Yeah yeah guys, I know
You can go ahead and hit me XD
I've been away way too long...
I've kind of missed this site, and I know you've all be waiting so long for the next chapter
So here it is!
Enjoy!
Chapter 6
Corrupt
~ERROR CODE: 496215 resulting in *major* damage in *spinal core relay; memory core relay; central processing unit; electrovascular system at four-point-two-nine percentile; failure in mobility processes; failure in relay processes; vocal capacities failing to respond* energon levels at *depleted* - rebooting...failure to reboot...ERROR - crash of major systems eminent if lack to consult Chief Medical Officer continues...sorting cerebral core...attempting to recover...~
24,691 Vorns, 11 quartexes, 2 groons before:
"I raised you better than this, Megatronus."
A largely figure, probably made so from the thick armor adorning his otherwise average protoform, strode slowly back and forth before the two standing obediently at his door. One found the need to position himself in front of his brethren in case the situation of their adopter would turn violent shall arise. It didn't seem as though this would be the case. The Prime was avidly behaved around the presence of his youngest, who would most likely be his favored progeny between them.
The silver warrior, robust in his own right, restrained himself from speaking what lay on the verge of his glossa. The silence was palpable. It crushed the cooling air right from Megatronus' vents. Though it couldn't possibly be worst for him as it was the sulking cyberling standing behind his shoulderbolt.
"This event Orian has brought to my attention has inclined me to believe the tactics I had attempted before fail to breach the stubbornness of your processor. As a...gladiator," Sentinel said the word with utter disdain, "your blinded apathy to those you fight beside have obscured your judgment."
"In what way?" Megatronus inquired, trying for the sake of his adoptive brother to keep his temper with the Prime.
"In the circumstance that you would look down upon the mantle you have been granted and offend it so by choosing a partner of such a caliber," he answered, blue optics narrowing. The noble energon running through his lines would bring on such a color in them, hence Megatronus' and Orian's optic hue. However those, like Euphoria for instance, held different hues depending on their class. She was a lower, Mezzo-class femme.
Stealing a glance over his shoulderbolt, Megatronus found Orian's helm to bow a little lower in shame. It had been him whose ignorance had bested him and allowed this vital information to slip. Euphoria's existence in Megatronus' life cycle was now known by the Prime, and thus, the situation could not turn out for the better. At first, this had angered Megatronus like nothing other. He was angered with Orian, where his words burned like a fiery pit in his tanks. However, in seeing the sorrowful mech, all aggravation had faded to the back of his processor.
Elita had yet to breach Orian's speech in Sentinel's company. That fact alone had crossed Megatronus' processor in a fit of revenge. Then the realization had crossed him that Orian had betrayed him only accidentally, and thus, it gave him no right to disclose his femme's being. So he would suffer the consequences in his brother's place. Because that was how great his appreciation for his brother was. If it meant he had to fall so his brother could rise, he would have done that. That was why he was to be Protectorate instead of Prime.
"This femme you so graciously affiliated yourself with, is she important to you?" Sentinel went on calmly, blatantly ignoring his youngest apprentice in favor of the eldest.
Megatronus frowned deeply. He couldn't tell the truth. He wouldn't. It was for her safety, as well as his own.
"No," he stated simply.
Sentinel's optic ridges rose at Megatronus' brief response. His servos rounded around to lock at the base of his spinal support, his optics studying the gladiator whom stared back at him coldly. "Oh, and here I had believed you were favoring this femme's attentions," he said back, voice steady with a hidden message. This conversation was leading somewhere. If it weren't, Sentinel would have dismissed him.
Distrust welled within Megatronus. He could feel an inner meaning behind Sentinel's comments, as obscured as they may be. Orian must have felt the same way, for when Megatronus glanced his way, the cyberling was practically dancing in place. While Megatronus studied his anxious comrade his tensions rose. Whatever Sentinel could be getting at, if there was anything to get at all, it couldn't be pleasant. Suspicion was heavy on his spark when he addressed his mentor and adoptive dolanno.
"Is there a reason you inquire as much?" he wondered lowly, brushing on thin grounds for a reaction. Sentinel displayed none but the utmost calmness. It was his specialty. The mech was infamous for his abilities for keeping a straight profile in times of stress or excitement.
