So yeah, I've been gone for a while XD
Really, I have no excuse for being this late...
Other than I guess school, projects, my novel, family, friends, personal time, and allergies.
But besides that!
I'm here now, and I decided it was a great opportunity to post up another chapter!
And this one's a doosey ;)
Enjoy!
Chapter 7
Bring Me Strength
~ERROR: Failed to recover systems. Warning: Total systems wipe in progress within automated procedure. Loss in mobility conduits of bipedal conduction. Alternate shift of reformation withheld and *failed* to launch within proper restart processes. Contact of chief medical officer *failed to connect*. Ventilation systems at zero-point-five-three percent. Unable to connect to *spinal core relay; memory core relay; central processing unit; electrovascular system at point-three-six-nine percentile; failure in mobility processes; failure in relay processes; vocal capacities failing to respond* it is *highly* recommended that immediate action be taken before central processing unit crashes. Recovering…attempting to recover…~
24,689 Vorns, 1 quartexes before:
It's been two vorns since Megatronus took up apprenticeship beneath Beta for High Lord Protectorate.
If he was lucky, and things ran smoothly, the dawn of his graduation would fall upon the fifth vorn from hence. Which, according to Sentinel's dastardly determined methods to prevent this very occurrence from coming, was a slimmer chance of coming into reality. Beta was a fair tutor, and cherished Megatronus' youthful presence with a grinning warmth befitting a nannia. She had him do mundane tasks amidst most things, such as stacking files, writing files, loving files.
But beyond the depth of boredom he would sink to, Megatronus was to this moment, able to boast of visiting six different planets, and commend himself for four separate texts of four different languages being told to thousand-member-plus crowds. Was this the rush Beta experienced within each speech? Had she delved in two-million decacycles of fluent speech, guiding and leading the masses? If this drunken glow within Megatronus' processor was what he had to look forward to within his future as High Lord Protectorate, he was barely withholding his sparkling-like excitement.
Here, he sat, within the docks of the transport shuttle, awaiting the moment when he stepped aboard the bay and drowned Euphoria's processor with his story of this orn. He and his mentor had returned from the surreal planet of Teu'rak t'ah, where crystals morphed in organic symphonies, and metallic frames had become an art rather than a customary practice. It was odd, yet interesting really, to see white frames decorated in rainbows of layers of differing colors or shapes, or see not a single weapon in sight except statues that were made solely for artistic application.
"I have yet to meet a mech as mute as you, my pupil," an aged, fortified voice of slivery mercury spoke to Megatronus. Jumping from his musings by the window, the mech lifted his privileged and polished helm to turn toward the dusky emerald shape of the femme designated Beta. She remained seated across the aisle from him and held herself with back straight and legs crossed in manner.
Megatronus, smirking, returned to his fixed gaze outside the glass, to watch fantastic blurs of violets and blues ribbon behind the vessel they rode in. White curled up spiral edifices while bustling shudders rocked the holoroads by the alt modes driving through them. His entertainment was stolen by the crimson glimmers against surfaces that had been slicked by the recently passed acid storms. He couldn't help considering the image of a certain femme when he came pass the sapphire pulsing of the cool shadows.
The transportation bay prepared for docking of the ship, causing it, and its passengers, to lurch slightly. Hissing hydraulics signaled the shock dampeners clamping across the impact ring, taking in thousands of tons of ship. Wings retracted back, folding against the belly of the ship to allow passage within the boarding hangar. Stabilization plunges pressed cushioned suction pieces to the arc of the ship's undercarriage. Within astroseconds, scaffolds stretches and contorted from within subspace containers. They hovered beside the ship before suctioning against the hull.
"I prefer observation over conversation," Megatronus finally answered his mentor, looking back towards said femme. Silence had apparently been her aid, as she had stood without Megatronus to hear she'd done so. As a gladiator it was not in Megatronus' inherited habits to provide a quiet edge to his movements. Beta had known of his…side hobby for the past vorn or so. However, blessed he be by Primus, Beta told Megatronus that she had no plan to inform Sentinel as long as Megatronus continued his studies and became High Protectorate after she.
