Introduction: this chapter happens during chapter 59 of Many Voices, and covers Ravage's first mission to Kaon to deliver a letter to Megatronus.

Ravage crouched in the corner between the wall and the building he was next to. Some things about Kaon were different. There were caves everywhere, in every city, but here there were more. In some parts, it was almost like there was no ground. Walkways stretched across open pits that went down so deep Ravage sometimes couldn't see the bottom.

It was interesting, and a little frightening, but definitely not as bad as Vos.

Ravage had spent a few joors following other stray symbiots around, re-teaching himself how to move silently and stalk prey. It was nice to be free, to be able to go wherever he liked and not have to worry about where Soundwave wanted him to be. Not that he'd trade being with Soundwave for this life. This life was harsh and difficult. Ravage had a safe home to return to, and plenty of energon, and Soundwave and the twins and Laserbeak.

Of course, he was supposed to be on a mission, but he'd get to that eventually, once he felt comfortable roaming Kaon—once he knew where everything was. Soundwave contacted him for a report every few breems, but Ravage was having too much fun to rush.

He started up a conversation with a grouchy turbo-dog and found out which general direction the gladiator fights were in. He stayed on the lower streets as he wandered that way. The second-most goal of a successful street symbiot, just underneath finding energon, was to avoid mecha. They were strange, mecha, with their pointless, complicated rules. Life was so much better for everyone—and simpler—if you didn't have things like government or school. The strong protected themselves and their own, and the weak learned to be strong, or didn't survive. Those who were nice to each other made allies, and those who were cruel made enough enemies that they were eventually killed. Friends were your greatest advantage, but it was always your own strength that kept you alive.

If Mecha worked like that, then Soundwave and Ravage and the others would do much better than they did. Soundwave was strong. He could do things that the others couldn't. He was smart too, probably the smartest mech of all. He could be on the top of the pecking order instead of somewhere near the bottom, if it weren't for school and government and foolish mecha who protected other mecha they didn't even like, such as Verdict. Who in their right processor could like Verdict?

But mecha would be mecha and there was nothing you could do about it. Ravage darted across and open street and into another shadow. You tried to avoid mecha when you could, but Ravage was going to have to go in among a whole group of them. He was probably going to have to go inside a building if he wanted to find this Megatronus mech.

He wasn't sure who Megatronus was, or why Orion wanted to send some writing to him. Writing was also silly. Why write something down, when you could just say it? Laserbeak liked writing a lot, but that was because she couldn't talk, so it was understandable. And why Orion didn't just come here himself was another mystery, but Soundwave was smart, and seemed to agree that things needed to be done this way, so Ravage was going to trust him.

He saw a small, four-legged symbiot sneak around the corner and gave chase. The rat saw him and scuttled away, but Ravage had some speed that hadn't been leeched out of him during his vorns of quiet pethood, and he still remembered how to hunt. He caught the rat, pinning it to the ground. If he'd been here on his own, without any sort of mission, he would just have killed it and taken it's energon, but Ravage wasn't particularly hungry, especially not for the dirty, unprocessed energon running through this vermin's lines.

"Hey," he said.

"Help me!" the rat squeaked. "Help! Help!"

"I'm not going to eat you, you filthy thing. Just tell me if you know where mecha fight. If you don't know, I'll kill you and find someone else to tell me."

"Mecha fight everywhere," the rat said.

"Is there anywhere they fight, where a lot of other mecha watch?"

"Yes!" The rat said. "Yes, just don't kill me! There are good energon treats there, when the mecha are gone. Lots of mecha go there, and watch other mecha fight in a big circle."

"Where is it?"

"I can show you."

Ravage lifted his paws off of the smaller symbiot, and it streaked away, laughing. Ravage chased after it, but it dove into a little hole and didn't come back out. Well that had been stupid. Ravage knew that he was on the right track, though.

