There was a precious pause suspended perilously between the three mechs, hanging on the hinges of their hesitation. Starscream swelled with pride as well as glowing plates of interlocked iron, optics flicking between the Prime and the other Seeker as if deciding which one to kill first. Dreadwing exhaled thick tendrils of steam from his vents as every joint on his frame twitched, and Optimus was still frozen by the hundreds of potential courses of action running simultaneously through his processor.

Dreadwing had already decided on his- attempt to slice through ancient metal tempered by Solus Prime herself. The furious cuts damaged his own blade more than the armour, metal chips and shavings flying off and littering the ice. Starscream's unbearable laughter was at least contained by his glass visor, though it seemed to almost crack from the shrill sound. Just as Dreadwing realised how ineffective his attack was, he was ruthlessly tossed aside like a sparkling's toy.

"Not so strong now, are you?!" he yelled, following Dreadwing's path as his whole frame skipped and skidded across the snow. As he walked he plucked an Earth vehicle off the frozen ground with all the strength of a Metrotitan, hefting it over his helm with clear intention to crush Dreadwing underneath it. He seemed to have completely forgotten Optimus' presence, absorbed in the opportunity to offline a fellow Seeker normally twice his size. Though he couldn't detect any vulnerabilities in the back of the armour (if any weaknesses even existed in the relic), Optimus readied his own blade to charge towards it.

Either the helm protection muffled his audios or he was truly focused on Dreadwing, as Starscream didn't hear Optimus' peds crunching on the hard snow. "Allow me to reunite you with your beloved twi- GAAH!" The collision of sword to spinal strut was enough to knock Starscream forwards and force him to fling the vehicle out of his reach. Somehow the Seeker's flailing servos managed to latch onto Optimus', jolting the blade upwards out of range and trapping the Prime in a grip tight enough to fuse his digits together. He hissed as circuitry twisted together, tiny bridges of electricity fizzling between his digits as the inner workings of his hand were compressed under crumpling plating. It was like sticking his servo in Grimlock's mouth but without all the drool.

"And you, Prime..." Starscream grinned, showing denta in a parody of the pleading smile that begged him for help only months before. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

Optimus would keep the advice in mind for the future, even though he started to doubt there would even be a future for him at this rate. Starscream held both Prime's servos in one crushing hand while the other pulled back into a punching block, aimed for his faceplate no matter how much he wrenched his neck cables away...

But all he felt was a whistle of icy air sailing past it as Starscream pitched forward again, and the vice on Prime's hands was eased just enough for him to pull them free and rake his blade down the front of the armour as he rolled sideways and landed on his knees. Trying to ignore his near-ruined digits, he looked under his shoulder at where Starscream was struggling against a pelting wall of thermal rounds hitting his back from Dreadwing's recovered cannon. While the other Seeker was stunned Dreadwing heaved his sword out of its sheathe and tried another assault on the armour, leaping up to lunge downwards. Any other metal would have been cleaved in two by the impact, but the Apex Armour was barely dented. Twisting himself around, Starscream managed to grab Dreadwing's frame and toss him aside again, this time sending him clattering in Optimus' direction.

"I'm sure you realise, Dreadwing, that if we do not unite against our common enemy-"

"Starscream will destroy us both," Dreadwing agreed gruffly, rubbing his helm from where it left a shallow dip in the ice. The armoured Seeker was shaking the ground with his slow advance on the two mechs whispering to each other. "Will landmines work against the relic?" Dreadwing asked.

"Unlikely," Optimus answered, never taking his optics off Starscream even if it meant staring at his insidious smirk. "Solus Prime built it to withstand anything short of a ground zero nuclear event." 'And sadly we are lacking for any unstable isotopes to fling at him,' he thought. "His only weakness is his severely reduced speed and lack of flight."

Dreadwing's lipplates twitched as well as his wings. "I can work with that, if you draw his attention for now." Starscream was almost upon them and within grabbing distance, and Dreadwing activated his T-cog in time to sweep right over the visored helm and into the strange green wisps streaking the blue sky, seemingly abandoning the battle. After recovering from the whiplash of such a close flyover, Starscream looked out at Dreadwing's flight path with another laugh grating through his denta.

"I always knew you were a coward, Dreadwing- just like your brother!" he shrieked. While he accused Dreadwing with more insults than could be counted Optimus started to approach his blind side, ignoring the pain from his broken hand and using his intact sword servo to strike as he ran past at one of the more obvious seams in the armour. Though the damage wasn't noticeable, Starscream squawked and whirled towards Optimus with a hiss.

"It's just you and me now, Prime... a shame no one else will see me tearing your spark out!" As Starscream drawled on Optimus was already working out his evasion plan, plotting where he would roll and where the Seeker was most likely to hit. He didn't know where Dreadwing had went or what he was planning, but he had to trust that his contempt for Starscream would override his reluctance to assist an Autobot.