Beta glided in her graceful way through the halls, never once effected by the terrors of age against her systems. Nearly half Megatronus' height, she was no slender, lengthy thing. Nor had she ever taken a mate. Though, and Megatronus had read these true, rumors had risen that she once had been Sentinel's lover once so long ago. Which, according to history, was not such a rare thing. If the rumor were truth, it was no wonder she left him.
And yet still, it would have been interesting to have this femme as his adoptive nannia.
They walked out of the transport vessel and into the hangar. It remained wide, with openness galore, and an expansive ceiling that would make the unlucky one sick if they stared at it too long. Megatronus had been that one once, many vorns ago, early in his younglinghood, where he'd made himself purge right up onto their vessel pilot after looking up at the roof for a good breem.
Beta went off to provide a word to the vessel crew tending to their transporter while Megatronus took in the view. It was a welcomed and familiar sight to see for the hundredth time. Already the hired sparks working within the hangar had become faceplates he could recognize. No longer were they the nameless mechs and femmes employed to the wealthy for a leisured flight. There was Soar with his torch; Jetliner was hanging over there with her goggles and jagged laugher; Thundercracker was over there knocking a bolt into the panels of a ship tusk, his frame covered in its usual grime…
A servo touched Megatronus' bracer and he did not flinch because of it. None dared touch the champion of the gladiator pits less they have a death wish, or they were a close comrade. The only comrade Megatronus had mind to consider would come here would be the one who could actually be allowed to be seen in public with him. The other, was better left for his time spent in the shadows.
"Good to see you in well health, brother," Orian's cheery tone greeted, echoing in its newer deepness through the hangar. Megatronus laughed a bellowing laugh and grabbed his brother (whom was up to his neck now), clapping his arms around the younger mech. They embraced in the rough way brothers usually did, minding none to the crowd around them. The workers here barely paid attention anyway, having already become used to the sight of these brothers reuniting.
"Give me well word, how is Alpha Trion?" Megatronus asked, pulling back, but keeping his servos on his brother's shoulderbolts. Orian smiled broadly in his way that made femmes swoon and grabbed Megatronus' bracers.
"Well," he said in a student's glint. "Have you anything to share?"
And by 'share' Orian meant souvenirs that Megatronus had promised to bring his adoptive sibling back with every planet. Megatronus snorted in amusement and reached within the subspace attached to his side, bringing forth a covered box bound in solidified mercury alloy. The gladiator handed off the box to his brother, and the youngling took the object with enough joy to match a sparkling's. The latch clicked off and the lid flipped to reveal the containment within. Orian sucked in a sharp vent as he gently dipped a servo inside to scoop up his new prize.
An organic crystal, capable of retaining shape, and changing it with the mere softest of touch, came from the container. Orian tilted his servo from side to side, allowing the iridescent substance to glimmer in a volley of different colors. Its chrome-gleamed surface rippled with every wave of his digits, and changed color with every fraction of light.
"Do you like it?" Megatronus asked, watching Orian's faceplates shift from excitement to engagement.
Orian broke his curious gaze from the crystal to his brother. Nodding, he softly placed the crystal back inside its place. "Thank you, brother," he said in gratitude.
"Join us Orian," Beta invited brightly as she stepped up behind Orian and placed a servo on his shoulderbolt, "I am about to provide your brother in a lecture over the pronunciations of his Tue'rak t'ah morphogenetic frame types and his atrocious way of saying the word 'washer'."
"I speak fine!" Megatronus snapped, making Beta smirk.
"Speak what, my dear pupil?"
Megatronus froze, pausing for a moment at her voice. Pit be blasted in ice, he'd become lazy with his words.
"I…speak well," he attempted again. Beta grinned, the edges of her optics crinkling, stepped up to Megatronus, then raised her servo. She pat his cheekplate once. Then walked away.
"Smart mech."
Roars cut through the air, drowning and dead in the heat of rapturous chanting. Glimmering, malicious sights burrowed underneath the armor of those that fought before them, twisting and spinning and releasing sounds akin to agony. Grunts accompanied the impact of the frames, while piercing booms echoed in a spacious container.
Someone having imagined this would believe two mechs would be in the gladiator pits, wailing off with ghoulish, home-made weapons, or contorting a suspect inside the binds of interrogation. But no, sadly for a few, for it was merely a mech and his femme in their intimate moment within the walls of the champion's chamber of the gladiatorial barracks.