Sentinel paced to the rear of the room where a window took up the vast majority of the wall. It was from ceiling to floor, expanding outward so as to give the most optimal view of the beauty of Iacon beneath. It was the latter orn, leaving the bustling city-state to be aglow in the waning rays of light. Twinkling stars glittered magnificently above and below. It was as if the skies and the cityscape were connected. And Sentinel Prime ruled over it all.
"I merely wished to advise against rambunctious behaviors, for that would be unfitting as a High Protectorate," Sentinel stated slowly, gazing across the carpet of his empire.
Megatronus froze in place, his limbs locking at his sides. Digits bore deep welts into his palms and shook with the force of his clenching. They trembling slightly with barely restrained emotion. Anger most likely held highest in his processor. Shock was a close second. The resentment was flowing through his lines again, but this time, of a sourer tinge. Sentinel was dropping to low, low points to be threatening his apprentice this way. Using Euphoria as a means to force him into a more 'professional' signature? That was a new version of sleazy for the mech to hit.
Megatronus hid his shaking fists behind his spinal support and quickly cleared his vocal capacitor. "I am afraid I do not understand, Sentinel," he lied evenly. His acidic optics burned into the side of the Prime's helm in attempts at seeing his expression. What could be there right now? Contempt? Ridicule? Mockery? Any of it would upset the gladiator immensely.
"High Protectorate, my dear Megatronus," Sentinel said, turning to set his side to his pupils. "I wish for you to fill that staple upon Orion's inauguration."
"You yourself declared I was to never be High Protectorate," Megatronus nearly snarled. This mech changed his plans on the turn of a knife. One was to never know when or what would occur in his presence. Those who were close enough to personally know him lived in constant fear of what he would order. It seemed as though the power of Prime had gotten to his ragged, disputable sanity.
Sentinel waved off a servo at Megatronus, dismissing the words. "That was in a time where undesirable energon split between us. I was not of my right conscious then, for I had not initially understood your tactics. However," he began, looking to Orian with a cool gaze, "it has come to my understanding that you have your ways of becoming a part of our race. It may differ from my own, but that is of no matter. I realize you wish only for the betterment of this planet, therefore, it was clear to me that I would have none other stand beside Orian as High Protectorate."
The change from ire to serenity had Megatronus reeling. He no longer knew how to communicate with Sentinel efficiently, which was to definitely become an issue if and when he was to become Protectorate. And Sentinel wasn't so far gone that he would be blind to the rift in their relationship. They were not a pair whom saw optic to optic. Sentinel was taught of the old ways of Cybertron, during its earlier stages of the Golden Age. That had been millennia ago and countless vorns. Things had changed now, meaning Megatronus' path was to definitely differ from Sentinels. And apparently that was to be a problem.
So what other reason for the Prime to be commending Megatronus after scorning him over a femme other than to strike a deal? It was a true moment of opportunity.
"What clause have you to compliment me? My relations, if any, do not benefit you as Prime. I am to have whomever I please, and it shall not affect our standings as Apex Class citizens," Megatronus surmised, his optic slips narrowing. Sentinel took his sights from Orian to settle on his elder student once more.
"You do not yet comprehend the severity of this world's lack of benign environment," Sentinel sighed. "However you are a keen mind, and I commend you for as much. What concerns me is this femme you relate yourself with-"
"She is of no value to me-"
"Relations are perpetual Megatronus, no matter their indefinite aperture!" Sentinel boomed when the mech cut him off. "Your status has been marred by brief circumstance. What of prying optics, brandishing your image with her at your arm, surfacing among Cybertron? What of our reputation amongst our people with your infatuation?" He raised his chin, looking down on Megatronus without needing be any taller. "Take it upon yourself to correct this detraction, or else my favor shall no longer fall upon you as my Protectorate's heir. Do not let my calm demeanor fool you."
"What right have you to manipulation of my personal ventures?" Megatronus argued, taking a step forward. A smaller servo touched his arm, being Orian's, and the younger mech attempted to gently keep Megatronus restrained.
"Megatronus, calm yourself," Orian pled quietly, broken some in his guilt. Megatronus yanked his bracer away, far too lost in his aggravation to let himself become prey to Orian's soothing words.
