Promotional Artwork: tigressa101/art/Arcee-and-the-Isle-of-the-Allspark-Cover-931607333
The ground bridge appeared and Megatron gestured to it. "Well, well, home sweet home. After you."
Arcee smirked and held up the gem, twirling it in her servo. "Another beast slain. We need to write a documentary on this stuff. 'The Adventures of Arcee and Megatron!' Aha, nobody will believe us though."
As Arcee took the lead, Megatron laughed, "You don't know that. Who knows, Bolt might even write it himself. Or maybe I will."
As they walked through, they waved goodbye to the distiller dragons and a few of their babies yowling happily at their service in getting rid of Salvage. If all went well, the distillers would have a new pool by the end of the week to play in from the waterfall they provided. As a souvenir, they were allowed to take a part of Salvage's armor as a memoir of their victory. They also ran into the same distiller Arcee had flown and found it eagerly awaiting them with an optic of the pyrobeak's in its nest. It gave it to them with no protests as thanks.
"Oh, I'll miss them," Arcee smiled.
When they reached the end of the ground bridge vortex, Megatron found himself back on Bolt's ship but while he expected the Vehicon to congratulate them, he instead was frantically trying to override some sort of logo on the screen.
"Megatron! You're here safe! Oh, thank Primus! The Allspark has taken my system hostage and has altered the vortex to that planet," he said in a panic, pointing to the ground bridge controls which showed an unknown place. Then he noticed something. "Hey...where's Arcee?"
Megatron smirked, "What are you talking about? We're all here. We made it just fine. Right, Arcee?"
The silence made Bolt clench his fists tightly and Megatron frown, staring at the place Arcee was supposed to be. They both looked at each other, then at the portal as soon as it closed on its own. Both bots were twitching anxiously while Moonhunter sniffed the ground, whining when he couldn't see Arcee.
"That's...not...good," Bolt winced. He flinched when Megatron gave him an immediate glare at his obvious statement.
Arcee had Megatron by her side as she went through the vortex but when she came out, the floor she stepped foot on looked nothing like a ship and the environment was nothing but lava and rocks...and glowing eyes in said lava.
"Megatron, where are-?!"
The bridge closed and she saw no one had come through with her. "-we...?"
She was stranded in a place she didn't even know. This wasn't Bolt's doing. Space bridges didn't split travelers like that. The Allspark. It had something to do with this. She peered around her newfound world. Purple lava, creatures living in said lava, a starry sky, two different nebulas could be seen, and auroras. Jack once referred to them as Northern Lights but she didn't remember him mentioning them being red. It was obvious that she wasn't on Earth anymore. Hell, was she even in the same dimension? The shadow zone was said to be one layer of a shadow realm, a completely different dimension in the same space. Maybe...this was Earth's shadow archetype?
"Who dares trespass here?"
Shivers ran down her spine at the chilling, echoing voice. She peered in every direction possible. The origin of the voice was a mystery and dare she say, she preferred it that way. It was hard to tell what was shadow and what was the actual landscape. It looked like a planet of nightmares and was becoming a nightmare.
"I need to get back. Bolt! Bolt, can you hear me?!"
Static played on the comm channel, and she was distraught. She really was alone. No support, no way back.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of an energy burst, not a very common phenomenon but it was usually when Energon crystals lost power abruptly. There didn't seem to be any Energon crystals on the planet, so the only thing that could come close to that sound was short-ranged bridging, brief but redesigned by Perceptor from old descriptions of the Primes' powers to merely teleport to safety a few kilometers or so. It sounded again, then the ground shook hard as a shadow dwarfed hers with ease.
Sulfur and obsidian lying on the ground began to levitate before all coming together to form an orbiting chain. Said rotating chain moved around her before darting behind her, the same direction as the shadow. She turned around frightened and for a brief moment, her spark stopped pulsing.
The chain of rocks levitated in the palm of orange bio lit claws, moving ever so slowly to keep control of the power. Immediately, the chain of rocks split apart and all of them were hurled at her. She backflipped away from some and maneuvered through the rest as they flew past her and hit the ground hard enough to shatter them.
Once the assault was done, she had a good look at her attacker. Black armor denser than the shadows themselves, an elongated helm with horns, four red eyes, and a very strong physique of a chassis with wings. She looked hard when she noticed the faint small symbols on the chest and abdomen. The language of the Primes. Only the Thirteen had them, usually hidden unless they were in a powerful state of moving energy. Only some of the Primes had the capability to levitate objects and teleport, and there was only one Prime that could be in such a pitiful, dark world.