While their whispers faded into the minds of their lover, they refused break contact from crest to toelinks. A bulk of overwhelming mass nearly hid her away from the worlds, and it was a pleasurable closeness. Yet the entrancing embrace of the moons filtered down upon the couple on the berth, covering them in milky ribbons. Somehow the magnificence of her had magnified in the mech's optics, and he dared not say he'd seen something surpassing her beauty. Not in the seven planets he'd walked upon did he find another object, or species, outweighing her in loveliness.
Euphoria was her name, and the emotion digging through Megatronus' spark while he watched her. They laid in a knitted tangle of limbs and armor. They were locked by their shifting, and had gotten as close as they could get, and still, it did not feel like enough. Sapphire tendrils were scored into his otherwise silver armor, going to show the depth of impact she'd had in the heat of the moment. Silver was also on her frame, marking her as his, and him as hers.
"I missed you," she murmured, daring break the muggy dream of their silence. Megatronus grinned, unable to help it, and brought a sharp digit along her back in lazy circles. She doodled across his chassis, and made him shiver when she drifted past the latch of his chassis plates. His spark was pounding always when she was near and wailed for the orn that her essence be bound to his forever.
The gladiator rumbled deeply, taking in the scent of his femme. "I can say the same," he told her while he swelled slightly in pride. It would never get old to hear her say she wanted him. However, what made him happier was the fact that she was perfectly fine with being claimed as his, and his alone. No mech was to touch her, and it was made clear at this point around the pits that she wasn't to be watched in the wrong way either.
Two vorns could change a lot. Megatronus was still champion, making this the third vorn in a row. However, two twin mechs were slowly catching up. They were an interesting pair. Along with that, a major issue had arose on Cybertron concerning the rising energon shortage. Due to the overuse of energon mining, the resources had been ravaged. Not only that, but terrorist groups demanding better say within the Council and their decisions on lawmaking and enforcement had sent in explosives inside a few mines in the city-states of Vos and Polyhex recently. Sentinel had already made three speeches this past quartex that led to rioting, which, was a new record for him.
The increase in danger, coupled with the anxiety Megatronus already possessed, had urged the gladiator to convince Euphoria to move to Kaon and live with him in the gladiator's chamber. The switch from Blaster City to Kaon was a mighty one, and he was happy they were closer now. Sentinel didn't know Megatronus had moved out into the gladiator pits, as he still believed his oldest progeny was no longer a gladiator. Instead, Megatronus had bought a fake living domicile in the main district of the city that he would use any time Sentinel decided to pay a visit. Things had settled into a form of comfort, and Megatronus couldn't say he'd ever felt more like he'd had a home.
Orian too would pay a visit every so often, alongside his femme Ariel. She was a nice femme, if maybe a bit too mannered at first, but overall she was a fine choice for Megatronus' brother.
A touch by Megatronus' chin snapped him back to reality, and he gazed down on the steady view of his wondrous lover's ivory optics. Their glow was mesmerizing in the low shadows of the late orn darkness.
"You're becoming distant again," she noted, voice soft as her touch.
Megatronus leaned into her palm and relished in the reassurance it gave him. "I apologize," he sighed. "I was merely thinking…"
"And that is where I lose you," Euphoria murmured with a chuckle. She angled her faceplates upwards and pressed her lip plates to his. They were sweet, and he savored the taste of her. When they pulled back, Megatronus' optic slips were low and he had to keep from reconnecting them again. Hunger was always in her gaze now, and whenever Megatronus' saw it, he could never keep away from her for long.
He rolled over onto his back, taking Euphoria with him. She chuckled and straddled his middle, leaning down to rest her elbowjoints on his chassis.
"Most times I drift because I'm thinking of you," he said warmly.
The femme laughed, jolting Megatronus and causing his spark to flip. "You say that to get me into bed with you," she jabbed, poking him in the chassis.
"Well it worked, did it not?"
Euphoria huffed and laid her helm over her arms, which were folded over his armor. "You are plagued by the dangers out there," she murmured, sadder now. "About forces beyond your control. And it will drive you mad."
