"Ready n—ah!"

Megatronus slammed Springer to the ground.

"Hey!" Springer said as Megatronus let him up, backing away.

"Were you ready?" Megatronus asked.

"Sloppy, Springer," Casurus said. "Don't let him take you by surprise like that. You know better."

Springer growled and lunged at Megatronus, who stepped to the side, letting his pedes guide him.

The first few decaorns of being a gladiator had been almost as bad as being a miner, but it had gotten better after that. He trained; he fought in the arena. He'd been here for almost thirty decaorns now, and he had only lost once more since Snarl.

Springer managed to pin Megatronus to the ground, but only for an astrosecond before Megatronus shoved him off and got up again.

They were nearly evenly matched at this point, which was a bad thing to let the supervisors know, because Megatronus still didn't want to be pitted against Springer. He'd seen a few of his friend's matches now, and knew that the casual, cheerful mech who helped him train was not the same as the Springer who fought in the ring. He was ruthless out there, vicious.

Springer kicked Megatronus's pedes out from underneath him and slammed him to the ground. Megatronus struggled, but Springer slammed a spiked fist into Megatronus's faceplate, and Megatronus went limp and waited for the other mech to let him up.

Springer backed off.

"Ok," Casurus said. "Megatronus, I know you like to pretend you can't feel pain, but that doesn't mean you're supposed to take every hit like you're invincible or something. You're not a wall, you're a mech. You've got a processor, so fragging use it." The instructor approached as Megatronus finished getting up off the ground.

"There's some mecha out there who can hit harder than your fancy armor can take. And even the ones who can't can eventually break you down. Go again."

Springer attacked and Megatronus blocked twice.

"No!" Casurus said. "Move with him. Use his force against him. Don't even let him touch you if you can avoid it."

Megatronus tried to be faster, dodging sometimes instead of blocking, and moving with the heaviest hits to take the edge off of them.

Casurus watched silently for a few breems.

Then Springer made a mistake, and Megatronus threw him off-balance. The green gladiator managed to stay on his pedes, though, and they backed away from each other.

"Better," Casurus said. "Keep sparring for another quarter joor," He walked away, toward another pair of gladiators who were sparring on the other side of the arena.

"Hey," Springer said quietly. "Good job, mech."

"Thanks,"

"Let's try that again. Think of it more like a dance than a fight. Also, I think it's perfectly fine to take some hits. Your armor can handle a lot, and the crowd likes it better anyway."

Megatronus glanced after Casurus. "He might still be listening."

"Yeah," Springer grinned. "Creepy glitch."

"Dangerous games," Megatronus said, then rushed Springer again.

"My favorite," Springer dodged and attacked from the side, slamming his fist into Megatron's helm.

They sparred for the designated amount of time, and then stopped.

"Well," Springer said. "One of my friends has a fight in a couple of joors, so I've got to go ask if I can have a ticket. You have any questions for me first?"

"Not really. Do you have any advice for me?"

Springer nodded sagely. "Don't ever throw anything at the back of Casurus's helm."

"No?" Megatronus smirked. "Why not?"

"Somemech actually did that once, you know."

"I can imagine it didn't end well." Megatronus looked across the room at the instructor who was currently shouting at one of the newer gladiators.

"No," Springer said. "At least he died relatively quickly."

Megatronus shook his helm. "Who's your friend fighting?"

"That thing that killed Helmcrusher."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Springer said with a shrug. "Not entirely sure if I actually want to go watch that, but it should be interesting at the very least."

Megatronus nodded. Friends here meant something different than friends down in the mines. Friends in the mines were mecha who worked together to try to keep each other alive. A friend among the gladiators would chat pleasantly with you in the energon hall, but then wouldn't really care if you died in a fight. They might even kill you personally if you were pitted against each other.

Megatronus had killed a few times. The first mech he'd offlined in the ring was a gladiator who'd been known for ripping the spark chambers out of his opponents. Just a few orns before, that mech had killed one of Megatronus's casual friends from the energon hall. It had only seemed fair.

