The Communications officer took in the hall before approaching the lone figure of his leader that stood unmoving in the center of the combat circle. The place was deserted.
He put two cubes of high grade on the floor just beyond the circle and walked on toward his superior.
Megatron watched him approach, noting the subtle stiffness of his movements. The TIC may not have been drunk enough yet, but he could probably feel the effect of overcharging already.
Training grounds in Darkmount were nothing like Kaon's Arena pit, there were no seats for the cheering mob, no cells or bars, no dissection room to salvage spare parts from fresh desactives. No blinding lights, no siren, no grooves to drain the spilled energon from the battleground. Where the Pit was about death, less often glorious than not, the training grounds were about preserving lives of the warriors by honing their skills in fierce, but friendly fights.
The circle itself was the only constant between the two... not two places but rather two epochs, two different societies even.
However, as Soundwave strolled toward him across the rough flooring, a feeling of deja vu filled Megatron's neuro net.
It was as if he was back at that historical cycle when both his only stalemate on the Arena and his first follower happened.
Call it booze talk, but it was glorious to fall back to that fateful orn now, at the point when the war had passed its last turning point and would be nothing more than hunt for survivors from now on.
Megatron dived sparkfirst into the memory, letting himself hear the cheering and see the blinding spotlights as he shifted smoothly into active defence stance, just as he had then.
Immediately his adversary assumed a mirroring stance, copying his movements... just as he had then. For a split click two images co-existed inside Megatron's mind, then they merged together and he wasn't sure anymore, which of the two was the reality. Not that it mattered.
He lunged forward. Soundwave sidestepped the attack and spun our of reach. The steel jet changed direction with astonishing speed, digging a heel into the floor and beating sparks out of it and surged after his opponent.
Four more times Soundwave managed to completely evade him before first blow connected, only to get blocked by a sturdy wing. So far, their fight was an exact copy of the one they had back then.
Megatron didn't intend to spend four orns trying to get past those defences this time. He switched the tactic.
Immediately the spell of deja vu let go, revealing the reality, but Soundwave continued to evade his blows, resorting to hard blocks occasionally, but never switching to offensive. For a side observer it probably looked like an exotic dance they had going with all this constant repositioning and lunges.
For Megatron it looked like his trusted follower was returning him his own teasing. Jet engines revved as the warlord increased the speed of his movements. High-grade had its pluses - not only did the booze overcharge the neuro net, it made for more power to the engines once they had warmed enough. And they were heating up fast.
Megatron's sudden surge in speed got him past Soundwave's defences and his fist connected to the spy's shoulder with a loud bang. Soundwave's visor flashed bright, as the mech went with the blow, falling right. There would be a dent, but otherwise there was no damage. As Soundwave fell sideward, he half-transformed his wing and span, swiping out at the knee level. This bang was as loud as the previous one. Megatron fell, peds swept from under him, but managed to group and roll aside.
On their peds again, they circled each other. The warlord was grinning like a maniac, feeling battle rush merge with the booze heat in his systems. He switched the direction of circling abruptly and that brought him one step closer to his evasive opponent as Soundwave obviously failed to anticipate this move.
'Not so easy to read my mind when I'm drunk?' - Megatron asked and aimed a strike at the telepath' leading ped. The kick connected, but again, Soundwave used inertia to spin around and swing a wing aiming for Megatron's head. The warlord ducked under it.
'Telepathy: not a combat advantage' - Soundwave responded, refusing to get himself riled up by a subtle accusation of breaking the unspoken rule to never - ever! - look into Megatron's processor. He had explained many times about the shortcomings and limitation of his intimidating ability and Megatron knew perfectly well that it was too slow to provide a real edge in battle, even if one would assume that coherent thinking was involved in melee. Which it was not. Automated battle protocols, intuitive ajustment modules, threat assessment didn't require conscious attention - sometimes a mech would continue fighting on sheer automatics even after half of his main processing unit was torn off. Sometimes he would even win.
Vermillion optics flashed brighter and the warlord's grin widened. He unleashed a series of quick blows, each of them meticulously blocked by the spy, even as Soundwave was forced back under the might of these blows. Was Megatron teasing him? Really?!
The Communications Officer finally switched to offensive and for nearly a click the two mechs in the circle turned into a hurricane of steel. Naturally, Megatron wouldn't back down.
For a side observer it might have looked rather vicious, but even though the combatants didn't seem to hold back, none of the heavy duty weaponry came into play. Megatron not only didn't power up his cannon, he hadn't even brought his blade out, and Soundwave's 'hear-your-death' devices remained offline too.
Smell of warmed metal filled the air. They didn't slow down. Both were venting heavily via fans and intakes to drive excess heat off their bodies. Personally, Megatron believed using high-grade for engine overdrive was preferable to scrambling logs and glitching your processor into seeing white turbofoxes. Felt better, too.
The air around them seemed to shimmer with heat haze when Soundwave finally felt desperate enough to bring a feeler into the fray. Or maybe he planned to do it all along and was just waiting for an opening?
The opening turned into a trap as the big steel hand caught the appendage on the withdraw and swiftly yanked its owner forward. Soundwave stumbled, losing the balance and was quickly thrown off his peds. He crushed the sharp edge of his wing against the hand holding his feeler, but without a decent foothold the strike lacked power and didn't dislodge the grip.
Megatron tossed him to the floor and straddled the slender chassis, effectively pinning his agile opponent. The fusion cannon powered up, its eye looking straight into the faceless visor.
'And that's when you lose' - Megatron said somewhat solemnly, the excitement of the battle still shining in his optics.
The visor clicked open and Soundwave stared back at him, his expression bizarre. The spy tilted his head down, disregarding the charged up cannon that looked him straight in the face, and his gaze glided from Megatron's face lower down his chest.. The warlord suddenly became extremely aware of every smallest piece of Soundwave's warm plating that pressed against his armor.
'Assessment: inaccurate' - Soundwave's voice was crisp on the edges as he said it and Megatron followed his gaze.
The spy's second feeler was connected firmly to Megatron's armor right under his spark. 'And that's when you lose' - Megatron's own voice said back to him along with a weak electric zap that Soundwave ...well, zapped him with.
The steel chassis jerked slightly, but the charge had been only strong enough to make a point. Megatron chuckled 'hnn'. The purple light of his arm cannon disappeared and then the crushing weight was lifted off Soundwave's midriff as his opponent rose to his peds and turned away.
'Let's drink' - the warlord threw over the shoulder as he went for the cubes, perfectly aware of the deafening silence behind him as Soundwave's cooling fans clicked off.