Perhaps she was right. It sunk Megatronus down to unfathomable depths whenever he rested beside this femme during the late orn, shivering with the latch of a rabidly corrupt memory file. It was at points like these he wished he were a simple sparkling again, caught in a world of bliss, and without a single goal but to get fed his next warm cube of energon. However, he was entitled to keep his composure and be the strong mech he was expected to be in the presence of the femme.
Forcing a half grin that was laced in the sticky fakeness of assurance. "You mustn't get so concerned over me. I am capable of handling a few textures of stress," he told her. When her expression had not changed with his words, he lifted a servo and touched her cheekplate. Comforting vibrations wafted from his armored plates. It wasn't in his nature to talk too much, especially over issues he didn't particularly like.
Euphoria was a smart enough femme to know that he was trying to distract her. What he couldn't control was that. When she frowned, it was deep. She sighed and sat up, turning from her lover and facing her back to him. Her legs folded against her aft, and her arm straightened with her weight against the berth.
Megatronus released a vent with her, and rose to his aft. They were close enough that he merely had to lean forward to press his chassis lightly to her back. His faceplates tucked into her neck, nuzzling the exposed protoform. The warmth of her soaked through his lip plates as he brushed them across the sensitive wires.
"Don't turn your back on me," he murmured to her, pleading through the contact he placed on her that she return to their comfortable position of before.
Euphoria turned her cranial unit over her shoulderbolt, watching him with her optic slips low. "You make me anxious Megatronus," she whispered, angling her mandible as he kissed a path along it. "I worry for you. For us."
Megatronus lifted an arm, wrapping it around her tanks and gently holding her to him. "What we have here is more important than anything out there," he promised her. And it was true. This attachment he'd accepted these passing two vorns overpassed any superficial concern he may have developed on Cybertron. No other spark understood him more. No spark accepted him more for who he was – for what he'd done.
Euphoria shook her helm, twisting around to see Megatronus fully. "Megatronus, I…" she refused to continue that sentence, bringing her optics down to his lip plates before reconnecting their gazes. "Not once have we said it yet. I'm terrified to say it, and I know you are too. But for Primus sake, we can't keep going on like this."
"Euphoria-"
"Please, let me finish," she said, on the verge of tears. Her voice wavered in emotion, and a weak smile accompanied the breathless laugh she gave him. "You have more enemies in this city-state than any normal mech. I am out of my processor waiting for you to come home, and if something happened to you…"
Megatronus stopped her by pressing a firm kiss to her lip plates. "I can say it, anytime," he told her with the volume of a breath.
But she was vigilant, and picked up her arm to hold his faceplates. "Megatronus…" she murmured, rolling in her lip plates. The tears finally came, and she looked down as she patted his cheekplate twice, then took away her servo. Carefully, she swung her legs off the berth and pushed off. Two steps away, and Megatronus was off the berth as well.
He swept her from her peds and cradled her in his arms, shocking her into silence. Her cheekplates glistened in that sad, sad beauty her optics always seemed to carry now. He gently pressed kisses to the trails raining over her faceplates, banning away the bitter wetness of her sorrow. He forced as much support as he could through the contact.
"We are together," he whispered, faceplates hovering beside her audio. Their cheekplates remained touching as Megatronus slowly rocked them from side to side. "That should be enough for now."
"I don't have the strength to be scared anymore," she whimpered, throwing her arms around his neck. "I just want you here, safe, with me."
He could fight his demons. He could plunge his blade through the spark of a thousand mechs. He could blast through the walls of his prisons. But what he couldn't do, is banish the fears of the one he…
Dammit, he couldn't even say it in his thoughts.
"What change can be brought, when only ignorance is heard?"
The mighty voice filled the room without the barest of effort. It was full and rich with the almost lyrical way of speech. A seasoned speaker, of course, this was the highest of royals on the planet. At least, at their time.
