Ratchet grunted as a silver sword sliced towards him from out of the green gloom before it then vanished back into the green fog. The air whipped around his helm and he turned and watched in awe as giant clouds of synth-en rose higher and higher and evaporated into space.

"I will not be denied!" Megatron shouted. He held the final vial of synth-en tight under his arm as he slashed at the Autobots left and right.

Bumblebee lunged in and fired and was sent back into a crater with a single kick, Megatron effortlessly dodged past Arcee as she flung herself at him in her alt-mode, and Bulkhead's wrecking ball collided with the undentable armor of Megatron's backplates.

He laughed and laughed, a cold sound that sent even colder chills down Ratchet's spinal struts.

The air shifted slightly as Soundwave glided through it. The two of them made brief optic contact for a split-second as Soundwave strided forward to Megatron.

"No, no, do not even think about interfering, my treacherous second!" Megatron's harsh voice shouted across the battlefield.

Soundwave went still and glared at his leader as Megatron continued to dance and slash around the Autobots.

"JUST END THEM," Soundwave montoned in a recording of Megatron's voice.

Megatron looked over his shoulder and glared at his second-in-command even harder. "This is a game and I am winning it!" He suddenly turned around and fired a fusion blast at Ratchet.

"Oh, frag—!" Ratchet grunted as he flung himself into the synth-sea as the fusion blast seared past his helm.

Ratchet fell into the hot synth-en sea and felt it flow all around him and into him. Everything was just green, green green green and all he could hear were the distant sounds of the fight above the surface as they grew even more and more distant.

Ratchet panicked, took in a vent, felt it rush into him, and then—

A talon grabbed around his wrist and yanked him up to the surface.

Ratchet breached the synth-en sea with a gasp and struggled to see his rescuer through the green synth as it evaporated away in vast clouds that rolled off into the void of space. He squinted and—

"Starscream?! Get out of here, Megatron will go after you!"

Starscream stood above him and the only thing Ratchet could see of him were the sharp lines of his frame as he stood shakily there in the fog.

Dread dropped into Ratchet's tank like a heavy lugball. "Why are you shaking?" He waved the fog away with his arms and for a split second the both of them could see clearly.

Bright green optics met even brighter and greener ones.

Ratchet lunged forward and grabbed onto Starscream's plating. "No, frag, no," he groaned as he shook the Seeker. "Resist, it frag it! Oh, I can't believe my mistake has spread to you too!"

Starscream took a deep shuddery vent and just continued to stare wide-opticed at the medic.

A deep thrum vibrated through the air as it began to buzz. A violet shape prowled through the green gloom and flashes of sunlight reflected across a shattered visor as Soundwave moved in.

Ratchet clutched onto Starscream's arm. "Hep hep, move those legs, now would be a good time to depart!"

Starscream stood still and rigid as he stared right at Soundwave as he prowled around the Seeker in large and slow circles.

"You are not going to hurt me," Starscream said as he clenched his talons.

Soundwave's optic narrowed and his cables rose up around him like an angry purple mass.

"No," Starscream said as Soundwave stalked closer, close and closer and closer—

"Starscream!" Ratchet shouted.

Starscream continued. "You are not going to hurt me—"

Soundwave's cable slammed forward.

And right past Starscream and into the moonrocks behind him.

"—because you are not allowed to."

The two of them stood faceplate-to-faceplate. Soundwave's narrowed red optic stared right into Starscream's cool and calm green ones. He drew back his cable out of the pile of moonrocks and the two of them listened to the entire pile slide down in an avalanche.

"To be honest, I don't know why I covered for you earlier. You absolutely did destroy the first synth-en mine. You let us destroy this one. Perhaps Optimus is right and there is something about you worth saving." Starscream let in a shaky vent. "You will not hurt me because Megatron would never allow it. But oh, you want to hurt me, but you just… can't. So you've chosen to hurt everything—and everybody—around you instead. First Optimus. And now just… rocks."

Soundwave's field rose up like a wave and raged and frothed in fury, yet he held still.

"I know that Megatron ordered you not to capture me because he wants to have fun with me first. And I know that you are tired of his games, so very very tired."

Soundwave froze.

"Well, Soundwave…" Starscream's calm expression faltered and his wing fell. "So am I."

He turned around, grabbed a shocked Ratchet by the arm, and led them both away. He resisted the urge to look back over his shoulders as the sounds of Soundwave's destructive rampage began behind him. Moondust was kicked into the void, pebbles skid past their pedes, the ground rumbled as Soundwave pounded into it—

And Starscream just swallowed what felt like a moonrock in his throat cables. He tried not to shake too much as Soundwave raged on and on with the same anger Starscream himself used to feel.

The two of them stumbled away and looked off into the clouds as the distant sounds of the Autobot's grunts and Megatron's laughter echoed toward them.

"I don't know how we'll win this," Ratchet said.

Starscream continued to stand there and shake. For once in his life he didn't shake in fear; it was some other emotion, but he wasn't sure of what it was. He wasn't really sure of anything anymore.

"I think…" Starscream reached out to put a comforting servo on Ratchet's shoulder. His hold on the medic was soft—

He shoved Ratchet back as his legs moved of their own accord and his other talon slashed out at a nearby drone that had snuck up behind them.

Starscream's optics shined a vivid shade of red rimmed with green as he stalked forward and grabbed the drone by his neck cabling in a tight grip. He yanked it up into the air and glared right him.

The drone choked under the sheer pressure of the grip as the Seeker's optics glowed redder and redder.

"What are you doing?" Ratchet gasped.

The drone's visor brightened as his field curled around him in panic. "C-Commander?"

Starscream's optics flickered blue and widened as if he had just seen the drone for the first time. His frightened optics looked down the length of his arm and he froze at the sight of his talon closed around the drone's neck cabling.

"...Did I just choke him?" Starscream said slowly as the drone scampered off.

Ratchet looked between Starscream's slightly shaky talon and the Seeker's shocked faceplate. "You did. You normally just stab and slash, you're not the kind of bot to…"

The air expanded around them as Megatron's massive frame stumbled past them. Megatron lifted a blade just in time to block Bulkhead's wrecking ball. The ball and its chain got wound up around the blade and Megatron grinned sharply as he pulled his arm backward and sent the Wrecker down to the ground in a crash. He transformed his blade back into his arm and reached out and grabbed ahold of Bulkhead's neck cables in a tight chokehold. Bulkhead choked under the sheer pressure of the warlord's grip.

A wrench thunked across the back of Megatron's helm. He slowly loosened his grip and turned around to face Ratchet. "Did you just…?"

