Author's Note: I'm sorry this took a bit to get out. I thought I would have it out sooner than I did. The majority of it was already written I just had to figure out how to stitch it all together and in what order. I actually had to break this chapter in half again. Megatron like's to ramble apparently, and I didn't feel like cutting out huge swathes of this scene just to get a chapter out. Also, before I forgett, Ariel and Elita-One are two seperate entities. I believe I read over at the TFWiki they were originally suppose to be except fans pointed out they looked alike so the creators rolled them into one. I'm taking creative liberty and breaking them back into two.

Also I'd like to say a special thanks to the guest that left the nice review and to everyone who continues to come back chapter after chapter! It warms my heart to see other people are enjoying this story beyond myself.

'My love is vengeance, that's never free.'

-Behind Blue Eyes, The Who

::Does all engex taste like this?:: asked Optimus suddenly.

::No, Radioactive isn't suppose to taste like this. Megatron mixed it too strong.:: Phage's aurora ribbons spiked suddenly in shock as she finished processing his thoughts. ::Have you never had engex?::

The scintillating Cybertronian script and numerical code that glittered in the backdrop turned a shade of soft rose petal pink and began to glitch. Optimus's avatar stared at her strangely. ::No-.:: he drawled out uncharacteristically. ::I have not.::

Phage gaped at him. ::How is that possible? You're nine million years old!::

"I believe I know what drew Optimus Prime to you. Your resemblance to Ariel is uncanny."

Phage could not help her response to Megatron's statement, she was still reeling in shock and scrambling with Prime to fix two separate situations requiring two entirely different responses. It was the second time that day that the name had come up.

"Who?" she asked tersely.

When Megatron's lip components quirked upward in an asymmetrical grin, Phage realized that was exactly what he wanted her to ask. Why, she couldn't fathom. She Sensed Optimus tense, resulting in her own muscle cables growing taut and squeezed the goblet of Radioactive in hand.

"Ariel," Megatron began slowly while placing great emphasis on the femme's name, "was Optimus Prime's first conjunx endura."

Ah, was Phage's only thought on the matter and she was content to leave it at that. It was so simple a thought that carried with it a myriad underlining emotions and thoughts that Optimus took, divulged and cataloged. A single, simple thought that boiled down to the fact that she didn't care if she looked like Optimus Prime's first conjunx endura. In all of the infinite universe, there was only so many different combinations a genetic code could produce before it replicated a result. That was simple fact. So did it bother her- no. How many romance comedy movies had Hollywood created around that very notion? It was cute, romantic, enduring, eternal...

All of which was not so enticing with Megatron doing the reveal. And she figured that that, perhaps, was his aim.

She Sensed Optimus's consciousness squirm uncomfortably in her cranium, the sensation not unlike an awkward adjustment in a seat that just wasn't the right fit. Along their open neural pathways, Phage detected that Optimus was frustrated by the turn of the conversation and embarrassed.

::By the Spires of Iacon,:: Optimus's thought was moody, ::why is he bringing her up!::

::Optimus, it's fine.:: Phage tried to sooth Prime's ego internally, but too no avail.

::No.:: Came his quick hard response. ::It is not.:: Phage could feel Optimus's glare in her cranium, not at her but at Megatron.

"Permit me to elaborate with a bit of back history." Megatron began of a sudden, "Before the war, Cybertron was ruled by a functionist government that dictated your alt mode designated your future. Yet, it was also law that all femmes were alt mode exempt. Their function was designated by the fact that they were femmes. All of them were pressed into one of two functions- communications or entertainment, and the latter was not always the glamorous life you'd expect."

"When is it." Phage smarted off.