"My brothers, my sisters, my beating spark in pertinence to the crust I walk upon hails us so to join in this orn, under the guarding watch of the stars. May of course you heed my word against the treacherous endeavors of our evils and reign in desperation to reach the nirvana of Primus, less our paths be altered and paved with challenging rifts, of which we will, and always shall, overcome." The mech, golden and white, moved with the slightest of motion. With it, his armor flashed in a glory that was almost blinding. "Primus blessed that of which-"
"Held immaculate stature within our emotions, feeble as they may be, to lead us onward toward inevitable, blissful, completeness," a voice finished. Megatronus switched off the holocube immediately and jumped to his peds. The desk behind him rattled as he did so, though he paid it little attention. There was a mech he recognized well standing before him, with faceplates that were old, in the way that one would find comforting, and yet wise enough to be respected.
"Alpha Trion," Megatronus greeted, relaxing a bit. He loosened his stance, which had tensed in instincts bred through the gladiator pits.
The aged mentor to Megatronus' brother took long, slow steps toward Megatronus before he passed by and picked up a few holocubes on the desk. It took merely a touch for him to recognize them. And why wouldn't it, when the mech had been curator of the Hall of Records since its structure some six million vorns ago?
"A fine speech by Nova Prime, before he departed Cybertron," Trion noted, turning the cube from side to side to study every inch he'd probably seen a hundred times already. "It gathered the masses for peace on this planet. Following it I assume you are aware Sentinel came into power as Prime, deemed amidst the Golden Age?"
Megatronus nodded. Having Sentinel Prime as his mentor since younglinghood included the tales Sentinel cherished deeply, which no doubt would explain the story he'd told Megatronus and Orian countless times about how he came to be Prime. He knew the tale backwards and front.
Alpha Trion grunted with a grin, setting aside the holocubes Megatronus had been reading and placing it with the others. "Tell me, brightspark, how you find my Hall worthy of your presence," he asked, looking up at Megatronus while he organized the mess Megatronus had made.
The gladiator was keen enough to notice the teasing tone in the way Alpha Trion spoke, and he raised an optic ridge. "I had a curiosity I needed answered," he said, watching Trion work. He certainly was a marvel, that was clear.
"A curiosity of Nova Prime, I assume?" Alpha Trion wondered.
Megatronus shook his helm. "Of past patterns overseeing energon dispersion across the planet," he said. "It is in my concern that I would find another way to solve our issue."
"Through history," Trion said, stopping his organizing. The holocubes were stacked, in pyramid form, about three cubes tall. Color-coded and alphabetical. All without looking at them once.
Megatronus nodded, trying to ignore his wonder. "If there was a similar issue of this through time, I predicted-"
"Finding an identical mode of action to partake, in thus to deter the crisis and replenish the energon," Trion finished.
A little put off, Megatronus paused what he was saying. It was almost discouraging to hear his exactly words stolen from his mouth. "Yes…exactly," he admitted, dumbfounded. "How did you-?"
"Nova Prime, the Prime proceeding Sentinel, was leader of a planet gripped with war. We refer to it as the Great War through recorded history, although some prefer Dark War." Alpha Trion rolled his servo, brushing off the topic. "Nevertheless, Nova Prime suffered the debilitating stresses of trying to keep his planet sustained. Energon shortages plagued Cybertron, as the rich hoarded their stock and refused entrance to personal energon mines."
"There were personal energon mines?" Megatronus asked, shocked. Energon mines were rare, and cherished heavily by the Council. Any mine, no matter if it has the smallest speck of the nourishment, is guarded through utmost height, and are too valuable to dare allow anyone but expert miners inside.
"They are illegal now," Alpha Trion agreed. "However, in this pre-dawn of the Golden Age, it was with sorrow I became witness to Nova Prime fight both sword and hunger. I advised him, as I did Primes predating him as well, however, as the fighting faded in its last echoes of hurrah, I, and our planet, grieved for a dead Prime who was merely lost to the stars, dead in our minds, and never again seen."
He stopped talking, then and there, without warning. His optics narrowed in a thirst only the Keeper of The Quill, an ancient Thirteen's Tool of Life, could make. Megatronus often asked himself how Orian survived, consciously, the onslaught of trying to hold a gaze that had seen lives begin, expire, suffer, celebrate, and combine. The universe itself was in those optics.
"You shall be an interesting Protectorate, Megatronus," Alpha Trion commented, nodding slightly. "Your interest in history deems you shall be wise enough not to repeat it. Thus, it is in my honor to see you evolve."