Starscream glared at Ratchet as well. "What, so do you just have wrenches in your back pocket like loose change or something?"

Ratchet pushed Starscream away and glared at Megatron. "Get away from my patient!"

Bulkhead wheezed out a laugh. "Awww, so you do like me, 'Ratch!" He opened his intake to laugh again but then let out a pained choking noise instead as Megatron tightened his grip.

"Mhmm, it seems like the Wrecker can't handle the pressure," Megatron snarled. Starscream glanced back and forth between the talon he had used to choke the drone and the talon Megatron had wrapped around Bulkhead's neck cabling.

He let out a fusion blast that seared right past Starscream's helm and that careened into the innards of the ship. It exploded outward in a silver sphere of fire that made millions of shards of glass slowly fall in the low gravity.

Starscream flinched, but did not cower. He stood there and just stared at Megatron as his optics began to glow blue. The bright blue glow of them reflected across the millions of shards of glass as they fell around him and made the lunar surface glow bright blue amidst the green clouds for just a fraction of a second.

"Freedom is the right of every sentient being," Starscream wheezed out. It sounded weak and frail out of his own intake but still managed to make Megatron take a massive step back anyway.

"You're switching," Megatron breathed. "You're alternating between acting like me, and... " A dark shadow passed across Megatron's faceplate. "And him."

"Oh, Primus," Starscream moaned as he stared at his reflection in the shards of glass. Blue optics and then red ones looked back at him and rapidly flashed between being both colors.

"When you said you were channeling your Primely side, you weren't kidding!" Bulkhead said.

"Not! Helping!" Starscream hissed.

A sloshing sound echoed through the air and everybody turned and looked at Megatron. He held the vial of synth-en aloft so that the rays of the sun could shine through it and fall onto Starscream in a bright array of green sunshine.

Starscream squinted against the bright light and glared up at Megatron's silhouette. "You're… you're dead inside."

Megatron froze. "Say that again."

Starscream took a deep vent. "You're… you're being a tyrant—"

He lunged at Starscream and grabbed the Seeker's helm in his free talon. Angry red optics met bluish-green ones.

"It is what I thought," Megatron said. "You are caught between acting like me and acting like… Prime." He said Optimus's title with such vitriol that it made Starscream flinch. "Choose who you want to be! Choose to be me."

"No. I'm not you!"

"You think yourself a Prime?" Megatron scoffed.

"No. I'm neither of you and I'm still figuring myself out. And I think that that's… okay."

Megatron kicked Starscream and they both slid down into a steep crater.

"Will you force my sword down the same way Optimus has done so many times before?"

Starscream skittered away from Megatron and clung to a rock that jutted out of the sloped crater wall as Megatron slid down and glared up at him.

"Will you take on the Matrix and bear the name 'Prime,' the title that belongs to me?" Megatron shouted as he slashed angrily at the space just beneath Starscream's dangled legs.

Starscream leaped off of the crater wall and over Megatron's helm before he then fell down in an awkward roll at the bottom of the crater floor.

"Will you lecture to me more about morality and justice as you hypocritically break your own moral rules?!"

A fusion blast slammed into the ground just mere feet away from Starscream's helm and he twisted over to avoid another blast that went wide and struck the other distant crater wall.

"Will you call me brother and then abandon me as if I were just a stranger to you?!"

Starscream cried out as Megatron kicked him again and leaned in so close to his faceplate that he could feel his hot angry breath rasp over his faceplate.

"Will you leave me no choice and help me ruin Cybertron?!"

"You need no help doing that yourself," Starscream responded as the synth-en kicked in. His optics flashed hot red again and he pulled himself out from under the larger mech before he then lunged with a feral cry at Megatron's abdomen.

He scratched and clawed at the warlord and felt anger rise up within him, hot anger that suffocated and drowned and muted any other thoughts and reason and feelings until all he could feel was it and it alone. His talons plunged into Megatron and he felt his sharp digits tear away at Megatron's metal, but it was not enough, the warlord was unaffected, it was never enough, he was never just strong enough. Anger roiled around him in a haze of static and—

That anger in his field felt familiar.

Starscream stopped attacking and rolled off to the side as he felt his field angrily waver around him. He normally only ever felt that kind of anger within Megatron's field, never his own. He jolted as his optics glowed blue again. Megatron charged at him and Starscream dodged and reached down just in time to strike downwards with his arm. Megatron's sword swished past the Seeker's frame and cleaved itself into the lunar rock.

"I get it now!" Starscream gasped. "You hate Optimus, the mech, but you especially hate the idea of Optimus even more. He's the idea that even if you try your hardest to get on top there will still always be someone more righteous than you and just better than you constantly resisting you!"

"Nonsense!" Megatron snarled. "You make me out to be some pathetic sparkling who cowers in fear of anything and everything! I am not the one who cowers, I am the one who makes others cower."

The ground cracked and grumbled ominously beneath their pedes. The moon shuddered under the force of another quake as the surface began to rend itself apart.

Soundwave stood not far from them. Megatron tossed the vial of synth-en to him just in time. It clattered along the crater floor and Soundwave jumped back from it as if it had burned him.

The ground cracked more and more underneath them and a hole opened up right beneath Megatron that swallowed the warlord. Starscream shrieked and jumped away, but then Megatron's talon lashed out and dragged him into the hole at the last second.

The two of them fell a ways into the ground and Starscream grunted as the weight of Megatron's frame fell atop him. Grey moondust rained down them in rivulets of rocks as Megatron just laid there atop the Seeker and stared and stared right at Starscream.

Starscream whimpered. "Uh—"

"Leave him alone!" Arcee shouted from up above.

Megatron rolled his optics and glared at the new hole's opening. A ring of blue blaster barrels blazed above both their helms, each one of them pointed at Megatron's back.

"If you fire you dare risk hurting your new winged pet!"

Bulkhead snorted. "And if you so much as lightly scratch Star's wee little frame then we'll send enough blaster bolts into you to make you into Swiss cheese."

Megatron grumbled and rose to his pedes, but then reached down and yanked Starscream up and dragged him along. The rest of the Autobots jumped down into the new hole in the ground and the only light came from the hot red glow of Megatron's optics and the blue shine of six blaster barrels.

"Using him as a shield now?" Ratchet scoffed. "I thought the mighty Megatron didn't need anybody else to shield him. Pathetic."

Megatron's faceplate darkened. "You would know a lot about being pathetic, wouldn't you, oh Doctor of Doom?"

Arcee moved forward. "Enough with the bickering! We are going to end this conflict and we are going to end it right now. Give Starscream back."