Megatron made an indistinguishable noise, perhaps almost a grumble, or an acknowledgment before he continued. "Ariel was lucky in that she was rolled into communications. She interviewed me in the very early days before the War, before I realized violence was the only way to change things." Phage's optical ridge shot up her forehead, but she otherwise said nothing. "It was through Ariel that I met Optimus before he was ever the Prime. At the time he was just a dock worker struggling to make a lateral shift into enforcer. Small changes were permitted like that, as long as the alt mode fit." Megatron refilled his goblet as he carried on but paused, considerate, his optics on his special blend of engex. "The three of us use to grab energon together and chat."

Phage realized only at that admission why she had Sensed that Optimus felt this situation was so eerily familiar from the moment she walked into the Decepticon bar, just as she Touched on another of Prime's memories as if she had the personal pass code to bypass Prime's security.

/

The three of them sat at a table for refreshments in Iacon. Burning silver gold light streamed through the windows from Cybertron's sun- Prima. Megatronus and Ariel were laughing at his narration of some minor hilarity Dion had gotten himself caught up in at the Docks the day before. He had his arm draped around Ariel's shoulder struts, grinning like a fool as he listened to her silvery bell laughter. His optics darted between Ariel and Megatronus and finally settled across the table on his friend, catching Megatronus's bright blue optics as they shifted off of Ariel and onto him. The glass of energon was pressed to the bottom of Megatronus's lips, his smile above it and crinkling his optics.

/

Optimus cut the memory off as if he'd blasted it with his rifle with his unfailing accuracy and precision. Phage got no more of it, but the fleeting glimpse of the memory had been jarring. Phage was left stricken, as presently Megatron sat across from her with his goblet of his special blend of engex pressed to his bottom lip, calculating frown etched into the hard planes of his weary opticed face above the rim of the goblet.

Old habits die hard.

Megatron said nothing to the sudden drawn shift in her features as he carried on in his narration.

"Good things never last. In time, I was labeled a political dissenter and an anarchist. Orion Pax- Optimus Prime's name at the time, couldn't entertain relationships with the likes of mechs such as myself as he entered the enforcer academy. Our friendship became strained."

::Now he's mocking me.:: Phage thought.

::Mocking? No.:: supplied Optimus as his avatar in their joint mindscape reaffirmed his hold on her hand. ::What Megatron believes he is doing is teaching a lesson.::

::About what?:: came her moody thought.

Optimus did not answer, but the unspoken notion she acquired was to wait and find out while Optimus tried to devise a plan. Only, Phage felt, that wasn't going to be possible. The conversation had Optimus sidetracked.

"Multiple times he was tasked to apprehend me for speaking out to prove himself to his new enforcer brethren. Ariel became the thread that linked us in more ways than I believe even Optimus knew." Megatron paused, glancing between his engex and Phage. "Ariel loved us both."

The color drained steadily from her face as he went on. A sense of gut wrenching sickness stabbed at her fuel tanks, but the slow steady fire that ignited and continued to burn in her chassis wasn't Phage's familiar quick temper- it was Optimus's steady burn that could rage like a wildfire if ignited and left unattended.

::That's a lie!:: Optimus's thought was hard, crisp, and roiling anger beneath the surface. Phage said nothing. There was no room for her to interject.

"But I was the one eventually prosecuted by a ghost trial and sentenced to die in the gladiatorial pits of Kaon. Did Orion Pax look for me? No." Megatron's face sneered at the memory. "Strained relations." this time he did mock heatedly before continuing, "It was Ariel, not Orion, who tracked me down to Kaon. She begged me to escape, she had everything all planned out but I refused. If the Council meant to silence me, I meant to defy them at every step. I chose the path I realized would lead to the only way to reform Cybertron. She visited frequently," he carried on, tones uncharacteristically sentimental, "after every fight she was there to greet me as victor, to check on me. To oversee my repairs and feed me vital intel that I requested. As a femme, Ariel had access to places and locations I could never hope to gain at that point in time. In fact, it was through her that Soundwave came to me."