"By Primus...Megatronus?"
The Fallen of the Thirteen, Megatronus Prime. The mech before her looked very little like his original self. He didn't have wings, certainly not four eyes either but he did have the horns albeit only two. She didn't know what to think of how monstrous the Fallen had become. Primus was said to have punished him for what he did to Solus Prime and the betrayal of his brethren; Arcee would have never imagined it would be this. How long had he been banished here for his primal instincts and physical deformation to occur was unsaid. She was too afraid to ask anyway.
He was larger than she thought he was supposed to be, another thing that occurred during his curse no doubt. At most, Megatronus was supposed to only somewhat larger than Megatron, almost Predaking's size. He could crush Predaking easily now. And here she was, a petite femme that only reached Megatron's lower thigh against someone horrifically larger than a Predacon.
Megatronus gave a roar unlike anything she had ever heard, even from dealing with dragons and Predacons less than a day ago. Arcee knew it was a dangerous situation, but she had to take a second to pat the side of her head to readjust her audio receptors back to normal in her daze of such a loud noise. Megatronus certainly didn't have an indoor voice anywhere in that new state of his.
"You are the one called Arcee? Pathetic. I was promised your friend, the imposter, as well. But I'll settle with just you!"
Not one to mince words either it seemed. "Megatronus. First off, I'm not here to cause any problems. I was bridged here against my will. Secondly, I am she. Don't hate; I'm mightier than I look. Everyone underestimates my size."
Megatronus' eyes narrowed with a huff of smoke from his mouth. "Arcee, fallen queen of Cybertron, this planet will be your tomb."
Arcee gestured around herself, "What the hell did I do to you?"
"Oh, but you have already done so much. Even the Allspark is impressed. With you gone, I will leave this world behind and a new age of Cybertron will come into fruition. I will reign again!"
On one hand, screw whoever betrayed her. She was almost tempted to let him take out that bot. On the other hand, she would be killed and so would many other Cybertronians to satisfy Megatronus' bloodlust for revenge on Primus which meant destroying the planet inside out, undoing what they fought so hard to achieve all these years. It was a pretty one-sided choice in the end.
"I'm not going to let you go back to Cybertron, not like this," she said confidently. "I don't know what the Allspark promised you, but I can't let that happen."
"I will crush you!" He snarled, giving another blaring roar.
Arcee activated her blasters. "You better kill me before I kill you, buddy."
"You, a mere mortal, think you can defeat me?" His voice peaked slightly at that last word with humor.
Megatronus was no god, and his delusion of such was most likely a result of his imprisonment for the past billion years. Arcee had dreamed once of meeting the Primes of old, aside from the only living one that was her former commander, but this wasn't what she had in mind. He was demented, monstrous, and cruel. This wasn't Megatronus, not anymore, just a new abomination that the Allspark had taken advantage of. She feared if the Fallen continued, she would have no choice but to kill him to save herself and Cybertron.
Megatronus jumped into the air and kept himself airborne with the orange glowing wings he supported. Bringing his arms out, he gestured to the ground and slowly lifted them. The planet's surface started shaking and large boulders were ripped from it. Forming a ring around him, they hovered close. He did a twirl in the air and suddenly vanished.
Arcee was quick to respond and when she heard the crack of energy, she immediately ducked. Sure enough, Megatronus teleported and flew past her. Had she remained upright, he would have smashed directly into her and there was no telling how much damage he could do. In fact, she had a feeling if he got one good hit, she was done for.
Megatronus teleported away again, then reappeared to her right. The boulders still orbiting him went faster before he made a pushing motion towards her. A boulder on his left zoomed out of the ring like a rocket. Arcee ran away and narrowly missed being squished as the boulder shattered into pieces. She tumbled roughly onto the ground.
How was she supposed to fight a Prime, especially one so powerful? At a distance, she was target practice but like with Salvage, maybe the key wasn't putting herself at a disadvantage. Up close, Megatronus didn't have as much range. On top of that, he could fly. Clipping his wings would make the odds much more equal. It was a start.
