In the light, a darkness had begun;

Before the light could even comprehend, it had spread,

And a war was brewing, such that none could hope to win.

Etched in thin, faintly luminous scratches on the oxidized surface of the wall, the plan looked simple.

Win matches. Become strong. Offline Chopper.

As if the latter were even possible!

After another nanoklik of staring at the ludicrous plan, the red mech concluded that his green counterpart was right. His helm must have taken one too many hits during the last match. The plan was indeed simple, just like every other fantasy that his processor had cooked up during the throes of energon starvation. That simplicity was problematic. He could not wage a one-mech war against the scrap-dealing kingpin of the local underground and hope to win. Claws raked over the scraggly line of text, blotting out the glyphs with a new set of scratches. Thin coils of metal dropped to the floor, and he ground them to dust with a pede.

The rumble of a vehicular engine approached from a distant corridor. The red mech shifted his wings to appear as though he were indulging a brief rest in this deserted hall, conveniently concealing the evidence of his absurd plan. Moments later, a compact four-wheeled courier vehicle, of the rare high-speed design that the red mech had only scrapped two or three times before, zoomed around the corner. It passed the red mech in a gust of wind, screeched to a stop, and transformed into a blocky blue-and-white mech of almost half his height. The newcomer seemed to shrink under the red mech's puzzled stare. After a brief battle with indecision, as well as his apparently glitching mouthplates and vocalizer, he seemed to summon his courage.

"Unsatisfied with your life? Tired of starving for energon in the dark while the rich grow richer? Help make a better Cybertron, one city at a time! Join the Everymechs' Liberation Movement." He pulled a piece of scrap metal from subspace and scratched a set of triangles into the wall.

Three more engines, accompanied by an audial-splitting chorus of curses, sounded from the same direction as the newcomer had arrived. The blue-and-white mech glanced around nervously, yellow optics flickering in an orange faceplate, and grabbed the red mech by the shoulder struts.

"Spread the word, comrade!"

Before the red mech could retaliate, the blue-and-white mech collapsed into vehicle mode and sped off again. The red mech watched the retreating tail-lights disappear into another corridor. Optic color was not normally a reliable indicator of a mech's health, but the red mech suspected that this individual's yellow optics might arise from indulgence in a certain unsavory vendor's top-quality merchandise. His armor plates clattered in a full-frame shudder. He ran a quick self-diagnostic, just to be sure that the madness was not contagious, but the only damage that registered was from a few paint scratches around the shoulders. At times like these, the red mech was glad that he had never been foolish enough to sample that particular brand of tainted, yellowish energon.

"Get back here," an unfamiliar voice shouted after the blue-and-white madmech. "You think Sharpspike doesn't pay well? I'll show you just how good a fighter's energon is."

Terrorstrike, Shinyshell, and another four-wheeled vehicle appeared in pursuit. Though their engines whined with exertion, they were too slow to catch their speedy target. By the time they passed the red mech, the blue-and-white madmech was already out of sight. The unknown four-wheeler continued down the hall, but Terrorstrike swerved into Shinyshell and spun out of control. Both transformed to recover from the impact, cooling fans roaring from the chase. Terrorstrike aimed a punch at Shinyshell's faceplates.

"This failure is your fault, you shiny scrapheap! If you didn't polish that armor of yours so much, I would have caught that ungrateful excuse for a mech."

"You couldn't catch a turbo-rat. For the last time, it is Spinyshell." Shinyshell tackled Terrorstrike, driving one of his shoulder spikes into Terrorstrike's midsection. Both mechs went down with shouts aplenty.

The red mech slowly shook his helm and walked away from the whole mess. He made it three steps before another figure appeared: Greyspring. The red mech's wings drooped at the sight of the old combat trainer's scowl.

"Shinyshell. Terrorstrike." Greyspring's optics focused on the red mech with piercing intensity. "Blueservo. You know the rules, mechs: save the fighting for the matches."

The arena looked different from the stands. For one, the viewing area was a lot quieter than inside the ring itself; the acoustics must have been designed to reflect the audience's cheering toward the fighting area. The red mech's audio receptors were nevertheless offline to reduce the likelihood of damage. He, Terrorstrike, and Shinyshell edged through the cheapest row of stands in search of a good viewing spot, avoiding the limbs of overly enthusiastic patrons. Terrorstrike still had a nasty gash in his secondary abdominal plating from the tussle in the hallway, but he had been too proud to see a medic about it.