"You met Soundwave because of-!" Phage was reeling at Megatron's narrative like any historian or archaeologist just uncovering an interesting tidbit of ancient lore. On the other hand, Optimus danced between anger, shock, and straining patience that dampened Phage's emotions like cold water to a flame. The conflicting emotions and polar opposite thoughts collided, and rather than allow them to blow up, Phage allowed herself to give ground to Optimus. It was inappropriate to get excited about something like this. Ultimately, she didn't finish her sentence, and for Megatron she didn't need too.

"Yes." Megatron continued, unfazed by her interruption. Rather, her interjecting seemed to embolden him to continue in greater detail. "Through her connections to the upper class society, I learned much about Soundwave before I ever met him. She was the one who suggested he would be great for my cause and eventually approached him at a gala on my behalf."

Megatron inclined his head to one side as Phage's optics dropped to her engex, her head drooping with the motion. Megatron swept her appearance in a single glance, noting that despite her surprise, her shoulder struts were stiff and her fingers strained on the neck of her goblet of engex, and revealed nothing of his note of her.

"Ariel was a vital thread to my operations in the early years, even keeping Orion and I in contact, but more than that. I did love her as fiercely as Orion. And that, among other things, led to conflict. Inevitably, Orion and I had a falling out. Shocking, I know." The dry humor from Megatron startled Phage but Optimus was unmoved. "And regrettably, Ariel was caught in the crossfire when she chose him over me."

"If you honestly think this is going to go where I think it is," Phage said suddenly, her optics catching his, "then you're more degraded in your processor than I realized."

"You?" Megatron barked out a singular hard laugh. "Is that line of processing common among humans?" Her cheeks colored a vibrant blue. "Noting your similarities wasn't meant as an insult or insinuation. Ariel was intelligent, daring and beautiful. You share those qualities, but it ends there. You Phage are otherwise abrupt, loud and uncouth, lack simple grace and have a quick temper."

Phage pulled back from the bar, her face twisting into mild irritation. She did not know it, but the backhanded compliment, even from someone such as Megatron, was exactly how Starscream felt on a near day-to-day basis.

Megatron's cranium inclined to a minor angle. "I wonder if your attitude would have been the same if Optimus had been the one to spin you the tale. It would have been much different I assure you, a pure innocent romance cut tragically short."

::Because it was.:: Optimus seethed, thin trails of smoke streaming from his smokestacks while the twinkling Cybertronian script and code that filtered behind him began to flicker like fire. His larger hand began to squeeze her much smaller one harshly, resulting in a hairline strain headache pumping in her cranium.

::Optimus...I can't believe I'm about to say this, but stay calm.::

::All of it is lies, Phage! Every word of it!::

::Optimus, why would Megatron lie to me about any of that?::

She felt his conscious grope for words to form coherent thoughts, but none were forthcoming. Instead, to Optimus's abject horror as he scrounged his data banks all he could come up with were long periods of Ariel's absence that she told him were just long leads on a prominent job. Then, she started warning him to stay away from Megatronus and the Decepticon uprising. Cut ties with Megatronus, and get out while he still could...

Phage's avatar ducked her head, and so too did her physical body as she took a particular interest in the neon green glow of her engex. Suddenly, she took another swig and pulled yet another tart face. It wasn't settling right in her fuel tanks. Worse yet, Phage felt it spread like wildfire through her systems and heat her face. The stuff was disgusting. Megatron had severely undercut the sweet overtones. He probably preferred his engex's with a harsh burn. Her optics mulled over his goblet of special blend and blanched at the thought of what that tasted like.

::You know,:: Said Optimus suddenly, his antennas were lopsided as he inclined his head to one side, ::I've never condoned of excessive engexing.::

::I've had like- two sips!::

Phage abruptly became aware that the neat and orderly lines of Cybertronian numerical codes and elegant script weren't so straight-edged anymore. Letters and numbers were drooping out of line while others simply took a sudden curve into a dive bomb.