Megatronus took this comment as an honor. Alpha Trion remains an influential and far too ancient character to be ignored. If it is his mouth a commending may come from, then a being better find pride in having that. And Megatronus did find the words flattering. Alpha Trion lived beyond life, in a world which Megatronus would never step in to. It was a path he and Sentinel walked alone as two chosen by Primus. Often, it was for this reason Megatronus became frustrated and envious of his mentor. If he were Prime, would he know the secrets to the planet as well? Would he hold absolute power within his digits?
A slow nod came from Megatronus toward Trion. "I am humbled you think so," he said with a grin. It leaked through his features, sneaking into the fabrics of his frame. The very gleam on his armor shimmered with a tremble when Megatronus fought to hold Alpha Trion's gaze. "I must ask of you, if you may tell me what it is you teach Orian? As a Prime's progeny?"
Trion gave his worn, wise smile, and locked his servos behind his back. He then stepped around Megatronus, which in turn broke their intense optic contact.
"You are curious," he noted as he made his way to the shelves by the door. Holding his spinal support to Megatronus, the aged mech brought his optics over his vast collection. "However, the knowledge you seek is reserved for your brother's spark to bear. It is the weight of it that he must carry on his shoulderbolts. Within his helm, eons of our wars – our strives and our achievements, will be unlocked before him. He will become Primus' next mortal incarnate." Trion touched the flat side of a cube, gently pushing it back into its cozy, shadowed place between its brethren. "Thus, it is so that only one may be chosen to carry this new, yet ageless, burden."
"As Protectorate, I must bear his strife with him," Megatronus argued.
Alpha Trion shook his helm, letting his servo rest on the shelf. "It is not your cost to share, Megatronus, but Orian's alone," he explained. Turning around was a smooth business for the elder mech. The connection that established between his optics and Megatronus' was entrancing. "He is strong enough."
Megatronus stepped forward, his servos tight at his sides. "And if he can't?" he demanded. "What will the planet come to if Orian is to crumble before he can even take the Matrix?"
Alpha Trion didn't say anything at first. Instead, he gave a single, tired smile. It shouldn't have been a surprise really. Trion had spent millennia dealing with the unpredictable, and giving advice to counteract it. It was silly to ever doubt him.
Trion stepped around the table, moving to the door to stand at it. His servo touched the frame while he turned his servo over his shoulderbolt. "That is what you are there for: to give him a reason not to crumble."
It was difficult to stay still while Trion left. The mech had his duties to attend to, and in about point-four nanoclicks, so was Megatronus.
~Megatronus?~
It was Orian's voice, panicked and out of decorum. Megatronus' spark pattered some at the sound of it. He wasn't used to the cold determent of calmness from his brother. Quickly the gladiator pressed his digits to the side of his helm to receive Orian's message.
~Orian, what is the matter?~
~The guns! They've got guns, and the shooting w-was loud, and the frames...oh Primus they killed them! Th-they're dead, Megatronus! And we stood there, gawking, i-it wa- I couldn't-~
~Orian, slow down!~ Megatronus interrupted through the line. ~Start again, and tell me where you are.~
There was a pause over the line, followed by yelling and chaotic noise through the background. Megatronus took lengthy strides across the floor and out the building. He was running before he knew it, with one digit pressed to his helm and the other pumping at his side. ~Orian?!~
~Praxus!~ the young mech yelled. ~We're in Praxus. Ariel is here with me, but Sentinel is somewhere in the first district. He was making a speech, a-and they just…started shooting-!~
~Who is 'they', Orian?~
The feed cut with a blast that nearly deafened Megatronus. Following it was a ringing so sheer that the gladiator was forced to shut off the comlink with Orian before his audios busted. Iacon city was a vast place, full of soaring edifices that pierced the skies and twisting roads so woven that it was unfathomable how vehicles never crashed. Vibrations from the roads rocked the street Megatronus ran down. Long legs flew across the metallic ground, carrying him over incredible lengths. He ducked beneath beams, flying over low obstructions of the street and racing over the staircase of Iacon's holorail station.