Springer left the training arena, and Megatronus watched him, considering. If he waited here someone else might come along and offer to spar with him. He had to train as much as possible.

Or he could practice flying for a while. They'd let him have an alt mode just a couple of decaorns ago, because he hadn't tried to run away. It was a nice, custom flying alt. It didn't have a lot of speed or stamina, but Megatronus liked it anyway. It wasn't like he was going to use it for any long trips any time soon.

He transformed and flew a few laps around the high-ceilinged training arena. Everyone had been surprised that he hadn't tried to escape. He'd told them that he just didn't know where else he'd go, but that was a lie. Of course he would leave if he could, but he had listened to what Springer had told him in the beginning. If he was going to escape, he would need connections on the outside, and he didn't have any yet.

He got bored of flying in a circle after a few breems, and landed by the door, passing another small group of gladiators on his way out. He headed to the energon hall. He had been making connections on the inside by chatting with the guards, the other gladiators, and occasionally mecha from the audience who found their way in. He figured it was a good start.

When he got there it was crowded and noisy, as always. He got a cube of energon and went to sit by some of the guards he knew.

Then he saw someone in the corner.

The blue mech was sitting by himself, sipping his energon quietly, and shooting dark looks at anymech who approached him.

Megatronus recognized him—of course he recognized him. He could never forget.

"Megatronus?" one of the mechs at his table said.

Megatronus stood and crossed the room. The noise and commotion of the energon hall seemed to fade out as he approached the lone mech. He lost track of anything else but a feeling of trembling hatred.

Finally, the blue mech looked up at him. There was no recognition on his faceplate, but he suddenly looked very small and frightened. As Megatronus approached, he scooted away, dropping his cube of energon on the ground.

"I… I'm sorry, is this your table? I didn't mean to…"

"Spiral," Megatronus said.

Spiral's optic widened. "How…" Then Megatronus saw the realization, the fear replaced with horror. "Megatronus…" Spiral whispered.

The room was silent.

"No!" Spiral got up, but Megatronus caught him before he'd even left the table and pinned him against the wall. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't kill me, please don't kill me."

Megatronus tightened his grip on Spiral's neck. "You should have killed me," he said quietly. "When you had the chance. Instead, you killed everyone else. Did you really think you'd get away with that?"

"No!" Spiral screamed. "Don't kill me! Please, I'll do anything! I'll do anything, just don't kill me, please, please!"

Megatronus transformed his hand into a blade. "Perhaps you think I'm as much of a fool as you are."

"No," Spiral said. "No, please."

"Good," Megatronus said. "Then you'll understand." He drove the knife into the guard's chassis. There was a collective gasp from around the room, and a few cheers from Megatronus's friends. Spiral screamed, and Megatronus twisted the knife, listening past the screams for the satisfying sound of tearing metal. He felt energon drip down his blade to cover his arm. "Justice, Spiral," he said, whispering so even Spiral might not be able to hear. "That's all I want."

He pulled the knife out, and let Spiral fall to the ground, watching the energon spread. Then he knelt and stabbed him again, making sure to pierce his spark chamber. When he finally got up and turned around, the other mecha stared at him. Most of the guards turned and pretended nothing had happened. They were afraid of him. Good—they ought to be. He could do that to them, too, if he wanted.

If he got in trouble for that, he would deal with it. Spiral had needed to die, and it had felt good. Now Photodraft and Rivet and the others were avenged.

Megatronus left the energon hall, aware that he was making everyone nervous, and went to the wash racks to clean up before going to his room.

He had almost forgotten them. Until he had seen Spiral, he had nearly forgotten about his time in the mines, and all the mecha who had died there. He couldn't afford to do that.

They locked him in his room for a few orns. They didn't explain that it was a punishment, but they didn't have to. Megatronus understood the way things worked here.

They didn't let him out until his next match.

Different mecha fought for different reasons. Some liked the rush of killing, the feeling of energon on their hands. Others fought out of fear, because they didn't want to die.