Her avatar's jaw dropped open before swiftly snapping close. ::Optimus? Op- Oh. My. God. Are you buzzed?! Don't you dare leave me alone with Megatron!::

"The true story was a far cry from that. Ariel loved the power I was gaining and the promises I was making to liberate all Cybertronians of the functionist government. I was the one pushing for revolution. And what did Orion Pax have to offer her? Nothing. He stood shackled to the very government he wanted reformed. Going so far as to befriend the very head. The self same government that Ariel despised. Orion wanted reform from within-though I warned him it was impossible. The Council sought to use him while I fought back. Ariel's only grievance was my increasing methods of violence, not that it plagued her conscious enough while I fragged her processor out."

Every mention of Ariel's name summoned small bite-sized memory segments from Prime reminiscent of very personal three-dimensional, all sensory included, laser etched photo snapshots. A laugh. A warm smile that touched beautiful energon blue optics. The glint of the sunlight off her white and pink color scheme. The two of them racing through the streets of Iacon. The feel of his lips pressed to hers. The touch of her slim fingers as she traced the seams in his armor and as he did the same, following her sleek, athletic curves. The scent of the fragrant wax she used for her finish. The rush of euphoria when they interfaced. His tender love for her.

"You corrupted her." Phage's voice was a vicious growl, an edge too close to personal. The burn in her chassis became arsenic. Her optics flared momentarily as Optimus seized control and spoke through her. The engex was weakening both of their willpower's to stay focused on the task at hand and became steadily more and more drawn in by Megatron's narrative.

Phage perceived matters differently than both of them, but her thoughts did little to cool Optimus's temper when she meekly suggested, ::Maybe it's not what Megatron thinks it was- maybe she was undercover for some outside source? Deep undercover...?:: It was a nine million year old scar viciously torn open with no answers that would ever come to heal it. Ariel was long dead and gone.

Optimus did not want to hear her input.

"I loved her." Megatron announced in response to Phage-Optimus's accusation. "I made her promises to be my conjunx endura when I claimed Kaon." The admission shocked her more than the dry humor had but Optimus was reeling and seething, falling easy prey to his temper through the engex. "I would have given her everything! But I lost her to Orion Pax. Orion." the words seethed from his vocals like volcanic steam, the memories upsetting Megatron as much as they were Optimus. "He turned away from me too, and when I confronted him she got between us."

Phage kept her lips magna-sealed to keep any more words from slipping pass her lips from Optimus while he thundered and raged in her head.

::She was never yours! You're the one that shot her, Megatron! You!::

There was more. An entire speech worth she had to silently endure from the raging Optimus Prime, complete with inebriated pronunciated slurs and stutters. It would have been hilarious to actually hear Optimus Prime come apart like that if it had been just the two of them as friends in a private social setting. Instead, it just stressed out Phage's already thin nerves.

Beyond her situation with Prime, Phage did not think she had ever felt more uncomfortable in her life. Maybe her and Ariel had more in common than she realized-to an extent, if Megatron's narration was to be taken as true. She was trapped in the middle of the two as assuredly as it sounded like Ariel was. Unlike the femme, Phage desperately wished she could phase right out of existence and escape through the floor. Not for the first time, Phage cursed the damn null-restraints.

"I swore I'd get vengeance on Orion- and I did." Megatron's denta flashed as a smile spread from audio receptor to audio receptor. "You see, Optimus Prime can't stand to be alone. He's one of those types. He never learned that a conjunx endura is such a dangerous thing. When the War was fresh and everything was falling apart at the seams I learned he had taken a second conjunx endura- Roller was his name. Yes-" Megatron's sigh and roll of his optics feigned on the dramatic, "the same name of his damn recon drone. You see the layers now? I had the Seekers track Roller down, lure him into an ambush, then made Orion watch from the safety of his enforcer headquarters while I ripped out Roller's spark chamber." The wide grin on Megatron's face made Phage sick and Optimus's anger burst into rage. Suddenly, the Decepticon Commander tapped his cranium. "I can still replay Orion's scream over in my processor."

Phage recalled the soul-wrenching scream from one of the three scars and her fuel tanks turned violently.

