His optics widened at the sight of the thousands of stars. The vast expanse of space stretched out before the glass viewport of the Nemesis's command deck. Megatron stood in front of the glass and watched his own reflection look out at all the stars that were certainly his to claim. Megatron's spark beat faster and faster as the dark energon ripped and roared through his systems. His spark beat in rhythm with another one, another beat far below his pedes that he would soon reach.

"Do you know the stories?"

The deck was quiet behind him.

"Well?" Megatron scoffed. "I have an entire army yet I feel as if I am alone."

Breakdown's field flared nervously. There, that was more like it. "Which stories, My Lord?"

"The old ones. Cybertron had many. But few were told in the highest towers and also the lowest of mines. The story of Megatronus."

"You?"

"My namesake. The great champion of Unicron, a mighty hero who rejected the hypocritical and corrupt ways of Primus and the Thirteen. He climbed his way up to the sky."

"The sky," Breakdown said numbly. His field hummed with longing.

"When the 47 spheres align,'" Megatron began slowly. He turned around to face the entire bridge. Soundwave, Airachnid, Breakdown, and Knock Out all stared up at him from within a crowd of watchful drones.

"'A perpetual conflict will culminate upon a world forged from chaos. And the weak shall perish in the shadow of a rising darkness.'"

Silence.

There was a clapping noise.

Breakdown's fake smile vanished when he saw everybody's optics on him. "Uh, good poetry my Lord."

"It is the prophecy of the Primes that I have just recited. They speak of a grand new champion rising up. One like me. Do you know of my namesake?"

Breakdown remained silent.

Megatron walked over to his new second and hooked his arm over the mech's shoulders. Breakdown's field shuddered as Megatron practically dragged him up to the viewport. The view of the stars outside staticked out and flickered before it returned to normal.

"Wait a second! These are Cybertron's stars!"

"Indeed. The stars Megatronus, the Fallen, looked upon when he decided to free himself of Prima and his corrupt ways."

"I see," Breakdown said in that slow tone of voice you use when you had no clue what was happening. "But what does this have to do with the war?"

"'What does this have to do with the war'? What does it not have to do with the war? It is time for me to claim my destiny. I will prove to Unicron that I am a worthy bearer of his champion's name and that I am worthy enough to be the new Megatronus."

"...Oh," Breakdown said softly.

Megatron leaned down over the poor mech. "Yes. 'Oh.' And you will stand by my side as I take my place near Unicron's side."

The view of the stars flickered again. The hologram of Cybertron's night sky blinked in and out of existenced. A view of the cold dark ocean expanse became visible before it was overlaid with the fake starry sky again.

Megatron growled and punched the viewport. Everybody flinched as a sharp shatter noise echoed over the bridge. Megatron pulled his fist back and a jet of water rushed in from where it had been. It flowed and coarsed over the entire command deck and everybody stepped back from it.

"What defines a champion?" Megatron said loudly over the roar of the water.

Breakdown froze up and looked to side to side.

Megatron got up in the ex-Wrecker's faceplate. "What defines a champion?"

"A mech who fights. " Megatron continued to glare so Breakdown continued. "A… a bringer of justice?" Megatron continued to stare, his field hot and optics violet and no no please no Breakdown couldn't become the next Starscream— "A mech who overthrows his enemy?!"

"Precisely," Megatron nodded. "Which is why I want you to reach out to mine."


So close. So far. Just a bit farther and he'd be free. The dirty ground pounded under his sore legs as he sped across the dirty landscape. He leaped over and narrowly dodged the sharp forms of abandoned mining equipment as they loomed up out of the dark. Ruins surrounded his small frame as he fled; all around him and everywhere he looked he saw rust, spilt energon, and the collapsed frames of overworked drones. Their Lord claimed to care, but did he really?

Static speckled his vision. He stumbled and doubled over as his slender frame's vents desperately sucked in gasps of badly-needed air. Oh, how he wanted the sky.

There were pedesteps behind him. He yelped and jumped to his pedes. This would all be worth it, it would. Months spent planning, watching, and waiting would not go to waste. Every day he awoke with the hope that that moment would turn out perfectly.

"You are not fulfilling your duties! The Lord will be upset," a drone hissed as she came into view, her frame covered in dirt.

A cold chill spread through his own dirtied frame at the sight of her.

"He will be," he said softly. There was a chance, an opportunity here. Two of them. An opportunity to turn around and hope for an only mildly cruel punishment. And an opportunity to escape, to feel the sky that he'd been denied brush against his ground-bound frame.

So he ran. More stabs of pain shot through his frame, more hunger pains, but it would be worth it. The ground sloped up gradually but noticeably underneath him as irate voices erupted behind him.

A trapdoor that led up to the outside loomed over his helm, the same trapdoor that he'd glimpsed from afar so many times and that'd fantasized about pulling his frame through so many times.

The voices were louder now and more drones came out from side tunnels to witness what was either going to be a grand success or a dismal failure.

He scrambled up a ladder and felt it shake suddenly. He looked down and couldn't stop the whimper that whined out of him at the sight of multiple drones clustered around the ladder's base. A rusty ladder bar creaked and gave out underneath him. His high-peeled pedes tangled for a single moment and he felt the servos of the drones below paw at it as they tried to pull him down with them again.

He reached his thin talon tips into the trapdoor's seam and punched through it. It burst open with a clang and he pulled his small silver frame up through it.

A cold blast of air rushed at his frame and his pauldrons drooped in relief as the cold sensation spread over his entire frame.

His optics widened at the sight of thousands of stars above. So many, too many, overwhelming.

One day he'd fly out there amongst them and he'd be free amongst them.

D-16 stretched his arm out to the stars above, spread out his digits and covered so many stars with his servo—

And then closed his servo into a fist.

One day the stars would be his.

Shouts echoed behind him. D-16 yelped as the servos gripped at his plating and pulled him down. His vision swam and the exhaustion of the entire mad escape rushed through him as he drooped down into the dirt.

There were pedesteps near him. That same drone was back.

"Lord Sentinel will not be pleased."

"He's… he's no lord of mine."


"—so he wouldn't let me eat the sand, right? And I was like, 'man, let me eat my sand!'"

Bulkhead shuddered. "Miko, I don't like this story."

"It was for science, 'Bulk!"

Starscream walked up to them. "I did a fantastic job at childcare. Brilliant. You're all still in one piece, aren't you?"

Jack glared at him. "You tried to feed us foliage."

"It's not my fault that you're a picky eater." Starscream leaned over the mezzanine and squinted at Raf's open computer. "Is that a dancing primate?"

"A monkey!" Raf pointed at it. "I'm removing alien conspiracy pictures of you guys from the internet."

Starscream scoffed and rolled his optics. "And here I was thinking you were all hush-hush about your existence. Now I'm being told that you strut around for the camera?"

"Come on, Star!" Bulkhead patted the Seeker's shoulder. "Mistakes happen, we get spotted a bit here and there. I'm sure you've had a few instances in which a curious human has snapped a pic or two of you."

"Nonsense! Why, when I led the Nemesis we had the strictest no-sighting policy ever enforced. While you were doing… uh, whatever it is that you were doing, I was secretly commanding a whole warship above your helms!"

"Is this you?" Miko turned the laptop so he could see.

Starscream frowned and tilted his head. A picture of a dark billboard sat in the night. The camera had clearly been held by a shaky hand and the billboard and the figure on it were blurred, but it was still distinct. A large one-winged humanoid figure was crouched precariously on the top of the billboard. Two red lights, presumably optics, shined in the night above it.

Bulkhead snorted and threw his helm back as he laughed. "'Strictest no-sighting policy ever enforced'!"

"Gah!" Starscream screeched. "That is nothing, that is nobody! That's just some hooligan in the night. Perhaps a human."

Bulkhead laughed harder. "A twenty-four foot tall human?"

"What?! You don't know what kinds of heights they can reach!"

Raf pushed his glasses up his nose. "We max out at seven, really. Sometimes higher."

Starscream's optic twitched as he stared at the picture. "Is it bad if it is me?"

Jack shrugged. "Well, Prime and the rest of the team might not be so eager to learn that you've been hanging around within sight of humans—"

"Then it's not me."

Miko gasped. "No! No! No! You're mothman! Why don't you want to take credit for being the mothman?!"

"That's not me," Starscream shook his helm. "That could be a trick of the light right there."

Raf opened up another picture. Starscream was hung upside-down over a billboard that advertised fireworks.

Jack pointed at it. "See! See! You can't dispute that!"

Starscream lazily waved his talon. "Ehhh, still a trick of the light."

"It's nighttime in the picture, Starscream, nighttime!"

"It's... a trick of the light. Of the fireworks."

Jack just stared at him. "It's just a picture of fireworks, not real fireworks—"

"I can picture them in my head," Starscream hummed.

Jack chucked a pillow into the air and watched helplessly as it arced into the air and struck Ratchet's shoulder.

"I just want one harassment-free day, do I get that? No!" Ratchet raised an orbital ridge and stomped over to see what the fuss was about.

"No, no, don't involve him!" Starscream whined.

"I very much choose to be involved!" Ratchet scowled.

Raf clicked and opened up a picture of Starscream standing beside a billboard that advertised a mega-burger. There were claw marks over the word "mega."

Jack shot up to his feet. "You defaced my employer's billboard?!"

There was silence for a few moments. Starscream opened his intake, shut it. Then opened it again. "You should not have named the product that. Awful, obscene product name—"

"Starscream"

"Awwwwfuuuuuuuul branding."

"oh my god, Starscream"

"Name your nasty food better from now on. Nasty. The competition will win at this rate."

"We're literally the only burger fast food joint in town, what competition—?"

"Mine."

Jack waved his arms at Ratchet. "Look! Look! Stop him, convince him to stop!"

