He saw them coming.
Dust trails were impossible to hide in this lifeless scenery. Saving up meager remnants of fuel for his fusion cannon, the gladiator of Kaon took the steps down to meet his adversaries. This time he didn't spare polished metal chunks a single glance.
Timing, timing was everything, and he stopped just outside the entryway to get rid of inertia that would reveal how eager he was to put an end to it all.
- Megatron! It is time you paid for all your numerous crimes! - Prime's strong voice disturbed this still air and the sound spread around like disruption from an energon explosion. Megatron found himself grinning. This voice always invoked fury in him and fury was his only ally now.
- "Is that so, Optimus?! " He called out, stepping into the open. "I would rather.. "- he released the charge into the tight group of bots who probably thought there would be the usual name-calling session first. He almost didn't believe his own optics when his first, testing shot hit home, burning a neat hole in his arch-nemesis' armor.
"... say this line is getting old" - he finished automatically, watching smoldering hole appear on those hated chest plates. The autobot looked down for a split click as if not believing it himself and sunk to his knees helplessly, his optics dimming and flickering as power failed him. Was it really so easy?
But before joy could lay a solid claim on Megatron's processor, before Prime's companions had a chance to retaliate or react to their hero's defeat, the Prime's voice was heard from a different direction:
" You have harassed this world for far too long, Megatron. This ends here!"
Megatron swung around to face the Prime. "Deceit, Optimus? Am I finally rubbing off on you?!" With his peripheral vision he noticed the fake-prime chassis dim and dissolve. A hologram! Optimus wanted to wear him down, make him waste his energy on dummies... Clever.
Megatron's blade clicked out just as Optimus battle mask slid shut. The autobot's voice carried across unhindered, though. "One shall stand..."
"...and one shall fall!" - Megatron finished for him landing a crushing blow at a point where neck cabling attached to transformation joints. Again, it surprisingly landed home.
There was only token resistance from the phantom metal as it crushed under the worn blade that rarely faced such an ethereal opponent. Megatron roared.
"Playing games with me? Prime?! I will crush all your phantoms and yourself!"
"Megatron! It is time..." - Megatron turned and fired his canon, noting absentmindedly how his fuel level seemed to stabilize. Yet another Prime with a pair of his henchmen disappeared in violet light.
Kill the Prime. He wants to wear you down, every next one can be real. Just kill them all.
Megatron half-suspected this all to be a hallucination, maybe he was still sitting up there on his throne and waiting for a response, maybe this was his madness getting the upper hand on him, but he didn't have time to reflect: the autobots kept appearing and he had to kill them.
He knew the moment he'd stop killing them, turn his back to them, the next bunch of enemies would kill him.
He killed a Prime, then killed a Prime, then killed a Prime again. Between Primes he killed a few bulkheads, prowls and ironhides. He stopped worrying about fuel - his cannon seemed to reach its top efficiency.
That must be the madness.
That still could be the autobots inducing it, so he could not stop. Was that their best? Bring it on!
He lost track of time. His internal clock was fooling him, showing random numbers, as if he was pommeling there and back along the timeline. It turned into kind of a routine: meet Optimus, exchange a few melodramatic phrases, tear Optimus to pieces, meet a new Optimus...
Until suddenly a yellow scout jumped from behind a rock to put himself in front of a shot that should destroy yet another Optimus. That was new.
"Autobot scout? You will find death here for intruding my territory!" - but the blade went through. "how can it be?!" he had been the real one here! He!
Time and again the blade slashed through the yellow figure making no impact. First time since this started Megatron took time to think.
"No phase shifter", - he said, circling the scout, who made no attempt to run or fight, but otherwise seemed quite alive, " your eyes follow my movements, so no hologram dummy, and I don't believe in ghosts, so what are you?!"
"Megatron!" - another Prime manifestation took this very instant to announce his arrival and Megatron saw yet another autobot trio, but this time, the yellow scout was part of the show. The scout ran up to them, trying to attract his doppelganger's attention, but there had been no reaction from any of them.
Megatron growled and fired, dispersing the enemy (since when did fusion cannon work this way? Why didn't he notice?). Violet light couldn't harm the scout either.
Suddenly it all got clear. "You are real. They are not! A cortical patch! How refreshing... If this all is inside my mind... then ... What happened to me?!"
He wasn't mad! He wasn't dead! Even haggling with the scout Megatron was assessing everything that happened in the light of newly discovered facts. He needed to get online. He needed to get well. He needed not to trust autobots for it.
And when the scout tricked him, like he was sure he would, he made a grab for it.
It had been a long way back. And it had been a big mess to clear.