The transporter vehicle was nearly about to pull out of dock when Megatronus ran through the lobby. Mindless to the lines, he vaulted over the ticketing station and bypassed the security that, far too late, set chase after him. But Megatronus was through the archways and shoving away civilians before they could even imagine catching up. Shouts followed, but when they saw it was the champion of the gladiator pits who pushed them, they were a little less verbal.
Hydraulics hissed and a booming chime signaled the final call for the holorail. Megatronus shouted for Cybertronians to move out of his way before he barreled between them. He passed through the doors and squeezed into the space yet unoccupied by civilians. They were sure to give him just as much room for him as they could afford, which, wasn't necessarily a bad thing. With cautious gazes they sent nervous glances his way.
But there he stood, covered in dripping liquid from the steam that came from his run. A few of the femmes sent appreciative looks his way as they boldly watched the motion of his broad chassis as it lifted and fell with his violent vents. They soon deterred their shameless stares however as soon as he sent his optics their way.
Not soon enough the holorail reached the docking station in Praxus. The third district station was flustered, and swollen with frames. Many of the faceplates he originally saw first were full of fear. Raw, untamed instincts to flee captured their movements. As such, they packed the station to the brim in their attempts at escaping whatever it was in the city. Megatronus was forced to nearly climb over the wave it was so thick. But, thankfully, his bulk aided him in getting through the mass.
Frustrated and lost, the gladiator made his way slowly to the front of the building. And outside, on the steps, were two forms. One, of course being the familiar to Megatronus. The other wasn't as much, however, he knew well enough who she was.
"Orian!" Megatronus shouted over the unnerving sound of blaster fire in the distance. Orian's helm snapped up, revealing a few cuts across his cheekplates and foreplate. He was dirtier than Megatronus had seen him in a long, long time. A few pieces of armor were missing as well. Along with Ariel there, covered in filth as well, they looked as though they'd been trampled. Maybe they had.
"Megatronus!" Orian shouted back, standing from his spot by the step. Ariel was sitting there, faceplates in her servos. When she heard Megatronus, she lifted her grimy profile to reveal a grubby mix of tears and fear and dust.
The two brothers met in the middle of the stairs, colliding in a massive hug that sent a crack through the air. Orian squeezed tight to the larger berth of his brother, as if clinging to the last safe thing on the planet. "Primus frag it, I'm glad you're here," Orian mumbled against Megatronus' armor. The simple fact that Orian was using contractions so openly like this was evidence of his immense terror.
Megatronus pulled away and set his servos on Orian's shoulderbolts, looking him straight in the optic. Behind the blue helm, Megatronus saw flashing in the massive cloud of smoke in the distance. Mechs and femmes alike were crying in the streets – collapsing into one another with barely withheld emotion. Sobbing femmes clung to their sparklings, and desperate mechs either searched for family, friends, or mates.
A mech suddenly screamed at the top of his vents, his voice echoing cleanly in the station. His frame became paralyzed along with the witnesses watching him. Their optics widened, and with them, Megatronus' energon ran cold. The wailing mech dropped to his knees, tearing at his chassis. Those around him stared in awestruck fright as he seemed to try ripping his very spark from his chassis. Orian tried to look, but Megatronus grabbed his faceplates to keep him from seeing. However, Ariel was too far away, and the gladiator brother could see her sitting there, staring in horror at the mech dying before her very sight.
"You and Ariel must leave the city," Megatronus ordered firmly over the screams of the mech in the courtyard. As the older of the brothers glanced over Orian's shoulderbolt again, he witnessed the agonizing mech freeze, release a few pops of sparks from the chassis, then fall, deadsparked, to his faceplates. It was obvious that unfortunate mech had lost his sparkmate, and ultimately, his life.
Orian was trembling against Megatronus' touch, and he reached up with his servos to hold Megatronus' there. "No…w-we can't," he murmured, his voice captured in forced sternness.
Megatronus growled and forced Orian to look him straight in the optics. "You listen to me, Orian – I am not going to let you stay here. You may fight me all you wish, however, remember I am elder, and until you become Prime, I hold authority," he snapped. Orian's lip plates parted, quivering. There was a sense of utter panic in his still-young gaze. Pressing his denta hard enough together to cause sparks, Megatronus held his brother there for a moment longer. A bomb went off in the distance and Orian drew in a sharp vent, closing his optics.
