Chapter Text
It has since become the subject of legends, passed on by reverent glossae from creator to creation and friend to friend, tones hushed before one’s personal shrine or to escape the Supervisors’ audials. The Prime’s designation immortalised, the Protector’s arcane; yet this is what we know for fact of those mecha who built the First Golden Age:
In the wake of the Age of Conquest; after Nemesis’s banishment and Nova’s suicide, Prima Prime arose with his Lord, Megatronus Protector. Installed through desperation on a coup compromising with that alien coalition, Prima got right to work on gilding his epoch. Negotiating reparations and loans with which to rebuild, in part through relinquishing the thirteen terraformed colonies; by abandoning that cardinal pride which seethed latent in his populace, Prima turned the pan-Cybertronian politics of his predecessor towards unity and progress and prosperity.
Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, said he, with his Lord by his side, before the coalition. That the work of a Prime was to minimise the work of a Protector. His words moved alien ears, and native audials, and the arts and culture flourished for over a hundred vorns thereafter. This is what we speak of when we speak of the Golden Age: of easier times, of benevolent rule, of—as the Primal Neocybex Academy defines it—a peaceful, prosperous, and happier time.
What we do not learn of as commonly is its slow and painful end, though there was nothing slow and everything brutal about the beginning of its end. 150 vorns into Prima Prime’s reign, Megatronus was assassinated by Tarnian nationalists. They decried his shameful lack of pride, his distancing from his Tarnian background, and allowing Tarn to be ruled by a Crystal City Prime.
Please understand that this position was, in a glyph, fringe. Radical nationalists shot the spark of the Protector and did not miss; that mech’s spark guttered and his sparkmate screamed, and so did the crowds who had come that joor to welcome them joyously. Whilst the perpetrators were hunted down, Prima held the limp frame of his mate, pitifully pressing their chassis together (his parted chestplates shining with the dazzling brilliance of his matrix’d spark) as he sobbed against that angular mask, “Let me save you for once.”
But his mate’s chassis did not bloom, and the hole in his chestplates left by the charge seemed to suck all light instead of expelling any; indeed, it was quite certain to the horrified crowd, to all but the grieving Prime: their Protector was dead, and there was no turning back.
There would not be another Lord High Protector for almost another half-thousand vorns.
It would not take nearly that long for everything Prima had worked for to fall apart by his own servo. Freedom is the right of all civilised beings, corrected Prima when accosted by Recordors, upon leaving a meeting with the Council. He had just declared a state of emergency and ordered a brutal clampdown in Tarn, to root out all extremism yet present in the city. Crushed under that gilded pede of state repression, what once was fringe became mainstream: riots took hold, both in Tarn and in solidarity elsewhere. Pressure on public figures grew to put the interests of their own cities above that of the greater good.
Pan-Cybertronianism shattered, though perhaps that overstates the pace of the development, and understates the cataclysm. Cybertron itself Fractured, the Council, the government, the entire planet carved itself up along ethnic lines, hammering horrors into the cracks to widen the divides.
Prima watched his planet crumble beneath him. Watched all that he had worked for twist, crack, and turn on itself, and did not resist as polities began to declare their independence, the kind of which they had not experienced in over ten score vorns. When the last city under his control was Crystalline in nature, which would likewise shatter under the repeated pressure of wars both waged and resisted, on whose feeble echoes shall one joor stand the modern capital: then is when Prima Prime faced overwhelming censure, faced arrest and imprisonment—and so too the wall of his cell. Quietly, somberly, with the rare break to refuel, for the vorns until he died.
Though many would declare themselves Prime in the aftermath of the Fracturing, none would hold the matrix until Prima's deactivation. It is on the date of his deactivation that the calendar renews, and it’s in the simple interest of simplicity itself, for which most historians consider his end the beginning of the Warring Cities Epoch. In truth, however, he spent a quarter of his reign neither oversitting a golden age, nor oversitting at all.
Personally, it is not his deactivation which I would classify as the end of the Golden Age. Rather, it is his Protector’s. Little wonder is it then, that even in Prima’s worship as a legendary figure, hundreds of vorns later in a subjugated Tarn, as history told through word-of-intake, it is not Prima alone who is venerated. For there were times when Tarn was powerful, and most were times when Tarn was proud, but the time when Tarn was prosperous was when benevolent Protector protected benevolent Prime. There will one joor come another, would be the quiet but yearning hope held quite furtively by many in Tarn, though they likely would not have expected him to bear so similar a designation.
It is so easy, in retrospect, to posit the changing calendar as a changing of the age. Let vorn 1 of Optimus be the first of the Second Golden Age; simplify the maths for those who need not great precision. But as before, I here plead the misleading nature of this; when Orion Pax became Optimus Prime, the preconditions of the Golden Age did not immediately materialise; so much suffering yet remained. Others have concurred with me but posited different watersheds: the Disobedience, the Black Mourning, the Second March on Iacon.
Personally, however, I struggle to find any clearer sign, of the beginning of the Second Golden Age, than the return of Cybertron’s Lord High Protector, in the third vorn of Optimus.
Notes:
Thank you for reading! I compiled a Transformers lexicon, so feel free to check that out if the jargon got confusing.
That said, a lot of the Latin terms I'll be using won't be there, because I came up with them for this fic alone. Don't worry though! I don't expect you to know Latin; their meanings will slowly be revealed through context :3
Chapter 2: Megatron I
Notes:
oh my GOD I am SO sorry. I did not think it would take me *checks notes* over three months to update. This was originally only half of the second chapter! But, as you can tell from the word count, if I didn't split it in two, I think I might only have been able to release the chapter in October 💀. The best part? The un-split chapter was supposed to be 5000 words. Yeah.
Unfortunately, I think a-chapter-every-few-months will probably have to be my default update schedule, with how busy my summer is looking to be.
I hope the length of the chapter makes up for the wait! Finally, we actually meet some of the main characters. I'm quite happy with the way this chapter has turned out--I think it introduces the reader quite well to the main themes :D
Chapter Text
In introducing those mecha who rebuilt the Golden Age, most begin with Optimus. He, it is argued, was the idealist, the figurehead, the preeminent position of power. But as I have contended in the previous chapter, it was not his nomination that signalled this gilded restoration. Let us thus turn our attention to Megatron.
How to introduce such a mech? How to reconcile what he becomes, with the dissonant reality of how he starts? What is there that stays consistent between those two extremes? Certainly not the timidity of his gentle spark, nor his proclivity for pacifism, nor even his simple frame. I would speak of his devotion, but to compare his final piety under Optimus’s gaze to that first misguided trust in Primus would be to insult his loyalty as Protector. Perhaps all that remained the same—through pilgrimage, struggle, revolution, and devotion; through abandoned, then preacher, then puppet, and monster—was his given designation.
Who gave him his designation? This simple question does not bear a simple explanation. But let us learn of it as Megatron did: at the shrine of his dead sire.
There stood Megatron Usus of Tarn, beside his carrier Termine Usus, separated from his sire Megazarak Usus by some hundred mechanotonnes of collapsed mine. Megatron looked up at his carrier, who had told himself he would not look, knew he could not bear to look, at the sudden end of the tunnel, but was looking anyway, at that carnivorous bite that Primus had taken from the tunnel stub they occupied. The dark had never scared Termine, but the thought that the walls were hungry—that they could clamp down and digest you—refused to leave his processor.
(Sometimes, Termine had nightmares where he was alone in this shaft, except for one. From beyond the collapsed rock he would hear groans of pain, and from the jagged debris would trickle a stream of energon, pink and softly glowing in that pitch-black world. He could not move to save his bondmate—though it was not for lack of trying—as the rocks would shift and Megazarak screamed in pain; as he was crushed offline by that fateful cave-in, which he had sacrificed himself to save Termine from.)
Termine tore his faraway gaze to that which he had brought them here for. Before creation and creator stood a beautiful construction: a shrine assembled from rock and metal, housing polished stones that caught the light and optics, which were not particularly valuable, but did not need to be, as the beauty and care of their arrangement displayed devotion like any jewel. It was uniquely Megazarak, Termine thought, omitting the obligatory suffix of their caste, like they used to in private moments together, in the safety of the quiet and dark. Such were the liberties he did not extend (for the bitlet’s own safety) to his dear Megatron, who would never know his carrier, for all of his functioning, by any other designation than Terminus. This knowledge pained him, certainly, and Termine indeed hated Sentinel for it, but as he’d face his dusk (his deactivation) at the dawn (the spark) of the Disobedience, he would find himself grateful to that distant friend, who had told him the history behind their legends, and offered his suggestion for a designation.
Megatron would never meet his sire, who got buried alive whilst he developed, unaware in a grieving forge, and this shrine would be all he knew him by. Unlike with Megazarak, however, Megatron knew his carrier. More than knew, he cherished him.
I shall warn you now and never again: be careful with whom you grow attached to, here. Of all those Megatron would grow to cherish, Termine was only the first to die.
“He was protective of me, you know,” Termine said, thus breaking the palling silence, “fiercely so. Which made him disapproving, at first, when I befriended a Vosian Pax.”
