Background: This happens sometime during chapter 56. More adventures with the original 13. :)

"They're losing."

Alpha Trion looked up from his computer. "Hmm?"

"The Prime's army is losing," Solus said, sliding off of the desk she'd been sitting on. "I don't know if they can hold out much longer. We should help them fend off the Decepticons."

Alpha Trion looked back at his screen, not sure what to say.

He didn't want to leave in case Vector's hologram showed up again. They'd caught it once on camera in Maccadam's establishment since becoming aware of it, but other than that, there'd been no sign of it.

Furthermore, he wanted to stay out of Orion's fights.

It would be too tempting to step in and take over—to send Solus and Liege after Megatron to hunt him down and kill him—to take control and end the war before anyone else got hurt.

But he knew the war was Primus's will, even if he didn't know why.

"Alph," Solus said. "They're dying out there. I don't—"

"Hold on," Alpha Trion said. He was getting a comm. from his head archivist. He answered it.

"Alpha Trion, the Decepticons are coming for us!"

Alpha Trion stared. Why would the Decepticons attack the Hall of Records?

He could speculate later. "Shut and bar the front doors," he said.

"But—"

"Do as I say. Those doors are stronger than they look. Bar them and then lead everyone to the restricted archives."

"The restricted archives?"

"Yes. You heard that correctly."

"What's going on?" Solus asked.

"Apparently we're being attacked by some of Megatron's soldiers." He started pulling up camera feeds from the front of the building.

"Ah," Solus un-subspaced her giant battle axe. "Good. I've been itching for a fight."

"Probably won't be much of one," Alpha Trion said. "I doubt they'll even make it through the doors, and if they do, we probably won't have to try very hard to fend them off."

He heard his assistant come over the P.A. system and tell everyone where to go. Not all of his underlings had access to the restricted archives, but those who could would let them in.

He'd have to go through and make sure everything was in place, after this. Not that he thought his mecha would steal from him, but you couldn't be too careful. There were some things in that restricted section that absolutely needed to stay there, especially the artifacts.

The video feeds popped up, and Alpha Trion scanned the group of Decepticons outside the doors. There weren't even that many of them. This would be…

Primus beneath.

"Just kidding. You might get your fight after all."

"Hmm?" Solus said.

Alpha Trion commed his brother, who answered promptly.

"Alchemist, Megatronus is at the Hall of Records."

"What!" Solus leaped over the desk so she could look at the screen.

"We'll be there in half a breem," Alchemist said. "Hang tight until then and don't fight him until we get there. He can't beat all of us at once."

Alpha Trion nodded.

"This is good," Solus said quietly. "We can trap him here and kill him."

"The others are on their way," Alpha Trion told her. "Alchemist will bridge them all here from his establishment."

Solus smirked. "This fool," she muttered. "He's on our turf now. Does he think he's going to beat all of us."

Alpha Trion watched his screen as the Decepticons backed away from the door. Then some sort of explosion took out about half of the cameras. A moment later, he felt his desk and the floor shudder, and then heard it—a distant boom.

The door stayed intact, but that blast had been strong. A few more like that and they might break through.

Solus was right. It was foolish for Megatronus to try to break into the Hall of Records. He ought to know better—he ought to know he'd find all of them there, ready to fight him. Maybe they were missing something.

Alchemist commed him.

"What?" he said.

"Problem," Alchemist said. "As of a breem ago, there's a groundbridge shield up over the whole city-state."

Pit.

Alpha Trion put a hand to his faceplate. "Of course there is," he said.

"We'll drive there as fast as we can. Don't fight Megatronus until we get there."

"Right. Instead, I'll sit in my office while he slaughters my employees and hands out ancient weapons to the Decepticons like energon treats."

"Alph, you and Solus shouldn't risk your lives. If one of you goes down, we might not get there fast enough to stop him from killing the other."

"Hurry up then," Alpha Trion said, and cut the comm.

"That didn't sound like good news," Solus said.

"They can't bridge here," Alpha Trion got up from his desk. "We'll have to hold him off. The two of us can probably handle him…"

But the Decepticon soldiers might get past them and make it to the restricted archives.

"No," Solus said.

"We have to," Alpha Trion took in a deep vent. "I'll just have to ask someone to stay behind and give them instructions for securing the restricted archives… while we're fighting…"

"No." Solus said matter-of-factly as she pulled her oversized hammer from subspace.

"What are you doing?"