Ratchet squinted at the pictures and sighed. "Starscream, we discussed this. No lingering around humans!"

"It's not my fault that the fleshies create perfectly-sized perching spots! That is their issue!"

A new picture was suddenly uploaded and Ratchet locked up as he sharply inhaled.

Miko glanced back and forth between the new cryptid "mothman" picture of Starscream and Ratchet's shocked faceplate. "What?! What's so special about this picture?"

Raf zoomed in. "Uh, I'm not sure?" Starscream sat on the edge of a billboard with his legs crossed very smugly. Nothing new. "There are a bunch of pictures just like this and—wait. Wait."

Raf zoomed in further.

There was a blurry ambulance sitting under the billboard.

Laughter burst into the air as Miko doubled over and as Jack gasped offendedly yet again.

"You accompany him?!" Jack shouted.

Ratchet turned his sirens on.

Jack ran over to the railed and waved at Optimus. "Oh, you have to see this! Do you want to see something funny—?"

"No."

Jack froze up. "...Okay then."

Starscream came up to them. "If Optimus wants to see a good joke all he has to do is look at Ratchet."

A whistling noise echoed through the air. Starscream tuned his audials to hear it better.

"Now what in Primus is that—? Oh!" A wrench struck Starscream and slightly dented the back of his helm. He yelped and spun around to look at the culprit.

"I'm going to let that dent stay there for a few days," Ratchet grumbled. "Maybe a week."

"What?!"

"Two weeks is good. I'll buff your very well-deserved dent out by then… and then maybe you can take a flight."

"Oh!" Starscream scrambled over to him. "It's done?!"

"I finished your wing last night. I just need to reattach it."

"Then what are you waiting for? I'm ready to take off!"

The elevator dinged and a very disgruntled human stomped out. Was that the one he'd tortured? Maybe?

Fowler pointed up at Optimus and then put his hands on his hips. "Prime! We have a situation on hand and—"

Starscream cleared his intake and Fowler yelped at the sight of him.

"Why is he loose?"

Optimus let out a heavy sigh as the Autobots all gathered near. "He is not loose. He is free and is not a threat."

"... Not yet." Fowler looked back up at Optimus again. "What are you going to do about him? Do you know anything about this?"

Optimus shook his helm. "I do not understand Megatron's current plans."

"I wasn't referring to you! I was referring to him!" Fowler pointed at Starscream. "Do you think you can really fool everybody into thinking that you're a good guy? You think you're some big protector? Some grand champion of justice?"

Optimus stepped in front of Starscream. "He has proven himself—"

Rapid pedesteps pounded against the floor and faded away. Optimus turned just in time to see a flash of silver before Starscream's frame turned the corner.


"Shoo," Starscream moaned.

The door to the roof creaked open as Optimus pulled his frame up through it and walked up to Starscream. Somehow, in some way, another day had passed. If he offlined his optics he could still see the hot sun in the sky over the sharp orange sands below.

But there was no sand, no heat, and not even a sun. It was nighttime and their red and blue optics lit up the night.

If he offlined his optics he could feel the phantom grit of sand creak away in his internals—

"Gah!" Starscream yelped. "How do you handle it?!"

The cold wind blew against his and Optimus's frames as they both sat together atop the base. The distant hum of the highway floated softly in the air and the stars were the brightest and clearest they were in a long time.

"How do I handle what?" Optimus asked.

Just how? Starscream looked at the multitude of scratches that had been gouged into Optimus's frame. "Protecting everybody. Don't you ever want to just say 'frag this!' and stomp off?"

Optimus was silent for a few moments. "I am tired of being the shield for this team sometimes. But there are moments here and there that always remind me of why it is worth it."

"What moments?"

"Moments like this?"

Starscream blinked and looked around. "We're sitting in the dirt and chatting."

"And we are doing so together. We Autobots accompany each other because it is our loyalty to each other and to our ideals that has kept us together. I would go with you anywhere on any mission."

Starscream scoffed. This was—this was, uh, a lot. "'Anywhere'. Really? To some remote world. To Cybertron? To the Nemesis with me, even just the two of us?"

"Indeed. You already understand the importance of loyalty whether you realize that or not. You displayed it when you chose to stay with the kids."

"Oh, please. They would've caught up to me."

"Starscream… you must stop downplaying yourself."

Starscream jumped to his pedes and threw his arms into the air. "Well, so do you! Always going on about the importance of the team—yes, they're important, but so are you!"

Optimus remained silent.

"...Aren't you Primus's chosen?"

"So you have heard of that story?"

Starscream scoffed again. "How could I not? Oh, it's famous. Well, it's infamous aboard the Nemesis at least. You and Primus alone together as he made you his champion. It doesn't sound real."

"I am still processing it."

Starscream leaned over and looked at the Prime. Optimus did not make optic contact and continued to stare out into the cold night.

"But… it's been millennia."

"Yes. And I often feel that I am still no closer to understanding why Primus gave me this duty."

"Well. I think I understand." Starscream fluttered his wing.

"Oh?" Optimus finally looked at him.

"Yes. You're his champion because, well, because I think you don't want to be."

Optimus furrowed his orbital ridge. "I do not follow."

"Pah! Of course you don't." Starscream sighed as he flicked a tiny rock with his talon and watched it arc off into the night. "You don't seek power. That's why you're the best person to have it."

"I suppose. That is also why you are the best version of yourself right now."

Starscream's wing shot up. "Eh? I just tried to feed children sand."

"That was a questionable decision, yes. But you also do not seek power as well. That is how I know that you have improved."

He really didn't seek power anymore, did he? No more nights spent hunched over a dimmed datapad full of assassination plots, no more days spent staring at the high command console with jealousy hot in his field. No. He wasn't Starscream the Lord, Starscream the Second-in-Command, he was just Starscream, the soldier.

If his past self had been told that he would one day be content with the status of an ordinary soldier he would've laughed and laughed and laughed.

But his past self was dead? Wasn't it? When had that mech even died?

"When?"

"When what?"

Starscream waved his arms around. "Well, when did I become this 'best version of myself?' Just… how did this happen?"

Optimus smiled. "You are in denial and cannot accept your improved state."

"Wha—no, I am in full acceptance mode right now! Full! I am just... curious…" Starscream bit his lip. "Why is it so hard to understand how mechs change?"

Optimus's smile vanished. "Are we still talking about you?"

Starscream sighed. "I guess not. Isn't it sad that we both just know who we're both referring to?"

"Yes," Optimus said in a low and tired voice. "Yes. I still do not fully understand how Megatronus became what he is."

"I don't think Megatron even knows. I don't think he even cares. He's left that dream of being some noble champion behind."

"That is also what makes us Autobots better: we don't leave mechs behind."

The door that led down to the base creaked open with a metallic screech and Bumblebee was there in an instant. "You need to come right now!"

"What is it?!" Starscream asked.

Bumblebee let out a sharp beep, a very special beep he only ever made when one mech in particular was being discussed.

Optimus and Starscream both rushed down into the base and ran right through all the halls into the main room. The rest of the team was gathered there and the air stank and sparked with a sickly sense of worry.

"It's a comm call from Megatron," Ratchet grumbled and glared at the picture of the warlord on the screen. "He says it's urgent."

"Why can't we just hang up?" Bulkhead moaned.

Optimus raised his servos and everybody fell silent. He accepted the call. "Megatron."

"The prophecy," Megatron rasped in a shaky voice. His voice only ever shook like that when he'd taken far too much dark energon.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"You know of what I speak! Have you not seen the signs? Oh, I bet you have. A natural disaster here. A cave-in there. A mine in the Sahara that collapses in on itself. Energon pulsing purple."

"What is that you seek, Megatron?" Optimus asked.

"When the 47 spheres align,'" Megatron began slowly. "'A perpetual conflict will culminate upon a world forged from chaos. And the weak shall perish in the shadow of a rising darkness.'"

The comm line went dead.

Nobody said anything and the only noise came from the hum of the computers.

Bulkhead shuddered. "Creepy."

Starscream rolled his optics. "Up to his old theatrics again I see."

Everybody began to talk amongst themselves as Starscream walked up to the computer and squinted at it. Everything still felt wrong though—

Optimus's field shook intensely around him. Starscream's help whipped around and he stared wide-opticed at the shaky Prime as Optimus leaned heavily against the desk. It was subtle, just small enough of a gesture to go unnoticed by a group of distracted bots.

But Starscream noticed it. He walked up to Optimus and braced himself against the now very pale mech as he stood up to his full height again.

Optimus patted Starscream's pauldron and warmly gripped it. Starscream didn't know if Optimus held onto him for his sake or for his own Primely sake.

He frowned and looked up at him with a silent question on his faceplate. This—this wasn't right, this was Optimus, tall, mighty, not easily fazed.

And yet all it had taken to make him grab onto another mech for support was just one call from their enemy.

"What was he reciting?" Starscream began slowly.

Optimus cleared his throat and everybody went silent. "He is speaking of the Covenant of Primus, an ancient prophecy."

Ratchet scoffed. "Still chasing after his fairytales I see!"

Optimus shook his helm. "He pursued dark energon through the stars and was ridiculed and seen as hunting down fairytales. Yet he returned with the blood of Unicron nevertheless. I believe that Megatron is planning something but what precisely it is that he has planned is beyond me."

Starscream went up to Ratchet. "Ah, you will be able to reattach my wing when we return from.. wherever it is that we go? I have a feeling this will take a while."

"Of course. Don't lose the other one in the process."

Bulkhead shuffled up to Starscream and lightly nudged the Seeker. "What did you do whenever he began to recite creepy poetry?"

Starscream sighed and thought for a moment. "Leave."

"But we cannot leave," Optimus said. "We cannot leave him because he will not leave us."