Optimus seized control and shoved away from the bar, leaping to their feet in an uncoordinated stumble. Vulturous, Megatron's crimson optics followed her every movement.

::Optimus! Optimus no! Nonononono! Stop! What are you doing?:: shot off Phage in alarm while her avatar circled from his side to in front of him in the Infraspace, and placed both hands against his chassis, open-palmed. ::Optimus I can't go toe-to-toe with Megatron! Op!::

Under Optimus's control, Phage's body backpedaled from the bar, fingers flexing around a rifle that just wasn't there. The urge to punch something hard or scream or both was all too strong.

Abruptly, the femme burst into a sudden violent outrage, grabbing the nearest table and flinging it across the bar. A chair followed suit. Commanding Phage's body, Optimus went to grab another chair. From the sidelines, Megatron patiently waited for the clamorous commotion to die down, admiring her violent outburst with a smirk before indulging with a sip of his engex.

"Well I see your grasping the depth of the lesson after all." Megatron intoned gently. Neither Phage nor Optimus heard him.

::Optimus love, please! I know this is hard and painful to hear from him-::

Her body seized up before she could throw a third chair. Instead, her fingers dug into the back seat with such a crushing force that the joints in her fingers hurt. Driving her body, Optimus leaned forward over the chair, using it as both support and a means to anchor them to reality. Utilizing it as a last bastion to collect himself in the optic of the storm.

::What did you just say?:: A jumble of confusing thoughts passed between them as the two struggled for clarification over Optimus's question, all while Phage's cool consciousness tried to assuage his- an effort as tedious as tides whittling away stone and rusting metal.

Finally, Optimus reaffirmed, ::You called me love.::

While her body's optics widened and focused on nothing but the empty seat below her, Phage's avatar gawked at Optimus's.

::It's just,:: she struggled for clarifying thought, fighting pass the spell of the engex, ::a saying. A phrase. It felt right.::

::But you do love me.:: his thought was raw and sensitive. ::Despite all of...this?::

There was no need to answer that. Megatron had patiently fished that realization out of her already and the shock of acknowledging that emotion in front of Megatron while Optimus piggybacked her processor wasn't so much embarrassing as just numbing. For Phage, it was a fact that Alicean had loved him and for a time Phage had thought she had the right to those emotions too, until she caught an audio of one Earth news segment Jazz was watching one day discussing her rebirth that triggered months worth of soul-searching 'who am I?'

Optimus had tried to mend the divide with his own experience.

Megatron had inadvertently bridged the gap.

She had to put her personal demons to bed. She did love Optimus. She just had allowed herself to get buried under life's tribulations. She was so oblivious to everything around her when she did that.

::Yes.::

Optimus blinked languidly down at her and carefully plucked both her hands off his chassis and encased them in his own, the admission a balm to his eons old pain. His optics, his conscious, bored into her own, imploring, hurt. ::Then why are you with him?::

She knew what he meant and she fell into the defensive. ::He approached me first! Why do I- no! No! We are not doing this now! I can't believe I have to tell you to focus!::

::But-::

::Optimus I swear to god, I will bitch slap you. Do you understand, solider!::

The twinkling, glitching Cybertronian script and code of Prime's conscious thought processes shifted in hue from pink to red and dropped momentarily to purple before hitting a hard U-turn and drifting back. Phage tried to ignore the sudden shifting colors.

::I don't want to fight you.:: Even with his battle mask in place, Optimus managed to pout, his liberty blue optics wide and reflective of his internal conflict she personally was undergoing, but she Sensed his inebriated conscious switch roads noisily. ::How am I suppose to protect you like this?::

::You mean how am I suppose to protect you!:: she shot back.

