A/N: Thanks Chromia, for showing me where this thing failed, and helping me to fix it. Someday, I will learn world-building.

Lost

Personal Diary: 02-1278-Pax Cybertronia

-RainbowSparkle-

I notice a big difference when Optimus Prime is gone. At first, I assumed it had to do with Primely (Primish? What is the right word?) powers – a special aura he had, a calming influence he exuded, or something strange like that. But the longer I stay on as assistant of sorts to Megatron, the more I come to understand that it has little to do with anything Optimus Prime does. It's Megatron's issue. And I'm starting to get really worried about him.

For instance, he hardly ever leaves his office. And when he does, he goes alone. I don't understand it – with his spark, he should be surrounded by close friends and fond acquaintances. He isn't meant to be alone. But he holds himself in tight like there's a heavy razored spring in there that he's afraid to let fly loose.

What's somehow worse, though, is that no one ever comes to try to pry him from his self-made prison. Didn't he have any friends before everything changed? From what little I can glean from the older Autobot femmes, and from Ironhide and the other bots who've kind of taken pity on me (sigh) Megatron has always been like this. But you'd think he would learn. When Prime and Elita are here, they take him out to all kinds of places, and he seems to have fun, though of course he tries to hide it. I've even heard him laugh. But if I try something like that – if I suggest something as simple as going out driving, he growls at me so fearfully that I (coward) back out.

Once, that black and purple Seeker – I think he's called Skywarp – teleported into Megatron's office, grabbed him around the middle, and disappeared in a flash of optic-searing purple light. They were gone for a few joors. When Skywarp (carrying a half-drunk Megatron) reappeared, he winked at me and made rude comments on my chassis. He propped Megatron back in his chair, patted his shoulder like an older brother would, and left the way he came. To this day I don't know what that was about, but I suspect it was some kind of dare, or prank.

I was glad that someone – anyone – had come to yank Big M. out of his hole. But the next time Skywarp came to report on the secret project he's in charge of, Megatron looked like he was about to blow his head off with that heavy cannon on his arm. So no one's ever tried something like that again.

Ratchet comes in sometimes, and he yells at Megatron to pull his head out of his aft. (How does he get away with it?) But he (M., not R.) listens to no one.

I'm getting fed-up with all this. I'm worried that when Prime comes back, he'll find his Brother's nothing but a pile of broken parts.

I've got to do something.

-End File Record-

Save/Delete ?

"A mapping expedition." Megatron repeated 'Spark's suggestion with distaste.

"Yes," she told him, hands on hips.

"You know," he said, "Most of us have lived here since the Beginning. If some mech doesn't know his way around by now, he doesn't deserve a map." He met 'Spark's flashing gaze, but did not falter. He'd started this day annoyed, and had only progressed from there. "You seemed reasonably intelligent when you took your place here. But if basic navigation's still a problem for you, then I certainly can't help. Go see your makers for an upgrade to your memory-banks."

"Of all the stuck-up, chrome-plated, idiotic mechs..." 'Spark planted both hands on his desk. "The Cybertron you knew is smelted, broken open, bent. And fully half this planet is something none of us has seen before – or let alone explored! And yet, for a full vorn now, you've insisted on rebuilding the old cities and trying to force everything back to what it was. You're spending all your efforts looking outward – you, Prime, even Elita. You're so stuck in the old ways that you don't even see that you're stuck! Not any more. You actually think you're trying something new!"

She flung an arm out. "Megatron, there's a new world to find right here, but you're too blind to see it."

He turned away, ignoring her.

She powered up her servos, scared, but resolute. "Are you afraid to look?" she asked in a metallic whisper.

He whirled. "You greasy little bolt-hole! How dare you insult me?"

"Someone has got to wake you up," she said, shivering slightly. "If an insult's what it takes, I'll try it."

Megatron's optics darkened, and his fists clenched at his sides. "If you think I'll waste my time crawling around in unmarked tunnels, while the Holy Optimus and his Good Consort Elita are out there doing all the important work, then you are gravely mistaken." He gestured to the door. "You are dismissed. Go find another bot to pester. I have no use for 'gramless femmes who think their lack of computation is everyone else's problem. Learn to find your way around, or learn to shovel slag."

Hope failed. He was sending her away. So she did the unthinkable. "Shovel slag? Let me help you with this scrap then." Wracked by emotions she did not have time to comprehend, RainbowSparkle swept a precisely-stacked tower of datapads off Megatron's black desk. In stony immobility, the big gray mech and thin blue femme watched as the screens cracked and clattered to the floor.

The big Decepticon grabbed 'Spark up by the neck, and threw her across the room against the door. He slammed a fist down on the open/close switch in his desk. "Get out," he hissed, pointing a shaking finger. "Don't come back."

Fans screaming, Megatron flopped down into his comfortable chair. He stared at the closed door for two full breems. Then slowly, his head dropped to the dark surface of his desk, and his fist began to pound a leaden rhythm. "Orion," he whispered. "I hurt her."

"Give me your gun."

Megatron looked at him blankly.

Ratchet jerked his outstretched fingers in a gesture that precluded argument. "Give me the cannon now, or I will take it from you." His voice was hard, and cold as iron.

Megatron was taller, broader, stronger, than the white Autobot Medic; but he was also in the wrong, and knew it. And he knew that Ratchet did not make an idle threat. Still, though, it was his fusion cannon. "Will I get it back?" he asked, sounding more plaintive than he'd meant to.

"That depends on you."

Megatron's shoulders slumped. He stared at Ratchet for another nanoklik; then broke the cannon from his arm. He felt naked. "Here," he said harshly. "Take it. Now let me see her."