He took another step towards Sentinel and the mech Prime faced him fully, solemn and serious. "No, no I will not calm myself," Megatronus snarled. "Your rules are of expression to deprive me of my liberties in life. You may disapprove of whomever it may be whose is to stand at my side in my latter life cycle, however, you are not to restrain me from acquiring such a feat as a sparkmate. That femme is not of my interests, therefore, I haven't the distraction you so fondly recall her as." Megatronus' lip plate sneered in distaste and anger. "I shall take your offer as heir of the High Protectorate. But of my own accord." And the gladiator ripped around without allowing Sentinel to make a remark.
Orian started after Megatronus, but the gladiator felt betrayed and irritated by his younger comrade, and so he slammed the door of Sentinel's office behind him to shut off the cyberling. Megatronus stormed through the halls, intent on melting through the metallic walls with only his optics. When he finally came to the front entrance of the domicile, he took in a long vent and let it go very slowly. He felt better afterwards, but his thoughts were still clouded.
There was only one place he knew that could get his musings off of Sentinel and Orian. One place, which he was aware of the incredible danger and sacrifice put into each show. One place, where he was respected and treated as a free being and not a styled prince. One place, that truly felt more a home than this one.
Megatronus started making his way for the lunar cycle holorail, on his way to the gladiator pits.
Perhaps it was of no more interest to the passing optic than a mere spark of a severed wire. Bolstered groups of rambunctious mechs, gathered round the bars, a container of luscious azure liquid, brimming with substances sure to break their awareness by the second cube, sitting in a wave of laughter. On either side of these giggling, overheated beings, they pushed and shoved in their violent, content humor until they fell off their stools or fights broke the blanket of peace. The others, renewed in vigor, bellowed until their cheekplates were flushed in blue, their optics gleaming.
Among them, their king of the arena. Past qualms ignored, they gathered along the wide ring of openness, prowling like savage predators as their champion danced the most graceful, deadly dance among them. A lethal grin took up his lip plates, though it was less than so, as these were his brethren after all. And as much, mere unconsciousness satisfied these unruly beasts.
Megatronus roared, his arms launched skyward in victory as his latest opponent lay still on the ground. Laughing, the champion squatted down beside Brawl and patted his cheekplate, nearly cross-optic as he roused his comrade. The gladiator was leisured to awaken and as he had, his sights were clouded with the misty sheen of a daze. "Ah, rouse yourself, Brawl!" he chuckled, slapping his cheekplate a bit harder. "I didn't knock you down too roughly, did I?" With a laugh he stood and clapped bracers with the mech. He heaved backwards, helping his comrade to stand. He was woozy, and Megatronus thought the hazy disorientation in his optics was amusing.
Leaving the mech be was a simple task, as it allowed Megatronus to stride pridefully towards the bar once again, his chassis puffed and his mandible held high. Plates of armor trembled off his protoform in exuberance. He was untouchable - invincible to the mortal envy.
A mech with a cube of energon stood amongst the crowd, and from that servo, the victor snatched it and growled in challenging for rebuke. When none came, the sloshing contents were downed through Megatronus' throat into the burning broil of his tanks. It was emptied faithfully, then unfaithfully thrown into the floor to shatter into uncountable pieces. A primitive scream of mechhood rumbled the walls of the barracks, joined in full by the others surrounding. Fists rose to the air, chanting their champion's name in utter devotion.
A brilliant light had appeared in his optics, driven by his lust for battle. A pair by the rear of the space, caught up in staying out of the fray of the crowd, kept to themselves. A femme, painted in a color deep enough to be confused for scarlet or fuchsia, was seated across the way from a hunched mech cloaked in a black dark enough to rival the night itself, with heated red details that blazed along his arms, stating his place in the worlds with a prominent mark. They were interesting.
"You, there!" Megatronus barked, jerking his mandible at the pair. The crowd around them parted, leaving none in the way of Megatronus' sight. They looked up in mild attention, both sets of faceplates ground in a permanent scowl. Megatronus lifted his arm wide from him, offering himself openly to them arrogantly. "Would either of you care to spar with the champion?"