Starscream stood up on the tips of his pedes and whispered into Optimus's audial. "Do you not remember the forest?"

Optimus's optics widened. How could either of them forget that bitterly cold forest in which Optimus came to the bitter realization that all his duels were pointless?

"Is that what this is? Yet another pointless fight with Megatron?" Arcee asked.

Starscream stared at the floor and shifted uncomfortably under the weight of everybody's stares.

"No," he said finally. "This is not like the other fights."

The computer screen flashed and sirens blared through the base. Ratchet rushed up to the computer and his field went cold. "Megatron and the 'Cons are on the move. They're…. I think they're closing in on some kind of structure."

Optimus's battlemask snapped shut. "Autobots, transform and—"

"Wait!" Starscream gasped. He ran up to Optimus again. "Promise me."

Optimus blinked down at him.

Starscream fluttered his wing—he would fly again with both soon, right? Right?—and looked right up at the Prime.

"Promise me that you won't kick yourself if you fail this."

"I—"

"Eh eh eh! Promise me or don't promise me."

The groundbridge burst to life and a flash of light and rush of air washed over them. "I will make this promise to you only if you make it to me in return."

Starscream gulped. "Ah, fine. This isn't the first time I've begged you not to blame yourself too much, is it?"

"No." Optimus's field trembled imperceptibly again. "It is not."

"And it probably won't be the last."

"For as long as we keep ending up in the fights we will both continue to make that promise to each other."

The bridge whirred on and on.

"Okay," Starscream said at last.


Starscream had to tilt his helm back to take in the full sight of it. The large crashed ship laid jaggedly over the side of the mountain. It was quite unlike any he'd ever seen. It didn't have the bulk of the Harbinger, the sharp spikes of the Nemesis, or even any of the curves of an Autobot ship.

"Ancient," Optimus breathed. "A ship from the Golden Age, maybe even older. A floating temple of Primus used to spread the worship of him. Trion told me that they were even programmed to show our holy origins."

Arcee frowned. "Why is it here?"

"Many ships have crashed on this world for many years now. Their ruins litter the Earth. It seems that many have been drawn to this planet. Earth has always had a strange energy to it."

A tingle raced down Starscream's spine. A silhouette appeared in the mouth of the ship way up ahead, then another, and another. Megatron loomed at the forefront and his optics narrowed at the sight of them. Knock Out and Breakdown stood to either side of him. Knock Out had his smug smile on his faceplate as usual but there was something tight about it. Breakdown was completely expressionless.

"So it seems that my summoning worked," Megatron laughed. Megatron reeked of dark energon. His optics were pure purple and violet line shined out from within the seams of his armor and as the dark energon inside of him glowed from within.

"This will not be a repeat of last time," Optimus said. "If you wish to pointlessly duel—"

"This is not that! This is so much more than that. Don't you feel it? You would be a fool not to. This world is awakening and I am going to be the one to wake it up."

Arcee pointed at him. "If this isn't some pointless duel then why summon us?"

"You will soon see."

The ground shook and rumbled and the sky flashed purple. Megatron's optics blazed their most intense shade of violet left. Starscream winced and rubbed afterimages away from his optics.

"What have you done now?" Starscream breathed.

Megatron just looked at him. "What have I not done yet? Stay here if you wish. Or follow me within." He turned around and walked into the ship with Knock Out in tow. Breakdown glanced between the Autobots and his Lord and then ran to catch up with Megatron.

"This is stupid," Arcee grumbled. The ground shook again and the sky briefly shined purple for a few moments before it returned to normal.

"I don't know. He could abuse whatever might be in this ship or even the ship itself," Bumblebee beeped.

Optimus tightly shut his optics as a sigh shook his frame. "If he commandeered another ship it would be a dark day for not just the Autobots but for humanity as wel. He is contained in the ocean and must stay contained. We have no choice but to pursue him."

"But that's what he wants!" Bulkhead sputtered.

"Yes," Optimus frowned. "I fear that unfortunately we must indulge him in order to defeat him."

They walked inside of the ship and—

The air at their backs sizzled. They all turned around and saw a thin translucent sheet of violet plasma block them from the outside.

"Uh. Okay. Force fields." Bulkhead scratched his helm. "Has Megatron already seized ahold of the ship?"

Starscream looked around at it as dread pooled in his tanks. "No, no. Somebody else is in control of this ship. I just don't know who."

Glossy blue halls stretched ahead as far as the optic could see. The stern and stoic faces of Cybertron's past leaders and Primes stared down at them from where they had been sculpted into the wall. Ancient glyphs glowed blue and gold. The lights glowed a sickly purple that flickered and flashed and that made the faces of the dead Primes seem alive.

"Alpha Trion took me to a place like this once," Optimus said. "The Primes built these places to send their message and stories across the stars. They can show us the past."

Bulkhead shuddered. "So creepy."

"Not everything is creepy, 'Bulk!" Bumblebee whined. He walked forward and—

Right into a mech.

A semi-translucent mech stood in front of them all. His tall form flashed and flickered in rhythm with the purple lights, but he was there, faint and staticky and all.

Bumblebee jumped back and let out a trill of alarm. He leaned in again and waved his servo right through the hologram's frame.

"I didn't know this place could literally show us the past," Bulkhead said.

Optimus's field fell heavy around him before he erased all signs of discomfort within it. "I did not know that this ship could even still function. Megatron wishes to show us something but I do not know what."

Holograms flickered everywhere left and right, the faces of the dead all on watch. Thirteen especially large and grand holograms flickered in and out of existence non-stop right in front of them.

"Are these the Primes?" Starscream asked.

Optimus went still and stared at them. After a few seconds he stiffly nodded as his field shuddered again. "Indeed. My… brethren, I suppose." The ghostly pedesteps of a hologram walked up from behind Starscream.

"Ohhh, I don't like this!" Starscream groaned. The air tingled and electricity raced over him. The air suddenly gained a silver hue everywhere he looked and everything flickered around him. The Autobots all stared at him with wide optics.

Starscream jumped out from whatever it was that he had been caught in. The hologram that had walked up behind them had come to a stop and right where Starscream had stood. He looked at just who the hologram was and—

He stumbled back and ran into Optimus with a clang. What? What?

The mech looked almost just like Megatron, but yet so different in so many little ways. He looked like Megatron in almost every way with only a few minor differences: red accents instead of purple, badgeless, fusion cannon missing, blue optics in place of red ones, and a generally less sharp frame.

Optimus grabbed Starscream and spun the Seeker around so that they faced each other. "Starscream. Starscream. Listen to me, that is not Megatron."

"Then who is it?!"

"It is Megatronus."

Starscream blinked. "The Fallen? But why does he look so much like, well, Megatron?"

"Megatronus does not look like Megatron, Megatron looks like him. He got a new frame in his image. This was long ago after he escaped the mines."

"Wait!" Bumblebee blooped. "Then what did his original frame look like?"

Optimus stared at the spectral hologram of Megatronus as it skipped by. "I do not know. He never let anybody see any pictures of it after his frame swap. He has hardly told me anything about his original face."

Starscream looked at his reflection and sighed. "Can we please just hurry? I don't like this one bit."

The hologram of Megatronus looked over his shoulder at them all and smiled.


"Where are you?" Megatron said as he walked deeper into the bowels of the ship.

Knock Out and Breakdown tensely walked along behind him as he began to stumble more and more.

"We're right here!" Knock Out scoffed. "How could anybody forget this finish—?"

"Not you!" Megatron snarled. "Him! Unicron is who I seek and who I know is here. He has taken control of this vessel of Primus and made it into his very own."

"...Right."

Breakdown nudged his partner's shoulder. "Please don't make this any worse than it already is. Please."

They walked out into a large and open room within the ship. The floor had shattered long ago due to the impact and a ravine snaked right through the middle of the room. It glowed a hot violet and so hot that Knock Out and Breakdown flinched back from it.

Megatron walked forward with his arms outspread and the ravine brightened in response. "Oh, my lord—"

"Megatron!" Optimus shouted. He and the other Autobots all stood in the doorway, their blasters drawn and pointed right at him.

"I see that you have finally decided to show up. Good. You are about to witness something special."

"I do not know what your intentions are but I know that they are not good. Leave this place and everything in it alone."

"Then what?" Megatron's field flared. "Will you kill me? We all know you will not do that. Will you imprison me? We all know that you cannot hold me."

"I will do whatever I can."

The ship rumbled and the lights went out for a moment. The holograms returned again and they watched the spectral images of the past Primes walk right through them again. They loomed over all their helms and the hologram of the past Megatronus in particular rose over the others like mountains.

A hologram of a tall bright blue mech with glyphs appeared. He overlapped Optimus's frame for a split moment. The hologram strode forward, a massive sword hung over his back.

"Megatronus, you have fallen and are hereby exiled from Cybertron. Return to your new master—"

The hologram of Megatronus was not real but the rage it felt certainly almost felt real. "I am my own master!"

"What is the point of this place?" Starscream asked softly.

Megatron, for just once, was silent. Starscream was not sure why but he found that that disturbed him. He'd spent so long wishing for the warlord to just stop and be quiet and now that Megatron finally had all Starscream could feel was an even stronger and sicker sense of dread.

"The foolish ancients thought they could convert the outer colonies back to their corrupt ways if they just showed them their gods," Megatron hissed under his breath. "They thought that if they showed Megatronus's fall nobody would ever be like him. I am going to be the next him, the next champion."

Arcee's blaster flared brighter. "That's what this is about? So this is just some delusional fairytale you're living through?"

"I can assure you, two-wheeler, that this is all very very real."

There was a shuffle noise and they looked over at Breakdown, who stood not far from Megatron. There was something off about the mech; his armor was held tense and his optic was paler and brighter than Starscream had ever seen it before. He noticed that Starscream had turned his gaze onto him. Breakdown's field briefly flared out with a burst of static and then calmed again.

