Author's Notes: I've always wondered if Megatron revered his namesake, or if he felt the Decepticon is a fool. His opinion seems to fluctuate. So this story was written in the idea of the first. Enjoy. ^_^

Warnings: Dark themes.

Spoilers: Agenda episodes and beyond.

Obligatory Disclaimer: I own no part of Beast Wars or any of its characters.

Legacy



Loathe though I was to follow my namesake's
instructions, it has all come down to this. The
ultimate risk, for the ultimate prize. A day of
reckoning, for those who have made us slaves!

-Megatron, "The Agenda, Part Three"

It it utterly beyond my understanding as to why victory has eluded me.

Have I not followed your ever instruction? Fought a thousands battles in the name of Predacon glory? Lied, betrayed, conquered, and stole in order to deliver your justice?

I turned my back on my own people to coincide with one whom would otherwise would be considered a madman. I have borne the scorns and spurns of a thousand transformers if only to see your final will and testament to the end. I have traveled a thousand miles, crossed boundaries beyond imagination.

Countless nights have I found myself alone on dark nights, contemplating fate and the nature of destiny. Am I not here for a reason? Why was I the only one willing to risk everything on the faith of your words, passed down through generations? Do I not carry your legacy coincidentally?

I chose to bear your epithet as a symbol of my amibition, for if one once as lowly as I could take the honor of your name, than could not any Predacon then rise to the glory of his ancestors? So shameful are we, slaves to the Maximals, the descendants of Autobots, those who had once been bound in servitude to the Decepticons. Do you, the fading memoirs of our once and too temporary power, look upon those left behind with shame? Do you shield your eyes, grin haughtily, and laugh mockingly at our attempts while secretly appraising our tenacity?

Or are your optics lined with sadness, filled with that terrible knowledge that we will never rise again to rule as you once did? Do you grow disgusted and despair with the knowledge that we are what's left of the once mighty Deception army?

...I did.

I grew tired of being a slave, you see. Here I had been programmed for battle and conquest, and nothing more did I find myself but a subservient rat in the sewers of Maximal society. Oh, those Maximals will drive a 'bot mad with their lunacy! What peace, Maximals Elders? Of what "Golden Age" do they speak?

There will never be a peace for the Predacons until we are bestowed the power and illustriousness that is deserved of our title! The Maximals can crow all they want about the pangs of war and hardship, but they know not of what is tribulation.

To live life as a warrior and a leader and be reduced to a second class citizen. It is the unwritten laws that govern Cybertron, not those proposed by that ridiculous excuse of a political body that rules over the Predacon populace. We were the slaves, and they were the masters, unchanging in the ways of time.

No more, no longer! Never again will I bow and lick the boots of Maximal or Tripredacus Elders. No, not ever again. With the power, the knowledge that you have bestowed upon me, this mighty force so vast and incomprehensible that even I took years to grasp the magnitude of its effect...I can set everything right again. To change the future...to reverse the tables of fortune and play my own hand at the game of Fate...

Of course, I had to first find a crew. Simpletons, all of them...as if they understood what truly laid behind that veiled promise of vast energon stores. That's all they wanted.

But you and I...we wanted freedom, didn't we? Liberation from that oppressive force that were the Autobots and Maximals. Let them have their peace, their golden age. Their day of reckoning would soon come, would it not?

For you and I, my dark mentor, we would change the future! Your amibitions and words, my desires and passion...Together we would create a force that not Maximal nor Predacon nor Autobot or Deception could stop. The future is ours for the taking, the throne awaiting our crowning!

But...have I done well? I have performed everything you instructed, yet I am still more than a few steps away from victory. What is it that I fail to accomplish? What pains have I left unmitigated? What inscrutable message am I missing in the enscription you left behind for me...only for me...

I traveled through time! I discovered the ark and destroyed Optimus Prime! I set in motion a time storm that would have oblitered everything those Maximals held holy!

And yet...I did not succeed. The Maximals managed to undermine my plans and rescue time as they knew it. By all accounts, Optimus Prime should have died that day!

Why not? That was supposed to our moment of glory, and once and future rise of the Decepticons and their Predacons! That was the day.

That was the day.

I will not fail, not you or myself. For even those who scorn you and your kind as the defeated, I know they too desire the power and freedom I can bestow.

I will work out your will, Megatron, greatest leader of the Decepticons, high ruler of the future to come, my namesake and singular destiny. There can be no other path for me. We bear the same name, and in that, we are forever bound by providence. In time I have come to learn that there is no such thing as coincidence. The message, eons old in existence, was not left for just anyone. It was made there for me, a Predacon, your descendant, your legacy.

I will continue on, no matter what costs I must pay. My crew I be without, my sanity rendered useless, I will conquer. I will be the ruler that you imagined yourself to be. I will live out the dream you never fulfilled.

I will be our destiny, the child of your illusions that you never had yourself, but was by fate born by another time, another place.

I will your legacy.

And while I cannot know what you possibly think of me, though it is a question that haunts deep into the darkest nadir of night, pluging through the cores of spark and turning it to ice, I will always follow your command.

For we are bound together, never to be parted. You as my predecessor and namesake, and I as the instrument of your ambitions on which you play the sharp melody of victory. Together, you and I will rise again, carried by a dream proclaimed years ago by one who I never knew, but who has been my greatest teacher in years come and gone...

You and I...

...But if you were here, and you were to look upon all I had sacrificed in the name of Predacon glory...if you were to judge me for what I was, for what I have done to continue the legacy of our kind, for that which I had taken your name...

My great mentor...

Would you find me worthy?

Final Notes From the Author:

What did Beast Wars Megatron think of ancestor? Did he see himself as a prophet, sent to deliver the message left by his great namesake, or was he doing it all for power? I tend to believe it's a mixture of both. Obviously, power was a big part of his desires, but that speech he makes while walking through the ark belies a much deeper sense of passion. He honestly believes that the Maximals have made the Predacons slaves, and that by following his namesake's will, it was the only way to help his people.

I, after observing the Maximals for some time, have a slight tendency to somewhat believe him. I do not think the Maximals are angels; I do not believe that Predacons are treated fairly. Rattrap is proof of that.

But really what I was trying to get across in this was Megatron's struggle. He wants freedom, but he also wants to know if he's doing it correctly. For if fate brought them this far...that he was the one that discovered the disk's message...is this truly what was meant to be? Also mixed in here is the idea of worth. Has he performed actions worthy of his namesake's great legacy, one that he hopes to continue himself?

Whatever your decision, I hope you enjoyed the story. Thanks you for reading.

-Chaotic Serenity