Soundwave throws himself a pity party.
The battle in Egypt commences, Arcee has some questions to ask, and Optimus faces Megatron for the first time since finding the star saber.
Another failure.
One of four keys to be used in the revival of their homeworld: in the autobot's servos.
A part of Soundwave felt it apt to not consider it real failure. If the autobots collected all four keys, then they would resurrect Cybertron. If the decepticons collected them, the outcome would be the same. Both factions wanted their planet back.
As with many facets of the war, they shared a goal. And as with those facets, it still mattered significantly who was the first to reach that goal.
Lord Megatron desired to be Cybertron's savior. The PR such an action would amount to was simply incredible. Neutrals would find him their unlikely hero. Aliens would see him as a commander so loyal to his planet that he spent millennias searching for a cure to its destruction. Autobots would question their inability to have saved their planet in his stead.
It was more than for his image, however. Lord Megatron wanted to revive Cybertron to better create a planet like that he imagined (or his current dream for the world: past imaginations drew a far different picture for the planet. It did not matter. Soundwave would not complain and he would always follow). It seemed possible from everything they had pulled from the Iacon Database thus far. But it also seemed unlikely.
Many of his Lord's plans were.
The communications officer tilted his head downward. It was not his place to think thusly.
Nor was it his place to fail his Lord.
Three autobots were no threat to him. They should not have even distracted him from the real prize. The wrecker had not distracted him from the resonance blaster. A pair of traitors should not have stolen his focus from one of these keys.
Plating bristled upward minutely. None around him would even notice. None tended to see his reactions unless he let them.
The only one deserving of such a sight was his leader. And Lord Megatron had not yet returned.
The part of Soundwave that wished insolently he would not was childish. He would not amuse such thoughts. His Lord would return, hear of his failure, and move on. The disappointment would add itself to Soundwave's growing list.
It had not been a good solar cycle for him. Vorns without failure took their toll now.
It did not make sense.
Concentration on this achieved nothing. Soundwave moved back to decoding the final set of coordinates. At least he would have something for his Lord once the mech returned.
It seemed as though every time he had come close to decoding another entry to the database, something urgent interrupted that progress.
Optimus had just finished the third set and sent both wreckers to it before the first of the emergencies came in. As Ratchet had ordered, the Prime stepped away from his work and moved through the groundbridge. The star saber was pulled from where it lay against the wall and attached behind him.
Smokescreen had sent an SOS merely asking for immediate help. Arcee had sent an alert of her own: one far more detailed in its briefness.
The two had fallen ill of Megatron and Starscream.
He could not allow them to be damaged.
So Optimus headed into battle.
It wasn't long after that when a second SOS arrived at the autobot base. As the sole bot left with combat readiness, Bumblebee was quick to have Ratchet bridge him through.
Arcee was trying her best to get up from the ground. Sand had slipped through plating and rubbed uncomfortably against joints and wires. It was an incessant nagging of a sensation while the rest of her ached. There were emergency pings headed from multiple locations on her frame alerting her to injuries as if she didn't already know they were there by the pain. Her shoulder was dented. Her right winglet was bent far too much to be anything but miserable; a parting gift of a mech far larger than her from when he'd shoved her down.
And her head had been spinning with panic as soon as Smokescreen had left her sight. If the kid got himself hurt- got himself killed-
She'd sent a request for reinforcements the moment she'd gotten her head back in the game after being shoved to the ground. And the moment after that she spent looking frantically for the rookie.
Then he'd burst right out from the wall of the pyramid and taunted the cons.
Straight up taunted.
It was almost unbelievable.
Megatron proved to be distractable enough. The warlord shot at Smokescreen, who sped away and took the con's attention with him. That left her with only the other one as she pushed up.
Wonderful. Arcee's vents opened to blow away some of that sand and the two-wheeler ignored any of the dribbling energon from the dents on her frame.
Still perched on the pyramid, Starscream was gaping at the sight of Megatron shooting futilely at a phase-shifting Smokescreen. Maybe he was jealous that all those cannon bolts would simply fly through the rookie rather than every damage him. Arcee took advantage of his distraction, transforming her arms into blasters and shoving them in the seeker's direction.
"Don't think about it-" she hissed when Starscream moved to point his own missiles at her.
They held that frozen position for a few nanos, like it was one of those standstills from Bumblebee's favorite movies.
But a standstill could only last so long. Every part of Arcee wanted to fire. It took effort to keep that back; effort, the disgusting second-guessing Airachnid had forced on her, and a fair amount of curiosity.
"Why?" the two-wheeler spat, keeping careful watch on the movements the con hesitated to make. Unsurprising. Starscream always was willing to keep his plating clean of any gunshot. "Why go back to the cons?"