Starscream knew what it was like to stand beside Megatron, frame tense and silent, field full of terror.

"What did you do to Breakdown?"

Megatron said nothing. Then he smiled. The entire ship rumbled around them and the holograms of Prima and Megatronus reset themselves and walked right through their forms again.

Breakdown cleared his intake. "I got a promotion."

There it was again, that sense of ice-cold dread that settled into you and that didn't melt. "What kind of promotion?" Starscream asked weakly.

Breakdown broke optic contact and looked off to the side.

"...No. No. Megatron, you wouldn't!" Bumblebee gasped.

"Yes," Megatron laughed. "I would. And I already have. Meet my newly-promoted second-in-command of the Decepticons, Commander Breakdown."

If Starscream had been his old self he'd be in a rage by now, his wing flared as he hurled insults and curses out of his intake. But Starscream had changed—and so had Breakdown apparently.

"Breakdown, are you okay?" Starscream instantly resisted the urge to drag his talons down his faceplate. Of course he wasn't okay, of course not.

"I'm fine," Breakdown nodded with a tight smile. Knock Out was cold and silent behind him.

"He will make for a fantastic new commander, leader—" Megatron smiled, "—and shield."

Starscream lunged forward and was stopped by Optimus's frame as the Prime stepped in front of him. Arcee and Bumblebee dragged Starscream back and his pedes scratched along the floor as he was pulled away from Breakdown's frozen form.

"No, no, Breakdown, he's going to turn you into me! Don't let him!"

Breakdown looked from side to side. "Uh…"

Megatorn lifted his fusion cannon and fired it right at the floor. There was a loud explosion and a flash of light. The entire ship shook and shuddered for a solid minute and the ancient walls creaked and echoed at the intensity of the blast.

Smoke curled up and away from the new blastmark on the floor and covered Megatron in a thoke smoke cloud.

"Breakdown will be what he needs to become."

The holograms looped back on them, their voices so loud that they echoed around in the ancient cavernous room.

"Megatronus, you have fallen and are hereby exiled from Cybertron. Return to your new master—"

Optimus pointed his blaster at Megatron. "Begone, Megatron!"

Megatron pointed his fusion cannon at him in return. "You will not be the master of me."

"I am my own master!"

The ship shaked yet again as something within it burned to life. Smoke belched out of the ravine and everybody stepped back as it glowed electric violet. Two narrow pink optics appeared in the gloom and glared down at them all.

"Who stands before me?" Unicron's voice boomed. It made their frames shake all the way down from their outer plating to their innermost struts.

Megatron grinned ferally and threw his arms wide open. "Your champion!"

Unicron turned his gaze to the warlord and a beam of purple light fixated on Megatron like a spotlight. "You dare to assume that you can replace him?" Unicron laughed. "You dare to take on his appearance and name?!"

"Because I can be the next him!"

"Megatronus was the one and only. There are few others like him. Few others that can dare to take on his mantle. And you are not one of those mechs."

Megatron's optics widened and he stumbled back as if struck. "I am the killer of your brother, Cybertron, the leader of an army, the champion of the pits—if I can lead thousands then why can I not lead thousands by your side?"

"Why would I allow an abomination to serve beside me?" Sparks shot out from the lights on the ceiling and the entire ravine cracked and widened. "A foolish miner drone who rose above his station in life and who thought he could become something if he could just merely get rid of his pathetic frame and offload it."

"I built myself up and I built an empire up!"

"You have built up nothing but hollow lies! I can see into your thoughts the way you can see into mine—I know what you are. And I know that you think you know what you are."

The Autobots all stepped back even farther until their backs were almost to the wall. The holograms of Prima and Megatronus returned again, warped and glitchy so painfully bright.

"Megatronus, you have fallen and are hereby exiled from Cybertron. Return to your new master—"

"We need to escape," Starscream shakily said.

Optimus nodded and the other Autobots all turned to walk back through the door—

A sharp static noize buzzed in front of them and Optimus threw his arms out in order to stop the Autobots from going any farther. A force field descended and burned and crackled with violet energy.

"No, no, no!" Starscream shouted as he ran up to the force field and stared at his own desperate reflection. "I will not allow this to happen, there has to be a way—"

"I am my own master!" Megatronus's ancient voice echoed.

"Did you think I would allow you to escape?" Unicron shouted from behind them.

Starscream slipped behind Unicron's frame as the god glared down at them.

"What are your intentions with Earth?" Optimus asked.

Unicron just laughed. "I plan to free myself of this hideous organic shackle that has gathered around my form. According to my champion's impostor here Cybertron is dead and therefore ready to be taken."

Smoke puffed out of Optimus's smokestacks. "I would rather let Cybertron remain dark and cold forever than allow it to burn away under your control."

"Burning," Unicron repeated. His ghostly form solidified and now the sharp outline of a massive mech became more visible as he turned his gaze onto Starscream. "Burning. You're burning up, Starscream."

Starscream froze. "How… how do you know about me?"

Unicron snorted. "How could I not? This charlatan here thinks about you nonstop! He thinks about you, your strengths—yes, he does acknowledge that you have some—your weaknesses, and…" Unicron trailed off. His translucent form walked out of the ravine and right through the holograms. If Starscream didn't know any better he would've mistaken the chaosbringer for just another hologram. But Unicron was real, painfully real, and somehow right there before him.

Optimus shielded Starscream. "Stay away from him—"

Unicron walked right through the Prime. Optimus's optics widened and he fell down heavily to a knee as arcs of purple energy sparked and arced over his red and blue armor.

"It is you that I am interested in now," Unicron grinned as he stared down at Starscream.

Bulkhead stepped in front of him. "Oh, not on my watch! Don't you dare do that freaky ghost frame thing again!"

"I will do as I please," Unicron said.

Megatron stared off into the violet void of the ravine as his frame began to shake harder and harder. His field whipped around him and gave a violent shudder.

"I will prove myself to you," Megatron grit out. "I have to prove myself many times before and I will do so now again."

Unicron's spectral form vanished. The holograms returned again, their transparent bodies warped and glitched out and their voices distorted.

"—you have fallen and are hereby exiled from Cybertron. Return to your new master—return to your new master—return to your new master—"

The holograms vanished. Unicron appeared in the form of two bright violet optics again and leered down at all of them.

"You wish to prove yourselves to me? Fine then. Let us see who is truly superior. Let's compare the past to the future and see if you can live up to your idol, Megatron." A beam of violet light shined onto Megatron—

And a second one onto Starscream.

"No, frag, please no."

Optimus leaned down to face the Seeker. "You have endured far worse than this. You can make it."

"I've never been played around with by a god before!"

"And you will pass this test, or whatever this is." Optimus's field shook and then stabilized itself.

Unicron loomed. "Fine then. Let's see how you both measure up."

Starscream took a deep vent as he walked forward. "Will you let all of us go if I go through with what you want?"

"I suppose."

Megatron pointed his fusion cannon at Starscream. "I am nothing like him and he has nothing on me. Do you seriously think that this wretch could even stand a chance against me?"

Unicron leaned down. "I do not think that he can stand a chance against you—"

"Then why—?"

"You think that he can stand a chance against you, Megatron. I have seen your thoughts, remember?"

Megatron went very still and refused to make optic contact with the wide-eyed Seeker at his side. He clenched his talons into fists and his field boiled outward so intensely that Starscream had to stumble back.

Another force field slammed down and divided Starscream and Megatron from the rest of the Autobots and Decepticons. The sheet of plasma sizzled behind them and the purple ravine yawned before them.

The ground shook and rumbled as the ravine sealed itself shut. A floor appeared for them to walk on and smoked of ash and burnt slag.

Megatron and Starscream glared at each other. The ground shook as Megatron stomped off deeper into the ship.

"Please be careful," Optimus asked. Starscream turned around, saluted the Prime, and then ran off after the warlord.


Starscream and Megatron turned a corner and vanished from the view of all the others. They were alone in the hallway when suddenly—

Starscream felt his frame get picked up and slammed into the wall. A tight talon gripped onto his neck cabling and squeezed.

Static sparked out in his vision and all he could see was the incensed faceplate of Megatron.

"Oh, you just had to come along and ruin everything, didn't you?!"

"You're right," Starscream wheezed out. "It was pretentious of me to forget that you are easily capable of ruining everything all by yourself."

He was dropped onto the ground. His vents rattled as they sucked in gasps of breath. Megatron scoffed and continued to walk along.

"I have no idea what 'test' it is that he has planned for us but I know that I will pass it."

Starscream grumbled and said nothing as he stumbled up to his pedes and followed along. "Do you think this will change anything?"

"Change what?"

"Do you think Unicron is going to swoop in, save the day, win the war for you, and put you on the throne of Cybertron in one big swoop?"

"I fail to see why he wouldn't."

"Why won't you realize that you're chasing myths?!"

A new voice echoed down the hall. "Why will you not realize that they are nothing more than just fairytales?"

Megatron raised an orbital ridge. "Is that the voice of Megatronus?"

"I think so."

"What kind of test is this? Or perhaps this is a gift?"

Starscream recoiled. "I fail to see how being forced to compete with your ugly mug is in your opinion somehow a 'gift.'"

"A chance to witness the events of the past, the way my namesake personally clawed his way to power and rose up to the stars." Megatron bolted down the hall and Starscream followed along with a sigh.

The ship's walls flickered. They both froze and looked up and around them as holograms appeared all over them.

"Ah, holograms, a classic trick of Unicron the Deceiver," Megatron laughed. "No horrors he could conjure could ever faze me."

"I don't think you should test him," Starscream said softly.

"What was that?!"