The femme, Astrea, if he recalled correctly, snorted and shrugged a shoulderbolt, effectively brushing off his offer. The mech, a newer addition to the Pits; a mech designated Solas Kaon. That one had a reputation. Surely one that Megatronus would have wished to test for himself, as it intrigued him. After all, it had been that mech whom had defeated, and granted mercy, to Sideswipe, one of the renowned twins of the pits. However, by the shake of Solas' helm, and the cold turn of his spinal support, there would be no brawl this orn.
Disappointment was certain in Megatronus, however, he ignored it in favor of saving his mood. He raised his balled servo again, toward the roof of their prison-like habitat. There were plenty more colleagues he could brush fists with.
Then a figure, shrouded in onyx, their glowing gaze haunted with a yellow tinge of the Terminal class. Their hunched, submissive stature, soaked in unworthiness, approached the godly mech. The crowd barely noticed his approach, and so were meekly shoved through by the mech with words of apology whenever he touched them. Megatronus ceased his guttural calls of a warrior and lowered his fist, his optics instinctively measuring the one coming for him. His gaze, though meant to be neutral towards all, seemed all too overbearing in their natural, Alpha, blue color.
With weak volume, and a hollow posture, the newcomer breached the curtain of laughing mechs to come in company with their respected leader. "Megatronus..." he uttered, cringing into his dirtied and battered frame. The plates of his features, laden in subversive instincts, let his gaze fall from the more deserving of Megatronus'. "There is a femme...awaiting you outside."
Whoops and whistles followed Megatronus' confused state while he stared at the Terminal-class mech. Half of his processor could not, would not, understand what was told to him. When it did settle in, a part of himself became interested. First, he was granted an endless bounty of energon to drown in. Second, every match against him had brought on failure among failure for the challenger. And third, there was now a femme waiting for him outside the barracks.
What possibly could the champion of the gladiator pits have done to deserve the pleasure of this orn?
Measured steps took him to the front of the bar, a half-full cube clutched in his tainted digits and a drunkard's smirk on his warm lip plates. A few comrades clapped him on the shoulderbolt, jarring the sore socket housing the mighty warrior's arm. A bracer, heavy in fatigue, hid all strain while he lifted up the cube to his faceplates and downed the rest of the high-grade. Fluffy dizziness accompanied the mugginess of an obscured processor. It was a laugh that bubbled forth when he swung out his arm and promptly smashed the empty cube onto the mech's helm.
He wasn't present to watch the brawl that ensued. The one, he started. None truly knew whom had begun the fight, for the culprit was escaped into the dimness of the corridors. Well, escaped hadn't as much proper definition as stumbled per say. Garbled words left him, of a spark song he knew of from long ago, however failed to remember from whence it came. Femme creator was out of the question. A nannia was luxury for those with stability in their life cycle. Sentinel was the one then? No. No fragging way.
Grumbling echoed a disbelief of anger broiled in with the confusion. Why was he mad again? He remembered a fight, and words being said that he couldn't completely recall. The reasoning slipped past him. The song curdled into the roughness of his graveled voice. Whatever had happened was over now. Visions swayed of the tunnel ahead. Was that the femme there? That shadow, waiting for him?
She was a beauty, whatever she was, waiting there in the cascade of the milky waterfall that was the luminescence of the lunar masses orbiting Cybertron. What were they this lunar cycle? Lunesta and Cynile? They worked well on the femme, against the sapphire gleam and graceful swoop of her sloped shoulderbolts. Brilliant bulbs of which he assumed to be the windows to her spark lifted to pierce the dankness of the hall Megatronus walked. Dainty servos were clasped, almost shamefully, their grip filled with terseness, in front of her.
A pump beyond pumps beat away at the constrictive chamber of his chassis when his optics met hers. Some would mill past and perhaps stop and pause, as they had failed to do at the pub, and watch her for awhile. It was the beauty of she that spark interest when an essence passed, on hesitant peds, to dare pass her by without another look. Megatronus was one such entity to take his greedy moments to stare at her every detail, down to the curl of her crest upon that smooth helm. Any sane enough to have an interface cable wouldn't process to miss the chance to revel, if but for a nanoclick, at her loveliness.
Euphoria was her designation. Her spark. Her presence.
Megatronus hadn't the ability to speak out first, bound by the pride of a mech to stay vigilantly silent. He towered over she, helm tilted down, optics aimed lower to bask in her attractiveness in a swimming blue hue. It was marked with high-grade and emotion. Withheld emotion. Yet emotion nonetheless.