Greyspring had given the red mech, Terrorstrike, and Shinyshell the choice between polishing the shooting range floors or watching this match between more experienced fighters. As far as punishments for unauthorized brawling went, this was far better than an energon ration cut, even if the red mech had not been involved in Terrorstrike and Shinyshell's scuffle. Greyspring's explanation made sense: rising arena stars needed to learn how the high-stakes fights went in order to entertain the audience properly. With the match still a few breems away, the betting crowds were almost as excitable and densely populated as during a match itself.

The announcer cleared some dust from his vocalizer with a crackle that shook the very floor. Shinyshell tapped the red mech's shoulder, and the vibrations of chatter from the audience died down. The red mech activated his audio receptors.

"Before we begin, a special announcement from the benefactors of this arena. If you've heard of the Everymechs' Liberation Movement, be warned: this terrorist organization is not a supported affiliate of Sharpspike Arenas. After all, there's a reason we pay Razorlight Solutions to take care of simple problems like employee discontent."

"Terrorist, huh? I like the sound of that." Terrorstrike muttered, optics brightening with interest. "Maybe we shouldn't have scared off that mech from the Liberation Movement. Sounds like he was onto something."

The red mech edged away from Terrorstrike. Maybe the blue-and-white speedster's madness had been contagious after all. Then again, Terrorstrike had always been a bit off.

"Now to the match... introducing our favorite pair of rivals. The mech who can survive any wound: Halfhelm!" A light brown truckformer with a vertically bisected helm emerged into the fighting ring. He raised an energon sword and glared at the audience with one optic. A golden slab polished to a mirror-shine had been welded over the missing part of his helm, enhancing the oddity of his incomplete cranium and faceplate. From the position of the golden patch, the red mech estimated that around a third of Halfhelm's primary processor bank had been cut away. Halfhelm must have been relying upon a backup processor in a more secure location to still function after such a severe injury.

"His nemesis, the one who can wound any mech: Helmhalver!" A dark green oil-tanker easily twice Halfhelm's size stepped into the arena, flexing enormous exposed hydraulic pistons as he walked. Pistons like those would have made a fine price, the red mech reflected—easily a quarter-cube apiece, if he were still in the harvesting business. Helmhalver's shoulders were decorated with welded-on segments of faceplates and helms, including one hemispherical decoration that the red mech's pattern-extrapolation protocols matched with the missing part of Halfhelm.

"Can Halfhelm recover his former name and good looks? Will Helmhalver finally add a complete helm to his collection? Find out whether you bet for the right mech in... three... two... one... BEGIN!" The red mech quickly turned off his audio receptors to preserve his hearing.

Halfhelm swung his sword at Helmhalver. The latter retaliated with a punch that missed its target. The fist struck the arena floor instead, sending out a visible shockwave of dust. Halfhelm stumbled back, thrown off balance by the blow that he had narrowly avoided. The two combatants clashed again, and Halfhelm's sword threw a shower of sparks when it bounced off of Helmhalver's shield-like forearm plating. Helmhalver struck back, and this time Halfhelm went flying. The larger mech raised both fists in exaggerated victory, but Halfhelm was still up and running; Helmhalver turned just in time to catch a second attack on his upper arm instead of his shoulder decor.

In the stands, the red mech shifted his weight and grumbled silently. What did Greyspring want him to learn by watching this match? The fighters were clearly armored and well-trained enough to last for quite a while before either defeated the other. However, the fighting was just full-contact melee combat—perhaps useful for the likes of Terrorstrike, who preferred the up-close approach, but not as relevant for a more maneuverable, lightly armored flight-frame like the red mech.

Wait. As the combatants circled each other, Helmhalver bowed his helm and raised it in a slow, deliberate nod. The red mech leaned forward, recognizing the motion as odd when the two rivals were clearly searching each other for weaknesses. A staged match? The red mech glanced at Shinyshell. The glossy mech was observing the match with similar interest.

In a great feat of aerodynamics—for a tank, that is—Helmhalver launched himself into the air in a flying tackle that carried both combatants across the arena.

Halfhelm neatly sliced his energon sword across Helmhalver's left shoulder, catching the golden hemisphere of his missing part before it hit the ground. The blow appeared to pain Helmhalver more than such a small injury would merit, and before the larger mech could recover, Halfhelm stabbed him between two overlapping plates on his hip. Helmhalver went down hard, seemingly paralyzed: if the injury was real, his motor functions must have been inadvisably routed through a nexus in that wire cluster.