“Pax?” asked Megatron, who knew only of one mech from that caste.
“Yes,” replied his carrier, “he worked in the Hall of Records.”
“Like Orion?” Megatron’s field was strong with curiosity.
“Like Orion indeed,” Termine confirmed, “they were fairly close colleagues, in fact. He’s the one who told me of Orion, you know. Of Orion, his work, and the hope he brings.”
The archivist was not a new subject between them. Megatron nodded with widely-cycled optics.
“But to tell me of Orion, he had to first get disgraced, and sent down to this mine. Tell me, Megatronus, can you guess what he did to receive such a fate?”
Megatron thought for a klik, considering the question seriously. “Did he skip his work to go have fun, or insult a higher-up?” he asked. He was not sure of the severity of this ‘disgracement’ Termine spoke of, but remembered the severity of the beating he’d received, when he’d complained to Darkwing of his cruelty.
“You are not far off,” Termine smiled, “though it was graver than an insult, and to the highest of higher-ups. You see, my friend was disgraced for using his skills to undermine the Senate.”
Megatron’s optics cycled with horror. “They did not execute him for it?”
“They did not learn the entirety of it. A friend covered his tracks the best he could, and the mech got sent here instead of disappeared.”
Megatron digested this information for a klik. He knew only of one Vosian, whose cruelty seemingly knew no bounds, but this Vosian sounded interesting, and had already garnered his respect. “What was his designation?” he asked, glancing up at his carrier.
Megatron did not know, on that joor in the depths of Primus, that he would one joor meet this mech. It was real curiosity that had moved him to ask the question, yes, but the vorn of pain and hate that shall separate the learning of his designation and the meeting of the mech shall render Megatron unremembering, by the time they finally meet.
But Soundwave has always had an uncanny memory. He would hear the designation he himself had suggested, to a miner back in Tarn, an infinite three vorns ago, and instantly remember. Megatron would not yet be a puppet, for their first and fateful match, but at that point would it not be that long, until he killed his oldest friend.
“He suggested it? I always thought you chose my designation because it resembled Megazarak’s.”
“That is part of the reason I designated you thus,” Termine confirmed, “but only part of it.”
The carrier smiled at his creation’s obvious interest, clear in Megatron’s open and probing field and imploring, curious gaze. Glancing at the shrine before them, he sat and crossed his stabilisers and patted the ground beside him, indicating for Megatron to do the same. Sat alike, the difference in optic-level between mech and mechling diminished.
Termine, who had always nurtured a tender flair for dramatics, and who never bothered to repress any urges to gently tease his creation, let the silence stretch for a moment or two, before continuing with a non-sequitur.
His optics were on the shrine’s contents when he spoke, “You know why it is that we sanctify Prima? The crucial element of his legend, without which he may never have accomplished greatness?”
“Yes,” Megatron nodded, “his protector.”
“His Protector indeed. Do you remember the legend in full?”
Megatron shrugged bashfully. “More or less.”
“Recount it to me. I’ll help you if you forget any parts.”
“I know the basics,” he began, field an iota defensive. “I know that in the Golden Age—a very, very long time ago—we had a Prime called Prima. And he heard the words of Primus in the actions of his protector.” Megatron paused, then glanced up in embarrassment. “I… don’t remember the protector’s designation.”
“Megatronus; I think you’ll find that even most final-frames don’t, either.” Termine grinned, “Continue anyway.”
Megatron nodded hesitantly. “By watching—his protector, and following Primus’s words, Prima led Tarn and Cybertron towards the Golden Age. For decavorns, they ruled together, and everything was good, and everybot happy.
“But then, his protector offlined,” Megatron said, field small with discontent. “And without being able to read his protector, he could not hear Primus’s words, and Cybertron grew corrupt.”
Megatron was silent for a moment, then glanced up at his carrier. “If a protector was how Prima heard Primus’s words, then why didn’t he choose another? Why just let Cybertron grow corrupt?”
“Why let yourself shout at someone when they make you very angry?”
“What?”
“I don’t think he let it happen,” Termine explained kindly. “I think he loved his Protector. Dearly, like I loved your sire. And love that strong can change a mechanism, or make them do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Sometimes that’s for the better; sometimes that’s for the worse.”
“Oh,” said Megatron, who knew objectively about this thing called love, but had no way of knowing then, how much it would come to fuel him. “Well, none of the Primes after Prima had a protector, either. Which meant none of them could actually hear Primus, but they all still said they could, because they were all false prophets who only wanted power, even if that meant they had to lie to everybot.”
“A tradition Sentinel proudly propagates to this very joor,” Termine said sardonically. “If Primus had any say in the actions of Sentinel Prime, we wouldn’t still be stuck here.” Quieter, then, almost to himself: “Trapped by a system that hates us, which we in turn prop up.”
Megatron frowned despondently.
Termine turned to him, smile re-affixed. “Don’t worry now, my bitlet. Things are changing. I feel it.”
“Orion Pax,” Megatron said.
“Orion Pax,” Termine confirmed.
“But… if he becomes Prime, who’ll be the one to protect him?”
“You mean, who will his Protector be?” When Termine says it, he says that word with a weird sort of importance—like it’s a title, Megatron thought to himself.
“The legend says the next true Prime—the next true prophet—would have one by their side. That’s how we’d recognise them. But if Orion doesn’t have one, then how can we be sure he won’t be just like all the rest? Just like Sentinel?”
“Let us not let legends past deny us future hope. I agree with the others, yes, that an abolished Primacy would serve us best, but Orion’s Primacy would be a close second, and far more achievable—in our own lifetimes, at least.”
Termine could be verbose at times; it took Megatron some kliks to reply. “I guess. If you’re sure that he’ll be different—that he’ll listen…”
“I do trust Soundwave to judge a character, and he judged Orion trustworthy. The mech seems timid at surface level, but that hides a fierce fire. He cares about us, Megatronus. I really think he does.”
“And you really think he could become Prime? You think he could replace Sentinel?”
“I do,” Termine said. “Primus knows it won’t be easy. But lasting change rarely is.”
Megatron thought about that for a moment, then glanced up at his carrier. “You said that most final-frames don’t know the protector’s designation.”
“I did.”
“Do you?”
“Didn’t I say it?”
Megatron glared. “Say what? His designation? No! You didn’t.”
“Sorry, bitlet,” Termine chuckled, bringing his mechling in for an embrace, “you know how I love to tease you.” He knew his little trick was too subtle yet for his creation’s developing processor—indeed, he had counted on it. Much as he wished to be honest with the bitlet, his designation was a heavy one, with heavy expectations. He did not wish for undue pressure to fall upon his little one.
He never would have expected his creation to go on to outgrow those expectations. Thus trebles the tragedy, in the end, that he would not live to see it.
“All I know of Prima’s Protector I know thanks to Soundwave and his time as Pax. I know it was a powerful designation, bitlet. A powerful one, just like yours. All you need to know is that, where my designation is lessened by our caste, yours only makes you stronger. When Sentinel decreed, in vorn one of the new reign’s calendar, in not my time, nor in my creators’, but that of my grand-creators, that we Usus may not be addressed without some mark of our caste appended, he certainly meant to push us down.
“But Megatronus is a powerful designation, bitlet; he’ll never succeed with you.”
℘
Termine did not like his altmode that much. In all honesty, he never had. He fancied himself a little lithe—at least in comparison to his fellow Usus—but his damnable altmode clashed with that. It was difficult to manoeuvre in—the treads giving him improved traction on rocky, uneven surfaces, but certainly not affording him a single speck of grace. And to make things worse, his altmode was suited only to be of use (to be of usus); his frame essentially a moving carriage on which could be placed a cannon.
But none of that was why he hated his altmode, no. The real reason he hated it was that, on top of being graceless and ultimately a carriage, whose cannon was not even built-in for (justified—see the end of this chapter) fear of rebellion: on top of all that, or even therefore, it could not save his bondmate.
He was on-duty, of course, when it happened. The cave-in, that is. He’d had his cannon equipped, this tool for crumbling solid rock, yet despite its power, devoid of use, when amongst already-crumbled rock was trapped his dying conjunx. He’d used his servos, for all the good that had done. (None.) But when he’d needed it most, his altmode, and the cannon it was designed to carry, had served as less than useless.
(Though I do suppose that in the end, he made his peace with it. It protected his creation(s) from the Custodes. Perhaps that was enough.)
So, then, did Megatron, who had the same altmode his carrier did, share as well a similar discomfort with it? Indeed, he did. But not precisely for the selfsame reasons. Oh certainly, he shared his carrier’s distaste for that personification of usus, and naturally sympathy for the great trauma his carrier bore. But that was not actually the largest reason.
As we shall see in just a moment, and as I have mentioned already: Megatron was a pacifist. He neither liked destroying things, nor the terrifying wrath his cannon inflicted.
