starscream's side, adding her own effort to staunching the wound. He was pale, his face somehow thinner than usual, but Arcee couldn't imagine Primus letting him die just now. Not when he'd just about repaid all his debts, and not when she still had answers to get out of him. Or just one that had been robbing her focus ever since he put it in her mind and on her lips.
But it had to remain there, twitching away in her smile lines, as the door so far away hissed open in front of the whole Decepticon army, staring first at the intruders bathed in energon and then at the source, Megatron's body.
Starscream plopped his heavy helm sideways to watch the shock and mixture of horror and anticipation ripple through officers and drones alike. Before any stray cries could start up, he lifted a servo triumphantly to declare, "Megatron has fallen. I, Starscream now… lead the Decep…" His words trailed off into a garbled mess, and Arcee finally got to be on the other side of an unwanted stasis lock. Though with a entire hoard of confused, leaderless Decepticons in front of her, waiting for an explanation, she wasn't exactly happy about it.
Thank Primus for Optimus barging his way to the front a nanoklick later, with Bulkhead clearing a path for him and a betrayed-looking Bumblebee.
xx
I struggled a little with this chapter, since I'm not great at fight scenes but I knew Starscream and Arcee just waltzing in high on red energon would be far too boring and easy (and it makes sense the energon wouldn't last long enough since Starscream had to share his dose with Arcee). I could have probably done better than just having Megatron fall on his sword, but out of the ideas I had this was the one that seemed to make the most sense.