"Take the forge," she held it toward him. "I don't want a repeat of the last time that pit-spawn killed me. Put this with your other artifacts."

"I don't know if I have time to take it—"

"You have time. You can go secure your vault while I fight him." Solus said.

"No! Absolutely not!"

"I've beaten him before," Solus said. "At the very least, I can hold him off long enough for you to get your mecha to safety. Just come back to help me when you're done."

"Solus…" Alpha Trion said.

"He killed Prima," she said calmly. "Right in front of me. And I'm going to pay him back if it costs me my spark."

"We can't lose—"

"You're always going on about making sacrifices to follow the will of Primus," Solus said. "You think he'd want Megatron to get ahold of what you have in that vault of yours?"

She was right.

He didn't want to let her risk her life like this, but…

There was another explosion, this one larger and louder.

All but one of the cameras was offline now.

"I'll go meet him at the doors," Solus said. "Good luck."

He watched her hurry from the room, then lifted the hammer and carried it out after her. She'd beaten Megatronus before one-on-one, but only a few times, and if Megatronus had been training gladiators for the past few decaorns, he'd probably had more recent practice than she had.

The fact that she'd given him her most powerful weapon didn't make it seem like she expected to win this fight.

He'd just have to hurry so he could go back and help before it was too late.

He rushed down several flights of stairs to the restricted archives where he found his mecha huddled just inside the doorway.

"Here," he handed the Forge off to the head archivist, who nearly dropped it. "Stay here, don't panic when the floor starts to move, that's a good sign. Also don't panic if you can't get this door open once I've sealed you inside. Someone will come for you eventually. There are energon supplies down past the archives, so you'll be able to last a few decaorns if necessary."

"What about you?" someone asked.

"I'll be fine," Alpha Trion said, though he wasn't sure he believed it. "I'll see you once this is over."

He stepped out of the room and opened a panel on the wall.

Many, many vorns ago, he'd kept his archives in Simfur, and when the Quintessons had taken the city-state, he'd lost the majority of his important documents and artifacts.

So he'd been more careful when he'd built the Iacon Hall of Records.

As far as all of his employees knew, there were two main levels of the building—three floors of public archives above ground, and three floors of restricted archives below surface level.

But there was actually a third, deeper level, and mechanics in place that could swap it with the restricted one.

He typed in commands on the panel and heard the deep rumbling sound that meant the restricted section was dropping down deeper and the third section of the building was rising to take its place. If and when the Decepticons discovered it, they would find only shelves filled with dusty, relatively useless datapads. There would be no reason for them to look deeper, since there were no doors, stairs, or halls that lead to the true basement of the building.

Once the rumbling stopped, he realized he could hear fighting in the distance. Yelling, crashing. They were probably making a mess of the entryway, which irked him, but he told himself that wasn't what he should be worrying about right now.

He shut and sealed the panel in the wall, and headed back the way he had come.

He made it to the top of the stairs, and rushed down aisles of datapads toward the entryway. The sounds of fighting died out.

No…

He ran faster. Megatronus sometimes liked to gloat. Even if he'd defeated Solus, Alpha Trion might get there in time to save her…

Megatronus came around the corner and Alpha Trion skidded to a halt. His traitorous brother was holding Solus's axe, now streaked with energon.

"Trion," Megatronus said. "What a pleasant surprise."

Alpha Trion pulled a knife out of subspace and got into a fighting stance. Running wouldn't do him much good at this point.

He commed Alchemist, though.

"Well, that's fun," Megatronus tossed the axe to the side. It hit the floor with a light thunk and the blade sank deep into the metal tile. "Little smaller. Better for close combat."

Alchemist answered. "We'll be there in eight breems."

"Yes," Alpha Trion said, not bothering to answer Alchemist.

"Alph?"

He cut the comm. He had to focus. The longer he could keep Megatronus talking, the better chance he had. "Did you kill Solus?"

"What do you think?" Megatronus shifted one hand into an integrated blade and stepped forward.

Alpha Trion took a step away from him, trying to come up with a way out of this. But he doubted he could keep the conversation up for more than two breems at most before Megatronus got bored and attacked.

Or not.

Megatronus charged forward and closed the distance between them before he could think of anything else to say.

Alpha Trion blocked and dodged, but was forced back step by step.

"What's with the soldiers?" He said, trying to distract his brother—slow down the fight. "I thought you didn't like teaming up with anyone, especially not mortals."