"I said, I don't think you should test him." It was not the warlord's wellbeing that he was concerned for, no, it was Optimus's. The Autobots were surely still sat there, locked away behind a wall of plasma, no clue of what was going on.

Or perhaps they were being subjected to their own sets of tests and visions. Perhaps Unicron had even already kill—

He would not think about that. He wouldn't, no, couldn't allow himself to.

They turned another corner and looked out over the new holographic landscape Unicron had summoned. The wind blew and whistled around their frames.

"He is going to make us go mad, isn't he?" Starscream asked.

Megatron nodded. "He will make you go mad."

"Only because you're already mad."

"You wretch—!"

New holograms flickered into view and rapidly attracted Megatron's enraged attention. It was Megatronus again, so different and yet still so shockingly similar to the way the warlord looked. It was almost as if an alternate version of Megatron was in front of him, not Lord Megatron but Gladiator Megatron, the fighter for justice.

He blinked and the illusion faded away. No. Similarities aside, this was still a different mech. He saw it in the way he looked and moved and—

He loomed over another bot, a golden and red femme Starscream had only seen pictures of him.

"Eh, is that Solus Prime?"

Megatron frowned. "Perhaps." All his attention was on his hero as he loomed over her.

"You choose to continue to believe the lies of the Primes!" Megatronus glared down at her.

"They are not lies, they are the truth. You just cannot accept it."

"I have accepted the truth that you are all rotten and corrupt all the way down to your spark cores."

Starscream offline his optics and turned away. It was a familiar sight: a mech who thought he knew everything but who in reality knew only lies.

Megatron remained silent as he watched the two interact. "I thought that he would be…"

"Crueller? Like you?"

"...Yes."

"You won't win and neither will your Master—"

Megatronus plunged his sword into her chest and Solus Prime crumpled to the ground.

Starscream didn't know what to expect. He thought that she'd perhaps been killed in some grand battle, some magnificent duel, that she'd gone down in some pyrrhic final stand. But all he saw was a weaponless prisoner of war get killed for just being on the wrong side.

Horned, red-painted, and smiling—

He stomped off. Megatron and Unicron said nothing.


"Are we going deeper?" Starscream asked.

The light had indeed dimmed but whether that was the result of the artificial lighting or the faint light of the sun was anybody's guess. Sickly tendrils of hot purple snaked across the walls and floor like a viral infection.

"Is this beautiful to you?" Starscream snapped.

"Of course. It is the triumph of the powerful over the weak," Megatron said. His violet optics flared at the same time as the violet lights did.

"It's hideous!"

"You once thought conquest was beautiful. You once dreamed of rebuilding Vos in your own image. Is that dream dead?"

"No, I still want to rebuild Vos, I just…" He didn't know what he wanted. It seemed like the war wouldn't let him win.

"Trust me. When you have your city in control again your old self will rise up and you will reshape it to your will. Trust me."

"I won't trust you!"

"You should. You always should," Megatron leered down at him.

The walls shined again and new holograms raced around them. They were more distorted now, more corrupted due to their long age spent locked away. They were probably the first mechs in tens of thousands of years witnessing these stories.

The signature silhouettes of the Primes formed before him, taller and grander in a way that no picture could ever capture. The sight of Prima made his spark skip. Optimus was probably in a panic right now.

A final hologram shimmered to life. Megatronus was knelt down before the Primes and was the subject of all of their glares.

Two faint violet optics watched everything from above. "This was the moment it all fell apart," Unicron sighed. For a single moment Starscream swore that the evil god sounded… sad.

Megatronus looked to the side. "Perhaps I have been rash."

"Oh, perhaps?" A dragonlike Prime spat out.

Prima raised his servo. "Onyx, calm down… Megatronus. Do you mean to tell me that you feel genuine remorse for your actions?"

A series of stomps pounded behind Starscream and he turned to see that Megatron had stumbled backward into the wall with a metallic clang.

"What is this? What are we witnessing?" He shook his fist up at Unicron's observant optics up above.

"I have rewatched this scene a thousand times over and will inevitably relive it a thousand times more. I still do not understand where I went wrong."

"You mean to tell me that Megatronus, my namesake, my hero, changed his mind?"

Unicron optics blazed bright. "Yes."

"A lie. It must be. The scene is not over yet, perhaps…"

Megatron walked up to and knelt down before his hero's semi-translucent form. "Say no. You regret nothing. They are nothing. Say no."

Starscream was tempted to roll his optics, but paused and really looked at what was before him. There was a tightness in Megatron's field now, the only kind of tightness that took ahold of you and gripped you when you felt something near and dear to you falling away.

Megatronus took a deep vent, and then— "Yes. I repent—"

A bolt of plasma shot out from his fusion cannon and struck the wall. The false sky rippled and corrected itself.

"Fairytales," Starscream said. "How long have you spent clinging onto this idea that you're this hero's successor?"

"Do you dare accuse me of being delusional?"

"Yes! Absolutely!"

"We will see how your redemption goes," Prima said. The other Primes muttered amongst themselves.

"—bad idea, bad—

"—foolish—"

"—he had his chance—"

Prima raised both his arms. "And he will be given another one nevertheless."

Starscream went up to Megatronus's hologram and looked at the mech's face. His faceplate was calm but his optics were wide and bright. Starscream knew that look well. He'd seen it in so many reflections so many times: the look a mech had on his faceplate as he was subjected to judgement and knew that it would likely not turn our well.

"He… he considered defecting," Starscream said. "The history datapads never said anything about that."

"Nonsense!" Megatron snorted. "I am sure he had an ulterior motive, a scheme that he wanted to enact so that he could bring the enemy down from within. Isn't that why you joined the Autobots?"

Starscream went cold. He knew he would spend the rest of his function being accused of wanting to only join the Autobots for nefarious purposes. It still hurt to hear the accusations get flung at him, though.

"No," he said coolly. He would stay calm for once.

"Oh, really?" Megatron purred. "I have been trying to decipher this for months now. What was it? What was your grand scheme?"

"There was none and still is none."

"Well, there had to have been something you had planned. Some kind of plot to usurp the leadership role of the Autobots?"

Starscream grit his dentae and said nothing.

"Did Optimus offer you something? Did he blackmail you?"

Starscream spun around and slashed at Megatron's chestplate. "Don't talk about Optimus like that!"

"Hmm. So that's what got a reaction from you. Interesting."

This part of the ship was completely new to them. Starscream turned around and looked back down the hall. With every step he drifted farther from the team and way from a potential rescue.

"Perhaps we should turn back—?"

A new force field slammed down in the way.

Megatron laughed. "Oh, you pathetic coward. You thought you could escape so easily? Ha!"

"I escaped you."

The laughter stopped instantly. Megatron stared at him for a few moments before he stomped off.


They walked into the ancient medbay next. Starscream had only a few seconds to look out across all of the medical equipment before the environment around them shifted and warped yet again. Starscream fell to his knees and held his helm as he waited for the dizzy spell to pass away from him.

He opened his optics and instantly had to clamp down a whimper. A low rocky ceiling loomed over his and Megatron's helm. Starscream shot to his pedes and ran his talons all across the rough walls as he desperately looked for a door, a window, a crack, a seam, just anything at all that he could pry open and escape with.

Megatron laughed. His cold laughter echoed around and around in the small pocket of stone that they were in.

"There is no escape. You are trapped in here with me."

"And you are trapped in here with Unicron," Starscream hissed.

This was an illusion, this wasn't real, he just had to remind himself of that. He took a deep vent and stood at the opposite end of the cave from Megatron.

"Let's just get this over with," Starscream said as his plating began to shake.

These stones were odd. They were not the signature dark dirty brown color of Earth. No, these stones were deep blue in color and had brighter electric veins of blue energon within them. Starscream froze up and Megatron did the same as they came to the same realizaiton.

Starscream scratched the cave wall and watched Cybertronian dirt fall down. Megatron punched it.

"This is the same kind of cave I was forged in," Megatron breathed. "Not the exact same one, no, but one so much like it. The same kind of cave D-16 died in and that I rose from."

The air tingled and two new holograms appeared. Prima's appeared and Starscream had to do a double take at the mech's similarity to Optimus. Tall, wide-shouldered, blue, and—he was comforting somebody.

Megatronus's hologram flickered into existence next to Prima's. He glared daggers at the tall blue mech.

"I am not dead inside!"

"But you are. Serving Unicron has killed you."

"I stand here before you now, don't I?"

"As a dead mech walking."

"I am no such thing!" Megatronus shouted, his voice tight and desperate.

This hologram of Megatronus was unlike the others. His frame was bruised, scratched, and dented. Violet blast marks littered and scored his plating. He was so so similar to Megatron yet so alike.

"What is this?" Megatron growled. "This next illusion must truly be that: an illusion. My heroic namesake never grovelled and begged before Prima like this!"

"Oh, but he did," Unicron said. "He really truly did. And now you shall witness this."

Prima stepped up to his bloodied fallen brother. "You left us because you thought it was best. All you have brought is destruction to this world—and to yourself."

"I left you for good reason."

"Did you?"

"I left because I needed to bring justice!" Megatronus waved his arms into the air. "Justice! Tyrants ran unchecked, and what did you do about it? Nothing!"

Prima offlined his optics as a heavy sigh escaped him. "And for that I am sorry."

"Are you?" Megatronus snarled. "I will rise again one day. You will spare me as you always do and I will return in full force with Unicron by my side."

"The more you join forces with him the more he destroys you. You are caught in a cycle of violence that you need to escape."

New driblets of holographic energon dripped down from Megatronuss's roughened frame. "You talk about me as if I'm imprisoned!"

"You are and by the very same mech who you ran to to free you."

Starscream glared at the ceiling. "What is the point of this?"