Megatronus fought for the crowd. He loved the energy they gave off, the tense quiet when they couldn't tell who was winning, and the cheering whenever he got in a good hit. He tried to make his fights entertaining most of the time. Even when they were too easy he would draw things out, putting on a show.

But this orn, his spark wasn't in it.

Megatronus brought down his opponent—a large, toothy, creature that had speed, but was too wild to be truly dangerous. When he was finished, he raised one hand and the crowd shouted and raged. He waited for the cheering to die out a little, and lowered his hand.

"I have killed!" he shouted.

They cheered again, but it died out more quickly this time, so he continued speaking. "This is not the first or the last time, but this death is not on my helm! I am not here of my own free will! I am a creature, like this one!" he rolled the monster over with one pede. "And we would do well to remember it! We would do well to remember this beast! Because it could have been any of you in this arena where I stand! Or it could have been any of you to fall where this beast fell!"

He could sense their confusion, their disinterest. They were here to see him fight, not to listen to him talk. So he turned around and walked away, through the doors that would take him to his room and the energon hall and the wash racks.

They were puppets, caged creatures. Megatronus suddenly found that he didn't like it. He didn't like the complacency, the praise and the pampering. He did not like the freedom he was afforded, that had tricked him into forgetting that he was a slave. That crowd had been shocked to hear a gladiator speak. They had paid to see him kill, not hear him talk. To them, he wasn't anything more than a mindless creature.

It had felt good to remind them of the truth.

He waited for someone to tell him that speaking was against the rules, but they didn't. His friends in the energon hall commented on it, and Casurus made fun of him for being a drama queen, but none of the guards or the supervisors said anything.

So the next time he fought, he decided to speak again.

This time, he was against another mech. He was the better fighter by far, so he had complete control of the crowd and the situation. He knocked the other mech to the ground a few times before getting in a good hit. While he waited for his opponent to stand up again, he looked up at the stands.

"I used to be a miner," he told them. "Do you know what it's like in the mines?"

The mech got up and rushed him, trying to attack while he was talking. Megatronus stepped to the side, and tripped his opponent again, sending him crashing to the ground. "You get up and they give you maybe half an orn's ration of energon. If you're not strong enough, someone else will take it from you."

His opponent jumped at him from behind, but Megatronus anticipated it and sent him crashing to the ground again. This time, he turned his attention back to the fight for a breem, blocking a few blows, then stabbing his opponent through the shoulder and backing away again. "You mine for energon crystals until your vents clog up and your joints crack, and then they march you back to where you started and you recharge for five joors, then get up again and have your half ration of energon. The cycle repeats over and over. If there's an explosion or cave-in, you have to hope you aren't injured, because if you are, they leave you there to die."

His opponent tried to get up again, but Megatronus shoved him down, planting a pede on his chest. "I knew some brothers down there—barely more than fledglings. Their creators had been in debt to Clench."

Megatronus raised his blade.

"Mercy…" the other mech said, but Megatronus shook his helm.

"No one showed them mercy." He drove down with the blade, but didn't pierce the other mech's spark chamber. The losing gladiator gritted his denta and didn't scream, shuttering his optics and waiting for the end. Megatronus understood. They were all waiting, all the time, for that final match, that final blow.

He pulled his energon-streaked blade out again and looked up at the crowd. They weren't quite as loud this time, because they were waiting for the end of the story.

"They died in the mines!" Megatronus shouted. "And I might be the only one to remember their designations. They could have been your creations, your sparklings. They were certainly not the only ones! What does one more death matter?" He raised his blade, and for the first time, he felt a little unease from the crowd just before the kill. So he lowered his arm gently and retracted the blade, then reached down a clawed hand.

The mech on the ground looked up, surprised, and took his hand. Megatronus pulled him to his pedes, and then turned and walked out of the arena.

Helios, one of Megatronus's friends, was waiting for him on the other side of the doors.

"Slag it, Megs, you're crazy," the other gladiator said.

"Maybe so," Megatronus said. "What I told them was true."

"They came to see a fight, not listen to someone talk about injustice. You sounded kind of like a glitched revolutionary."