Noticing the cracks of purple, the lava hidden beneath some of the planet's surface, she had an idea. A steam vent next to one of the pieces of rock he had thrown could cause built up air to turn into a brief geyser if it was clogged, a launching mechanism. She nodded to herself and got going. Dodging a smaller boulder thrown at her, she ran to the vent and pushed the rock in, standing on top of it. Crackling below began to grow louder until she was suddenly jolted up into the air by a strong gust of steam and the boulder flying just below her. Aiming true, Megatronus was surprised when she caught the kibble on his right arm.
They both looked at each other in confusion for a second while she was dangling off his arm. The left set of Megatronus' optics raised bewildered, the right set narrowed irked. Then Arcee gave a pitiful smile as he began growling. He raised his unoccupied arm with the intent of flattening her into a pile of parts. She didn't hesitate to move as she let out a yelp.
Arcee flipped up to land on his forearm, climbing to his shoulders. The whole time, his servo slammed up his arm trying to catch her. When she got behind his back and dodged desperate attempts to grab her still, she aimed for the joints connecting his wings to his body and fired. The first hit made him flutter trying to regain control of his shocked right wing, the second shot was Arcee pressing the barrel of her blaster directly in between the armor at the hidden wiring. It caused an explosion which rendered it unable to function.
"No!"
With only one wing able to carry him, he was forced to land. Distracted by the pain, the boulders he was levitating with his concentration came down, some breaking into pieces and others just bounced. Now that they were on equal terms, it was time for Arcee to plan her next step. Abruptly, she lost her footing as he violently landed. She did a twist midair to land on her feet as he snarled. Megatronus didn't notice her yet, so she did the only thing she could do at the moment. Hiding behind a thick chunk of obsidian, she hunkered down thinking of her options.
"You think I need flight? I'm not stuck on this floating rock with you; you're stuck on this rock with me. Now, where are you?!" He hissed, bringing down his servo to crush one of the boulders he had just used previously. With his right wing sparking, he was growing angrier by the minute.
Arcee thought about her next step. The Primes weren't stupid so no tomfoolery tactics would work, and no repeat ones would fly. Megatronus was far too lost to be reasoned with...and she just grounded him so double whammy on Optimus' usual try-to-reason-with-them scenarios he always wanted to go through with. If she were to hypothetically kill Megatronus, a feat nobody had done, where would she even go with it?
"Come out, come out wherever you are! And to think, the Allspark was so concerned about you that it had to go to me for help? Yet you hide like a coward! You may be called the Queen of Cybertron, but I am its master!"
Wow, now she knew where the Decepticons learned their bravado from. When he stopped close to where she was, she froze. Arcee could hear his sharp teeth clashing against one another like a hungry animal. The glow of the four optics did little to hide where he was looking. He stomped to the side and grunted, overturning nearby rock structures like they were pebbles.
She suddenly felt a small vibration in her subspace and pulled out the source. The Rozarian blood grenades were stirring. She knew exactly why. The lava in the area made the air at least one hundred degrees. The containers they were in could only keep them cooler by at most twenty degrees plus shade with their clear linen wrapped around them under a rope protective netting. Soon, they would be far too volatile to carry without them going off. She had to get rid of them...
She heard the crackling of fire and peeked out from the edge of the obsidian to see Megatronus' body diverting energy to his arms. Powers like levitation or other psychic ones at least must have needed lots of energy to work. Energy could generate heat, and heat was its own worst enemy if other factors applied.
Arcee smiled. Time to make him take his medicine.
She took all the grenades she had and bound them together into one chain using the rope netting attached to each. Unfortunately, this meant she only had one shot to take down Megatronus. She doubted he would be hurt if they were pelted at him on his exterior, but the interior of a Cybertronian had wiring, pumps, energy, and thinner plating. One big explosion on the inside and, well, she would be seeing his insides.
The ground shook and the obsidian she was hiding behind was pulled from the root formation. Multiple other rocks were levitating high above and Megatronus searched under each from where he stood. It took him less than a second to pinpoint her.
"There you are, clever queen. But you should have known you couldn't hide from me forever. This is my world!" The boulders began to explode with the same energy emitting from Megatronus. "My perfect world to command and control!"
"You can have it! It suits you!" She bit back.
Once all the large rocks were nothing but dust, there was nowhere to hide. Megatronus anticipated her to run so instead of chasing her, he brought his pede down hard onto the sulfur and cooled lava surface. The force caused cracks of a purple glow to spread wide, one of which went just under Arcee's legs and like an idiot, she looked down. They broke apart and Arcee almost did the splits before choosing the left portion. Some of the ground sank into the active lava river seeping beneath while others remained stable. A few of the above ground lava geysers ruptured as well, leaving the area flooding with it.