"This is the final test. To see if you can handle the truth," Unicron's voice echoed.

Megatron, the current one, extended his sword and pointed it at the two holographic mechs. "This is a lie! It must be!"

"Can you not handle the truth, Megatron?" Unicron's voice boomed and echoed around and around. "Do you know how he earned his title 'the Fallen'?"

"Yes! It was a title the weak Primes gave him because they could not understand that he had not fallen and yet had instead risen from out of their corrupt control."

"Once again you have proven that you know nothing, Megatron," Unicron hissed his name as if it were a dirty thing that he needed to spit out of his intake. "I am the one who declared Megatronus 'the Fallen.'"

Starscream walked up to the two ancient holograms. "I understand now," he breathed. "You stole Megatronus away from the Prime's. Then he went back to them after he realized how corrupt you were. Your champion left you."

Megatron punched the cave wall and dirt fell down from the ceiling. "Lies, all of it! I would not have ever named myself after a coward who went crawling back to the Autobots—the Primes, I mean."

Unicron laughed. "Oh, but you did. You wanted to be just like Megatronus. Well, here is what he is truly like: He was mine. Then he escaped me."

"Come with me," Prima said as he reached his servo out to the other shaky mech.

"Do not take it!" Megatron roared as he raised his sword up high over his helm.

Megatronus reached out and took Prima's servo.

Megatron's sword sliced down into their clasped servos.

The two holograms vanished in a flash the moment Megatron's sword sliced through them. Total darkness fell and the only light came from their two pairs of red optics.

Megatron stared up at the ceiling, his optics the widest Starscream has ever seen them. Heavy vents rushed out of the warlord's frame and his field kicked and writhed around him like a wounded animal.

His optics shot up and locked onto Starscream's frozen form. "So that is how Prime convinced you to join his side. All this time I thought he used some grand method to bring you over: a scheme, an illusion, a lie, a piece of blackmail, just something, anything."

Starscream shook his helm. "All he really did was… talk to me. That was it. That was the push."

Megatron's optics widened. "Who has passed this test?"

The cave rumbled as Unicron's voice spoke out from every wall at once. "You know that you are not the victor here, Megatron. I will call you that name no longer because you have proven yourself unworthy of it. The true Megatronus accepted that he did not have everything under his control and that not everything happened the way he wanted. When confronted with the reality that you don't fully understand everything, all you did was whine. Starscream accepted the truth instantly."

The hologram of the cave vanished and they were both in the ship again. Megatron fell heavily to his knees. "If you will not call me Megatron any longer, then… what will I be called from now on?"

Unicron laughed. "Your true name, of course: D-16."

"No, no no no!" Megatron shouted. "I am nothing like that weakling! He's dead! He's a living corpse and he is standing right there!" He pointed at Starscream.

"There is only one mech here truly similar to my champion and that is you, Starscream."

A chill spread through Starscream. If his past self had been praised by a god he would've preened at the attention and basked in it for the rest of his days. But all he felt was cold, very cold.

"Why did he go down in history as a total failure?"

"Do you seriously think that the corrupt Council would have seriously acknowledged Megatronus's return to the light side? He is the ancestor of all warframes. Fooling everybody into thinking that their ancestor was irredeemable was a good way to justify the discrimination against them. I would not discriminate against you though, Starscream," Unicron said.

He stepped back and anxiously fluttered his wing. That tone of voice was painfully familiar: it was the same smooth slick tone he'd heard senators and council members and deceivers use to lure him to his side. He'd fallen for it once and never would allow himself to do so ever again. "I will not serve you."

"I failed to convince Megatronus to see the way of reason and return to the right side. But perhaps I can convince you to see the way of reason."

"I won't! I've spent long enough under the control of one tyrant and I won't spend a moment longer under the control of another one!"

"You're just like him, so so so like him," Unicron rasped. He appeared again and his sharp frame stood between both mechs. "A failure, and a victor."

The air shimmered as Megatronus's hologram returned and stood right in place of Starscream, the two overlaid with each other.

Starscream jumped back to escape it but the hologram moved with him. "I don't want this, I don't want this, I really truly don't—"

Megatron's optics blazed hot purple at the sight of his hero and enemy as one and the same. He lunged forward as a loud cry unhooked itself from his intake. He raised his fusion cannon and it shot out a blast of plasma that shot right through Unicron's frame.

It sizzled through him and instead slammed into the force field on the other end of the room. The field shuddered and flickered before it then vanished altogether. It disappeared and the rest of the Autobots and Decepticons were all there, their optics wide and fields startled.

"How much did you see and hear?" Megatron hissed at them.

Optimus stepped forward and raised his servos placatingly. "We have heard, well, enough. We followed along through the halls."

Starscream and Megatron froze up.

"I lifted the fields as you two went along so that they could all witness your downfall," Unicron laughed.

Megatron spun on his pedes and pointed his fusion cannon right at Unicron. "I will not miss this time!"

Unicron's optics flared. He manifested a sword out of the light of his frame, ran behind Megatron, and struck down with it.

Megatron fell to his knees as dark energon ripped down his back in a waterfall. A large seam now ran down from the bottom of Megatron's neck all the way down to his waist. It glowed acidic purple and he watched with a dropped jaw as his own lifeblood, technically Unicron's blood, gathered around his pedes in a sticky puddle.

"Goodbye, D-16." Unicron vanished.

Nobody spoke and for a moment the only sounds were the heavy breaths of all the Autobots and Decepticons.

Megatron rose to his pedes. "Repair me."

Knock Out gulped. "Yes, I shall call for a bridge—"

"Repair me right here."

"Wait, what?!"

"You heard me!" Megatron snarled. His voice was as cruel as always but there was something different about it now, a thick emotion that laced every syllable of the warlord's voice. "We are in a medbay, are we not? So repair me then. I refuse to shamefully crawl out of here like a coward. Fix me so that I can then prove to Unicron just how destructive I can really be." He looked up at the ceiling and scowled. "That will have to go."

Knock Out guided him up onto a nearby medberth and grumbled as he and Breakdown picked through the ancient but still intact medical supplies and equipment. "What will? This idiot idea?"

"The ceiling," Megatron breathed. "I am going to fly out of here."

Optimus stepped forward. "You will do no such thing. Autobots—"

A new force field rushed down and divided the entire medbay in half. Megatron, Knock Out, and Breakdown were on their end and all of the Autobots were on the other.

"What do we do now? We can't just leave," Arcee said.

Bulkhead pounded his fist into his palm. "Can't we just beat D-16 up the moment he is repaired and ready to fly off?"

Optimus frowned and shook his helm. "That will not do. He is too fast for us to catch, we have no hope of driving along."

Starscream stayed silent. "Ratchet said my wing was ready. Could… could he reattach it?"

All of the Autobots glanced between each other.

"Well?!" Starscream huffed. "He said he's going to fly off! He's probably going to bomb another city! You need somebody who can fly to go after him."

Optimus dipped his helm. "I do not wish to ask more of you."

"Ask. Always ask."

"Can you handle this? Could Ratchet even perform such a quick surgery?"

They all looked over at the Decepticon side of the medbay. Knock Out and Breakdown both welded the massive new slice in Megatron's back as quickly as they could, but there was no way it would be an easy repair. Knock Out looked up at Starscream and then quickly looked back down at the warlord's wound.

Starscream fluttered his wing. Soon he might have two again. "Well, let's find out."


A bridge opened and a very disgruntled Ratchet ran out of it with a large silver wing held in his arms. "Oh, I do not like the sound of this." He grimaced at the sight of Megatron not far away from them in the midst of his own surgery.

"Please, old friend. Starscream is right: he is the only one who can stop Megatron now."

"Ah, fine, hep hep, onto the berth. Are you sure you don't want this surgery done at base?"

"Yes!" Starscream hissed. "This medbay is fine! I want to keep an optic on him."

Megatron's laughter echoed around the medbay and sounded muffled through the force field. "Oh, look at us, two broken mechs getting welded back together. I wonder, who will be broken again and who will walk away not needing more repairs?"

Arcee growled at the force field and Bulkhead nudged her back. "Ignore D over there, he's going crazy."

Ratchet frowned. "'D'?"

"Oh, it's a whole story," Starscream said as he flopped onto his stomach and lifted his wing up.

"Right then," Ratchet grumbled again as he stood over Starscream. "This won't be easy. Don't fly too hard after I fix you because your new wing might just rattle off."

"I think your rattling will make my wing fall off," Starscream smirked and then winced when something smacked his back. "Ow! You even brought a wrench?"

"I'm always prepared."


The force field divided the medbay in half, each surgery separate. Starscream ignored the pain in his back and glared at Megatron as Megatron ignored his own respective pain and stared right back. Sparks flew as Ratchet welded on Starscream's wing and sparks flew as Knock Out welded shut the gap in Megatron's back armor.

The Autobots all handed Ratchet the parts he needed as he delicately reattached the wing to Starscream's back. Each flash of the weld made his sparkbeat increase in intensity. His other wing fluttered anxiously and Bulkhead lightly patted it.

"Oh, the fight we are about to have will be one for the books," Megatron laughed from the other side of the medbay. Starscream craned his helm to see him and winced at the sight of Megatron's repairs being almost done. Dark energon still leaked out from the remainder of the gap in his back, a long streak of violet that stained the floor and Megatron's frame.

"How does it feel to know that you have the blood of a mech who now hates you?"

Megatron growled. The entire ship thrummed and pulsed around them. "I will prove myself to him. He wants a destroyer, so I shall be one."

"Just a few more welds," Ratchet mumbled. Bumblebee held a light over him, Bulkhead held Starscream down, Arcee handed Ratchet parts, and Optimus stood at the force field.

Waves of grief rippled out from Optimus's field as he stared at his bloodied former brother get hastily repaired on the other end of the field.