Then her antsy gaze broke from his, allowing his thoughts to clear. It was usually the high-grade to sway him. Now this femme, coupled with that, nearly left him crippled at her peds. He wanted her. So very, very badly. But he held himself back, knowing, dreading, that they may never be.
"Megatronus, I..." her sweet, even voice began. Smoothed over in uncertainty, the sound thrilled. Dare he imagine it be ever the more enticing when she did say his designation. Frag the femme and her impression! What hold of he that she held, his spark in her servo, able to crush it with the simple means of clenching that fist! And there his life would leak away onto the ground without mercy in her grasp. It was that strength she bore on his conscious. The venom was she. Euphoria was the anger he knew, and evidently, found himself addicted to.
It was his turn for words, and he failed to say them. Words hurt. They were too powerful. He didn't trust himself with them.
"What you said before-"
"You shouldn't have come," he interrupted, painfully, the sentence burning his throat and scorching his vocal capacitor. Clearing his voice again, for firmer usage, he repeated, "You shouldn't have come."
Again the hurt crossed her. It crossed him. They were connected, though he desperately attempted to prevent a circumstance as that. At a term he believed the best would be for them to stay separate. And still at this important moment he made sure his buzzing peds stayed where they were. They were meant to be locked, yet it was he that urged them to stay in place rather than carry him into the silhouette tantalizing every wire of his grid. What he wouldn't give to again feel her frame against his once more - to hear the heated moan against his audio.
Euphoria shifted, servos clamped as vices on herself. "I had to," she reasoned, weakly. Perhaps the pull was strong in her too. "Where we left off...I couldn't recharge knowing that we broke things off that way. If you wanted to leave, fine, I'm fine with that." Her boundless, universally hammered optics struck at his intoxicated spark. Though from the high-grade, or the femme standing in front of him, he was no longer sure where the blow had come from.
"I knew I wasn't enough from the beginning. Deep within me, the wisdom came that a femme as I hadn't depth to match yours. A gladiator femme perhaps, however, myself is remotely insufficient in comparison. I know that." The way she rambled on tore at him. This wasn't the femme he knew from before. She was restrained, yes, but more so in smokey azure waves of heat rather than cold formality.
You know nothing, he wanted to say, but he didn't. You don't know why I left or the pain in the aft it caused me to make myself believe I didn't need you. That I didn't want you. Because, the truth is, I want you so very badly.
Words were a powerful thing.
"You don't understand," he rumbled, lowly, without malice. If he could grant this femme anything, it could be the care of a proper sendoff. Rebuke wouldn't sit well in him. At least, not after what they'd experienced so far. "You...you are..." The energon ate away his thoughts, leaving him stranded. What did he want to say? Frag it all, the words ceased to enter his processor correctly. His glossa was no aid either, being the benign piece of sludge it was acting like.
Euphoria's optic slips narrowed, the whiteness of them becoming slivers. "Are you...drunk?" she hissed, lowly and without the gentleness of a medic, but the fierceness of her femme way. It pinched his spark to show his faceplates in front of her as he did this way, in this condition. It certainly was unbefitting of his stature in society. What was he doing? He should have turned away the moment he saw her standing there at the end of the hall.
Unwilling to show his shame, Megatronus grumbled and crossed his hefty bracers over his chassis. "I can drink if I so...see fit," he garbled, managing that much of a sentence. This was definitely unlike himself. Euphoria wouldn't be tricked in his attempts. Primus frag it, he wished he was able to control his high-grade. How would Orian react if he saw the gladiator, wavering on his stand, smashing emptied energon cubes onto mech's helms? Suddenly, this late orn didn't seem so wonderful or relaxing. "I don't want your jud-"
A petite servo snapped up, cutting him off. "I won't tell you what you can and can't do, that isn't who I am," Euphoria intoned, less so deterred than determined. Hard optics lifted as her servo lowered. "And you are a fully upgraded mech. It is in your right to indulge." When that servo fell Megatronus could deny the fact that he wanted to reach forward and grab it. They had always been the warmest of them all, he'd found out. "What I came here for was to tell you that no matter if you are a gladiator, a drunkard, the Prime's progeny, or a danger to myself, I cannot vex your image from my processor. Tell me away so that I may continue in peace, Megatronus. Banish me from sight so my spark may ring another's designation. Strike my cheekplate so your forever raised fist may deter my fixation."