Preparing for another attempt at turning Prime's faceplate into a framed wreckage, Starscream was already fixed in one direction when Optimus dove away from it. Even with the bulk of the armour slowing the Seeker down, it was a dangerously narrow window to move in. The only edge Optimus had was the Matrix burning with a sense of danger nanoklicks before it hit him, forcing him to monitor his raging spark as well as pay attention to his environment.

At least he was successfully irritating Starscream by refusing to die.

"Stop dodging, you fool, and accept your fate!" he growled, still failing to catch Optimus fast enough as he lumbered left and right, frantically swiping at nothing. Barely a klick passed before Prime's cables became taught with fatigue, less willing to flex as quickly as he needed to shift himself between positions. If Starscream didn't catch him first, something inside him would snap.

The decision between the two was made in a fatal error in the span of a nanoklick, where Optimus thought he had enough time to aim a slice at a thin-looking seam in the armour's hips. He didn't, and his servo was slammed aside before a ped came smashing down on his chest, cracking his windshields and making his headlights flicker feebly. He was effectively pinned to the ground even as he jammed his sword beneath the ped, trying in vain to push its enormous weight off of him.

With his second greatest enemy literally trapped like a bug, Starscream cackled as he pressed down even harder, driving glass shards into Optimus' armour. "This is where being altruistic gets you, Prime. Trapped at the bottom of the world, being crushed by all its weight." He grinned so hard his denta would have been grinded to stumps if he held it too long. "I'm sure you can find a metaphor about responsibility somewhere in there, but quite frankly, I've never been the poetic type. I leave that job to the librarians like you."

Optimus' shoulder cables threatened to tear themselves apart from the effort of heaving the entirety of the Apex Armour's weight with one servo- the other couldn't even brace himself upright without every one of his digits feeling like they would fall off. Already his chest was caving in, and his spark singed the metal as it collapsed in a deep dent towards his chamber. 'Where are you, Dreadwing...?' It seemed only ex-Decepticons were ever out to destroy his spark recently.

With his spark so close to burning right through his plating, Optimus couldn't see the Seeker flying in behind Starscream until missile on Dreadwing's underside propelled itself into his back. The pressure eased suddenly, cold air flooding Optimus' vents and the compacted metal of his chestplate easing away from the burning barrier of his chamber. Starscream was sent sprawling on his front while the outer layer of his back seemed to melt and meld with shrapnel fragments. The whole armour set was so hot the ice melted as Starscream lay dazed on it.

Dreadwing landed with a strange grace that didn't go with his frame. "Stand back, Prime!" he ordered, wielding three explosives in one hand with digits fanned out to hold them all. At first Optimus thought he was trying to just blow the armour up, but instead Dreadwing threw them all at different points around the thinning ice Starscream was stuck on.

The detonator clicked just as he finally regained his balance, fixing his two enemies with a scornful glare before it was consumed in a cloud of fire and steam. In place of a screeching Seeker in stolen armour was a wide hole leading into an inky blackness lapping at the ice crust. Whether Starscream was still alive beneath the waves mattered little to Optimus at that point.

First M.E.C.H. was disposed of, now Starscream. It was as if Primus was trying to protect Airachnid and Scorpia as much as he was.

The kiss of metal against metal drew his attention back to the final remaining threat- Dreadwing with a grudge and a much sharper sword. "Now that our alliance has served its purpose-"

"Starscream is gone, and the Apex Armour with him," Optimus protested, gesturing to the hole as if it was easy to miss the proof. "The only reason for us to do battle would be to cement our separate loyalties."

Dreadwing scowled and tightened his grip on the hilt. "I do not need to prove my loyalty through combat, Prime. I am referring to the fact that we have unfinished business."

It took a nanoklick for Optimus to realise what he was talking about, and a heavy sigh before he could respond. "I bore no malice to Skyquake, and I regret the role I played in his demise... that is all I can say as recompense, Dreadwing. He was not the first to fall in our war, and he will not be the last. We both know that."

Dreadwing's scowl didn't shift for a long while, and Optimus was about to engage his shotgun before the Seeker finally sheathed his blade. "Very well," he said grudgingly, heavy steps taking him away from Starscream's grave and astride to Prime. "You saved my life today. But I will terminate you the next time we meet." His promise lingered in the sound of a sonic boom and the stench of energon in the snow and burnt fuel in the watercolour air.

"...So be it," Optimus said to himself, curling his damaged digits into a fist despite warnings sprinkled across his HUD. Pressing the fingers together until they went numb from sensor overload, he turned his back on the newly created well and turned his comm unit back on.

"Starscream has been defeated, but the relic has been lost," he relayed, not expecting much joy for an ultimately lost battle.

"We may have bigger problems on our hands right now, Optimus," Ratchet said back, the waver in his voice evident even with him trying to keep it quiet. "Bumblebee and Arcee have returned."

xx

The original battle against Starscream in Triangulation was... pretty lame, honestly, so I tried to spice it up as much as possible.