Phage Sensed Optimus desperately trying to subspace his anger and pain roughly aside, using her hands, of all things, as a focal point for clarity. There was a stretch of silence between them before Optimus spoke, changing topics abruptly. ::Megatron is right. Initially your facial similarity to Ariel is what drew me to you. But, I never got to tell you your capacity to create rather than destroy is why I fell in love with you.:: His optics locked with hers, noting the pout on her lips and the crease between her optical ridges.

::Optimus I- I haven't painted in years.:: Phage struggled for thought, torn between needing to look sane in front of Megatron while preoccupied with trying to calm Prime. ::But... I have been working on creating something with Wheeljack...::

::That Project?::

::Yes.:: and that thought carried with it a hint of an underlying image, a vague concept of the Waiting Room Project. As always, Optimus tilted his head in his characteristic way of receiving a transmission, took a nanosecond to divulge its contents, and his optics widened.

"It's good you're realizing the danger you were in when Prime was functioning." Megatron's laugh was dry but it got the femme's undivided attention. Her body twisted at the waist to address him. "I wonder," Megatron continued levelly, "would you have swooned if Optimus told you his variation of the tale, enraptured by his voice like all the other fools he's swayed behind the Autobot badge? Would you have romanticized the novelty of your similarity with Ariel with him? Soothed his grief when he brought up Ariel and then Roller's termination?" As Megatron went on, his lip components pulled up into a sneer. "Such sappy fantasization is what made it easy to plant my double agent."

"What?" Optimus's tone was dark and razor edged through Phage's vocal processor to match the look she threw Megatron's way over her shoulder strut. Phage's general passive tendencies fell beneath the full front of Optimus Prime's inebriated will and rage as it was rekindled.

"As I mentioned, Optimus was one of those types that can't be alone. And I seized on that."

A slow, horrifying realization dawned in her optics and spread to every fiber of her being. Little did Megatorn know that the look was from Optimus Prime. "Elita-One."

With the one name, Phage was battered in a storm of memory snippets not unlike when she was with Ariel. At the center of each was a beautiful femme of sleek curves, confidant gait and calming measured vocals that turned seductive in her inner audio. Flash points of memories snowballed across her mindseye: Elita-One in battle catching missiles and redirecting, handling herself masterfully with martial arts in hand-to-hand, Elita-One deadly in her aim with her blaster. Elita-One seizing higher and higher rank. Elita-One taking command of the Autobot femmes. Elita when she first flirted with Optimus, when they first kissed. Intense memories of them interfacing. When they became conjunx endura.

When Phage had first met the Autobots as Alicean Witwicky, she had drempt of what a femme would look like. Wondered and pondered and fantasized on paper. Gleaming a true Cybertronian femme through Prime's memory was exhilarating, until reality crashed in. If Megatron's word was true, the gorgeous femme was Cybertron's original Cleopatra, thee femme fatale. A master manipulator that had deceived every Autobot officer and Optimus Prime for millions of years.

If any of it were true, Cleopatra should have taken lessons from Elita-One.

Optimus loved Elita-One. He missed her. She was supposed to have been on the Ark. The launchpad was bombarded. He watched her terminate. Elita-One had been dead four million years but it was only sixteen Earth years for Optimus Prime. And in the dawn of the Autobot's revival, Optimus had met Alicean.

Megatron was right-again. Optimus was one of them that couldn't be alone.

Phage couldn't look away from the memories in her own head. She could only feel as if Megatron had slammed her in the gut.

Elita-One had been gorgeous.

Ariel too, if not the seductive femme fatale, she was the hot, plucky opinionated reporter.

Both were pink. Why in the world-

For the majority of her life, Phage had hated the color on principal for what it represented for decades in American culture.

She reminded Optimus and Megatron of Ariel? How could she? In comparison she was...nothing.

::Phage...::

She bucked Optimus's grasp. Took the opportunity Megatron presented and tried to mentally, violently tear out the cable work Optimus had been working through her psyche as her avatar fled back to the undersea. Phage missed the Grey. She needed distance.

She wanted Prime out.

None of this was suppose to happen.