"Or what?" Megatron laughed. "Soundwave still has the synth-en in his care. Even if you manage to escape me and return to your hidden base with your new pet then I will still be able to rebuild my creation! I bet Soundwave even saved the formula into our databanks!" His voice echoed around and around their helms and Starscream turned to look behind him. They hadn't fallen into a hole after all and instead a vast tunnel stretched away from them into the darkness.

"How the frag do we get out of here?" Bulkhead said.

Megatron frowned and pointed his fusion cannon up at the roof.

"No, you idiot!" Starscream said as he tried to pull his arm free of Megatron's grasp. "You'll bring the whole roof down on us! This is a natural empty lava tube!"

Megatron leaned down so close to Starscream that he could feel the warlord's breath wash over his faceplates.

"Do you really think me to be foolish enough to bring a sheet of rock down on my own helm? Me, Megatron, the former miner who broke free of the caves and mines I was thrust into?"

Starscream breathed heavily as Megatron leaned in even closer. "You've changed and I don't know what you'll do anymore."

He was yanked down the tunnel as Megatron tightened his grip on his talon and marched along. The Autobots followed after them and kept their blasters trained right on him.

"I am no mindless clod!" Megatron snarled from up ahead. "Why do all of you fools always seem to think that?"

"You mindlessly destroyed Cybertron," Arcee hissed from behind.

He didn't even turn to look at her as he scoffed and waved a lazy and dismissive servo. "Cybertron was doomed from the start. I merely spared our world from its final agonizing death throes by ending its suffering early. If anything, I am a creator, not a destroyer. I helped create a peaceful and almost painless ending for our world."

Arcee growled and Starscream saw the faint green glow of her optics reflect across her wrist blades as she extended them and walked up behind Megatron. Starscream reached out his other free talon not caught in Megatron's grasp and gently but firmly pushed her arm down.

"No," he said softly.

"No?!" Arcee's optics widened. "I… I can't start a fight. That's not the way out of this, is it?"

Starscream frowned and nodded. Arcee's faceplate spasmed as her field writhed in indecision. She retracted her blades with a snap.

Megatron yanked Starscream forward and the Seeker grunted as he found himself faceplate-down in the dirt. He lifted himself up from the dust with a gasp and glared at Megatron's silhouette above. "First of all, rude, and second of all—"

He froze. The air thrummed with a staticky sense of determination, but it definitely did not come from his own stressed field nor the Autobot's tired ones. He squinted up at Megatron and held his vents as the air prickled with the warlord's indecision. This was the same sense of tension he had felt around the warlord right before he had made every single one of his most terrible decisions.

And then Starscream was dragged. Sharp rocks cut into the bottom of his frame as Megatron barrelled down the tunnel at full speed and left the Autobots desperate to catch up.

"I will get us out of here! You dared to show doubt in my intelligence and so I will be the one to free us, the same way I liberated Cybertron!" A forked path in the lava tunnels appeared ahead and Megatron went down one, then another, and another, all as Starscream was dragged along and could only helplessly watch as the distant glow of the Autobot's optics grew even more distant.

Starscream wrenched his talon free of Megatron's with a cry and tumbled down a slope in the tunnel. "You know what?! You are just some brainless clod! You're so intelligent and yet are so foolish at times!"

"I am an intelligent threat to be feared, not a mech who stomps his pedes and throws temper tantrums!"

"You feel empty inside and chasing a way out is not going to change our view of you!"

Megatron said nothing and turned a corner. The sound of engines and tires revved behind Starscream and he heard the Autobots transform behind him as Megatron stomped off into the gloom.

"...Well. He's feisty today," Bulkhead said.

"What I would give to just get one more punch in," Ratchet sighed.

Arcee sighed and shook her helm. "Let's just turn around and see if we can climb out of the hole we fell in and—"

A fusion bolt ripped out of the darkness and zinged past their helms. They all watched it fly off into the shadows behind them and make the tunnel collapse in a flurry of boulders and sand that fell down over where they had come from.

There was a moment of silence.

"...I don't like Megatron," Bulkhead moaned.

"Oh, great, great, the warlord has trapped us in with him, what a good time we're having here," Ratchet grumbled as they made their way down the tunnel.

His low voice echoed down the tunnel from up ahead. "I am not mindless, I am not mindless…"

"It's official!" Bulkhead clapped his servos together. "He's lost his marbles."

"He's always been insane," Bumblebee sighed.

"Yeah, but he's just a skosh extra crazy today, y'know?"

Arcee squinted at Bulkhead. "Is 'skosh' even a word?"

Starscream drowned out the sound of their bickering and just focused on Megatron's delirious mumblings from up ahead. A heavy breathing noise filtered into his audials and he looked over at Ratchet.

Blue had begun to seep into the medic's optics again and he walked more slowly than he had before. Starscream put a servo on his shoulder and Ratchet flinched and looked up at him.

"It's wearing off, isn't it?" he said softly.

Ratchet scowled and looked off into the darkness. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, I've had enough of your strong tough-bot charade!"

"It's not a charade," Ratchet whispered. "For just a fleeting moment, it was real." He stopped walking and just stared off into the darkness up ahead.

Arcee cleared her throat behind him. "'Ratch?"

"I hear something up ahead." His servos creaked as he balled them into fists by his sides. "No. I still have some synth-en left in me which means I still have some strength left in me… which means…"

The team's optics widened and they all lunged in to block Ratchet as he leaped ahead and right over them. He turned and looked over his shoulder as a mirthless grin spread across his faceplate.

Starscream shrieked. "No, no no no—"

"I'm going to take Megatron down!" He punched one servo into the palm of the other one and then revved off down the tunnel.

The Autobot's jaws dropped and they watched him vanish before they all then glanced at each other. They transformed and drove off and left Starscream to catch up.

"Ah, left behind again, such fun."


Starscream skid around a corner and stared at the sight before him.

Megatron and Ratchet slowly turned around each other in a circle. A feral grin was spread wide across Megatron's faceplate and Ratchet's own intake was pressed into a thin firm line.

"This is a bad idea, 'Ratch," Bulkhead said from the sidelines. The Autobots all stood around the two mechs and uncertainly glanced between each other.

"I have fought down mechs much more powerful and much more threatening than the likes of you. You dare to challenge me in combat, the champion of Kaon and son of the Pits?"

"I do," Ratchet growled. "I've got one last bout of strength left in me and by Primus am I going to use it!"

"Bad idea. Terrible. Awful, really," Starscream said.