℘
Megatron remembered, vaguely, the arrival of the last batch of newcomers. He remembered the ex-factory workers, world-weary and grim, who grumbled about automation, and said we disposables are nothing but inefficient machines to them, said it won’t be long now ‘til every Usus is made obsolete; replaced by machines that don’t mourn their dead. They were the ironically lucky ones, those who came to Nova mine, or at least that’s how they saw it. Many more bore frames whose altmodes could not be repurposed, or were somehow else unsuited to transition in profession.
The mine demanded strong frames, rugged and durable, for they refused to waste any credits in repairing workers’ injuries. At the same time, however, mechlings were put to good use, for despite their softer frames, their dexterity and smaller sizes enabled them to reach those places their creators rarely could.
So it was not the newcomers being mechlings which took Megatron by surprise. No, rather, it was the wings protruding from their spinal struts.
Make no mistake, what surprised him was not their existence. He had seen wings before, held high and proud, flared in aggression, flecked lightly with energon on one particularly terrifying occasion, when an Usus had upset Darkwing so badly, that the resulting blows to their frame had sent their pink essence splattering upon him. Megatron had seen wings spread in some mimicry of holiness, in the overbearing fashion of tyranny, on the propaganda holopics of Sentinel, on that Hadeenjoor he’d felt curiosity coax him into approaching Fodina station.
He wondered how the wings of his carrier’s Pax friend had looked the joor he’d arrived in the mine. Because what surprised Megatron was thus: their positions. He’d never seen wings bent low in shame, held tight with fear. Not until the trine arrived.
It is a naïve and foolish thing to assume that mechlings hold no prejudice. Mechlings hold every prejudice that is passed to them, whispered to them, whispered to others in their proximity. They absorb this new information, poisonous and corruptive, and accept it as with all other facts they are told are ‘just the way they are’. I would, however, allow for this: just as a sponge imbibed in solvent may better reproduce it than a dry equivalent, so too do mechlings find reciting prejudices a simpler affair than forming them.
Thus was it the case that the singular Vosian Megatron knew, whose cruelty he’d suffered plenty yet, yet not yet nearly seen its end, did not form in him a distrust of Vosians, so much as a distrust for Darkwing. A sample size of one was insufficient for his processor to create a blanket phobia, but Termine knew very well he’d be unable to prevent such prejudice, if that sample size exploded.
Forgive my cynical turn of phrase; you will find in me—in certain spite of the mecha I used to answer to—no disrespect to those whose sparks extinguished in any of the brutal repressions Sentinel’s reign is remembered for. I am only implying why it was that Termine avoided telling Megatron of what happened at the protests. And why, indeed, when the hostile glossae whispered Aves at the trine who’d entered the communal berthroom, Megatron did not understand the implications behind that word. He had no way of understanding (by first servo thanks to Termine; by second out of sheer chance) the terror that came with the warning of ‘Aves!’, nor did he associate the calling of that caste with the sharp whistle of falling bombs—and the screams of fleeing protestors. He had yet to experience that confusion and terror, the pink on his servos that would not wash off, the half-melted slag one avoids tripping over, avoids realising that used to be a mech.
All in good time—not for almost two vorns yet. For now, at least, he was innocent.
Hence why, when he saw Impactor (his as of then only friend) bullying the newcomers, he was quick to intervene.
It was that childish sort of bullying, too early to be too physical, and though Impactor would come to be known for his violence—the viciousness with which he beat his foes—he as of then, like Megatron, held little will to maim. As such, he’d only cornered them, with sneering intake regurgitating the hostile words he’d heard.
“Impactus! Stop that!” called Megatron as he approached. He used the full strength of his frame to yank his heavier friend away. “What the Pit are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” Impactor hissed. “What the Pit are you doing? Why are you on their side?”
“‘Side’? What side? I just think you shouldn’t be bullying them! Everybot knows that bullying’s bad.”
“It’s not bullying if they deserve it,” grimaced Impactor. “Don’t you know what they are?”
“Of course I do! They’re—Aves,” Megatron guessed, not wanting to seem stupid in front of his friend, especially in the midst of an argument.
“Then you know that they deserve it! They’re murderers!”
“They’re—” Megatron stuttered, caught completely off-guard by this turn of events. “—Murderers?” he asked, looking to the three seekers he’d pried Impactor off of.
“Would you like to find out?” Spat the red one, protectively positioned before the other two.
“Of course we are not!” pleaded the blue one, “my youngest brother is barely one vorn old!”
Megatron turned thus back to his friend, who rolled his optics like a final-frame. “Not literally them, stupid! Aves. Vosians. They’re all the same, carrier said so.”
Impactor’s carrier was Broadside, whose prejudice against Vosians he had acquired long before he had first seen an Avis; proof, if you will, of the absorbent nature of mechlings. It had bloomed and flourished in the fertile fields of his own carrier’s hatred for Vosians, which, for its part, she had acquired late, well into her final frame, at the conception of her sparkling.
Nautica likely had the most reason of any Usus in Nova mine, to detest the Vosians.
Termine, for his part, had the most reason of any Usus in Nova mine to defend them.
“Well, my carrier said he had a friend who was a Vosian, who got disgraced for fighting the Senate! I don’t know if he was a murderer—” (he wasn’t, back then) “—but carrier was very sure that he was a good mech. He says that ‘those sent down here least deserve our anger.’”
“Well, they haven’t even said why they got sent down at all! And that one—” Impactor pointed to the red seeker, who scowled at the accusing digit, “won’t even admit he’s Usus! They think they’re too good for us.”
“Because we are!” hissed the Vosian in response, in a weird foreign accent. Megatron could barely parse the words.
“Starscream—” came the entreaty from the blue one.
“It’s not ‘Starscream’ anymore!” Impactor cut in. “It’s ‘Starscreamus’, now, you idiots! You’re down here with the rest of us now.”
Megatron put himself between his angry, spitting friend, and the trine whose red and purple members looked ready to attack. “Woah, calm down, Impactus! You said yourself they’re not murderers, so what’s the point in getting angry at them?”
“The point is to make me feel better,” he grumbled.
“That’s a stupid point.”
“You’re a stupid point,” Impactor rebutted, unwilling to admit that he was beginning to think that perhaps he was in the wrong, and annoyed at the unpleasant feeling that that impression left in his tanks.
“That doesn’t even make sense!”
“Fine,” Impactor spat, “you chose your side. Whatever. I can see you like your new friends better.” With that, he turned, and began to stomp off, telling himself he wasn’t escaping the situation, but rather leaving on a strong note.
“Wait!” Megatron called after his friend, who did no such thing in his chagrin. He debated following, but ultimately sighed, and turned to the trine behind him. “Sorry about Impactus,” he bashfully apologised. “He isn’t usually like that. His sire got hurt a few joors ago, and he’s been a bit more angry ever since.”
He stuck out his servo, like he’d occasionally seen some final-frames do, for want of a better gesture. “I’m Megatronus.”
“We do not need your help,” the red one—Starscream—spat. The blue one made a bit-off, distressed noise, and shoved himself in front of him.
“We are grateful for it,” he said, and clasped Megatron’s outstretched servo. “It is pleasant to finally meet someone who does not dislike us already.” His accent was not only foreign, Megatron observed. It was also overly formal, like he was speaking to a higher-caste. “I am Thundercracker—us. Thundercrackus. That is how it is done, correct? One removes the final vowel?”
“Yes,” confirmed Megatron, unsure how to respond. Their speech almost resembled the mocking high-caste accents that the mechlings of the mines put on for fun. They used pronouns all the time, even when context would let them drop them, and their verbs inflected far more than necessary, with some conjugations lost on him.
Megatron let go of Thundercracker’s servo. Though generally a proficient conversationalist, his confusion drew out the pause. When he finally spoke, he asked: “Why do you bots talk like that?”
Thundercracker’s optics shuttered. Starscream took the chance to butt in: “We speak more properly than you do! You sound like you are drunk, and you are using none of the crucial grammar that we were taught to use!”
“It isn’t crucial,” Megatron responded.
“Yes it is!” Starscream screeched.
“Forgive our awkward Neocybex,” Thundercracker hastily interrupted. “We are not native speakers, and have not practised with our tutors since—Vos,” he said, and his field drew in.
Megatron bit back his curiosity, sensing the sore subject. He turned to the final seeker whose designation he did not know. “And who are you?” he asked, with all the bluntness of a mechling.
“Skywarp,” Skywarp grinned.
“-Us!” Thundercracker hissed.
“Skywarp-us,” he amended, scowling in a way that presented his dentae. “It sounds ugly. I do not like it. Why do I have to use it?”
“The Custodes will hit you if you don’t,” explained Megatron sardonically. “There’s a law for it and everything.”
“That is a stupid law,” Skywarp huffed.
“Yes,” he muttered, “it is.”
℘
When Megatron recounted to Termine the incident with the trine, at the end of the working joor as they shared some leaded lowgrade, Termine did three things before he settled into his berth: firstly, he delivered to Impactor a very stern talking-to. Secondly, he announced to the mine at large that the trine were to be left unbothered. Thirdly, he adopted the trine.