"This did not have to happen," Optimus said softly.

"You are right. This all only happened because of you."

Smoke puffed out of Optimus's smokestacks. "This happened because you wanted this to happen."

Megatron lurched back so suddenly that Knock Out and Breakdown couldn't help but flinch back. He jumped off the medberth and ignored his own spilt energon on the floor as he stomped through it and right up to Optimus. "Do you think I wanted to be rejected, first by you and then by my god? Do you think I wanted to have my plating split apart as if I were some rookie gladiator in the pit for the first time? Do you?"

"I don't think you wanted any of that. I think you wanted this war. Not at first, no. But later on… you wanted it." Optimus took a deep vent. "And you have received it and all of the consequences of it."

The only sounds came from the whir of Ratchet's welder as he finished up Starscream's back.

A soft drip drip drip noise echoed through the medbay. Megatron's energon continued to drip and flow down his back. Breakdown ran up behind him and stood on his pedetips to be able to finish the weld on the warlord's back.

Starscream shakily stood up and spread both his wings.

Megatron stood up and spread his arms out in return. He spun around and Starscream recoiled at the sight of the large dark seam that now scarred over Megatron's frame.

A grin spread across Megatron's faceplate.

Starscream glared at him. "Please don't do this!"

Megatron smiled and the sight of it made a chill go down Starscream's spinal strut. "I am the champion whether that idiotic god accepts that or not!" His chestplate began to heave up and down and Starscream stared at his own reflection within Megatron's perfectly reflective armor.

His plating twitched sporadically.

Knock Out walked up to him. "My Lord, it would not be wise to physically exert yourself—"

Megatron whipped around and was right up within the medic's faceplate. "I will prove to you that I am worthy. All of you will see, all of you!"

Megatron raised his arm—no, no—

Optimus and Bulkhead both stretched over Arcee, Bumblebee, and Starscream as the distinct sound of a fusion cannon boomed. The air flashed hot-white and bile rose up Starscream's throat. No, now was not the time to relive the memories, no.

But they came anyway.

Starscream crumpled to his knees. That was the same boom he'd heard from behind him on the Nemesis so many times, the same flash of heat that washed over his frame so many times—

Everybody steadied him and multiple pairs of blue optics stared down at him. A giant hole was now in the ceiling. The force field that divided them flickered and then vanished altogether and left the hole wide open. Starscream looked up just in time to see Megatron's alt-mode vanish into it in a flash of silver light.

"Worthy, worthy, worthy—"

"No!" Starscream shrieked. "I have to stop him!"

"...Starscream." Ratchet stepped close to him. "Do you really have to? Can't—can't we—"

Starscream's optics were brighter and redder than any of them had ever seen them before. Trembles shook his frame and for once they were not trembles of fear.

Starscream's wings lurched up high above his frame. He knelt down in a crouch as he narrowed his optics at the hole in the ceiling above.

"No, no," Ratchet shouted as he flung himself forward. He gripped onto Starscream's wrist so hard that there was a slight dent.

"Why are you stopping me?!" Starscream shouted as his field flared with hot static. "You knew I would go after him!"

"I knew you would, I just—be careful you absolute idiot!"

Starscream smirked. His T-cog burned to life and his frame smooth slid in and folded in on itself. His two wings shot out to the sky and his turbine roared to life with a boom that shook the ground. Everybody stepped back and out of the way as a giant blast of wind burst from his frame.

"Do not try to kill him!" Optimus shouted over the noise.

"What? Why not?!" Starscream shouted right back as he spun around on his landing wheels to face the desperate Prime.

"Because if you kill him you will just get yourself killed in the process."

Starscream's engines boomed. "I think… I think I know what it's already like to be dead."

He swiveled around to face the gap in the ceiling and shot right through it.


Megatron was a swift silver flash that darted and swooped over the landscape. Starscream thrummed his engines as he did a barrel role and flew into a cloud. He shot out of it like a bullet and just barely missed Megatron.

"What?" Megatron shouted into the sky as he rolled to avoid Starscream. The tip of his newly-attached wing sliced right into Megatron and left a long pale scratch behind along the warlord's alt-mode.

"You're going to stop," Starscream said as he extended his missiles out from his wings. Oh, how he missed the missiles.

"I will do no such thing and especially not for the likes of you!" Megatron swerved hard and slammed right into Starscream's lithe frame.

The two went down in a tumble of turbines and engines as they plummeted into a thick grey cloud. The world narrowed down two to just the two mechs. Starscream transformed into his root mode and kicked off of the edge of Megatron's frame. The wind whistled past his root mode frame and then eventually into his frame as he snapped back into jet mode with a click.

Megatron flew vertically out of the cloud with a blast of sound and heat that ripped the cloud apart into a trail of hot steam. "I know that you can outfly me!" Megatron laughed, the sound loud and sharp and completely unnatural. Megatron darted right past Starscream's alt-mode and his low voice echoed around the Seeker. "So then why, why? Why chase after me when you can just leave me behind?"

"I am trying to stop you!" He needed a shot, just one clear shot, and then one launch of a missile later Megatron could be a blackened husk of a plane caught mid-spiral in a plummet to the ground below. The sound barrier shattered and split apart in front of Starscream's nosecone.

"Stop me from what, oh great champion?" Megatron snarled as he fired his fusion cannon. The bolt of plasma shoved through the sky and Starscream felt the sluggish air burn up as the plasma narrowly shot past his repaired frame.

"I am not Unicron's champion!" Starscream grit out as his new wing pulsed in pain.

"You have always wanted to be and now a god has confirmed that you are, so why be upset?" Megatron laughed again and all Starscream wanted to do was clamp his talons over his audials, just anything at all to keep that broken noise out and away from him.

The sky grew blacker and blacker and the stars shined bright and brighter as their dogfight ascended up to them.

An idea came to Starscream. It appeared suddenly within his processor—Optimus would loathe it—but it had to be done. He let his turbine go cold and let his frame spiral down in a sharp dip beneath Megatron's.

Megatron's frame blazed with staticky rage as he tilted his fusion cannon down at the adrift Seeker below and fired.

It sizzled past Starscream's wingtip and careened far down to the earth below where it became a dark blastmark on the landscape itself.

"I will not be judged—"

Megatron fired another blast.

"I will not be belittled—"

He sent another blast down with the others.

"I will not be denied—"

A whole volley of plasma bolts shot out this time, bright and hot and angrier than ever before.

"And I will not be lied to."

Starscream didn't have to dodge a single fusion bolt. "All you do is lie to yourself!"

Megatron's flightpath was as erratic and as sharp as his voice was. "I am the true champion, I am the peace-maker, the uniter, the healer, the servo of justice—"

"Would Megatronus the peace-maker scar the landscape?"

They both flew out of a cloud and Megatron grumbled at the blackened and charred landscape below. The smoke trails of each plasma bolt lingered in the sky like ribbons of ash and smeared into massive grey smudges as the wind took them and carried them off.

"He would—"

"He would not."

"You!" Megatron shrieked as he transformed in mid-air and grabbed onto Starscream's wing.

Starscream felt his frame jerk back into root-mode and looked up at Megatron's contorted faceplate. Megatron's expression rapidly shifted back and forth from a fanged snarl to a wide-opticed thousand-yard stare as he looked right at and through Starscream all at once.

He held Starscream tight with one arm and used the other arm to clutch onto the Seeker's helm. Driblets of energon leaked down from where the warlord's clawtips pierced Starscream's helm and Starscream's back ached as Megatron kept his arm clamped down around the Seeker like an iron bar.

The two spiralled helm over pedes down to the ground. The sun flashed in and out of a view, the wind shrieked past, Megatron's engine roared with rage, and Starscream—

"You're not going to attack any city."

"I am—"

"No, you're not."

Starscream yanked both his legs up and pounded them out at once. Both his sharp pedes struck right into the center of Megatron's chestplate and a deep concave dent appeared in Megatron's armor, right where the Decepticon logo had been.

The most unholy roar Starscream had ever heard in his entire function unhooked itself from Megatron as Starscream transformed back into his alt-mode and shot off to the horizon.

He briefly spun around to get a look at Megatron.

His intake rapidly opened and closed nonstop and his optic's pupils were so wide that his optics were just two points of white light. A trail of smoke curled up and away from his fusion cannon in a lonely stream of ash that vanished into the black and blue sky.

Megatron's frame dropped down into a dark grey cloud, the only light came from the two white pinpricks of light his optics created, and then Megatron was gone.

He didn't look. He couldn't look. Megatron was not dead, not yet at all, but the sight of the warlord's limp frame in a rapid descent to the ground brought back bad memories Starscream didn't want to relive.

The flight to the ground passed in a blur and he saw the distinctive flash of sunlight being reflected off of red and blue armor. Starscream extended his landing wheel and the screech of his wheels as they skid across the ground pierced the air. A large cloud of dust bloomed out from where Starscream's had driven across the ground.

For a moment all Starscream could see was orange dust everywhere. Then a large arm closed around him and held him tight to a broad chest. It was a tight hold—too tight.

Megatron held him close.

The Autobot's jaws dropped when the dust cleared and they all raised their blasters.

"Do not shoot Starscream!" Optimus shouted.

"Do you know what the common rabble call you, mhmm?" Megatron whispered into Starscream's audials, so quiet and so low that only the Seeker could hear. Starscream said nothing as his spark pulsed in his chestplates.

The sun set for good and the stars became brighter than ever before.

"Ohhh," Megatron hummed. "Why, I think you already know what they call you. They call you their 'shield.' An interesting thing to call somebody. A compliment, or an insult?"

Optimus's engine rumbled warningly. "Megatron—"

"I used to be called the shield," Megatron said, a tremor in his voice. "The Champion of the Pits. The fighter for justice." He stared blankly off at the horizon far past the angry Autobots and at something only he could see.