"Hep hep hep! I'm onto something here!" Ratchet shook out. His field flared with that same fledgling spark of determination that had always gotten snuffed out in Starscream's own field.

"This is folly!" Starscream panted as he ran up to the two mechs. "You're going to challenge him in a fight again despite what happened... last time?"

"Oh, don't remind me about 'last time,'" Ratchet scowled as he glanced into the shadows behind Megatron. "I'm not doing this despite last time. I'm doing this becauseof last time."

"What are you waiting for?!" Megatron laughed. "Strike your first blow against your enemy, oh mighty warrior!"

Arcee sighed. "That's it, we're getting you out of there."

The Autobots moved in to drag Ratchet away. Megatron swung out with his sword and sent the three of them back with a slash. Ratchet looked at something behind Megatron then turned his attention back to the warlord.

Megatron admired his green reflection in the smooth surface of his blade. "It has been far too long since I have locked blades with a foe. Prime is not here, so his uncle will have to do I suppose."

Starscream dragged his talons down his faceplate as he wracked his processor for ideas. Megatron and Ratchet circled around each other, around and around and around as Megatron's red optics stared into Ratchet's dimmer ones.

Ratchet glanced into the shadows behind the warlord and then at him again.

Pedesteps echoed behind them—

Megatron whirled around and shoved his sword into the chestplate of a drone. The vehicon slid off of it with a sickening crunch and clattered onto the moon rocks below. Megatron stared down at his own soldier he had just killed.

"Hah!" Ratchet laughed bitterly. "What kind of leader kills his own bots?"

Megatron turned around and pressed the tip of his blade against Ratchet's neck cabling. "I thought it was one of you insipid fools who had walked up behind me, not one of my own soldiers. My reflexive reaction was perfectly reasonable and justified!"

Ratchet shook his helm. "'Oh, whoopsie, I killed my own bot!' Now that's a shoddy excuse if I ever heard one! No, you claim to be this big liberator who just sees violence as a means to an end, but all you are is a warmonger! If you really wanted this war to die and for Cybertron to live then you would be more careful when being more violent. You would only be violent if you were absolutely certain it was the last resort. And look at you. You just killed your own bot. Didn't even check to see who it was first. It could have been Soundwave!"

"I am no warmonger! I am not the one who foolishly challenges his enemies to duels."

Ratchet grabbed the tip of Megatron's sword and shoved it down. "I never wanted to duel you. I heard a drone up ahead and I knew you'd somehow frag it all up."

Megatron hissed in rage. "I do not beat nor kill mechs without good reason!"

"You always beat me for no reason," Starscream said softly.

Everybody turned to look at him.

Starscream took a deep vent. "In your optics, my existence itself was reason enough to beat me."

Megatron glared at the Seeker who he had once called his. "And it still is," he said softly.

"I know," Starscream began slowly because saying radical things that did not align with what Megatron wanted was always a risky proposition, "that you are Sentinel."

Megatron turned his back to the Autobots as he marched ahead. A faint shaft of light shined up ahead from a crack in the tunnel's ceiling and wall.

"What are you doing?!" Bulkhead harshly whispered.

Starscream ignored the Wrecker and pointed a shaky digit at Megatron's dirtied back. "And I know that you know I'm right. You wanted to take him down by understanding how tyrannical he was, and you know what? You found yourself agreeing with him. And you hated that, hated it so much, so you justified it to yourself by saying that it wasn't the ideas that were the problem, it was just the mech implementing them."

Ratchet flinched. "Calm down!"

Starscream ignored him. "You rationalized to yourself, 'oh, tyranny is bad, but only when I'm not the one in control!' You used to see the war as a means to an end but now it just is never going to end! The synth-en makes us all act like our worst selves, but I bet if you drank it it wouldn't change you because you're already your worst self! Because you're a fragging—"

Megatron swung out with his sword and the tip of it sliced across Starscream's abdomen and left a long horizontal slash of energon behind.

Starscream fell to his knees as his last word fell out of him in a pained breath.

"—functionist."

Ratchet darted forward and examined the new wound. "Not fatal. Painful, yes, but it will scar nicely."

Megatron continued to say nothing and just stood there and breathed heavily. Particles of moon dust floated in the ray of light up ahead and cast Megatron's frame into a harsh silhouette and made his shadow fall down onto the bloodied Seeker and medic below.

"Do you regret… what you did just now?" Bumblebee blooped softly.

Megatron's shallow field roiled slightly.

"Because if you really are a liberator and peacemaker, then… you would," Bumblebee continued.

"I have become many things, but most of all I have not adopted the ideology of the mech I hate most. He is a specter, a shadow in the back of my helm, just another name on the list of foes I have proudly vanquished."

Starscream laughed weakly. "You didn't vanquish him, you became him. You said that Sentinel is the mech you 'hate' the most. Present tense. Not past. Oh, you feel that he's still here, don't you? I am not the one here who is haunted by the past." Images of Starscream's trinemates flashed unwantedly into his processor. "He lives in you."

"He is a cold corpse left dangling on his throne!" Megatron shouted. He raised his fusion cannon and blasted it at the crack in the wall. Bright sunlight flooded the tunnel and everybody squinted against the light as Megatron ran up to the lunar surface.

The Autobots rose to the surface as well and watched as Megatron turned around and spread his arms wide as if he felt as if he could hold the whole world in them.

"Look at what I have built!"

Ratchet pointed angrily at something behind the warlord. "Look behind you."

Megatron breathed heavily as he slowly turned around. His massive field froze around him.

A deep groove had been cruelly cut into the lunar landscape and it glittered with the sharp and twisted remains of his own lab. Long sword slashes criss-crossed that were the exact length and depth of Megatron's blade.

"I... I was provoked. You fools wrought this destruction," Megatron said softly.

"No." Starscream rose to his pedes as his field flared out Primely. "You did this to yourself. You are not only hurting us, you have hurt yourself as well."

Megatron stomped over to him as he began to shake. "All because of you, always you, only you, Optimus—!"

Starscream sharply inhaled. "Optimus is not here. But if he was he would be disappointed."

"No, no no no, all this time I thought Prime had just tamed you and made you into his lapdog! But now?" Megatron snarled and tightly gripped onto Starscream. He pulled the Seeker close and held his helm in his massive servos. "No… you're not his lapdog. I have seen the error of my ways."

Starscream blinked. "You… you have?"

Megatron leaned in so close that the only thing Starscream could see was just his two hot red optics. "Yes," he rasped. "You're not his lapdog, you're him. Oh, I should have seen this coming! I chose to create a legacy of fire and steel and he chose to create a legacy of… clones."