Megatronus tilted his helm to the side. "Is there a problem with that?"

Helios shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what the pit you think you're trying to do. This probably won't help your popularity."

"I don't care," Megatronus said.

"You sounded like… I don't know, like you were challenging them. The supervisors, I mean."

You could challenge other gladiators to fights if you wanted to. They would rather you settle disputes where they could sell tickets.

"Did you hear about me killing that guard the other orn?" Megatronus asked.

"Mech, I was there, remember? Have you blown a fuse or something?"

"You know, they punished me by locking me in my room for a few orns."

"Yeah."

"For murder."

"He was only a mining guard. What'd you have against him, by the way? It seemed serious. Did it have something to do with those mechs you talked about out there just now?"

"I was surprised at first, but I shouldn't have been. They reward us for murder, out in the ring."

"I don't know if that counts as murder, Megs." Helios said.

Megatronus shook his helm.

"Self defense?"

"No," Megatronus said. "Just because we're forced to do it, doesn't mean it's not murder. It's just not our murder. This goes all the way back to Clench."

"Like I said," Helios shook his helm. "You're glitched. Do not accuse that mech of murder. They might like you, but they're not going to let you get away with this sort of talking for too long."

"Because it's true," Megatronus said, then sighed. "I suppose I should be careful though."

"Slag, it's too late for that, look."

Megatronus looked down the hallway, in the direction Helios was pointing.

"That's my cue to leave," Helios said as Casurus came storming toward them. "See you, mech."

"Hey, Casurus," Megatronus said. "Something crawl up your tailpipe this on-cycle?"

Megatronus suddenly found himself on the ground, with the smaller mech kneeling on him, holding a knife just above his faceplate. "What the slag do you think you're trying to do?"

"I don't know," Megatronus said.

"Well, you can either knock it off or you can go to the pits of the inferno. And by that, I mean I'll kill you and send you there."

"All right, I get it," Megatronus said. Casurus got off of him, and walked away. Helios, who hadn't had a chance to escape, got out of his way, then went back to help Megatronus up.

"Yeah," the other gladiator said, "I still don't know why they don't have him doing fights. He'd be unbeatable."

"Two reasons," Megatronus rolled his shoulders, wincing. "One, it would be boring. He'd kill whatever it was before it had a chance to look at him. Two, he doesn't want to fight in the rings, and I'm pretty sure no one can make him do what he doesn't want to."

Helios sighed. "I don't even know if he's slagging real. He's like a pit spawn or something. But you shouldn't cross him. So keep your lip plates shut out there in the future, ok? I don't think he makes threats like that without meaning them."

"Didn't know you cared, Helios," Megatronus said. "Let's go to the energon hall."

"You're not going to listen to him, are you?"

"I don't know yet."

"Yeah, I think you're glitched. Hit your helm against the wall one too many times. Come on, let's see if some high grade will help."

"Sounds like a plan."

They walked together to the energon hall, where Megatronus was greeted by his friends, who were happy, but not particularly surprised to see he had won.

Helios went to get him some energon, while the few who'd seen the match teased him about telling bedtime stories to the audience while he fought.

Then a nervous-looking guard approached them.

"Megatronus," he said. "Can I talk to you?"

"I suppose..." Megatronus said, trying to remember if he'd ever seen this mech before. He didn't think they'd ever spoken to one another.

"Who's that," one of his friends said. "Your femme?"

"I don't have a slagging clue who it is," Megatronus said, as he pushed away from the table and followed this guard.

The mech took Megatronus to a table where several other mecha were sitting. Some of them looked like audience members.

"Hello," Megatronus said, feeling a little uncomfortable. He knew his friends were still watching him from across the room. "What is this about?"

"We heard what you said in the ring," the guard said. "We… all of us have lost mecha to the mines." He gestured around the table. "We were all in the audience… I don't actually know some of these mecha, but they wanted to come talk to you. We wanted to ask… if you're going to start something."

"Start something?" Megatronus sat down, interested. "Like what?"

"We want justice," one of them said. "A lot of us, not just us at this table. Clench has taken everything from us."

