PART 17
#Clash of Power
"You will deactivate me? Your own brother? Your beloved? Just to save, what? An entire city state full of corrupted Senators and hypocritical Functionists?" The two kept circling around one another, sizing up their opponent as they engaged their melee weapons from subspace pocket, an axe for Orion and a metal hatchet for Megatron.
"I'll do what I must, to save this city! You are planning to eradicate an entire neighborhood! There are still innocent civilians there! Your army would crush through them without a second fickle of thought!" Orion snapped his battle mask in place with an audible click, before crouching down low to gain better pedstand.
"Don't speak as if this doesn't involve them, because this is as much a war for them as it is for us!" With that said, Megatron backslashed him with his battle hatchet, forcing him to jump back, while the mech continued to advance more grounds. "We are fighting for freedom and justice, a common goal that every Cybertronian should be dedicated to with all of their spark! If any life were lost within the conflict, it would be a righteous sacrifice!" With a thunderous battle roar, the two charged at each other again. "If they do not stand up to fight for themselves, then they are as much the enemy to us as any other Senator. They shall perish like the affiliates that they are!"
Their weapons met with a metal-on-metal resonance shaking through both their frames, while the gladiator's heavier build allowed him better balance, Orion was visibly shaken and stirred as his orientation faltered for a split-nanoklick. "This is insanity, Megatron, I know you're still in there somewhere!" Apparently, the Megatron he was addressing hadn't been responsive much as of late, for the next thing he knew his quick unconscious reflexes had already blocked a lethal swing from his opponent's well-aimed assault. He kept swinging his hatchet around fervently, though not uncoordinated, as every strike, every blow was executed with deadly accuracy and unmistakable marksmanship – something he didn't recall from the last time they had sparred, before the incident. He knew defensive only, he couldn't keep up with Megatron if he had really pulled his weight on each powerful blow, and so he had to take initiative at retaliation, starting by a light shoulder ram to push Megatron back some distance. "Stop this at once, before I am left with no option other than to hurt you!"
"A rather futile attempt, pathetic weakling. Just like in the cavern; always so hesitant to do what is required. This is what makes our difference, Orion! You run and hide when you should fight!" The mention of the incident brought back flashes of haunting memory files, and while he was distracted, Megatron well exploited it to his advantage; a quick jab in the rib left him with an incapacitating pain, and a follow-up roundhouse sweep combination got him tumbling over the ground in an instance before his processor could even register what was going on. Stepping closer, Megatron leveled his hatchet at his helm and growled. "Now stay out of my way, or I shall eradicate you and your entire army!"
Orion stared defiantly at his adversary, optics deterrent and unshifting. "You want war? So be it! But give me my Megatron back!"
Emitting a forceful vent of air to express his exasperation, Megatron gave him an incredulous questioning gaze. "You still haven't got it, don't you? I am Megatron, the one and only, ruler of all universe, and I was never yours!" with the accusation, he lifted his hatchet and brought it down on Orion's helm joint. It didn't behead his target, but the force of the impact alone was too powerful that the hatchet splitted the surface and opened up a crevice right where it hit.
"Liar!" Orion bellowed in response, rolling out of the way of the strike as he did a back flip to recover his poised stance. "Megatron, I know you can still hear me. You must fight it!"
Struggling to pull the firmly embedded hatchet out of the deep gash on the ground, Megatron gritted his denta and snarled viciously. "Oh, Megatron will fight alright. But not with me, with you, traitor!"
The instant Megatron finished his speech, he launched his full weight into the air in a grand fashion, putting his entire momentum in the next slash aimed at Orion's spark chamber underneath thick chestplate - the most vital part on a mech's frame, an indicator of his seriousness in this execution attempt. Relying solely on his quick wits and uncanny senses, Orion sidestepped the attack, but not without a counter; his axe swiped at Megatron's kneecap joint, attempting to put his opponent in a position of vulnerability as the mech landed his blow on the ground where Orion used to be not a nanoklick before and was still recovering from the solid recoil as a wave of kinetic energy coursed though his entire frame, rattling his armor platings everywhere it passed. His retaliation wasn't aimed at Megatron's life, though it served to bring immeasurable pain to the hostile and render him incapacitated for as long as a non-lethal assault could. Or at least, that was what would have happened if Megatron was just any ordinary combatant; Orion had made an unaffordable mistake in basing his assumption on Megatron's pain tolerance, something the brutality of countless cycles spent fighting for his own life in the coliseum had made him well-accustomed to.