Starscream began to shake as well. "You are making no sense—"

"I am making so much sense that it hurts," Megatron shrieked with laughter. "His ideology has infused you and he has trained you to think the way he does. Thus he has ensured his immortality. I thought all along that I could end this war whenever I pleased by just killing Optimus. I thought if I brought an end to him I would bring an end to his ideology as well. But no. If I kill him, you'll just take his place."

Starscream squirmed in Megatron's grip as the Autobot's shouts grew nearer. "I could never take his place!"

"You already have!" Megatron growled as he pushed down on Starscream's helm with his full might. Starscream cried out in pain as error messages flashed and pulsed across his HUD.

"Leave him alone!" Ratchet's voice echoed.

"Where are they?" Megatron snarled. "What other treacherous thoughts have been implanted inside of your pathetic processor? I reshaped your frame so he chose to reshape your mind and—"

Megatron fell to a knee and Starscream fell out of his grasp. Ratchet ran over and pulled Starscream away from the fallen warlord as the smell of burnt plating wafted up around them. A blaster bolt had been burnt into the back of Megatron's thigh. Bumblebee stood high upon the rim of a crater with his blaster outstretched. It blazed a bright hot blue that burned bright against the green storm clouds that rose around them.

"Are you okay?" Ratchet asked the Seeker.

Starscream laughed weakly. "When have I ever been?"

Megatron roared as he rose up to his pedes despite the burnt hole within his thigh. He gave Starscream a massive kick and sent the Seeker down into a large crater still full of liquid synth that had only just begun to evaporate. He fell into it with a splash and felt it seep into his armor and seams like pure ice. Ratchet's panicked silhouette vanished and all Starscream could see and smell and hear was just the synth. It rumbled deeply around him as it began to evaporate, but there was no way it would evaporate in time.

Starscream plunged down into the green sea and felt it all flood into him all at once in a tidal wave that poured straight into lines. He saw Megatron above the surface of the water, then Optimus, then it was Megatron again, a shimmering hallucination that switched back and forth between the two mechs.

Starscream kicked and clawed his way to the surface, but the weight of the synth and his own exhaustion just dragged him down and down and down. If the synth sank too deeply into him, if it got to his spark chamber and breached it then—then—

He wouldn't let his own spark get snuffed by his own creation, not today. But he was so terribly tired and the synth was so terribly strong.

This was it, the end, his own old creation was what would get him killed, the synth-en rushed in—

The synth-en rushed in, in and in and in—

"Hooah!" A voice shouted from above the synth as a white and orange servo reached down and yanked him up.

Starscream was dragged onto the grey lunar shore and let out a few wet coughs as the synth-en sluiced off his frame. "Ratchet," he wheezed.

"Yes?"

"You make for a terrible lifeguard."

Ratchet recoiled. "I literally just saved your life—"

"Hep hep hep," Starscream sighed as he gave Ratchet a few wet pats. "Thank you."

"Mphmmf. You're welcome. I just happened to be passing by in the area."

Bumblebee shouted over at them from atop the rim of a crater. "He screamed when you fell in and ran over to you!"

Ratchet scowled up at the scout. "Traitor, a little traitorous yellow traitor, that's what you are—!"

Starscream coughed. "Of course you saved me, you need somebody to bitch at who isn't Optimus."

"I do not—"

Ratchet fell silent when Starscream hooked a shaky arm around him. The distant sounds of Megatron's roars echoed above their helms and they both squinted up at the crater's rim.

"We're going to have to climb, aren't we?" Starscream sighed.

Ratchet groaned and helped the Seeker rise to his pedes as they began to climb up the sloped crater walls.

"Starscream," Ratchet rasped, "how did you manage to be so calm? I thought for certain that you'd…"

"Stab somebody?" Starscream snorted. "No, no, I felt calm because I feel like there is a certain point where you get so stressed and angry and just tired that you just become numb to it all. Isn't it funny how the right course of action sometimes only becomes obvious when we're most overwhelmed? Heh."

Ratchet thought for a moment. "When you were under Megatron's control, you chose to deal with the pain you felt by choosing not to feel it all."

Starscream reached down and lightly smacked Ratchet's forehead. "Emotionally analyzing me and dissecting me is Prime's thing, not yours! I'm half a second away from sending your little orange aft careening down into the crater with one strong kick."

"Okay, okay, stop smacking me!" Ratchet grumbled as he pushed the rattled Seeker away. "Gah, you're like an angry scraplet."

"Is Optimus numb, too?" Starscream asked softly.

Ratchet stared at him for a long time. Megatron's distant laughter sounded like the sound of glass shattering a mile away. He went silent and looked away.

Starscream sighed. It seemed that was the most he'd get out of the grumpy medic for now—

"I think so," Ratchet said suddenly as he sat down on the sloped crater wall. He shook his helm. "No, I know so. He couldn't figure out how to handle all of the emotions of the war. So he chose to try and not feel them at all."

Starscream blinked. "'Try'?"

Ratchet nodded slowly. "He tries. I worry about him a lot... well, I suppose that's one thing we have in common: we both care deeply for Optimus. I care for him because, well, I'm his caretaker, and you care for him because he's your caretaker."

"Hey! Ah, I suppose that isn't wrong. I guess he does take care of me."

"Pah, you 'guess'? I don't think I'll ever forget the way he held your tearful form as he walked into base with you for the first time—"

"Okay, no, we do not need to relive that moment of weakness—"

"Oh, please, you regret nothing. You liked it! And yet you accuse me of being the emotional one."

Starscream kicked a spray of moondust at Ratchet and hoisted himself over the crater rim with a grunt.

A shadow fell over him. Megatron loomed over him and his two red optics glowed like twin red suns right beside the real one. Off in the distance Starscream saw Bumblebee shakily rise to his pedes, Arcee groan as she pulled herself out of another crater, and Bulkhead limp up to Megatron. Each of their frames was singed over and covered in dents.

Ratchet huffed behind Starscream and began to pop his orange helm over the rim of the crater. "See, this old coot can keep up with you!"

Starscream shoved him back down.

There was an offended gasp. "I am not some prairie dog you can just shove back down into its hole!"

Ratchet rose up again and his optics widened at the sight of the warlord. Megatron leaned down with a toothy grin and gripped both of Ratchet's shoulders in his massive talons. "Oh, but you are." He shoved Ratchet back down into the crater and Starscream winced as the medic fell halfway down it again.

"What do I have to do to make you stop?" Starscream whimpered.

Megatron tilted his helm curiously. "'Stop'?"