The first thoroughly shamed Impactor, and he apologised to the trine that very darkcycle. The second was accepted with minimal ire, as Termine was a greatly respected figure. The third occurred as follows:
“You three look starving,” Termine said, upon finding the trine on their shared berth. “Have you not had your joorly refuel?”
“No one was helpful enough to tell us where the Coquus is,” snapped Starscream with a scowl.
“Ah,” Termine said, optics shuttering. “Yes, I imagine that would be because we do not have one.”
“They did not have to laugh at us,” Skywarp growled. “How else would one get their energon?”
“I’m afraid we pour it ourselves,” Termine said, a gentle smile upon his dermae. “I could show you where we get it from.”
“That would be very kind of you,” Thundercracker said. Termine demurred at the sentiment, and set off with the trine in tow. On the way, he introduced himself as Megatron’s carrier, and the seekers introduced themselves for the second time that joor; Termine pretended that Megatron had not already told him their designations. Verily, he liked the way they talked, and enjoyed the sound of the Iacon accent. Certainly not for its phonetics, no; let us not be absurd—it is widely known that beyond Iacon, few find the accent charming. Rather, Termine associated it with that mech who spoke in colons; their friendship, though short, had marked him, in truth, and of course, his creation’s designation.
Termine hoped they’d meet again.
Upon arriving at the dispensary, Termine demonstrated the simple process—though foreign nevertheless to these three mechlings—of plugging into the dispenser’s port, before saying with contrition: “I’ve already had my joorly cube, so I can’t show you the pouring part, but the tap should give you no trouble when you lot hardline in. Go on and give it a try.”
“You can only have one cube a joor? What if you want a second one?” Skywarp demanded quizzically.
Termine laughed. “I usually do.”
What came from the tap was a deep maroon, which Starscream nearly spilt from surprise. “What is that?” he exclaimed, field spiky with unease.
Termine grimaced sympathetically. “Lowgrade,” he explained.
“Mecha actually drink this swill? Is it not partly octane?”
“It is,” Termine said, then hurriedly continued when he saw the horror on the trine’s faceplates: “Do not worry—it still is mainly energon; it won’t corrupt your higher modules. I’ve heard it explained that the oxygen in the energon enables aerobic metabolisation of the octane elements.”
Starscream grimaced down at the cube with blatant distrust in his field.
Termine tried a different tactic, “Six vorns now, I’ve been drinking the stuff—my entire functioning—do I sound corrupted to you?”
Starscream did feel better hearing that, though was reluctant to admit it. “Even if it had no octane at all, this concoction still smells foul.”
That got a proper laugh from Termine. “That’s why no one drinks it straight. We usually add lead to the cube.”
Three varying expressions of surprise and disgust swivelled in his direction.
“It grows on you,” Termine said defensively, “and it may be a little bitter, but it overpowers some of the fouler tastes of the impurities in the lowgrade.”
Starscream did as he suggested with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. A sip tugged the corners of his dermae down in a grimace of disgust. “If this truly is the less horrid taste, I fear that of non-leaded lowgrade.”
Termine chuckled warmly. “It gets better the longer it stays on your glossa, so make sure to drink it slowly. The aftertaste is almost spicy.”
After the other two had retrieved their cubes, and Starscream and Termine had laughed at their reactions, they made their way back to the communal berthrooms.
Starscream paused at the corner before the tunnel whose offshoots housed the berthrooms. Everyone else stopped to look at him.
Starscream opened his intake, but closed it again when he realised he could not speak the words. His optics turned pleadingly to Thundercracker.
As if their bond were telepathic, Thundercracker turned to Termine. “You have been quite kind to us, elder Terminus. You have not even asked why we are here.”
“I assumed you wouldn’t want to talk about it.”
“We are not eager to talk about it,” Thundercracker slowly admitted, “but you and your creation defended us without a real reason to. It is a sort of gratitude.”
“And perhaps if the others knew as well, they would not call us murderers,” Skywarp muttered bitterly. Little did he know that the coming vorns would make murderers of them all, with the only exception amongst that group being the gentle spark of Thundercracker.
“You don’t need to tell me, mechlings. Firstly, for I have already requested that they stop; if they continue, then let me know. And secondly, I think I already know the broader strokes. Let me guess: one or both of your creators did something to annoy the senate. They paid the price and now you’re here.”
Thundercracker’s optics shuttered. “Yes,” he said eventually.
Termine would consider then the trine’s creators short-sighted, perhaps even irresponsible, but I feel it necessary to interject and offer some perspective. The three creators of the now-orphaned trine—if you’d permit me the wordplay—were not the flighty sort. They were not the spur-of-the-moment types, who made impulsive decisions regarding the fates of their three mechlings, and indeed their Disobedience had been a calculated move.
It had been a typical romance, that which had led to our trine’s creation. Slipstream, the natural leader. Nacelle, the brawn and passion. And Hotlink, the brains, the glue—the raison d’être, if you will, because Slipstream and Nacelle might never have trined without their shared understanding that Hotlink, this rare and precious purity in the toxicity of the bootcamp, needed protecting from the world.
They did not know the half of it. Typical romances don’t normally end with three Vosian sparklings orphaned in Tarn.
Seekers become Aves on the plateau behind the Great Cliff of Vos, where the wind buffers one’s plating sharply enough to almost take flight without thrusters. It is an environment expressly chosen to whet the younglings that enter into weapons sharper than wingtips, serrated by tempests and the tempers of Tribuni, and it was not where Hotlink belonged. His trinemates were the only reason he graduated at all—though perhaps in retrospect, they might all have rather stayed far, far away from the clifftop of Vos, and where their futures would lead them beyond.
The first sparkling was an accident. Slipstream liked to disagree, claiming that Thundercracker was less accident, and more wicked humour of Primus, who might have listened in at his invocation, breathily whimpered by Hotlink, and by consequence heard the grunted, mindless ramblings of Nacelle, who in flagrante delicto seemed rather intent on making Hotlink a carrier.
Thundercracker may have been an accident, but his charm—even as a sparkling—was all the convincing his creators had needed to add another two to their habsuite.
Hotlink liked to joke that by the third gestation, his forge could take no more. Nacelle, that he’d used up all his CNA and had no more left to give. Slipstream, that the stress of a teleporting sparkling had made them all infertile.
These jokes distracted them from the bitter truth: that after three sparklings in thrice as many orns, the dry vorn that followed was only dry because the trine had learnt how the world really worked. The world they were bringing their creations into.
There are, after all, few cures more effective for charge-strained arrays, than the realisation of great deception.
The age of Sentinel’s reign was titled Pax Cybertronia. Not by historians, or not so simply; not by the will of the Paces who find no joy in propaganda. Rather, it had been Sentinel himself who had imposed this guileful title, the same as for Nominus’s reign, claiming his rule a logical progression from Cybertron’s unifier; an evolution or continuation; interrupted only by those quarter-hundred vorns under the cowardly leadership of Zeta Prime.
Perhaps, in retrospect, it should not surprise, that a mech who so clearly admired the pedesteps of his predecessor once-removed, would fall in nearly an identical fashion: at the servos of the populace, with the blessings of the Towers.
Indeed, Sentinel must in fact have revelled in irony: he adopted again that fraudulent title—Pax Cybertronia—for his reign, despite the fact that it was sparked by a coup (disguised as summary execution by mob), and thereafter thrived on brutal repression. His public justification for the self-selected title was his pursuit of order above all else. And how did that turn out for you, Sentinel Prime? I told you it would be unsustainable.
The Aves were Sentinel’s preferred method of keeping the so-called order. The newly-creators learned this first-servo on their first real mission, a vorn into their time as Aves, when their commander ordered them to strike the terrorists, who protested peacefully below. Insubordination in the middle of a mission would get them executed, they knew, and so they tried like all the others to think as Sentinel wanted them to. To see the helpless mecha below as enemies of the state; as savages and disposables; as deceivers and deceived who were all beyond saving.
Whistle, went the falling bombs. Boom, went the mecha. One sweep, a second, and numerous more, letting plasma find indiscriminate targets, making murderers out of the stampeding crowd as they crushed their fellow mechanisms underpede, so desperate were they to escape.
Slipstream was given a medal for the highest kill count in her regiment. The others’ horror turned to bitter pride when she quietly refused it.
In the end, it was not their personal horror which pushed them to Disobey direct orders. It was the thought that their creations would mature into their exact same positions, that their caste would make of their three darling sparklings murderers just like them.
They had naïvely hoped to be demoted. To be disgraced, and lose their caste. Perhaps even, if their Tribuni were cruel, to become disposables.
They and their creations were arrested, and over two long decajoors, the creators were tortured to deactivation. Hotlink was the first to go, largely due to the Custodes’ preference for making his trinemates watch as he screamed—but Nacelle was the first to snap, and on the eighth joor of this routine, his yells and sobs and desperate pleading shattered into silence. They had banded together to protect Hotlink; they had failed.