Her optics moved away here, staring into the skies above and into the lovely shade of the lunar orn light. A soft hum of light bounced from the curve of her cheekplate. "Or if you wish further to torture me with this ailing spark, leave me here, detested, without answer. Or accept me. You have my fancy in your servo. Crush it, leave it, or take it - the choice of cruelty is yours."
What a choice he held. Power licked through his digits, scaling the length of his bracer, and becoming gnarled within the confines of his spark. It was her affections hovering at the precipice here. Whether he decided to deny her here (as he had considered almost obsessively), accept the whimsy she provided (as he had also subjected to his conscious), or decide neither and walk away now (of which standards brim on the line of cowardice), it was up to him. All that influence was at the tips of his digits.
Shuttering his optics, Megatronus' vents let go of a fluttering sigh. The words came to the forefront of his processor, ready to be said. Dare he say them? To him, right now, they sounded so right. To a sober processor, of which he usually may possess, this would be insanity.
"I already claimed you," he stated, firmly, finally, outside of the sluggish drunkenness. With a growl, he lifted a servo and swiped it across the front of his body. "You idiotic femme, you should have stayed away. How is it I am the torturer when you brandish yourself here, in my state?" His optics shot open and his arm shot outward, catching the silhouette that molded to his so perfectly to his own. A helm thrummed with the deepest of rumbles while it inclined toward his mistress'. "A trap has captured you, my femme, and nigh my sword will gleam with his energon if may Ratchet tear you from it."
Desperation let it's presence be known in the way she hooked her digits around his center. Clamped onto his armor, he dare not breach that attachment of her against him. A warmth unknown to him wafted from her, as a fulfilling sensation Sentinel hadn't given him within his life cycle. A sparkling was she to clasp with all her measly femme strength onto him and bury her faceplates into his chassis. This tender time, filtering and cycling between them in dramatic humidity, sank them within the crust of Cybertron into a place rid of all but themselves.
Tiny pricks spiked where Euphoria's slim digits brushed his protoform. "I never loved him," she hissed, muffled in the thickness of his enormity. "I couldn't. You stupid mech, why? Why do I chose you of them all? Why? Why?" A single fist beat exactly three times on his chassis. Frustration weighed on her pretty frame.
And he allowed her to beat him. He deserved it, that at least he knew in this confounded term of high-grade intoxication. Euphoria was better off in another's company, and thus why must he be this selfish and keep her? Ratchet would be fitting for her, as a medic, and a politician. A normal, calm life cycle bonded to him. Any femme would have wished for that. She could grow to love him, in time. And such together they may create many a sparklings as a pair.
Yet not this femme. This crazed, insane, fantastic femme. Of which he didn't deserve.
"I want to hate you," she mumbled, lovely faceplates caught in the mass of Megatronus' frame. "I should hate you for doing this to me...but..." She lifted away, and they stared. Unable to do but that one thing. In fascination maybe it was that they couldn't move. "But frag, Megatronus, gladiator, champion, you drunkard..." She beat on his chassis again. "I fell into the suave taste of your lips on my own and may you be blasted to Pit for torturing me."
The mech of course could do nothing else but kiss her. It was the proper action to take at that moment, wasn't it? He smashed their lip plates together, savoring her smell; the sweet taste of her glossa; the rapturous tangle of her sapphire limbs with his grey ones. Primus cursed him at the wrong time to be tempted with infatuation in this instance.
Just when he was on the precipice...tasting glory on the tip of his glossa...Euphoria woke him up on the medbay floor. Blast her. May she be cursed to Pit. This she-beast. This concubine of horrible fate. This harpy of hatred. This...this fantastical sense of impending doom in the form of a femme's delicate frame. He never wanted to let go.
There they stood, one drunken with something beyond the energon, and another bound to the champion of the gladiators; a killer with energon on his servos; a fighter with nothing but everything to give. Together they stood.
There you guys go :D
A little make-up kiss after the argument of last chapter ;)
It's been really fun writing this story, and so I apologize for not getting a chapter out until now!
I'm truly looking forward to finishing this story with you guys :D