"You want me to start some sort of rebellion?" Megatronus said, raising an optic ridge.

"Maybe," the guard said.

Megatronus shook his helm, and nearly laughed. He had no idea how he would go about that. "I don't know how well that would work, mechs. See, you may not have noticed but I am a slave. If I start spreading rebellion around, and make myself more trouble than I'm worth, they'll just kill me. You can't lead a rebellion if you're dead."

"Mecha are still dying in those mines."

"So were they before I was there, and so will they be long after I'm offline."

"Not if we can stop it," one of the mechs said.

"See, I told you," another one muttered. "He's just spouting words, he doesn't want to actually do anything about it."

That bothered Megatronus. "Look, I hadn't been thinking of starting anything. I just wanted mecha to remember what a sham this all is," he said. "What sort of thing do you think I could start? I can keep talking in the rings, but…"

"We were already thinking about that," the guard said. "We could record you talking and distribute it. We could get people interested. If we make a plan for what we're going to do…"

"No one really knows what happens to those mecha who get sent to the mines," another mech said. "What you said…they'll try to pass it off as lies, but you've exposed them now. They might not like that. Do they really… just leave injured behind if there's an accident."

"Of course," Megatronus said. "If you can't work, what use are you?"

"Don't they... lose a lot of mecha that way?"

"There are always more where they came from."

Silence fell for a few astroseconds.

"See, no one knows that," the guard said.

"The guards in the mines know it," Megatronus said.

"They're slaves too," the guard said. "They don't get to leave the mines. They just… you know, did something to impress someone and got promoted from a worker to an overseer."

Megatronus hadn't known that.

"It's not legal, you know," one of the other mechs said, "Slavery. Neither are gladiator rings. You don't necessarily need to do any actual overthrowing or fighting, just get the message out that this is happening. The Council in Iacon can't ignore it if you make it known to everyone. We just… there just has to be someone mecha would listen to."

"Me?" Megatronus asked. "Why would anyone listen to me?" He had no idea what he was doing. He'd just been talking to spite the supervisors, to defy them.

"We listened this orn," the mech who'd said slavery was illegal met Megatronus's optics. "And not just us. Others listened. And we're the mechs who go to the fights, the worst of society. We listened, Megatronus, and we don't even care, not usually. But I've lost mecha to those mines, and Primus knows I'm not the only one."

"Fine," Megatronus said. "But if you're going to rope me into something like this, you're going to need to help me."

They looked at each other.

"Well, I'm in," the guard said. "I won't be able to recharge in the off-cycle knowing what happens down in the mines if I don't do something about it."

"We aren't the best of mechs," another one said. "After all, we all did have tickets to that fight."

"I'm not the best of mechs either," Megatronus said. "We don't have to be. In fact, it's probably better that we're not. This way no one else has to get their hands dirty."

They nodded.

"But we don't have plans," another one said. "We just wanted to know if you did."

Megatronus glanced over his shoulder. "My friends are all staring at us. Why don't we talk some other time. I don't have any plans, but if I think about it, I might come up with some. You," he looked at the guard. "Think about plans too. And come talk to me next orn."

"All right," the guard said, with a kind of conviction and intensity in his optics that reminded Megatronus of Alloy.

Megatronus left the table and went back to his friends.

"So what was that about?" Helios asked.

"I'm not entirely sure. They wanted to congratulate me on my wonderful speech out there. I didn't know they haven't told the general public how they treat miners."

One of the other gladiators shrugged. "Oh well. They probably won't kill you. You make them too much credit."

"Right." Megatronus sat down. Someone passed him a cube of high grade, and he drank it, but wasn't really listening to the conversation. What had he just agreed to? He wished he knew.

But however it turned out, it was going to be more interesting than his life had been so far. He had been getting complacent. It was time to change the game a little. He probably should have been scared. He should have been afraid of Clench and the supervisors and the fights and Casurus and this daunting road that he'd just set his pedes on.

But he wasn't afraid, only excited. He'd been knocked down.

It was time to stand up again.