Megatron made sure Orion would remember not to make that terrible misassumption ever again when the mech closed their proximity to slap a pair of stasis cuffs onto his servo, by grabbing the same instrument of restraint and stabbed it into Orion's own chassis; the reinforced metal comprising of the instrument was tougher than normal armory or Cybertronian protoform could ever be, eons of attempting to escape the arena had taught him that lesson; and with enough force invested, which Megatron easily donated an overkill, the thing can be used as a deadly shank. It ran through Orion's glass cockpit without a hindrance, then cut a few inches deep into the vital wires and cords inside, severing a few major Energon lines in its path. Yet to recover from the shock, Orion received another barbaric torture when Megatron reached in with his own sharp talons and clawed the punctual wound even wider, before rupturing at his sensitive internals with those acute appendage, turning the few droplets of Energon leakage into a continuous stream, blocking the exit with his own servos to make them flood Orion's already exposed delicate internals. As he felt an emergency-induced stasis threatening to overide his consciousness, a sharp pain in the chest brought him back to the verge of the living as Megatron wiggled his claws around in search for a certain wiring. Gathering whatever strength he had left, Orion grabbed Megatron's servos, prepared to yank the intruder out.
Unfortunately, he wasn't quicker than Megatron, who had already found his desired target. With a flip of a switch, he activated the stasis cuff, the durable restraint instrument still operational after being plugged straight through layers of armor. It crackled to life buried in an enclosed compartment filled with Energon and surrounded by delicate circuitry, emitting a high voltage electrical surge through Orion's entire frame, giving him the most torturous chasm ever as the mech fritzed along with the electrical flow. Seeing the signs of suffering on his worst adversary should have brought Megatron more satisfaction, had he not been electrocuted along with him for having direct physical contact with the mech, though the full extent of his agony wasn't anywhere near as intense as Orion's due to the different level of exposure to the energy source. In hindsight, he should have taken into account this particular detail instead of relying too much on his pain tolerance, as now the both of them was trapped in that stance, and electricity was electricity nontheless, slowly yet surely frying his circuits.
A third figure appeared out of nowhere, ramming into the both of them with their alt-mode, severing their contact by throwing Megatron far a distance away from Orion's slumped frame and consequentially deactivating the pair of cuffs. Rather than being vengeful for the intrusion, Megatron was rather contented to be disconnected from the electrical surge which had already began numbing his senses one by one. Turning to study the identity and allegiance of the unknown mech, his sour mood was restored as the image of a white and red vanformer cleared up in front of him while his optics recalibrated.
"Ratchet… here to suffer the same fate as the faux hero, is it not?"
"Megatron! Stop dishing out your anger on him! None of this is his fault! If there is anyone to blame, then it would be me that you vent your anger upon! I was the one who orchestrated that plan of attack when you were out of commission! I chose to not exercise lethal force!"
"If it is any consolence to you, when I'm done, the both of you will have been deactivated under my own servos!"
He rushed towards where Ratchet was dragging Orion's limp, lifeless frame on the ground to a sheltered platform, hatchet primed and ready for battle, letting out a thunderous roar to express his agitation. The display was cut short, however, as the mech collapsed to the ground in a fit of cough-like vents as his filter system overloaded itself trying to purge his respiration cycle from a harmful substance released in the air.
"Sorry," Ratchet spoke to an unresponsive Megatron, knocked out cold just a few moments after his intoxication. "I can't afford to have you destroy this city, old friend or not." Then he resumed his attention span onto a small piece of tech which he recovered from the fallen gladiator's frame, opened a back panel to reroute some circuit boards, before closing it and turning it on.
When he spoke into the device, his vocalizer was modified to replicate the thick, growling qualities of Megatrons' own. "All Decepticons! This is your High commander Megatron! I hereby order an official withdrawal, effective immediately! All Decepticons units are to heed my order and evacuate from the city instantly! Any disobediance shall be severly punished upon being spotted!"