When Hotlink deactivated from his wounds following a particularly brutal session, the guilt from the broken unspoken promise and the agony of the broken sparkbond drove Slipstream to self-terminate. She was found the following joor in a pool of energon, a vital fuel line severed by desperate claws in the darkcycle.
Nacelle was offlined shortly after. First to snap, last to go; had Sentinel ever learnt of this, he would have found it droll.
The creations, for their part, were never physically tortured, though Skywarp’s segregation in solitary confinement—due, at no fault of his own, to his teleportation ability deemed ‘risky’ by the Custodes—may certainly constitute as such to some. Of note: the cell that Starscream and Thundercracker shared was adjacent to that of their creators. Physical torture always took place in a separate and sound-proof room, so the creations never heard the screams of agony, but they certainly heard the sobbing, and though Starscream would only tell one mech—and not for almost two vorns yet—he thinks he heard the moment Slipstream slit her fuel line.
For the sins of their creators, the creations were sent to the depths of Tarn to face an unenviable functioning of hatred and constant scorn.
At least, that was the intention.
Termine would always be a major thorn in the senate’s side. The adoption was not official, true—amongst disposables, they never were—but none in the mine ever doubted it, by the time the mine Disobeyed.
℘
Megatron had no siblings to speak of, and neither did Impactor, so before the trine’s arrival at the mine, he’d never understood the experience. Imagine, then, his melange of emotions, to suddenly gain three.
The easiest to imagine is trepidation. Trines are not thus designated for their ease of accepting a fourth; it would take a while before Megatron would feel confident in their friendship, and for all the vorns he’d know them, he’d never stop feeling an outsider. Thundercracker was the exception, despite the largest gap in age—remember now that amongst mechlings, half a vorn is half their lives—who did not hesitate to actively seek to engage with Megatron.
Besides the trepidation, one might naturally expect at least some iota of excitement. Indeed, Megatron found himself thrilled, faced with the possibility of quadrupling his friend count (Impactor had apologised to him as well), and discovering more about the wider world. Truthfully, to a sparkling of the mines, who had emerged into darkness, all that was warmed by the rays of Hadeen or cast in shadow by greyscale Lunae was new, exciting, and better. Miners, as all Usus, may have been given Hadeenjoors off, just like everyone else, but no twenty-groon joor (whose groons were overwhelmingly spent recovering from nine joors of work) will ever be enough to satiate one forged and made to work in the dark. This, in part, along with fear, may explain why Megatron had never in his functioning, placed a pede beyond Station Quarter. Whilst the rails separating Station Quarter and District Nova were certainly not impassable—Fodina station itself being the most notable crossing point—the gleaming towers which stood beyond had need of neither glossa nor glyph, to coldly inform Megatron he was not welcome there. Thus did Megatron, at all refuels, with Termine, the trine, and by occasion even Impactor, gladly take the opportunity to pose his curiosities.
Trepidation; excitement; not a spark should be surprised. What might not, however, jump to processor—especially for the youngest member of a now four-strong family—would be protectiveness and a sense of responsibility. Consider deeper and it makes sense: here is the only mechanism who knows both the trine’s new coworkers and the work they’d undertake, who had already needed to protect them from prejudice and shameful harm. Who among us might not feel some inkling of the same?
Termine had declared to the mine at large that the trine were to be left unbothered. In a mine distrustful of aerials, however, some defined ‘unbothered’ as ‘physically untouched’.
“I was forged here, so I don’t care, but don’t you lot feel claustrophobic?” Broadside asked. “To go from the endless, open sky, to the narrow, twisting tunnels in here… It’s like a maze, sometimes. New bots like you, if you get lost, it could take joors to find you.”
Megatron did not immediately grasp the mocking behind those words, but Thundercracker was getting better—by exposure and necessity—at discerning hidden cruelty. “Yes,” he admitted, “it is quite difficult, but we will persevere.”
“I will not,” Starscream ground out, wings jittering with discomfort. “If I have to spend another joor without even seeing the sky, I think I might actually scream.”
Thundercracker grimaced at the gleam in Broadside’s optic. “Hah! I see what you did there. Scream, like your designation! That could be funny to hear, we could all call you Screamer after.”
Megatron was beginning to understand the mockery for what it was. “Hey,” he frowned at Broadside, “you’re being mean. Stop it.”
Thundercracker, gentle as he was and with a terror of confrontation, quickly intervened. “I am sure he did not mean to be; please worry not on our behalves.”
“Oh no,” Broadside chuckled, “I definitely meant it, bitlet.”
“‘He is the coward, who hides aggression behind passivity’,” Starscream spat, with his field jagged in anger.
“How long did it take you to come up with that?” Broadside sneered.
“It was the Prime Nominus who spoke these wise words; it comes as no surprise that you, unwise, have not heard of them.”
“I would keep that false prophet’s declarations far from my dermae if I were you,” Broadside hissed in response, glaring down at the mechling a sixth his size.
I would remind, as Megatron has mentioned already, that Broadside suffered an injury some scant few joors ago. Indeed, he was chosen to supplement the mechlings’ work not because he’d work well with them, but because his work would be insignificant were he to work by himself. All this to say, please forgive him, he is not usually so caustic—but for that joor and to the trine, he unfortunately was.
“Everybot, calm down!” Megatron pleaded. His optics searched for Thundercracker, hoping for his calming influence, though his panic only doubled when he realised he was gone.
Indeed, said mechling had quietly slipped away, in search of his adoptive carrier, hoping he might bring some sort of calming influence. He’d bustled through tunnels dark and looming, shyly and politely asking directions (and only sometimes being spat at), but when he finally found the tunnel that Termine was digging in, he stopped short some distance away, as the argument reached his audials.
“That Soundwave mech must’ve messed with your processor—Paces can do that, right?” This was Nautica’s voice. A marine altmode with a drill in servo, mining for energon. How queer; one wonders why Darkwing ever let her join.
I do so love to presage.
“I assure you, Nauticus, I did not need nefarious meddling to feel empathy for helpless orphans.” Termine said this gently, though the cannon blast he sent into the rock slightly undermined that softness.
“Helpless now,” Nautica said, “parasitic and cruel as mecha. I’m not saying you should’ve beat them up, I’m only worried for you. Let a Vosian too close and they’ll betray you in the end.”
“If that were true,” Termine said, “Soundwave would have done so. And yet, he left, leaving me with no parting wound but sadness, and I cannot find it within myself to believe the words you say.” Perhaps you, too, do not fully understand the reasons Nautica said them. It has been so many decavorns since Aves were used as weapons of repression; many online tojoor have no memory of that darkness. Nautica, however, had seen that repression. Felt it, and carried it.
The question of Broadside’s sire was one he had previously posed to his carrier. She had told him his Vosian sire had left them before he even emerged, uncaring of the growing second spark he’d left inside her chamber. For however much she hated that mech, and more widely Vosians, let us credit Nautica thus: she never let that hate apply to her half-Vosian sparkling.
“You are a great friend to me, Terminus. I hope your spark the size of Primus will not be your downfall.”
Termine paused the blasts from his cannon, then rolled back on his treads to give himself space. Unfolding smoothly from his altmode, his cannon sliding to his right vambrace, Termine looked over his pauldron—and right at Thundercracker. “Is something the matter, bitlet?”
Thundercracker’s dermae moved, but his vent seemed caught in his intake. Nautica, for her part, stared at him with open surprise—and perhaps, if being generous, some hint of embarrassment.
“The,” Thundercracker said, though the word was almost lost in static. He hastily reset his vocaliser. “Broadsidus and Starscreamus are having an argument. I was hoping you could… resolve it?”
He felt so stupid coming here, crawling to a carrier that was not his, begging for help for some altercation a better mech could’ve resolved themself—but the serious nod Termine gave him somewhat allayed those thoughts.
“Here,” Termine said, detaching his cannon, and handing it to the nervous mechling. “As long as the mining gets done, there’ll be no complaints from the Supervisor.” He winked, though the words were serious, and left without a backwards glance.
Thundercracker, being himself not that much larger than the cannon in his servos, hefted it into a passable grip and meekly approached the tunnel face.
“Used to holding weapons, are you?” Nautica commented coolly.
“No,” he mumbled, though he did not mention that this was because his weaponry was built in. Make no mistake, he would’ve refused the cannon if his null-rays could serve as a substitute, but plasma’s effect on solid rock is often, at best, scorching it.
He ignored Nautica’s distrustful stare as he pointed the cannon at the rock, hesitated, hesitated, then offlined his optics and shot. The shock of the following explosion shook him almost as much as it did its target, and he panted despite no physical exertion.
Nautica regarded him closely, then turned back to continue her mining. It was a while before she spoke again. “What are your intentions with Impactus?”
“He is Megatronus’s friend,” he said. “So he must be a good mechanism. I would like to become his friend as well.”
“Don’t hurt him,” she said.
“I will not,” he said. “Any harm from our entering this mine is more likely to be aimed towards us, than you.”
℘
Termine was certainly a fantastic carrier, but to imply his impact on history could be measured by only Megatron would be reductionism of a frankly casteist scale. For alongside protecting and guiding his creations, both those who shared his coding and not, he heard the words Orion said and took initiative.