Halfhelm raised the recovered portion of his helm, holding his energon ax steady at the junction between Helmhalver's chin and torso. The crowd roared; the red mech felt the vibration in his wings and pedes as the announcer proclaimed Halfhelm's victory.

The choreography had been almost seamless in its execution, and the victory nearly appeared as a natural conclusion to a perfectly balanced fight. If the red mech had not been tipped off by the nod, as well as his slightly better-than-average knowledge of a mech's anatomy, he might even have thought the fight was a good one. The audience seemed to love it well enough, and the betting collection stand was overflowing with energon cubes from bids.

The red mech understood why Greyspring had included him in this punishment of watching the advanced match. After just a single match, Halfhelm and Helmhalver, collaborators until the end, would both be very rich mechs. He glanced to the side, caught Shinyshell's optic, and exchanged a small nod with the gleaming fighter. This was the ultimate refinement of their clumsy attempts at staging a beginner-level rivalry.

This was the power of deception.

Several joors after the match, a courier ran up to the red mech with a message: the medic needed to speak with him urgently. He nodded farewell to Shinyshell, with whom he had been engaging in a round of enthusiastic stage-fight practice, and made his way to the repair rooms.

The green medic was in the storage area. He skipped between shelves, gathering tools and scraps of metal as he worked his way around the spare parts bins. "You'll never guess who I just heard from: Chopper."

The red mech instantly diverted energon flow to his weapon subsystems. A high-pitched whine crept from his blue servo, where the sheathed sonic blade had nevertheless reached full power. "Chopper contacted you? How?"

"Some of us check our comms more than once a megavorn. You should try it sometime. Might hear something useful." The green mech tapped a helm fin symbolically, giving a crooked smile. He snatched an attachable spot welder from a small box, tossed it in the air, and dropped it in his subspace pocket. "Chopper didn't sound angry at all. We should put old grudges behind us, he says, and cut new deals that will help us all. He wants the two of us to do him a favor, and get this: we'll be paid richly for it. One job, and we'll be swimming in energon. What do you say?"

"No."

"Think about it: the energon of a lifetime! What a deal. I didn't believe it at first, but Chopper was adamant that we were the mechs for the job. He must truly regret losing our skills if he's willing to pay us the energon of a lifetime for helping him."

"'Energon of a lifetime.' You said that twice."

"His exact words. Amazing, isn't it? All for one little favor. Nothing too big, mind you. He said he would explain in more detail once we arrived at his office, since it's a bit complicated and he'd like us both to participate."

"Right. Why us? There are other harvesters. Ones who didn't betray him."

"Well, I expect that most mechs are like you: they don't use their comms when a shout will do." The green mech paused in his collection of random items. His wings twitched in contemplation. "We are the only two flight-frames that he employed. Both know a bit more about repairs than the common Empty, as well. Maybe that's why. Maybe this assignment is on one of the upper levels. A rescue mission of some kind? He might have us fly up to the sector above the Market, where the road supports are too rusted for anyone else to climb."

"It must be a trap." The red mech crossed his arms. The vibroblade housing buzzed against the plating of the opposite arm, and he deactivated it to save energy. "I'm not going."

"Suit yourself. If you're not there, that 'energon of a lifetime' will all be mine." The green mech walked to the door, pausing on the threshold to glance back at his red counterpart. "I wonder what I could do with a whole mountain of cubes..."

The red mech offlined his optics to dispel the image of luminescent energon cubes. Definitely a trap. However, the green medic's skills had proven helpful during tricky repairs, and every pit fight guaranteed more damage than the last as the opponents grew more powerful. Letting the green mech run off to his demise seemed as wise as pouring a cube of perfectly good energon on the ground: it simply was not an option.

"Wait." The red mech headed for the door as well, tugging his dark visor down to cover his optics. The four-mech arena match scheduled in three joors would just have to proceed without him. Sharpspike would be displeased at the temporary departure of a rising star, but he probably had more important concerns than the whereabouts of one low-ranking pit fighter. "I don't trust Chopper, and you shouldn't either. Let's find out what he wants... together."

Units:
nanoklik—second
breem—minute
joor—hour
orn—day
vorn—year