Optimus stared after her sadly, hands frozen in pose where last her hands had touched them, fingers grasping emptiness. ::Megatron wanted to expose your love for me to strike at it. He's relating all this information to drive you away from me.:: His optics found hers in the dark of the undersea, swathed in the cool cavernous shadows she was use to. Phage refused to meet his gaze. A sobering realization hit him then, where he had been absorbed in the pain the revelations and trip down memory lane brought him, the jeering and threats had hurt her for other reasons entirely. ::And it's working.::

::I'm not against you!:: Phage retorted, distressed. The undertones of the thought belied her conflict and exposed her hurt. It wasn't a lie. She wasn't against him. ::I-I need to breathe is all. It's one thing to find a picture of an old flame and another thing entirely to find a risque video.::

::Phage.:: Dealing with two entirely different battlefronts that required completely opposite responses was taxing them both. Optimus floundered for a way to fix them and deal with Megatron. ::I-::

Her avatar as well as her physical self bit her lower lip and scrubbed at her face. ::Later.:: Later was quickly becoming their go-to. ::We need to stay focused on the target.::

"You've been thorough in your studies. Good, that saves a lengthy explanation. Yes, Elita-One. It was easy to plant her when a terrible war crime was perpetrated against a femme known as Greenlight and was threatened to be shoved aside because of legal wording in the Tyrest Accord failing to designate femmes as well as mechs."

Phage balked. ::Men.:: Drag up any piece of Earth legislation from a century back or Cybertronian Tyrest Accord. It didn't matter the planet after all.

"I seized the opportunity to sit down with Optimus Prime and write out the Greenlight Travesty Accord, an amendment to the Tyrest Accord that would not overlook the mistreatment of femmes in the war. In actually, it was my go to to brush aside why Elita-One was never severely harmed when we captured her – which was, on average throughout the war, frequently." Megatron shook his head, the waver in his voice belying the laugh that wanted to explode out. "Optimus was always so gullible." Suddenly, his optics dropped to her goblet. "You haven't finished your drink."

"Fuck my drink!" Phage snarled at the same moment Optimus was roaring in her head; ::That's a load of-:: "-lies! All of it!"

Optimus's rage and Phage's indignation had long pooled into one. Her thoughts finally turned to the laser scalpel in her subspace pocket. Acting on a sudden whim, Phage summoned it forth. She felt the laser scalpel materialize in the palm of her hand, felt the slender handle between her slim fingers, the light of the subspace so minute to not draw attention to her action. From Megatron's perspective, her action was nothing more than another subtle flex of her fingers.

Optimus did not even try and stop her from tapping her subspace pocket.

One lucky plunge, she reasoned with Prime, and she could severe the spine at the base of Megatron's neck just as the Decepticon Commander had done to him at the onset of the Battle of New York. Cut the motor relays. Megatron would be helpless. It would be short work from there to cut into his chassis and stab at his spark chamber.

Phage was banking on a nat twenty but guaranteed a true strike with Optimus's five million years of combat experience there to guide her aim.

Emotionally overtaxed and mentally strained to the breaking point, Phage's hard coded Witwicky temper exploded. "If Elita-One was a Decepticon double agent why not just assassinate Optimus Prime? Actually, why in god's name are you telling me any of this?! You could have reminiscent about any old war story! Instead you had me dragged in here to call me a liar, tell me the difference between loyalty and love, then rub Prime's exes in my face and tell me to enlist with the Decepticons! Where the hell is the fragging logic in any of that!"

"They are old war stories-just not what you were expecting." he replied calmly, meeting her murderous glare with his collected gaze. "Would you have preferred I told you about the time I nearly terminated Optimus Prime during the Simanzi Massacre? Or the first time Optimus Prime and I battled on Sherma Bridge? I'm sure Optimus must have already told you his side of half the war stories I could relate. I presumed you may have wanted to hear something fresh." Nonchalant, Megatron took in Phage's frustration as she cycled air heavily through her olfactories, cheeks burning a vibrant energon blue and muscle cables so tense she was close to trembling. Megatron's abrupt, low laugh jostled her. "It's invigorating seeing how close you wear your emotions to the surface. At my age, everyone just wears masks- and not just literally. Tell me, what are your thoughts? That you want to strike at me on Optimus's behalf? Shame. I have only tried to extend platitudes."