"Yes! Stop this—this absolute madness, this tyranny, this—"

Megatron stomped his pede down onto the ground and sent a spray of rocks up at Starscream. "I am not going to stop, I have only just started!"

"I won't allow you to hurt anybody or anything on any world ever again," Starscream groaned.

"You failed!" Megatron sneered as the clouds of synth-en rose higher and higher around him. The moon shook more with the sheer intensity of the synth as it evaporated in larger and larger clouds. "I have no idea what this madness is, but what I do know is that thanks to my contingency plan, if you destroy the lab it will destroy a part of the Earth."

Somebody breathed heavily from within the crater. Ratchet rose over its edge, his optics a dim blue and his field just like its old self again. He shook his helm. "No, Megatron. We're not destroying the lab. We're just destroying what it created."

Megatron stomped over to Soundwave and ripped the synth-en out of his shaky servos. He held it up to the sun and grinned as the sun's light shined through it and made bright green rays of light fall down onto him and reflect across his armor.

Soundwave's field shook as he lunged forward to his master. "REFRAIN—"

Megatron chugged half of the synth-en in the vial and everybody watched with slack jaws and wide optics as it poured down his intake. Rivulets of it dripped down from his intake and spilt into a puddle by his pedes. His optics shot wide open and glowed a vivid green as his grip on the vial loosened and it slipped free. Half it still sloshed around inside. The moon's weak gravity took hold of it and Soundwave lunged forward and caught it before it shattered.

Megatron looked down at his stained talons and flexed them as if he were seeing them for the first time.

"Ha! You fools just do not understand," Megatron said as he looked at the Earth in the sky. "It is my natural right to literally look down on the weaklings who are beneath me in every way—in terms of strength, will, spark, goals, and frametype!"

Bulkhead lunged at him from behind, but then Megatron dodged him with just one step to the side. Bulkhead drove right past him and into the crater. Megatron whirled around and let a spray of blaster bolts aimed right for him harmlessly patter against his suddenly outstretched blade. Arcee drove at him at full speed and Megatron caught her with his other arm and flung her away. Starscream winced as he heard one of her tires burst.

"Don't you see yourself for the lot of warmongers that you all truly are?!" Megatron laughed as his optics glowed a hot acidic green and his field began to shake. Soundwave bowed his helm beside him.

Starscream looked behind him at the tired and dirty frames of the Autobots and then looked back up at Megatron.

"You're right, Megatron. The ship of war does glide on. But I'm not manning it—no, in fact, you are the sole bot managing that ship. Here's the thing about ships, though: every ship sinks sooner or later. Yours is at the bottom of the Atlantic."

Megatron's optics widened as Starscream's began to glow blue again.

"You're a sunctionist," Starscream snarled. "Bulkhead is one of the most important members on this team, and yet you disregard him at every turn and see him as lesser just because he was built for construction and not war!"

Megatron snarled and shot another fusion blast at the Seeker. Starscream easily dodged it with one lean to the side and ignored the spray of rocks against his back as the fusion blast exploded behind him.

"You repeat the dogma of Optimus without even realizing it!" Megatron shouted.

Starscream swallowed the terror he felt gather in him and glared right back. "W-well, you repeat the dogma of the Council members you hated so much without even realizing it!"

"I do not! I do not preach out empty promises and lies of unity! I am that which I am!"

"...Shoot me," Starscream said. His spark thrummed and his frame shook and his field jittered around him, but somehow he knew deep down that he would be fine.

Megatron's optics widened. "What? You, the mech who drops to the ground and flees in terror at the mere sound of my cannon has now suddenly decided he wants to be its victim?!"

The rest of the team's confused shouts echoed around his helm, but he ignored them and began to walk forward to Megatron. He ignored the raw fear in his teammate's fields and the sharp pain that shot through his tired pedes and the hot acidic green glow of the clouds all around them. His optics were trained on Megatron, wide-opticed Megatron and his fusion cannon, as hot and angry as the sun—

Megatron fired it.

Starscream felt bile rise up in his throat as the cannon's nozzleflashed—

The bolt shot towards him.

He flinched, violently, as it grew hotter and closer—

It slammed into the ground right in front of him with a boom. A spray of dirt and rocks struck Starscream and he offlined his optics against the onslaught.

The dust finally cleared and he let out a cough as he opened his optics to look at Megatron again.

Somebody began to laugh. It was a hitch-pitched and painful noise that scratched against his audials and that rang round and round him.

Starscream coughed suddenly and the laughter stopped.

"Oh, it… it was me who was laughing, huh," he chuckled. "You missed, Megatron."

"On purpose!" Megatron roared.

"Precisely! You missed me on purpose. Because that's the thing about oppressors l-like you, Megatron. You're so caught up in oppressing people that it becomes the core of your identity—which is why you can't afford to kill me, the bot you've oppressed the most, because without me what are you? Just an angry mech without a punching bag."

"That is not true!" Megatron shouted as he fired another blast of the fusion cannon.

Starscream screwed his optics shut as a bolt of blazingly hot plasma seared past his frame—

And careened into the darkness.

"If t-that's not true..." Starscream took a deep deep vent, his entire frame ached with the sheer terror within him, he wanted to just run—

He opened his optics again. "Then why am I still alive?"

"Because… because you need to be taught a lesson!" Megatron snarled. Soundwave stood still and silent by his side. His single exposed optic wasn't locked onto Starscream anymore, but instead was fixated right on Megatron.

"Because oppressors like you always make it your duty to 'educate' bots by oppressing them! Ha! Freedom is the right—"

Starscream was thrown to the ground with a solid punch and then he scrambled away from Megatron. He stared up at the warlord in horror as Megatron rose to his full height and raised his arms as if he wanted to reach out and grab the Earth.

His field roiled and thrashed around him. Starscream shuddered at the thought of what horrendous emotion might suddenly overwhelm Megatron now due to the synth. Maybe his field would creak in betrayal or surge with wrath or maybe even sizzle with envy.

Megatron's field lashed out in a wave of hot and cold static and then—

He stared blankly into space, his frame frozen and arms still outstretched to the void. The team glanced between each other as Megatron continued to stay still.

Something tickled across Starscream's armor and he frowned. No, he was still definitely within the sphere of Megatron's EM field. That sizzle of static had definitely come from Megatron.

But Megatron's field never quietly brushed past his own, it had always just overwhelmed his own. That was the kind of weak field Starscream had come to expect from a drone, from a scraplet. It couldn't be Megatron's, it couldn't, but yet it was—

And it was hollow.

"Primus," Starscream breathed. "You're empty on the inside."