He'd been looking on signs for anything that said "Megatronus" or "gladiators", but hadn't seen anything. He wondered if he was even in the right part of the city. Maybe he should call Soundwave and ask about it.

No, he had time. Besides, if he ended up getting familiar with the whole sector, he'd be more useful in the future when they needed him to come here.

He found it on his own after a while—a big, empty place with lots of chairs for mecha to sit. Why they would do this—all gather to watch other mecha fight—was also beyond him. It just didn't make sense. Fighting was interesting to watch, but it was much more interesting to participate in. At least Soundwave never did anything this stupid. Just more reason he and his friends were smarter than everyone else.

Ravage crept down through the stands to the big pit in the middle. There was a large drop from the bottom of the stands down to the arena below—probably too far to jump safely—so Ravage started looking for a better way down. He found a drain that was large enough for him to crawl through and wiggled his way in. He barely fit, but it sloped downward, so it wasn't too hard to drag himself through. After a while, he found an exit, but it just came out onto a street again—not exactly where he'd hoped to end up. He needed to find somewhere with gladiators where he could sit and listen.

"Ravage?"

"Hi, Soundwave."

"Report?"

"I think I found the gladiator place, but I don't know where Megatronus is."

"Do you need some energon?"

"Not yet."

When he ran low on power, he was supposed to go to somewhere with no mecha around, and Soundwave would come through the portal and give him more energon. He didn't think that was necessary. If he needed energon, he could find it, and he could go for quite a while without it, especially since he'd had full tanks when starting the mission. Half of the time, before he'd found Soundwave, he had run on barely anything.

"Ok. Let me know when you do."

"Ok."

Now he probably had another half a joor before he needed to report in. The best thing to do would be to somehow get into the building where the gladiators lived, and find somewhere to just sit and listen and wait.

He wasn't sure how to do that, though, so he wandered away for a while. He got into a fight with another cat, and won, killing her and drinking her energon to fill his tanks. It wasn't as nice as the energon Soundwave would have gotten him, but it was much more satisfying to have taken it honestly and deservedly.

He then turned his attention back to finding Megatronus. He went back to the place where the arena was, and sat there, until crowds started to pour in. His only exit was the drain he'd climbed down before, so he did so again. This time he considered staying and listening, but it sounded really boring, so he crawled down again. Instead of turing where he had before, he kept going.

He discovered that the pipe had several offshoots, but the main thing lead down into a cave. It wasn't the nice sort of cave you had in Kalis. It was all jagged and strange-looking, like someone had come through and ripped up the walls. He couldn't help but explore, and eventually caught sight of some mecha. They were digging up the walls, though for what reason he couldn't tell.

He watched them for a while, then followed them when they got up and walked away, careful to stay in the shadows so they didn't see him. The cave was full of unfamiliar noises and Ravage wanted to go find out what they were. He had to keep reminding himself that he was on a mission. Eventually, the group of mecha he was following stopped in a small cavern. So, Ravage just went exploring. He found a section of the cave that was more rounded, and also more populated. He found a good hiding spot and watched mecha as they walked by. Eventually he saw one who looked a little more sure of himself than the others, and who had cleaner paint. Ravage followed that mech, until he went through a big door. Before the door closed, Ravage saw a clean hallway beyond it, and knew he was getting somewhere. However, where a stray symbiot wasn't too out of place in a dark cave, he would have to be extra careful inside this building. It would be better to move through the ventilation systems than the actual halls. He wished he had Rumble and Frenzy to help him. They were small enough to get through just about any ventilation system there was. Ravage might be too large.

He waited in the shadows, perfectly still until the door opened and a different mech came out. Then he dodged through, into the hallway which, fortunately, was empty. He padded down it as quietly as he could, until he found a vent to climb in. He had to rip the cover off the wall, but at least it was big enough for him to fit in.

Now, he had to find out if Megatronus was really here, and where his room was. He wandered the vents until he heard the noise of mecha talking nearby. When he followed the sound, it turned out to be a room full of tables where mecha sat and drank energon and talked. Perfect. Ravage settled down to listen.