"Well, this was a mutually beneficial agreement," Megatronus smirked confidently as he continued pushing forward. "Not necessarily teamwork. My little protégé

gets weapons, I get to kill you. We're just kind of riding on each others' tires so to speak." His blade pierced Alpha Trion's shoulder, and Alpha Trion kicked him away.

"This was a foolish plan either way," Alpha Trion said. "You'd be dead if it wasn't just me and Solus here."

Megatronus laughed, shaking his helm. "You of all mecha should know by now. I can't die, Alph. It doesn't really matter if you kill me. I'll be around until the end of time to play this game with—"

Alpha Trion lunged forward with his knife, but Megatronus knocked it from his hand and sent him crashing backward into a shelf. Several datapads clattered to the ground and Alpha Trion pressed a hand to his leaking shoulder.

Megatronus grinned. "You're out of practice. Even worse than Solus."

Alpha Trion pulled out another knife, pushing the pain to the back of his processor. He could deal with it later, if there was a later.

"Mostly I read books these orns," he said. "What have you been up to?"

Megatronus didn't answer, just attacked again. He exploited Alpha Trion's injured shoulder, forcing him to use that arm to block, multiple times.

Then Alpha Trion slipped on a loose datapad and fell and Megatronus dropped on top of him, hitting the exact right location with the exact right amount of force to shatter Alpha Trion's chest plating. Alpha Trion cried out and Megatronus knelt on him, keeping him on the ground.

"This is too easy. You're no fun anymore," he said, sticking his fingers into Alpha Trion's internals, reaching for his spark chamber.

"The others," Alpha Trion gasped. "They'll hunt you down."

"Not if I hunt them down first."

"Aaahhh! You… won't…"

"Won't what?" Megatronus leaned closer.

"Your gladiator… will lose," Alpha Trion choked. "The Covenant…"

"The Covenant is a lie," Megatronus sneered. "My gladiator verses your pet archivist? Really? You know that's just a distraction, don't you? A deadly little side show—Primus pitting you all against each other instead of doing his own dirty work. The real fight's already been won, and believe me, your cowardly creator didn't win it."

Alpha Trion looked up at his brother's grinning faceplate. "What…?"

"You don't know, do you?"

Alpha Trion screamed as Megatronus tightened his grip.

Then silence fell.

"Do you want to know who the Council was working for?" Megatronus whispered gleefully. "I'll tell you, before I kill you…"

Alpha Trion's optics widened.

But then Megatronus's helm jerked up and he froze, staring at something down the aisle. He loosened his grip on Alpha Trion's spark chamber, looking afraid for a moment, then bitter.

"You have less than five breems to save him," he said, and plunged his knife deep into Alpha Trion's internals.

Alpha Trion gasped. The knife had missed his spark chamber, but had severed a primary energon line.

Megatronus's weight left him and he heard the mech's pedesteps running down the hall. The others must have made it in time, but…

It hadn't been long enough, had it?

Alpha Trion craned his helm to see who had scared Megatronus off.

Vector.

Primus, it was Vector's hologram. Megatronus must have thought it was actually... that meant it wasn't one of his tricks.

"Vec…" he gasped, and rolled over. The floor was already slick with energon. "What's going on? What are you doing?"

The apparition didn't answer as Alpha Trion scrambled painfully to his knees.

"Vector?"

The hologram raised its hand and suddenly it was the gruesome apparition from the security tapes, with shattered optics, exposed internals, and tubes protruding from every opening.

Alpha Trion's spark sank, and he waited for the hologram to disappear, dismissing the damage warnings that kept popping up in his processor.

But his brother's apparition didn't vanish.

So, cautiously, not sure what else to do, he reached up with his good arm to take his brother's intangible hand.

It was solid.

Alpha Trion froze.

Vector's faceplate twitched, and he shifted his helm as if staring at Alpha Trion through the wires coming out of his optics.

"Help me," he whispered.

Then he screamed and disappeared, except for his hand, which remained in Alpha Trion's grasp, scratched and dented and sparking at the severed wrist.

Alpha Trion stared at it.

Low energon and imminent shut-down warnings popped up in his processor, and this time he couldn't dismiss them.

Internal leaking. Core damage.

He slumped to the ground in a pool of his own energon, fighting to stay conscious. He had to tell the others what he'd seen—what Megatronus had said. They had to figure out what was going on and where Vector was and who the Council was working for.

But there was nothing he could do.

The darkness closed in and his processor shut down.