Megatronus made a guttural snarl and grabbed a piece of drifting obsidian, its underside still brightly coated with the molten fire. He threw it at Arcee. She leapt to another stable platform as her former was cracked by the flying rock, a spew of lava splashing up from the pressure. He began laughing and she glared at him.
"I could spare you and perhaps just take your throne instead with me as king. But then I thought about it; killing you would be so much more gratifying. I appreciate you keeping the seat warm for me though. I'll be sure to let the citizens of Cybertron know their former queen died valiantly trying to save them."
Breaking off one of the blood grenades despite her initial plan, she used his monologue as the perfect opportunity to turn the tide. Chucking it at the ground beneath him, he was surprised as it went off. The surface ruptured and he had no time to relocate. His legs sank fast into the lava, and he bellowed, scraping his claws against any platform he could reach. One large portion he tried to climb began to flip with his weight and he growled alarmed. It slammed on top of him, and he disappeared with ripples in the lava following. The purple magma settled to bubbles and moaned.
Arcee breathed a sigh of relief, perching her arms on her knees. Not exactly to plan but it was better than waiting for him to sink her instead. Well, with the grenades reaching critical temperature, all she had to do now was dispose of them in the lava and run like hell.
"Not bad for a bot my size. Bumblebee's going to be jealous," she mused to herself. Bumblebee killed Megatron before, an achievement everyone was impressed by, but she just killed Megatronus Prime. Now that was a feat unmatchable. Maybe Optimus destroying Unicron was more impressive but that was a later conversation.
As she made her way across the remainder of the rock still intact, she now pondered what to do. "This sucks. Now what am I supposed to-"
The lava buckled as a servo burst out of it and landed close to her, knocking her on her aft. Another scraped across a platform not far off. In a swift movement, Megatronus whipped out of the molten river with a roar. He quickly climbed up into a crouched position like an animal. The wing Arcee had damaged prior was missing and the undamaged broke off, hitting the lava and sinking. His armor was glowing red but had specks of purple fire ransacking his frame, optics looked barely visible in the heat.
He turned his attention to her and hissed, baring his fangs before making an ungodly yowl. He didn't seem to have anything cunning or cruel to say, just his unfathomable expression of rage to tell her he was pissed. Without hesitating, he lunged at her, wrapped his full servo over her smaller frame. It burnt to the touch and Arcee screamed.
As she was forced eye level with him, she understood only two things: one, she was dead. Two, her arm holding the grenades was free so if she was going to die, she was damn well going to take the bastard with her.
"You pitiful, persistent fool!" His voice boomed, optics glowing ever brighter. "How dare you!"
Arcee whimpered as her armor was beginning to blacken from the scorching grasp.
"Does it hurt? Good. I am immune to the temperatures. You want heat? I'll give you heat, dear queen, and we will both wait as you burn to death!"
He let out a deadly laugh, swinging his helm back as his scorched armor reverted back to its natural color slowly. Arcee could feel herself fading, systems frying and the threat of everything breaking in the intense temperatures. She started nodding off, her processor desperately wanting to shut down to try and save itself, but no, she had to continue. Her grip on the grenades brought them in her sight shakily and then she stared at Megatronus' wide jaws in his howling laughter. One thing she never liked, melodrama.
With the remainder of her strength, she threw the cluster of grenades directly into Megatronus' mouth. The larger mech suddenly paused and closed his jaws in shock as it hit the back of his throat. With a cough, he swallowed it with a wince as his throat cabling stretched to make room for such a big intake. He opened his jaws again and stuck out his glossa in disgust.
Arcee breathed hard, still fighting her death as she heard Megatronus' intake chamber rumble. He put a servo on his abdomen and grew wide eyed, glaring at her.
"What did you do?"
She forced herself to smile, "You like heat, right? Have your fill."
A very faint noise broke from Megatronus' abdomen, then another. As the former Prime flexed his servo over it, shaking hard, smoke began pouring from his mouth and he looked stunned. He suddenly jerked back, letting go of Arcee and she hit the ground with a cry. As much pain as she was in to at least look up at Megatronus, she knew her situation was about to be far better than his.