"Look at me!" Megatronus barked. Orian opened his optics again, slowly, obviously trying to keep from breaking down. "You get that femme to safety, do you hear me? Those beings out there? They will shoot a higher-caste like you in an instant. You aren't safe. And if you care one instant about Ariel, you will do whatever it takes to make sure she is."
"But, Sentinel-?" Orian began, his voice a bit sturdier.
"I will find Sentinel," Megatronus answered. "Just evacuate the city, Orian. Please. The last thing I want to do is attend my own brother's burial."
Orian nodded against Megatronus' palms. And when the gladiator let go of him, he rushed away and touched Ariel's shoulderbolt. Together they took a final look at the deadsparked mech lying on the ground, surrounded by civilians. Orian took Ariel's arm and gently rose the stunned femme from her seat. While she stared into the distant nothing on the ground, he hurried her past Megatronus.
"My clutch…" she murmured, hoarse from throat-tearing screams. "They murdered them…sparklings…"
Megatronus felt boiling rage well inside of himself. Sparklings? The rebels were targeting sparklings now? Of all the mechs of power, he understood a figure of authority such as Sentinel would be sought after…but the innocent? Cybertron's youngest creations were cherished by every venting figure that walked the planet. The very thought of executing sparklings was unthinkable in every way. He plunged into the fray of the fleeing bystanders, passing through one-armed mechs and femmes with half their armor taken by incredible flames. A pair of younglings shook the still body of who Megatronus assumed to be their dolanno. It took a cold spark like his to turn his helm and keep running.
Tiny rushes of electricity traveled up his spinal relay. His limbs were alive in every aspect. Energon-curdling cries of pain tore open the ashen air with a knife's edge. They chilled any spark to the bare protoform. Megatronus ran through it all, streaking as a silver tank into the clouds of black and grey. Blaster fire was a lightning bolt in a cloud. All around him he saw it. Almost as if he'd stepped into the core of a storm.
Acidic smells assaulted his nasal receptors, making it difficult to vent properly. Broken sobs, chocking on poisoned air, flew behind and around him. There were so many of them. So many were holding the cold frames of loved ones. So many were bathing in the shed of energon maybe, or maybe not, their own. It was more death than Megatronus had stomached in all his vorns of being a gladiator. Still, he ran on, with the smell of a dying city in his systems and the sound of crushing hopes in his audios.
Then came the voice.
~Megatronus…?~
Euphoria, strained as he'd yet to hear from her, with the taste of tears in her tight tone.
Immediately he stopped, gasping for fresh air within the suffocating smoke. He'd stopped in an open square, where flames danced against metallic buildings and insane amounts of sound struck every cord of hearing. There were bodies everywhere, either trying to escape or already dead. A body lay crumpled against the sidewalk, with black, voiding optics that made Megatronus clench his servos.
Battle cries raged a few squares from where he stood, maybe in the second district, and followed where most the shots were coming from. That was where he was going to go, because that was where he knew he was needed most.
He lifted a servo, pressing it against his comlink communicator. ~Euphoria, I can't really speak now, there's been an incident with Praxus…~ he told her, ventless.
~I know,~ came her sad, unsteady answer. Megatronus went rigid on the spot, listening in to every fiber of her voice.
~How do-?~
~I'm here.~
Two words, of which could very well have torn Megatronus apart then and there. His vents quit taking in anything, and his wires buzzed with frigid energy. She was here? Now?
~Euphoria, where are you?~ he demanded into the feed, aimlessly searching the buildings and allies around the square as he stood there. ~Why are you here? You need to tell me where you are so I can find you and get you to safety-~
~Megatronus, please…~ She sounded lost, as if all the life had been sucked out of her.
~I'm coming to find you! Euphoria, don't you dare leave this comlink,~ he shouted over the noise.
~I'm sorry…~ she whispered.
And the line cut off.
Well, after a long leave, I kinda thought:
Hey,
Why not a cliffhanger?
Happy April Fool's Day everyone, and I hoped you liked the chapter XD
I'm very excited to hear what you all have to say,
So feel free to review, favorite, follow, or whatever!
And my PM is open anytime for questions, etc :D
Thanks!