Orion Pax was not a revolutionary, or not in the traditional sense. Indeed, he never truly considered himself one, and the fact that he, a meagre Pax, became the face of a revolution, caught him, perhaps surprisingly, unawares and unprepared. What you must know is that violence deeply disturbed him, and that the ends did not necessarily justify the means to him. But the peaceful protests he’d attended had only resulted in hundreds imprisoned; he knew well that gentle reproach would not oust a mech such as Sentinel. And so,
Disobey, he entreatied. Disobey your higher-ups. Ensure your betters appreciate they are nothing without you. Calmly and nobly do your part in showing Sentinel that leadership is a two-way affair; that just as leaders expect us to do our work and contribute, we expect, at minimum, fair treatment in return. Joor after joor, our peaceful pleading for basic liberties, for freedoms from and freedoms to, has been brutally repressed. If Sentinel is unwilling to do his part, let us show him that it is not he who has control over Cybertron, but the millions of mecha who make it work. Disobey, he entreatied.
He said these words on a podium in Trion Square in Iacon. He likewise said them on a podium in the Forum of Enlightenment, on the opposing side of the Suborbital District. He said them in Kaontown, in the square facing Staniz Station, and he even said them beyond the Preserve, in the outer suburb of Little Staniz, on the square (if one could call it that) facing Staniz Street Station.
To his credit, he certainly did not limit himself to only Iacon; he knew indeed that Cybertron was more than these three districts. Yes, he went to the real Staniz, to the square of Uraya Market, and so did he go to Kaon on the square of its Central Station—and so as well to Tarn, in fact, on that other side of Fodina, which Megatron’s pedes had never graced.
His carrier’s pedes had, though. Termine had stood with other Usus, even with some low- and middle-castes, who, for once, seemed unbothered by their proximity to disposables. He stood and listened with rapt attention. Disobey, he entreatied.
Termine was an optimist, but so was he a realist. When he heard disobey, he did not envision exactly the same its orator had naïvely meant. Orion was certainly correct that there was strength to be found in numbers; it was unrealistic to condemn every Disobeying mid-caster to the same fates as Slipstream, Hotlink, and Nacelle. Yet double-edged was that vibroblade; remember that Usus, by definition, were considered unskilled labour. Shoot every Pax in a library and it may take vorns to recover—shoot every Usus in a factory and you could replace them all in a deca.
So Termine started talking. On Hadeenjoors, their joor of rest, with other respected figures, in other crucial industries. Nova Mine produced energon ore for Decimus Refinery, whose refinement’s products fed every mechanism in Tarn and its nearby cities, and whose byproducts went to the Central Tarnian Power Plant—which powered nearly everything in the industrious polity, including much of both the aforementioned industries.
When they Disobeyed, they all agreed, they could not stop the industries. Oh certainly, they should strive for better conditions—why pass up the opportunity—but Cybertronian industries could not afford to halt. Not, at least, unless every Usus wanted a fancy excuse to starve. Yes, they all agreed, they would keep the supply chains fed; they’d only ensure they answered to each other, and that no profits reached the Dome.
They did not all agree, at least not initially, on the scope of their demands. Yes, of course, this had consensus: Sentinel needed to go. But what next?
Orion Pax, argued Termine. Abolish the primacy, argued others. Yes, yes, agreed Termine, but if we set our sights too high, all at once, the other castes won’t follow us. I know myself that they too are dissatisfied; let us use their mech, who in turn will fight for us; let them think they have the most to gain—they’ll fight the fiercest if they do, and the thinner Sentinel must spread his attention, the less we will have to hold against, and the higher our chances of outlasting his support base, without which he’ll come crashing down.
An interesting strategy, mused and replied the others. But the other polities are unlikely to agree on that. All the better, he replied. If even one polity is united, in demanding simply a better Prime, whilst others, maybe less united, call for abolition of the institution, the Towers and the Celestial Spires will think ours the moderate option. Without a persuasive compromise, they might fancy devising their own, which—for fear of a non-solution—we simply cannot allow.
In the end, they all agreed.
All it took after that was visiting the goods yard. Their mecha spoke with the railyard mecha, hush-hush in faux-casual hypotheticals, and the railyard mecha even managed to recruit some Tramina to the mix.
They thus controlled in Tarn almost everything that mattered. The ore for the refinery. The energon for the populace. The fuel for the power plant, and who got power, and who did not. Even, via the railway staff, who and what came in or out.
They all agreed on a date. And then, they waited for that date to come.
℘
“O Prima; oh Primus,” Megatron whispered before his shrine. “Something big is coming, and I don’t know what it is.”
Megatron’s shrine was a simple thing, which he had assembled with his carrier some short few orns ago. He’d carved tasteful (for a mechling) filigree on either side, and he’d filled the space in its offering basin with a swirling pattern of cool rocks.
“I’m scared, Prima,” Megatron admitted. “Nobot will tell me what it is, but everyone’s acting different. Or all the final-frames, at least. Impactus is just as confused as me, but he seems more excited. That makes sense, though. Big changes and fighting stuff have always made him excited, and he’s sure that whatever’s coming will have lots of both of those. I’m just worried that he’s right. I’m not good at either.”
“O Primus,” Megatron prayed, now switching to requests, “let things just end peacefully. Let everybot be okay. Please make sure especially that my friends and family don’t get hurt. Impactus. The trine.
“And carrier, of course.”
℘
The Disobedience began in Tarn on the eighth Lunaejoor of the fifteenth orn of vorn eighty-two Sentinel. Disobey now, whatever your caste, or never know true freedom.
℘
Here is what Iacon resembled, one hundred groons later on Alchejoor:
Energon stocks were running out. This was not the intention of the Tarnians, nor the Helexians, nor the Tessarites. The mines were still outputting; they had all still held their ground. But the refineries, when a first round of grey Bellatores proved them adequately defended, were levelled under incessant and spiteful targeted aerial bombing. The military built their own, but had no ore to refine. The Tarnians and Helexians and Tessarites also built their own, in guest rooms and in warehouses, with a complex system of volunteers distributing ore under cover of darkness, but bringing it to Iacon proved barely possible. The railways were constantly patrolled by Aves, and the pre-rail roads were slow and dangerous, both due to crumbling infrastructure and Aves occasionally overpassing. Forgoing the roads altogether, meanwhile, meant certain death by ravine.
The average mechanism can go one deca without fuel, but to assume the same for Aves or Bellatores is folly of the highest sort. The average mechanism begins experiencing acute weakness at the end of joor three, and this is without the heightened activity one expects from a pede-soldier—to say nothing of the Aves, literally burning fuel, on whom depended most of Sentinel’s advantage.
When it leaked out that Sentinel’s army had captured functionally zero energon, what with most compromised caches having been set aflame in a scorched-earth policy, and that up to now, every refuelling had been depleting a limited stock—
What do you fight for, when you fight for a mech like Sentinel?
Few fight because they believe in him. Some fight for status, some fight for security, many fight for income, or by extension, energon.
Gone was status: any non-soldier who knew you before would now spit in your direction. Gone was security: thus is the nature of confrontation. Gone was the use of income: hyperinflation and shortages had both pushed the prices beyond your means.
And drip, drip, drip; there goes the energon, down your intake; who knows if it’ll be your final ration? Maybe tomorrow morning, the stocks will be dry. Would you sooner starve or go corrupt?
Knock-knock, the Infortiatores are at the door. You’ve been Disobeying, how very, very naughty. You knew this moment would come. You’ve barricaded the entryway and have a vibroblade in servo.
Hum, go the laser bars, which keep you locked inside. The prison is at double its capacity, and severely understaffed, what with the majority of Infortiatores trying and failing to enforce labour. There is a single mech in here who seems sympathetic to your plight. He, a newbie, a green Infortiator, did not sign up for this. He would not jeopardise himself by helping obviously, but if something happened which somehow could not be traced back to him—
Roar, you roar with the rest of the mob; this sham of justice must end. You demand the prisoners be released, most of whom have not been indicted for any formal crime. The gates are unlocked. You all rush in, and overwhelm the skeleton crew in under a single breem. Who forgot to lock the gates?
℘
Here is what Kaon resembled, eighty groons later on Microjoor:
The trams stopped running four joors ago. After all, ferrying passengers about Kaon would be obeying one’s directives, and besides, so few needed to go so far, as fewer needed to commute.
The streets, instead of trundling trams and mecha crossing to the opposing arcade, were filled now with far less peaceful scenes. Kaon, being as it is, not the capital, did not enjoy the same restraint the army afforded Iacon. Bellatores on the ground went door-to-door and did not knock; if the fifth groon had already passed, and the fifteenth groon not yet, and if you seemed to be at least one-vorn-old, then you should’ve been at work; those at home were shot as warning.
Not warning shots, of course. The warnings were their greyed-out frames, haloed in pink on the bronze streets, horrifically askew and dented from their postmortem defenestration. The Bellatores spread out their devastation, hitting a building or two per street, on every other street. Few came back from work that evening, what with the widespread Disobedience, but ironically, those shameful few who did, did not go back tomorrow.