He dropped Starscream. The Seeker fell to the ground and Megatron stomped off in the opposite direction the sun had set in.

The Autobots all ran over to Starscream's fallen frame and looked over him.

"Ah, wait, you're blocking him!" Starscream said. He craned his helm to look past the mass of Autobots and at Megatron's form.

The warlord slowly walked up a tall hill that sloped up and away from them all. He rose up to the top of it, his back to the Autobots, and looked at the land before him and stars above him.

Megatron stretched his arm out to the stars above, spread out his digits and covered so many stars with his servo—

And then closed his servo into a fist.

"The stars are no longer mine."

His fist began to shake, slightly and hardly noticeably at first but then suddenly almost violently mere seconds later. He let his arm fall to his dented side with a clang.

No one spoke and the only noises came from the heavy inhales and exhales of all of the Autobot's vents.

Optimus grabbed Starscream and held him the same way Megatron had up in the sky. Except this grip wasn't meant to control and restrain and hurt—no, he held Starscream's shaky frame in order to restrain Starscream from himself.

"I didn't get him," Starscream whined out. "I didn't—I failed—"

If it were not for Optimus's grip around the Seeker Starscream would be a crumpled mess by now. He was just barely held up by Optimus and the Prime helped Starscream not fall right down into a tangled heap of metal right then and there.

"You succeeded. You have succeeded in more ways than you realize," Optimus said. "Remember the promise we made?"

Starscream rolled his optics. "I do."

The ground shook as Megatron stomped his way back down to them. There was a rigid tightness in his frame, the same kind of tension Megatron only ever felt when he knew he was about to lose control—and was desperate to find a way to regain it.

"We should just leave," Arcee snapped.

"I have a proposition for you, one that I think you will be very interested in hearing," Megatron said. The smoke trail remnants of each of Megatron's plasma bolts drifted and twisted in the air. His intense violet optics blazed as they narrowed on the Autobots.

"A 'proposition'? Are you going to make us a promise, Megatron?" Ratchet scoffed. "Remember all the promises you made? Remember how you broke them all?"

"I have not broken a single promise, unlike all of you. No. I have not merely fulfilled them yet." There was something different about his voice now—the usual loud aloofness that boomed you down to your struts was gone now and replaced with, well, something else. Each word out of the warlord's intake was thick with some emotion Starscream could identify. Not rage, not apathy, and definitely not regret.

Oh. Oh, no.

Ratchet stomped forward and had to be held back by both Optimus and Starscream. "Oh? Oh?! What promise are you going to fulfill a thousand years too late? Are you going to rebuild Cybertron, bring peace, overthrow some tyrant?"

Megatron lunged forward and loomed in their vision. "Yes," he grit out, the stench of dark energon thick in his breath. "The tyrant whose blood now flows through me."

"You wish to kill a god?" Optimus sighed.

Starscream pushed Ratchet back and pointed a shaky talon right at the warlord. "You already killed Primus, now you're going to kill Unicron too? Are you also going to murder this planet while you're at it?"

Megatron scoffed. "I care little for this rotten cesspool of a world. It is unfortunately my temporary home though so I must do what I can to preserve it."

"Are you just doing this for revenge?" Starscream said quietly. "You don't… you don't even care if this world dies and the Nemesis and all the Decepticons with it. You just want revenge, don't you? You got rejected by Orion, then the Senate, then by me, then by Soundwave apparently, and now?" Starscream laughed bitterly. "Revenge on a god?"

"There is room for only one god on this planet."

"Oh! Oh! And I'm sure the sole god of this world is you, isn't it?" Starscream snarled.

Optimus put his servo on the shaky Seeker. "Calm down, please, for your own sake—"

"This is for my own sake!" Starscream yanked Optimus's concerned servo away and snarled at the Prime when Optimus just grabbed onto him. Optimus leaned down low enough for only Starscream to hear him.

"I do not want you to burn up the way he did," Optimus said.

Starscream looked over at Megatron's burnt and charred form. "...Oh."

Megatron turned his back to them all. He watched the hot plumes of purple lava arc off into the sky. Violet flashes of flame rushed outward from the caldera. The ground smelled burnt and dead.

"If we don't kill Unicron… this world will die, won't it?" Bumblebee asked.

"Certainly. 'Die' is perhaps even too kind a word to use to describe the fate that will befall this planet. When something dies it leaves a corpse behind." Megatron shrugged. "When Unicron is done killing this world there will not even be that. So, back to the deal." Megatron turned around and offered a talon to Optimus and Starscream.

Starscream threw himself backwards. No, no, no, the last time he'd reached out and taken Megatron's talon was the last time he'd been truly free. He thought he'd shook talons with the mech who'd bring freedom but all he'd done was shake talons with the same talon that would be used to beat him.

Bulkhead grabbed Starscream. "Hey, hey, calm down!"

"You need my help to murder Unicron, that is obvious. No amount of wisdom and Primely speeches can help you now. His blood flows through me which means that his thoughts also flow through me. I know the way to his spark. There we will snuff it."

Optimus tilted his head up and watched as a purple fireball careened out of the volcano and blazed across the sky like a violet sun. It shattered into a million pieces above all their helms and hot sickly ash spilled down and flowed all across their frames.

"I do not wish to be beside you. But I would rather stand beside you than stand on the ruins of this world. I accept this—"

"There is more," Megatron interrupted. "I want another thing. If this one request of mine is fulfilled I will help you kill Unicron in every way that I can." His optics locked onto Starscream. "I want Starscream to return to the Nemesis with me—"

Starscream froze and Bulkhead gripped onto him.

"No." Optimus shook his helm as two puffs of smoke bellowed out of his smokestacks and joined the smoke and ash in the sky. "That condition is not acceptable."

"And yet it is the only one that I will accept. Do you truly value the life of a single mech more than billions of lives? Besides, you didn't let me finish." Megatron lifted a leg to walk forward to the Seeker but was stopped by Optimus's suddenly extended sword.

"I do not need to hear anymore."

"Oh, you will want to hear this." Megatron laughed. It was the fakest laugh they'd all ever heard. He lifted a single sharp digit. "I only want Starscream to live with me on the Nemesis for a single day."

The Autobots recoiled. They stared at Megatron for a moment and then gathered away from the warlord.

Bulkhead scratched his helm. "Okay, this is just wack."

"It's a trap!" Arcee crossed her arms. "He will try to make one day trapped aboard the Nemesis turn into, well, infinity."

Bumblebee rushed forward to Optimus. "There has to be a way to reason with him."

Optimus stayed silent. He looked over at Starscream, but the Seeker just looked at the ground with a thousand-yard stare.

"Hep hep hep!" Ratchet reached into his plating for a wrench and Arcee pulled his own servo away from his plating. "What does he even want to do with Starscream? Run sick experiments on him? Lock him up? Play pretend?"

Megatron's voice boomed over them. "I am waiting!"

"His offer to assist us will not last forever," Optimus said. "This world must be saved. But… I cannot sacrifice one of us in order to do so."

"You don't want to sacrifice one of us," Ratchet said quietly. "But you might have to."

"Ratch!" Bulkhead gasped. "What?! No, we need to pound some sense into Buckethead, that's what—"

"Okay," a soft voice said.

All of the Autobots turned and looked at the owner of the final voice that had just spoken.

Starscream stood right in front of Megatron.

A wide fanged smile stretched over Megatron's faceplate as he firmly placed both his talons on Starscream's shoulders. "A wise decision, my ex-second." Megatron winced and glared down at the new large dent in his chestplate.

Optimus lunged forward and tried to grab Starscream but Megatron yanked the smaller silver mech back. Starscream's feet dragged in the dirt and a cloud of dust spiralled up. For a single moment all Starscream could see through the dusty gloom were the two purple beams of light created by Megatron's optics as they leered down at him.

"I will not allow you to take him away!" Optimus shouted as his field erupted in a frenzy of hot static and cold fear. "There must be something else that can be offered instead, another way—"

"This is the only way!" Starscream shouted. Nobody said anything. He took a deep vent and forced a smile. "It's just one day! Really. I will escape if he tries to capture me. I've done it before and I'll do so again."

Optimus rapidly glanced back and forth between Starscream and the volcano.

Megatron's laughter echoed across the volcanic plane. "A wise choice. Soon you will have the help you wish, but first—"

"Take me too," Optimus said.

Megatron just stared at Optimus. He said nothing and for a few moments the only sounds were the heavy gasps of Optimus's vents and the distant roar of the volcano in the background.

"You wish to accompany him?" Megatron said in a soft voice Starscream didn't even know he was capable of anymore.

"I do. The two of us, together, so that I may supervise you and watch over him."

The Autobot's voices all erupted at once.

"But if he captures you both how do we all rescue you?!"

"Bad! Bad idea! Where did I put my wrench?"

"And I'm just saying that the wrecking ball is an elegant solution to often inelegant problems."

"We've already lost so much, Optimus, please, rethink this—"

Megatron reached out with his other talon. He had one clamped onto Starscream's shoulder and the other onto Optimus's. "It has been settled then. One day. Tomorrow at sunset we battle Unicron. Be ready."

Optimus and Starscream both looked at each other as a groundbridge opened up behind them and drones flooded through.

"Starscream," Optimus said to the now very pale Seeker. "Starscream—"

"When will you learn that some things are my burden and my burden alone?! It's the way of things!"

Megatron watched them intently.

Optimus sighed. "That is not the way of things. Not now and not ever again… Megatronus." Optimus said that last bit of that name with extra emphasis.

Megatron growled behind them. "Did you just refer to this… this weakling as the champion Megatronus?!"

"Yes. I have. Because someone needs to be that champion."