Why bother after everything? After that cave, after their own duel, after playing them all at the mine with the first of the insecticon warriors? Arcee couldn't help but want some sort of answers. Some sort of indication as to why she still lived after their last meeting. And some sort of explanation as to why this slagger would go back to the very mech she had watched attempt to execute him in that cave. Nothing Starscream did ever made sense (so his murder of Cliffjumper would not either, a rational part of her pressed; fishing for reasons would get her no closure, no relief).
His lip curled. It was that same sneer. Always that sneer- whether telling her that he'd been the one to take Cliff from her or drag out what had been a strange rescue from Airachnid.
Somewhere behind her, the fusion cannon was still firing and Smokescreen was still making yelps. She couldn't turn to see them, but could at least take comfort in their unlikeliness to shoot her in the back so long as they were busy with each other.
"I know where I stand here," Starscream hissed back at her question, his arms twitching in the air where he'd been forced to hold them still. The twitching made her prep her guns further. His optics flickered down between her weapons and his own where they lay in less than optimal positioning.
Maybe if she shot, she could tilt the war even more in the bots favor. Obviously, by his own admission, the seeker was back with the cons; if in any way that returned presence would start to create the problems they'd had on Earth before the last few months, then Arcee was totally in her rights to end the threat preemptively. Maybe it would help them all.
And maybe she'd earn Optimus's disapproval.
That shouldn't have been a fair trade.
She remembered the seeker's false plea during the end of their duel: You might as well be the one to-
- make it hurt
Dammit, Airachnid. Arcee grimaced to the side at the memory and it seemed the movement was all Starscream needed to stop fearing her weapons. He shoved forward, toppling himself off the pyramid and pushing the bot to the sand once more. Before they crashed down together, the seeker had folded up into himself and tore into the sky. The jet's turbines seared hot against her arms as he thrusted up into the air. Scrap-
She fired upwards as soon as the heat was gone, all the while scooting over the sand as she tried to get up to her pedes. With the standstill broken, she had a better image of the battlefield. There was Megatron, roaring in the futility of his shots and switching tactics to the blade. And running back towards where she was on the ground came Smokescreen.
Thank the Allspark that he was still alive. She hadn't lied to him earlier: she really wouldn't be able to handle having a rookie on her track record of lethal failures.
Overhead, Starscream was roaring down towards Smokescreen. The stream of shots did nothing but pick up sand; the kid really was safe so long as he kept that phase shifter far enough away from reach. Still, she'd never feel safe with him anywhere near Megatron. The warlord was crafty, he'd think of some way to nullify the effects- No, he wouldn't. Arcee wasn't about to give him that chance.
The femme pushed up and ran at the huge mech. While he was busy moving to charge down the rookie, she flung herself into the air, crashed down on his shoulders, and shot. Shot, shot, shot, until he'd thrown her off and then-
Then a groundbridge opened and Arcee let her panicked urgency slip away.
Optimus was here.
And now, she could actually agree with Smokescreen's earlier statement.
It was three, one of which being the Prime, against two now.
They could take them.
"Optimus!" Megatron greeted, waving one blade to the side in mockery. It was the usual gesture.
How often had they indulged in these gestures before they'd become so rehearsed? So expected?
He slid into a battle ready stance as the groundbridge closed behind him.
How often did they battle without resolution?
"How good of you to come," the warlord was smiling; all sharp dentae and obvious vitriol.
How often?
Ratchet would say the only correct answer was too often.
And Optimus had long, long ago learned that Ratchet was almost never wrong.
One servo reached up slowly and took the hilt of the star saber. Megatron's optics tracked every movement. His taunting smile had frozen in place the moment the blade started to become visible over the Prime's shoulder.
The saber grew from cold metal to its blue state of power at his touch; by the time its tip touched the sand, it was fully powered up. The gray mech looked down at it, face curling in hatred.
Optimus was used to seeing hatred on Megatron. But this absolute rage was somehow more noticeable than any other exhibition of it.
It reminded him of a dark room and blazing red optics and his first real meeting with the jealous monster the former champion of Kaon was.
So he did not like the unbalanced power of the star saber? He did not like having to fear being so outmatched? Optimus couldn't bother offering pity for the hateful disgust.
"Scared to fight me without your new toy?" the growl interrupted any thought. The Prime's optics narrowed. His servo curled tighter on the hilt of the saber.
They should exchange repertoire now- witty or magnanimous or a bit of both. And then exchange blows until one fell and the other stood finally victorious. After all, how often had that been what they'd done?
The blade glowed the color of energon and then its energy pulsed through the air. Megatron dove away from the cut easily, letting out a truly chilling snarl. His own gray sword looked pitiful on his arm. Had it always? There would be no grand battle here.
This weapon could have cleaved the very warship of the the decepticons- the repurposed titan stronger than any other foe the autobots faced on Cybertron- in two. One mere warlord would not be a challenge.