The lines were drawn. The tensions flared. Let Sentinel learn why you do not war with the City of the Gladii.
The following joor, volunteer Gladii dispersed throughout the city, on a shared comm frequency. Where Bellatores were spotted, Gladii converged. Only two squadrons were sent into the streets. They were not the same mecha who had committed the massacre of the preceding joor, but no one knew and no one cared. They, in turn, were massacred, their greyed-out frames turned black by soot when the energon they leaked was set ablaze.
The following joor, the Aves came. Their bombs dropped randomly. The Gladii, grounded and without access to any long-range weapons, could only watch in horror—this time, sparklings were not spared. But Kaonites have never been the sort to sit and wallow. That darkcycle, all of Kaon descended on Trypticon—not for its inmates, unlike Iacon, for the army took no prisoners, but rather, for its weapons. Rifles. Snipers. Fusion cannons.
The following joor, when the Aves came back, they did not return to the base which had sent them.
℘
Here is what Polyhex resembled, sixty groons later on Alphajoor:
The harbour saw its last departure three full joors ago, but that is not to say that Polyhex had stopped trading with its twins. It was now part of a comprehensive network of smuggling: under concealment of the darkcycle, ships sailed to and from secret temporary piers just outside the city limits, where energon that reached Staniz from nearby Tessarus was loaded into holds for distribution overseas. Come lightcycle, servos skilled in making do disassembled these joorly piers, such that passing Aves got no impression that piers were ever there.
And Aves did pass overhelm. Not industrially, not enough to put significant strain on rationed resources, but almost as an afterthought, or more truthfully, an indulgence. The bombs they dropped on the Dead End’s buildings (with structures unsound from vorns of neglect) barricaded the streets with rubble, leaving many offline and more homeless.
Had any Praeco been stupid enough to Disobey direct orders from Ratbat, they might have questioned why Sentinel was bombing a district famous for its functionless. Why divert Aves from Disobeying Usus to target those useless either way? I know not how Sentinel might have responded, though I’m certain he would not have told the truth. Nevertheless can I not help but wonder, how that Praeco might have regarded the truth: that Sentinel had always found them disgraceful, and that the notion of letting them live unharmed—especially in times of martial law, when fewest would ask the very question—somehow struck him as intensely wrong.
One joor, Polyhex would rebuild the buildings it had lost, with battered pride shored up against the destruction it had faced. One joor, it would host a missing Prime and nurse him back to health. And one joor, it would come to be a site of pilgrimage—the beginning of the route that would come to be known as the March on Iacon.
Until that joor came, until the bombings stopped, the Polyhexians sought shelter underground, in the arcane tunnels from ages past, designed in the Warring Cities Epoch as respite from siege warfare.
℘
Here is what Staniz resembled, forty groons later on Vectorjoor:
It should by now come as no surprise that Old Harbour had shut with the Disobedience, but it was not the only one.
New Port does not welcome ships of the Rust Sea-faring kind. Its sights are set on the stars above, and its infrastructure capable of offloading off-world goods. Yet for all its grandeur and planetwide recognition, it cannot function without Old Harbour. It may have the airs of a full-fledged district, but the truth of the matter is that, without the joorly flow of commuters arriving from the Harbour to work its machinery, the Port would cease to function.
I write this with full confidence because this is indeed what happened. The Disobedience shut down the commuter railway, and overdarkcycle, the Port shut down.
Stella Tower was not happy that New Port was nonfunctional. Navis Tower was not happy that the Harbour was nonfunctional. They reluctantly put aside their endless petty feud, and unleashed their combined security forces on the mechanisms of Staniz.
Forty groons have passed since the declaration of Disobedience, and those winding, narrow streets of the Harbour, on which Hadeen only shines at middle joor, lined by walls of buildings rising occasionally to six storeys, have now become the perfect hosts to makeshift barricades. There are openings in these barricades to allow through couriers, and energon distributors, and to funnel Infortiatores into carefully curated ambushes.
This is not the revolution that will destabilise the status quo; when the dust settles and the butane haze and the barricades come down, the two rival Towers will go right on with ruling over Staniz. It will take a second revolution to set Navis Tower ablaze. And it will take a third soon after to send Stella Tower crashing down.
The Aves are rumoured to be on their way. They will not crush our spirit, nor will they crush the Disobedience that burns within our sparks.
℘
Here is what Tarn resembled, 20 groons later on Primjoor:
“Frag!” yelled Broadside, hearing the roar of approaching Aves.
As Usus, he was not unfamiliar with the deactivation of those he knew, but it had all happened so quickly. And now—with that familiar roar, with Strika fighting to keep the soldiers at bay at the chokepoint of Fodina Station, which no doubt would be the target of the approaching bombing run—frag, frag, frag. Perhaps they were not the textbook-perfect couple. Perhaps they were not together, really, though their sparkbond still sang weakly. Perhaps their love had long burnt out, if it had ever been there at all. But they had created Impactor together; he was not going to let his mechling’s sire offline like this if he could help it, and slag it all, he still cared for Strika, alright?
The thrusters on his pedes roared in response to the imminent threat, and he transformed mid lift-off for stability despite his hatred of that altmode.
The approaching Aves were a trine of skilled fighters, but they had not prepared to face aerial opposition. Broadside flew directly at them, seemingly intending to collide mid-air, and none could resist, from shock and perhaps from some primal fear, the urge to pull up and evade.
Broadside transformed back into rootmode as he approached one of the trine. He called, for the first time in so many vorns, on his mass displacement to aid him now. His size trebled.
He reached out with his servo and caught one seeker’s fuselage. It crumpled under his grip. Prevented from transforming by the unyielding digits of their aggressor, the seeker could only scream in pain, and suffer through what followed. Broadside—despite his plating bubbling as plasma struck his side, and despite the way the screams cut out into static when he did it—reached out with his other servo and tore the seeker’s wing straight off.
He transformed back into his altmode, ignoring the way his internals were melting, and pulled a sloppy manoeuvre to turn towards the remaining two, as the third of the trine spiralled uncontrollably towards the ground behind him.
I will not describe to you how Broadside dispatched the other two; I’m certain you understand by now that he was capable of doing so, and besides, what interests us is actually what followed the final jet’s dispatching.
Broadside landed on the rough stone streets with a cry of pain and a smear of pink. He pushed himself to transform back into his rootmode, willing himself to get up and walk, for if he could get to the mine at least—if he got to anywhere where someone could perform even basic first aid on him—then maybe he’d survive, or at least be able to say farewell to his dearest creation.
A truck was coming down the street at him, braving the bumps of the unpaved rock, then transformed a servoful of metrons away and unfolded into a crouched position.
“I’m here to save your life,” the mech said, a klik before Broadside could ask the question. “What needs crimping most urgently?”
Broadside stared at him for a short moment, indecision, distrust, and confusion warring in his processor. In the end, however, the fact of the matter remained that if he did not accept the help, he’d offline in perhaps a joor. “My sides,” he muttered curtly. “The lines there cauterised with the plasma, but broke open again when I crashed.”
The mech whose designation he did not know got to pinching and cauterising immediately. He had a blaster, which was the strangest part, since none of the Usus were so formally armed. “Who are you?” Broadside grunted, suppressing a hiss of agony.
The truck stayed silent a few moments longer. Then, when he deemed his work sufficient—and indeed when Broadside’s HUD had cleared of the most imminent of the warnings—he stood and stepped back with an appraising stare. Broadside was bigger than him, though perhaps by less than the usual amount, and certainly not at the present moment, as he lay supine and vulnerable.
“A businessmech,” the truck responded, “smelling an opportunity. You can displace your mass.”
It wasn’t a question, and Broadside’s heavy venting left little room for useless words. He nodded nigh-imperceptibly.
“Flashy,” the truck remarked, “impressive. Useful. You’d make a fantastic Gladius.”
There were so many things wrong with what the truck had just said that Broadside didn’t know where to start. “I’m an Usus,” he said, rather redundantly.
“And aren’t you tired of it?” the truck replied. “I could pull some strings and change your caste, if you make a good Gladius after all. You’ve got the instincts of a showmech and the frame to do fabulously. If I’m right, and I’m rarely wrong, you’d be swimming in creds ‘fore the vorn is up.”
“I can’t fight, and I definitely don’t wanna offline.”
“You can obviously fight, I’ve just seen you do it, and the deathmatches are just opt-in. They’re for the desperate with nothing to lose. But you—I have a feeling you do have something to lose. Mechanisms that need support. What better way to support them than big remittances? A small portion of your earnings could buy them midgrade for the rest of the orn at least. No more labouring those extra joors just to halfway fill your tanks.”
“We’re Disobeying to change that,” Broadside argued.
“Do you really think it’ll work?”
“Yes,” he spat.
The truck said nothing for a moment, then pulled a minipad from his subspace. He held it out to Broadside. “The designation’s Clench. Domnus, though I’m sure you’ve guessed. Here’s my business card if you ever change your mind. And remember-” Clench snatched the card away, the moment Broadside reached for it.