Megatron's helm snapped around to face his as he marched up to Starscream. "Repeat that! Say it to my faceplate!"

Starscream's optics flickered blue again. "Your field used to be full of such deep passion and now it is hollow and weak—all as a result of your own pathetic and empty reasons for continuing this war."

"'Pathetic' is the last word one should ever use to describe the likes of me!"

"Your field is as shallow as you have become. The synth-en has revealed it."

Soundwave's own field flickered around him and he struggled to contain it. Starscream sensed only a few hints of it but he could still tell that there was a massive depth to Soundwave's field, like standing on the edge of an ocean you knew ran low and deep.

But sensing Megatron's field was like standing on the edge of a massive but shallow sea. It was large and stretched as far as you could see.

And it was terribly terribly lifeless.

"Wait... you've been harping on about the synth-en and its mighty potential for so long now, and yet you're only just now drinking some?"

"I was awaiting the opportune moment to empower myself with it!" Megatron snarled and lunged at Starscream. Starscream threw himself back and watched in shock as the warlord stumbled over his own pedes and into a crater.

Starscream shook his helm. "No… the only reason you waited so long to take the first sip is because you weren't sure if it'd be good for you and you wanted to test it out on other bots first."

"Nonsense!"

"You're right, it does make no sense! You boldly chugged down the dark energon without any clue of what it'd do to you, so why the new hesitance when it comes to the synth-en?"

Megatron hissed at him as Soundwave remained cold and silent by his side.

"Because…" Starscream's wing drooped. "You were more cautious of the synth-en because you knew that I was the one who invented it. You didn't trust my own work."

"A part of me always suspected that your idiotic nature was the result of your stupid past self-experimentation with your own creation. But then I realized that no… you are the wretch you are just because that is just who you choose to be."

Starscream flinched.

"Ah, but I was still cautious. So perhaps I did wait to test it out on my troops! So what, fool? Is it not my natural right to stand strong as others fall weakly before me?"

"'So what?!' Bold and mighty Megatron here used his own soldiers as guinea pigs because he was too scared to step forward and take a risk! And yet you accuse me of being a coward!"

"I still have the synth and I am certain my new second-in-command has memorized the formula. Isn't that right, Soundwave?"

The silent mech looked between Megatron and the vial of synth in his thin talons, and then looked down.

Megatron's faceplate twitched. "You did save the formula, didn't you?"

No response.

"Fine then, I will forgive your incompetence and negligence this one time because we have a remainder of synth here that will solve our problems. Soundwave!" Megatron barked. "About time! Toss me the remainder of the synth and together we will build up what these harlots brought down."

Soundwave stood high upon the crater rim, his sharp frame silhouetted against the acid green clouds. He narrowed his optic down at Megatron below and then looked down at his own warped reflection in the cracked glass of the synth-en vial. Half of the synth still remained.

Megatron continued to confidently grin up at Soundwave. He held out a massive talon ready to receive the synth-en.

Soundwave looked back and forth between Megatron and the synth-en. He took a deep shuddery vent that shook his entire frame as he reached out his cables and coiled them around the vial.

Megatron's optics widened. "No—!"

The sound of the vial's shatter was so soft and yet managed to be so incredibly loud. The synth-en within it exploded outward in a sphere of liquid that floated into the low gravity and that flowed like a hot green river.

A guttural roar unleashed itself from Megatron's throat as he lunged to his pedes and scrambled up the steep crater slope. He slashed out with his talons and tried to grasp the synth in his talons. The synth-en slid between his digits and dissolved in a flurry of green rivulets that flowed off into nothingness.

Soundwave stood high above his master and shook as he watched Megatron thrash and panic like a desperate caged animal below. The Autobots stared up at the spectacle with wide optics as the air grew thick with the static of Megatron's enraged field.

"Come back to me, come back to me," Megatron said as he reached out and tried to grab the last rivulet of synth-en before it vanished. It flowed through his digits and arced up high in a wisp of liquid that joined the high green clouds above.

Megatron stood upon the crater slope, his back to everybody and his faceplate up to the stars as the green clouds began to fade.

Soundwave just stared. His frame shook imperceptibly and his optic watched everything, but Starscream knew better.

He knew a bot trying to hide his terror when he saw one.

Soundwave tensed himself.

Megatron threw his arm back and here it would come, the vicious backhand, the brutal beating—

He grabbed gently onto Soundwave's faceplate and just held his new second-in-command's smooth visor in his talon.

There was silence.

"The Pits," Megatron said suddenly and softly.

Soundwave blinked. "...MASTER?"

"Do you remember," Megatron said so so slowly, "the Pits? How I dragged you out of them and into a better life?"

"MASTER?"

Megatron continued to keep his back turned to everybody. "I unburied you from the Pits and I can rebury you in them again."

Megatron's talon fell from around Soundwave's helm.

Soundwave took one last look at his leader's back and turned around as he began to walk away. He and Starscream glanced at each other. Soundwave froze—

And then vanished into a bright green groundbridge.

Silence reigned again and all the Autobots stood at the bottom of the crater as they stared up at Megatron's frozen solid form atop the rim.

"We need to leave. Now," Starscream said as Megatron began to shake.

Ratchet frowned. "Are we certain it's all gone?"

"If we don't leave now then our lives will be gone!"

Arcee commed for a bridge and one flickered to life right beside them. "Comms are up again! I guess Soundwave stopped blocking them."

Starscream took one last look at Megatron up above as a slow moan hummed in the air. It grew louder and louder and the Autobots all flinched as it finally burst out of Megatron in the form of a loud shout of rage that boomed across the lunar landscape.

Megatron stretched his arm out to the sphere of the Earth above, spread out his digits and covered the Earth with his servos—

And then closed his servo into a fist.

Another servo grasped Starscream's arm and he flinched as he whirled around to face Bulkhead. "You go first, Star."

Starscream looked at all of the Autobots with wide optics. "I… no, I…"

The Autobots ushered him through the bridge and the last thing Starscream saw of Megatron was his high and lonely frame.


Starscream lurched up in his berth in the medbay and felt something tug on his talon. He looked over and saw Ratchet seated beside him, his servos clasped around one of Starscream's talons that hung over the berth's edge.

"Calm down, calm down—"

"What? Why did I pass out, but the rest of you didn't?! I am quite offended that I dropped like a ragdoll and had to be unconsciously yanked back home."

Ratchet just stared at him for a few moments. "You just called the base 'home.'"

"I hope I'm not misusing the term and getting too comfortable here, if that is what has you alarmed."