The muffled explosions grew louder as Megatronus bellowed, his plating around his abdomen and chest expanding farther than their capacity. Every crevice of his armor was smoking. Clawing at the armor above his own spark chamber, he tried desperately to relieve the pressure, not that it would truly stop the problem. He barely could move his head, his optics almost bulging through the sockets. In one second, all hell broke loose, and fire escaped through practically every orifice.
In a bright flash and almost a sonic boom, Megatronus was torn apart from the inside out. Parts and pieces went everywhere. Arcee shielded her face though it did nothing to prevent the rest of her from getting drenched in a mixture of Energon and oil. Some pieces of the once proud Megatronus rolled by her, settling only a few feet away. She watched as other parts flung into the purple lava sank to join his broken wings somewhere below.
She was lying down partially when another clash beside her startled her and made her jolt in agony. She looked to her side and was horrified to see Megatronus' head still intact, leaning against the edge of a geyser but lifeless sitting. It must have been flung up several hundred feet before landing. One of the optics was knocked completely out of the socket as soon as the helm came crashing down, rolling to a stop just short of her. All his fangs were still present on his jaws but severely misaligned, faceplates burst to reveal almost nothing but endoskeleton, and his elongated helm had two broken horns now, one of which could be seen in the background embedded in stone.
Arcee could hardly appreciate her victory. The heat stopped but her chassis still needed to go into emergency shut down to protect itself from any more damage. She finally relented and let it do its recovery. The last thing she saw was Megatronus' skull staring back. The last thing she heard, however, was the faint sound of something powering up.
Bolt tried his best to recalibrate the system, breaking it loose from the Allspark's control. After resetting everything, tearing it apart thrice over, the system finally rebooted with no trace of tampering aside from leftover power given by the Allspark.
"Okay, okay, if my calculations are correct. I can reach this planet briefly but only for a short amount of time to get Arcee back. The system will break down once it's pushed to its limit and beyond. I don't even know if I'll be able to use this bridge ever again from how much the Allspark screwed with it."
Megatron paced angrily, "Does it work or not?! We need to get to her!"
"Give me a minute here! This stuff isn't rocket science, it's much harder than it looks!"
"That's not good enough! She may be hurt! I can't let that happen-!"
Bolt stood upright from his position beneath the console. "Hey, don't think you're the only bot that cares about her! I'm trying my hardest! I would never forsake her life!"
"Neither would I!"
The room grew quiet aside from the machines running their programming. The pregnant pause between them made the Vehicon shake his helm after watching Megatron's facial expressions change from angry to worried to something he didn't even recognize. "What happened to you? You've changed."
The question stirred Megatron to the core and he began to walk away, looking at the floor like he was ashamed. "I don't know what you're talking about. Just...continue doing what you do best. I'll stay out of your way."
Bolt sighed and gestured to the air in frustration. He calmly spoke, though a little rushed, "I can do this, just, you know, give me a minute."
It was strange. There wasn't much of the Megatron he initially knew left. He had spent his whole life as a Vehicon drone under the vicious and proud Megatron, a mech he knew was a warrior and warmonger. He had never seen this though, not from him at least.
Bolt reconnected some of the last of the wires and recalibrated the ground bridge. Suddenly, it beeped and displayed the planet again along with the exact coordinates. Everything popped back online for navigation. He stood up proudly and laughed.
"I did it! Whoo! Okay, alright, Arcee, here we come!"
Megatron was by his side in a split second. "Everything work?"
"We...are about to find out," he chuckled cockily.
He pressed several buttons to confirm his destination and quickly pulled the lever down to activate the bridge. For a brief moment, nothing. Then with a burst of energy, the room lit up green and the vortex came into being with its signature noise.
"Primus-you-are-a-magnificent-god-I-love-you-very-much! What are you waiting for, Megatron, go! Hurry! I don't know how long this thing will hold!"
Megatron didn't need to be asked twice. He sprinted into the portal and when he got to the other side...any excitement he had died. "Bolt, prepare the medbay now!"
AN: I thought to myself, what's the best way to make this epic? Isolate Arcee and make her blow him up is about as epic as it gets. The Allspark being a trickster would have made sure Megatronus got a chance to verse Megatron as well but would still isolate him from Arcee to make sure they die...also, less characters I have to keep track of.
Featured Monsters:
Megatronus Prime the Fallen (Cybertron)