The Medic planted his feet in the doorway, holding up the long black weapon crosswise to further bar the way. "I don't think so," he replied flatly.

"But... I gave you my gun!"

"Because you obviously don't deserve to carry it."

"You dare-!"

The Autobot silenced him with an upraised hand. "I'll tell her that you came today. But it is up to her to decide whether she will see you. Ever."

Without another word, the Medic turned and closed the door behind him, shutting Megatron out in the empty metal hallway.

I'm sorry.

Two tiny, little words. Three syllables. Six separate phonetic sounds. He'd started wars, cowed enemies, commanded armies with his words. But somehow he could not quite bring himself to speak these two particular ones.

It wasn't this hard with Optimus Prime. He was an equal who had won respect through a lifetime of combat, and through the ultimate knowing of a spark-bond. And for some unexamined reason, he had little difficulty in apologizing to Elita – perhaps because he almost worshiped her, although he never would admit as much to anyone, himself included.

But this RainbowSparkle was a newling – a newling femme with a ridiculous name, created on a whim by (in Megatron's opinion) two of the most doltish mechs Cybertron had ever seen. She had a rocket-pack. Her paint was iridescent. She transformed into a curvy three-wheeled... thing no self-respecting mech would ever have conceived. She was no use in battle. No use in anything of value he could see, except for that uncanny ability to see and interpret the color of any bot's spark. Telepathy was something he was used to – something he gave grudging respect to. But this... whatever-it-was of hers was nothing more than voyeurism. She made him uncomfortable. He could not tell her he was sorry.

But he could tell Prime.

I hurt her, he sent down their spark-bond. Please, Optimus, help me. I threw her across the room!

No answer came. He paced his quarters like a Petro-Tiger, cursing his bond-brother's lingering ineptitude with spark-to-spark communication. He wondered if the Prime had gone too far away from him for even the language of souls to reach.

I hurt her, he repeated. What good am I to anyone, if this is what I do when I don't have a slagging minder?

The irony did not escape him. 'Spark had agreed to meet him in a lonely courtyard high up on the side of the Command Tower of Talus – recently renamed Pax Cybertronia. It was the place where he and Prime had often found each other at the end of an especially difficult day, the place they went to decompress, to be plain brothers, rather than Commanders. By habit, Megatron felt himself letting fall the hard veneer he usually wore First he had lost his gun. Now he had lost his shell. He wondered if he had anything much left that he could lose.

"You don't really see me."

"What? Yes I do. You're right there on that bench!" he rejoined, not amused. It was a strange beginning, and it put him on his guard. He had expected railing, belittlement; anything to make him feel guilty about the thing he'd done. (That had always been Starscream's method.)

He snorted. He needed little help in feeling guilt. But 'Spark was speaking, and he roused himself to listen.

"You don't see me. You think of me as some new kind of thing – a specialized computer, perhaps, or another gadget you resent because you haven't figured out quite how to work it."

"What?" he repeated.

"I'm not a thing. I'm not a drone. I'm not an object of convenience. I'm a transformer like you – alive, and thinking my own thoughts. I have a name. It's a silly one; believe me I know that by now. But I'd like you to use it. Do you realize that half the time you call me 'Elita' by mistake?"

He hadn't noticed. But he still had no idea what all this had to do with throwing her across his office.

"You think, because I am so new, that I can't understand you. That I can't possibly see the way things are. But Megatron, you're wrong about me. Yes, I am new. Which means I'm not indoctrinated in the old systems. I don't just see the way things are. I see the way they ought to be. In fact I see better than anyone; and you know that quite well." She sank against the backrest, looking spent. "I want you to map out this world, not just for me, but for us all. That's why you're here: to lead us in discovery."

"I'm here on this blasted cage of a planet because Optimus Prime in all his Wisdom doesn't think me fit for all the niceties of interstellar diplomacy." Biting off a round of curses, Megatron threw himself down upon the bench beside her, though he was careful to keep a space between them. His grating voice was harsh with resentment. Because he knew that it was true. He wasn't ready yet; and the civilizations he had depredated were certainly not ready to meet him with any overtures of friendship. He was trapped here as surely as if he'd been chained in shackles. And he hated that more than anything else he'd had to do.

The slate-blue femme looked up at him, and placed a skittish hand upon his arm. "If you cannot travel outward," she said quietly, "Then perhaps you should to look inward. We have to know about the place we stand, before we strike out for the stars."

Suddenly Megatron recalled all the complaining he had done to Optimus back when they first had bonded. There was a lot back then about losing his personal map when he had given up his dreams of conquest. A lot about feeling like he was lost. Perhaps part of his avoidance of global exploration was a fear of what he might find here. Perhaps he liked to be lost. It was such a good excuse.

"You do not want to be the kind of mech who beats up femmes," she said, meeting his gaze. "You don't have the right kind of spark for that. You think all femmes are wonderful, somehow." She shifted uncomfortably, but persisted. "I think I disappoint you; because the better you come to know me, the more of my faults you see. I'm not the perfect angel you imagine femmes to be. I'm not..." Her vocals hitched. "I'm not Elita."

"Elita has her weaknesses..." began Megatron uncertainly.

"Yes, but you accept them in her. I don't know why."

Megatron sighed. "She was the first," he murmured. "The first femme to love me. The only one, I should say; the others all despise me. It was her own choice, and it was not an easy one."

'Spark looked at him then, a long look, but said nothing.

"Think it over," she told him, rising as she did so. "But if you decide to start an exploration of our planet, I want to come in with you. I want to be... your navigator." Without looking back over her shoulder, RainbowSparkle walked across the courtyard, opened the Tower's door, and disappeared from view.