"Primus, no! If you had called the base your home before everything that had happened with the synth-en, then I would have just been annoyed. But I think you've proven to all of us that you do deserve to have the base as your home."

Starscream looked away and cleared his throat. He narrowed his optics at the sight of Ratchet's servos held onto his talons.

"Ohhh, you—"

"Not a word, Seeker. Not. A. Word."

"Ohoho, so I've been demoted back to just 'Seeker' again? Fine… how is the rest of the team?"

"Hovering like a bunch of anxious scraplets!" Ratchet scowled at the doorway and the shadows of several bots outside. "Shoo, shoo, my synth-en spree is over but my wrench-throwing one is not!"

Starscream let out a shaky gasp and gently patted Ratchet's shoulder. "You're mean again! I missed the mean you."

Ratchet sighed. "Well, you have grumpy old Ratchet back for good."

Starscream frowned. "Does Optimus know about your… food situation?"

He grimaced and groaned. "No. He never needs to. This is our secret, do you understand?"

Starscream slowly nodded. "Ah, look at us, you used to hold a saw over my neck and now we're sharing and entrusting little secrets."

The tingled with a smidge of arrogance as Ratchet confidently leaned over and puffed his plating.

"Because after all, I am…" Ratchet trailed off as he began to smirk.

Starscream leaned back from him. "No, no, do not say it!"

"I am the siren of the night—"

"Stop, stop! That phrase now activates my fight-or-flight instinct!"

"Hah! Speaking of flight…"

Starscream sat up so quickly that he nearly fell off his berth and Ratchet had to stabilize him.

"Frag, calm down! I just wanted to tell you that I have the skeletal structure of your wing and its sensors completed. That was the hardest part." Ratchet gestured off to a table with a half-finished wing on it in the corner.

Starscream began to laugh and eagerly flapped his wing at the sight of the other one. "I had no idea it was possible to be so happy to see a limb just sitting around!"


Optimus came in and smiled tightly at the sight of the two mechs. His chestplates felt tight, too tight, and he wasn't sure why but the sight of them happy and alive made them feel tighter. Everybody was so banged up and bruised except for him.

He could see all their reflections in a nearby computer screen. Especially his. His red and blue armor was clean and fine—

But theirs was scored with dents and scratches and oh Primus, Starscream looked as if he had been singed by the edge of a fusion cannon blast.

Optimus looked away from them.

He could see the reflections of Starscream's and Ratchet's frames in the computer screen in front of him. But some force within Optimus prevented him from being able to turn around and look his Autobots in their optics.

Optimus frowned. He was no coward, never had been, and had no intention of ever becoming one.

Shame rose up hot and acidically in his field. He should have been beside them but instead he was beside nobody at all.

The elevator let out a ping and the doors slid open to reveal a very disheveled and very stern human. Fowler did not have an EM field but Optimus was certain that if he did have one it would have been very turbulent.

Fowler held a piece of paper with lunar satellite pictures on it and waved it up at them. "NASA has questions."

"And we don't have answers. We're out of here." Starscream got off his berth and strutted off into the base with Ratchet by his side.

Fowler scowled at the two of them and then turned his attention to Prime. "Well?!"

"I…" Optimus trailed off. He was not there, he couldn't protect his team, couldn't take their pain. "I was not present for this mission and it would be best for Arcee to fill you in."

Arcee glanced at Optimus before she began to recount the mission's events. Optimus turned and walked off into the shadows of the base as his spark began to pulse harder in his chestplates. He passed by the doors to both of Ratchet and Starscream's bedrooms and the sight of them made his plating clench. Things had turned out rather fine, yes, but could things have turned out even better had Optimus just been there?

He lifted up the hatch that led to the roof of the base as a cold blast of night air struck him in his faceplate. The pale—and thankfully white, not green—glow of the moon lit Optimus's frame in bright slashes of silver.

The moonlight reflected across Cliffjumper's horn.

"I was not there to protect you back then," Optimus said softly. "I was not even there to protect them just now."

He stared up at the full moon.

It wasn't green.

Not yet.


Megatron just stayed there on his knees.

He looked up at the clear Earth above and then slowly looked down and around the moon around him. The lab, the tunnels, and the entire ship itself were almost intact except for a portion of it that Megatron himself had destroyed. All traces of green were gone and only bright lunar silver remained. The regolith crunched softly behind Megatron and he sighed.

Soundwave was only ever heard when he wanted to be.

"So," Megatron began slowly and hesitantly.

Talking to Megatron when he was like this was like watching the waves get sucked back to sea before the tsunami came: you knew the tsunami would come. You just didn't know when it would.

Soundwave said nothing.

"You let them destroy it," Megatron said. Not a question, just a plain fact.

Soundwave gave a slight nod of his helm.

"IF I RECALL… YOU TOLD ME NOT TO."

Megatron clenched his talons into fists.

"IF I RECALL… I WAS TOLD TO LET THEM HAVE FUN."

"Why didn't you stop me?!" Megatron shouted. He rose to his pedes so suddenly that he disturbed the moondust around them and made a cloud of it drift into the air. All of the world was suddenly foggy gray and the only light came from the red and green optics of two very different mechs.

"YOU WANTED TO PLAY A GAME. 'War is a game, fighting is a game, and fear is a game, too. Fear will be your master, Starscream.'"

"I—I—"

Soundwave's spark pulsed harder in his chestplates than it had in years. "'Are you ever going to actually try and end the war, or just keep playing games!?'"

"No, no, no," Megatron groaned. "Do not speak using his voice!"

"'I define the war and the war defines me!'"

"Now you dare to use my own words against me as well?! Begone, I have no desire to see your treacherous faceplate any longer."

Soundwave's field tightened and shook around him as he turned around and began to walk away.

Megatron grabbed some moon rocks in his servo and crushed them. He scowled up at the Atlantic ocean up on the Earth. He would soon have no choice but to return to the dark and dismal ship on the seafloor.

His spark pulsed uncertainly within him and he scowled. Uncertainty was the last emotion he should ever feel in any scenario ever, yet there it was curled up cruelly around his spark.

He offlined his optics—

And the memory of red and blue armor leaped out at him.

No, he would prove himself. The reason this entire mess had happened in the first place was because of Prime's arrogance. Prime ruined his Seeker and Prime ruined his laboratory. Now it was time for Optimus to face the consequences of his actions.

Megatron rose to his pedes, a new sense of determination hot within him. He called after Soundwave's distant form.

"Wait," Megatron said suddenly.

Soundwave froze and kept his back to his leader as his field flared out cautiously.

Megatron smiled. "Call Optimus."