The first thing he figured out was how to pick out the gladiators. They were mostly bigger, and a lot of them were spiky or shiny. They also carried themselves differently. Ravage could recognize the grace of a predator when he saw it.

He wondered if one of these mechs was Megatronus, and listened very closely, but couldn't tell. After a while of listening, though, he did catch a couple of other gladiators talking about him.

"…Megatronus has finished his match yet?"

"Don't know, mech," the other one said. "But Heavyfire's going to offline for sure, because he killed Curse last decaorn, and Megs does that death for death thing."

Ravage tried to figure out what they were talking about. Finished his match? Did that mean he was fighting right now? Was that what those crowds had been gathering for earlier?

It might take too long to go all the way back to the arena the way he'd come. Ravage needed to find a different route. He listened for another astrosecond, but the mecha had moved on to another topic of conversation, so he slinked away through the vents.

He wandered for a while, until he started to hear something that sounded like a lot of mecha yelling and made his way toward the sound. He slowed down as it got louder. There was something wrong about this. He came around a corner and saw a grate ahead with light coming through. Though some instinct screamed at him to run, he forced himself to approach it. The grate looked out on the brilliantly lit arena. Below there was a fight happening, while above he could see the stands full of mecha...

Ravage froze.

Mecha shouting.

Fighting.

From down here, he could see—the arena was just a giant cage.

He backed away, hissing, terrified.

They'd done that to him—they'd locked him in a cage and forced him to fight other symbiots while the mecha stood around, shouting, watching.

He needed to leave.

He backed up around the corner, then stopped again, digging his claws into the metal of the vent. He had a mission. He had a letter to deliver. He would be fine-no one knew he was here and if they did, they couldn't catch him. If anything bad did happen to him, Soundwave would come for him.

Slowly, he inched back around the corner and approached the vent so he could watch the rest of the fight. Trembling, with his armor flared, he crouched at the end of the tunnel and looked out.

He hadn't realized what this place was. He hadn't realized mecha did this to each other too...

He watched one gladiator defeat the other, knocking him to the ground, running him through. There was a lot of cheering, but eventually the noise died down, and then the gladiator who had won started talking, yelling up at the crowd. Something about Iacon and one last chance.

"…barring their immediate assistance, we are on our own!" the victor finished, and then turned to walk toward Ravage. He looked different than the other gladiators. He was just as spiky, but there was no bright paint, just metallic gray. Right now, he had streaks of energon running down his frame, but other than that, the only color on him was his glowing red optics.

This must be Megatronus. He certainly looked impressive enough, and there was something powerful and unafraid about the way he moved. Ravage couldn't help but feel a sort of connection to him, and a measure of respect.

Maybe it wasn't so crazy for Orion to be sending him a letter.

Megatronus walked through a door right under Ravage, and Ravage turned and did his best to follow, listening carefully for the mech's footsteps.

He managed to keep up, until the mech turned and went a direction that the vents didn't go. Frustrated at being so close and missing his opportunity, he circled around, trying to find the hallway that Megatronus had gone down.

It turned out that it wasn't a hallway. Ravage found a vent cover that looked out over a small room, where the silver gladiator lay on his berth. He looked like he was in recharge, but Ravage waited a few breems anyway, before carefully taking off the vent cover and climbing into the room. He pulled a small datapad from the tiny subspace pocket that Ratchet had given him, and set it on the desk. When he climbed back in the vent, and slid the cover back into place, it made a clanging noise.

Ravage froze, listening as the gladiator sat up.

"Who's there?" he heard, but didn't answer. He had the coordinates for Megatronus's room now, and he'd delivered the letter. That would show Soundwave that he was competent. He went back the way he had come, because if he tried to go another way, he might get lost. Once he was down in the caves and had found a nice safe spot, he could comm. Soundwave and ask to go back home.