It was Phage who growled, "I can tell you where you can shove your platitudes."

Megatron's face crumbled up as he cycled in air through his olfactory and held it. Dark shadows crept in over his heavy brow. Slowly, he cycled the air back out through his olfactory. When he spoke next, his tone dripped to tutor sweet empathy that made her and Prime sick. "Your devotion is what I've been trying to patiently explain to you is unhealthy when it comes to Optimus Prime. I thought you were grasping that very concept. He has had three conjunx endura's and lost all of them." Megatron held up three black digits to literate his point and dropped them back one by one before he flattened his hand back against the bar top. "Ariel and Elita-One weren't even loyal. If events had continued as they were, you would have become a fourth. You still could," Megatron proclaimed with dramatic emphasis, "if some fluke of fate strikes as it always seems to do with Optimus Prime and reverses the battle's outcome." Phage bit her bottom lip hard to keep her face schooled to neutral. "Now that you recognize your love for him however, heed my advice and abandon it. Absolve yourself of your ties to the Autobots."

In the Infraspace, Phage and Optimus's avatar's turned to address Megatron as one, a steady realization dawning between them. "You want to break me."

"Those words are harsh. You're implying I'm forcing you to do something when I've done nothing of the sort but simply talked." Megatron waved to her vacated seat. "Sit down and finish your goblet. You've barely touched it."

"I don't want your damn engex."

"I command you to-Sit. Down." The authority in his voice was imposing. Phage flinched but Optimus did not stir a step. Megatron's voice softened as he added, "You've yet to trade stories with me about Optimus Prime."

::How about I command my scalpel through his throat.:: Phage thought darkly. ::I have an idea, Optimus.::

Optimus inclined his head dramatically until it was comically resting on his shoulder strut. His liberty blue optics blinked languidly back at her, large and patient.

Under his critical optic, Phage struggled with some internal decision that Megatron felt really required no thought at all. A small wave of triumph wormed its way through his systems as her muscle cables eased up and the rage eeked out of her fine chiseled features, leaving her looking weary and hollow. When he spoke again, his tone was as sympathetic as thick sweet syrup. "I understand this is difficult for you, Phage. Optimus has been quietly grooming you for years, but you now have the chance to break away." he waved his hand dismissively at her vacant seat, ignoring her sharp glare at his dark implication. "Come now... Join me. Finish your drink."

The femme walked the few steps back to the bar and regained her seat. Her white fingers of her left hand gripped the neck of the goblet, brought it to her white lips and drank. She pulled a face at the harsh burn and blinked hard.

In the Infraspace, Optimus's string of script and code flickered out of existence one by one while others dropped completely out of line and disappeared. Prime's avatar soon swooned and dropped to the metallic beach front, hitting his aft hard on the surface. Phage drifted back to his side, stumbling as she went and dropped down heavily next to him herself, resting her weight on one arm. While sitting, Optimus careened and face planted into the crook of her neck.

::No more engex. Please.::

::It's not exactly like I haven't tried to say no.::

If not for their situation, the suspicious narrowed optics that played across Prime's face would have been comedic in his engexed state. ::Something's wrong.::

Phage found a comfortable spot to rest her cheek on top of Prime's helm. ::With the engex? How cliché would that be.::

::Wha-no. I meant," Prime's thoughts were hard to formulate, ::Megatron hasn't demanded the Matrix from you. Not...exactly.::

She hmmed and hawed. ::Didn't he- I thought, he said...wasn't this just to mourn your passing?::

They both missed the quirk of a grin that picked at Megatron's lip components as he watched her indulge in a third sip.