But it did not stop Megatron from trying. The mech charged in, trying to limit the distance and thus mobility of the saber. Optimus stumbled back at the first quick blow the decepticon landed. The second was blocked by his free right arm. His left rose and the saber with it.
He caught sight of how those familiar optics widened. He caught sight of the rare flash of fear.
Perhaps that was what kept his strike from hitting straight into his old enemy.
Still, the blade bit through metal and sheared a significant chunk from Megatron's shoulder. The sharp spikes hit the ground with a puff of sand and Optimus took a moment too long to stare at them.
Such a quick strike for such an injury. The warlord's armor was well known to him to be nearly impenetrable. Or it had been, before he had found the weapon of the Primes.
Megatron made a swift response, stabbing his own sword near Optimus's head. The Prime moved it in time and only one finial was torn into.
Then he planted a pede on the silver mech and shoved him forward. Distance was important with a weapon of the star saber's length.
The next strike slid straight through Megatron's own blade. The very one that had twice in recent orns shattered his own short sword: first on the space bridge and then during their fight on the day of the alignment.
If not for his recent mental return to Orion after the fight with Unicron, Optimus doubted he would have felt the twinge of satisfied amusement he did now.
The sound of a jet overhead grew louder. The Prime looked upwards to glare at Starscream, servo still clutching the star saber tightly. The seeker wisely aborted his plan to attack.
When he turned his glare back to the warlord, it was to see the mech looking in hateful disbelief at the stump of blade above his arm and the sharp pieces of shoulder laying on the sand.
Optimus moved to grip the saber with both his servos. He could not help feel somber.
There was a bitter irony in returning Cybertron to life the very orn he tore life from his former companion, after all.
"This is not...But I envisioned...It isn't meant to end this way!" Megatron gasped out as he gazed at the signs of his own mortality.
How very much like his protests under the light of that volcano only moments before Unicron's life-blood began to pour from it.
This isn't how it's supposed to end!
Always so deluded into thinking he was a figure of legacy, a legend, the rising darkness- always so convinced of his own importance and immortality.
Optimus frowned under his battlemask.
"You dare use that weapon against me?" the warlord turned from his injuries to growl at the Prime. "To wield the power of the cosmos alone?"
The frown grew. But he waited for the end of his enemy's words. He could afford a dead mech standing the courtesy of speech.
"It is not your place alone to wield such power-" Megatron snarled. "We should have taken our rightful places together, Optimus; our place as gods! But you steal both spots and strike me down with no heed of our long fight?"
And now his frown slid into nothing. He could not remain angry at such pitiful fury; at the grieving of broken illusions.
The saber pointed up. The warlord had not moved from his spot.
Just as he had gone immobile on the day of alignment. Just as he had when Optimus had kept him down with a pede and prepared to kill him. The cycle he had hesitated too long; the very cycle Megatron had turned the battle around from Optimus's victory. But before dark energon had erupted from the Earth, the warlord had not fought back from certain death. He had waited in stillness to rant over how the battle was going off rails. It was almost as if Megatron had stopped seeing the approaching blade in that moment. Just as he was now.
"I am but a soldier, Megatron," he shook his head minutely and allowed himself this moment to speak as well. "And you- "
One step closer. One higher lift of his arm and the blade. One more moment to preserve this horrid battle before it ended.
"-are a prisoner of your own twisted delusions."
How often had he hoped to show that fact to his former mentor? How often had he tried to pull those delusions away and free the mech from his self-imposed insanities?
Ratchet knew. And Optimus knew, when he forced himself to confront his own futile, hopeful actions.
"Will you keep my helm, then?" Megatron sneered. "Will you keep it by your foolish trophy and count yourself so successful in winning when there was no fair way for me to fight back?"
What a way with words, his enemy had. It was one of the few qualities he retained from the Megatron of old.
But Optimus would not listen any longer.
Sacrifices, even to his own person, had to be made. With the omega lock providing such an ability to shake off the chains of the status quo, he had to grit himself for those sacrifices. This stagnating war could exist no longer.
Optimus carved energy forward in a wave. At that same moment, Megatron lurched forward towards him, no doubt planning to damage the Prime as much as he could before Optimus could land a single devastating hit with the star saber.
And concurrently to that, another unexpected movement occurred.
A green bridge, tearing somewhere to his left and Megatron's immediate right.
And a seeker, shooting fast towards them both; the jet crashed up against the warlord's side, knocking his charging trajectory off and sending both stumbling towards the nearby bridge.
The two decepticons slipped inside. The vortex closed in on itself only clicks before another wave of blue energy burned and crystalised the sand the bridge had formed above.
Optimus let the star saber drift down to touch the ground while he frowned. He was disappointed; in the fight, in the outcome, in himself.
So they would both live to fight another day? So they would.
Just as they always seemed to.