“We’ve got medics on-site for every match, one medic per contestant. Outside of deathmatches, deactivation in the pits is rare. Can you say the same of the mine?” With that, Clench handed the card to Broadside, and took a crisp step back.
A heavy servo fell on his pauldron. Strika loomed behind him whilst being barely a micron taller. “What business do you have with my sparkmate, Mobilis?”
“Domnus,” Clench smiled, covering up his scowl. “Which should tell you why I took interest in your truly splendid sparkmate. The proposal I made to him is one I think you’ll both find worth considering. Of course, being the polite mech that I am, I made sure to save his functioning, first.”
The servo slowly fell from his pauldron. “Thank you, Domnus. I’ll handle it from here on.”
“Of course,” Clench said, with an insincere smile, “Think on it, hmm? You know how to reach me.” With that, he folded back into his altmode, and drove off towards the sounds of battle. He’d come to scope out talent, a neutral party fuelled by neither liberty, nor power, but violence and credits. He came with thirty business cards; he would not stop until all were in the subspaces of truly promising mecha.
Strika and Broadside faced each other when the sound of his engine grew distant.
“Are you too hurt for me to embrace you?” she asked him seriously.
“My intake and pauldrons are fine,” he scoffed, then choked a little when she squeezed him close by those aforementioned sections.
“Fragging heroic idiot,” she grumbled into the top of his helm. “I heard what you did to those Aves.”
“Good,” Broadside laughed, then immediately regretted it. “It wasn’t for nothing, then.”
“You did it to protect me?”
“They were headed for Fodina Station.”
“You hate your aerial altmode.”
“I didn’t really have a choice.”
“Thank you,” Strika said, whilst still embracing him.
Broadside accepted this without retort, and subspaced the business card.
℘
Here is what Nova Mine resembled, two groons later the very Lunaejoor:
Thundercracker held the others in a protective embrace he felt unqualified to give. This was not his first time doing so; in fact, he’d done so thrice before, in their shared cell with Starscream. Starscream had admitted to him that the mines reminded him of those dim and cramped environs. Now, like then, they sat huddled together, though this time the trine was complete, and Megatron and Impactor were huddled alongside them.
Now, though, unlike back then, they were kept still not by laser bars, but by fear of what the future held.
“I should be out there, too,” Impactor said, with more worry than bravado in his tone. “We’re useless in here! What if our creators get hurt and we’re not there to help them?”
“Terminus told us to stay here because he wanted us safe,” Thundercracker said. “We must respect his wishes, for I am certain they come from a place of wisdom.”
“What he means,” Megatron translated, “is that you’ll offline out there, idiot, and that that’ll help nobot.”
“Not true!” Impactor rebuffed.
“True too.”
“Not-”
“I saw final-frames praying at their altars, Impactus,” Megatron cut in. His tone was sharp with stress and fear. “That means they were scared they’d deactivate!”
“They are weak, and not built for battle,” Starscream scoffed. “They will all offline immediately.”
Thundercracker shoved Starscream reproachingly over the sparkbond, and hurriedly changed the topic. “How old are you, Megatronus?”
“Why did you shove at me? It is the truth!”
“What?” Megatronus asked.
“Consider your words before they leave your vocaliser!” Thundercracker hissed. “Terminus is at the mine entrance—would you be glad to hear of his deactivation?”
“No,” Starscream hunched his pauldrons, “but why ignore the inevitable?”
“I’m one vorn old!” Skywarp chirped. “My forgejoor was an orn ago.”
“Oh,” said Megatron, a little weakly. “Did you do anything special for it?”
“Pit yeah, I did!” Skywarp beamed—he’d been the quickest, as the youngest, to pick up the informal side of Tarnian Neocybex. “There was oil cake and rust sticks and I was vwopping everywhere!” It had been so long since he had teleported. In the mines, he rarely dared to, for a metron off in any direction and he could lose a limb or lose his life. Before that, even, during his time in solitary, Skywarp was told under no uncertain terms what would happen if he teleported away: all of his creators would be offlined. Then that changed once necessary to all his remaining creators. Finally, it became the others in his trine. “Yeah. It was nice. I like thinking of that joor, even though…”
Impactor shuttered his optics at the downturn in the seeker’s field. “Even though… what?”
“We did not see our creators that much after that,” Thundercracker explained delicately. Indeed, the Infortiatores had knocked on the door just two joors later.
“Oh.”
Silence reigned for an awkward moment.
“Your forgejoor’s in three decae, right Megatronus?” Impactor asked. “We could all celebrate it together. You bots too, if you want,” he smiled, directing this at the trine. The smile was weak, but buoyed by Thundercracker’s grateful field.
“I hope—” Megatron started.
“Mechlings!” came a femme’s voice, from just beyond the entranceway. Her pedesteps preceded her entrance by a servoful of kliks, then Nautica entered the room.
I hope Terminus is there to see it.
“Grandcarrier!” Impactor chirped, and wiggled out of the group circle to reach in her direction.
“Impactus,” she said, and came to give him a tight embrace. “We’re safe, for now. The Infortiatores are at bay.”
The relief of five scared mechlings quickly harmonised, their fields meshing with each other’s.
It was not to last.
“Megatronus,” she said, and turned to him. Her voice was thick with static. “Oh, creation.
“I am so sorry.”
℘
Here is what the future resembled, one groon later the very Lunaejoor:
History is written by the victors. For the Disobedience, these were the middle castes.
It was one of theirs who instigated it. It was one of theirs who rose to the top. They most enjoyed the liberty that had been promised to them, and least suffered from the lack of fundamental change to their unsustainable joor-to-joor. Indeed, every caste had been fighting for liberty. But in far too many cases, the Usus had also been simply fighting to survive.
Termine had orchestrated nearly everything in Tarn. From the very decision to Disobey—which is to say, as I’m certain you know by now, to rebel—to the logistics of the operation, to the coordination between Tarnian industries, indeed even to the decision to capture the Supervisor instead of outright offlining him. They couldn’t afford coming off as the bad bots of the narrative; that’s what Termine said. I wonder what he would have said had he known what Darkwing would do to his mechling.
But he would never get to see that.
He would never get to see his Orion Pax become Optimus Prime. He would never get to see his Megatronus become Megatron Protector. He would never get to see the dawn of the Second Golden Age.
One groon after the declaration of Disobedience, whilst defending the entrance of the mine from an incursion by Infortiatores, Termine was offlined. He would thus never come to see the worst of his mechling’s suffering, nor the greatest of his triumphs.
In the end, however, once all is said and all is done, I’d like to think I have a good idea of what he’d say to Megatron. Megatron, in his final frame, beside the Prime he’d fought for and loved, the glyph for Protector in sharp red calligraphy swirling twice across his breastplate:
“Megatron, my bitlet. I’m so very proud of you.”
auri_mynonys on Chapter 1 Mon 14 Apr 2025 07:35PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 1 Mon 14 Apr 2025 07:53PM UTC
Comment Actions
disillusionary on Chapter 1 Mon 14 Apr 2025 08:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 1 Tue 15 Apr 2025 04:34AM UTC
Last Edited Tue 15 Apr 2025 04:36AM UTC
Comment Actions
disillusionary on Chapter 1 Tue 15 Apr 2025 08:02AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 1 Tue 15 Apr 2025 08:37AM UTC
Comment Actions
disillusionary on Chapter 1 Tue 15 Apr 2025 08:52AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 1 Tue 15 Apr 2025 08:56AM UTC
Comment Actions
VitaliMe on Chapter 1 Mon 14 Apr 2025 09:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 1 Tue 15 Apr 2025 04:14AM UTC
Last Edited Tue 15 Apr 2025 04:17AM UTC
Comment Actions
NyraDragonFox on Chapter 1 Tue 15 Apr 2025 01:53AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 1 Tue 15 Apr 2025 04:07AM UTC
Comment Actions
HungarianDragon on Chapter 1 Wed 16 Apr 2025 11:52AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 1 Wed 16 Apr 2025 12:28PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lexieboo03 on Chapter 1 Thu 15 May 2025 02:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 1 Thu 15 May 2025 03:44PM UTC
Comment Actions
RetrogradeFunk on Chapter 2 Wed 23 Jul 2025 10:26AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 2 Wed 23 Jul 2025 12:05PM UTC
Comment Actions
inzclouds on Chapter 2 Fri 25 Jul 2025 08:18PM UTC
Last Edited Fri 25 Jul 2025 08:20PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 2 Fri 25 Jul 2025 09:07PM UTC
Comment Actions
inzclouds on Chapter 2 Sat 26 Jul 2025 05:27AM UTC
Comment Actions
Lexieboo03 on Chapter 2 Mon 11 Aug 2025 01:38AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sister Sunny (BonRod) on Chapter 2 Mon 11 Aug 2025 05:31AM UTC
Last Edited Sat 30 Aug 2025 07:50AM UTC
Comment Actions