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Megatron found Spin Out in the bowels of Kaon, not as deep as the mines, but in a hole much more bleak.
The place the miners went when they could no longer produce their quota; a last, desperate gasp for rations. Where sentenced violent criminals, inconvenient political dissidents, free thinkers, and the disposable class were sent for their bodies to be recycled.
But not before they provided a little entertainment.
Entertain Spin Out did. In the spotlight, he was charming, clever, and quick. A niche crowd favourite with a small, dedicated following. He had a way of reading his opponents’ moves before they made them, almost as if the arena for him was performance art. The setting of his bleak reality populated by props, the backdrop around him a painting. A play.
Out of the spotlight, the custom red blend of his paint reflected the precise spectrum of visible light that was swallowed first into the dark. The yellow inlaid in his helm fins quickly following to shadow with a dip of his crested black helm.
It was that dip as he slipped away that first caught Megatron’s attention when he passed.
Inquiries followed.
Spin Out was one of a handful of mechs that no one could remember when, precisely, he’d arrived. The reason he’d been sent to the Pits unknown. He’d been a fixture in team matches for as long as anyone could remember. A constant. Never low enough in the rankings to be used as bait. Always just shy of the leader board, never high enough to be chosen for the spectacle of single combat to the death. The only pathway to freedom.
Spin Out was an enigma.
The more Megatron asked around, the more he found those who claimed to know Spin Out well, only saw themselves reflected back in their conversations. He was everyone’s friend, and no one’s. Never lingering long enough for cracks in the mirror to become visible.
No one knew where he recharged — advantageous in the long hours between matches — but that also meant he trusted no one to watch his back.
At first, Megatron began to suspect Spin Out was a spy for the Pit Bosses. Perhaps, his creation was a custom commission for them from the All Spark. His uncanny longevity made sense when seen through that lens.
But no, the more Megatron observed him, the more he realized Spin Out enjoyed messing up the rigged matches. Destroying their odds. Not frequently enough that it was obvious Spin Out was the cause — then again, unlike Megatron, the Pit Bosses never saw Spin Out’s smug expression as Patrons, who were supposed to have insider knowledge, lost fortunes.
Too many losses from powerful mechs, and a Pit Boss would be replaced. Spin Out, Megatron quietly observed, had a body count that wasn’t on his ledger.
Invisible strings attached to hooks. The rigging of his performance, a guillotine hanging unseen. Slamming down on cue.
Erased.
Stage cleared. Reset. Repeat performance. Same backdrop. New cast.
It was poetry made tangible. An operational art. The greatest show Megatron had ever seen.
Spin Out had to know he’d caught Megatron’s optics — inspired him to etch his thoughts and emotions on the walls, bringing them into focus — but still, he avoided him.
Disappearing backstage; the yellow of his helm fins fading with that dip of his head.
That bow.
It only fueled Megatron to study his techniques further.
It was the relentless ground work he put in outside of the spotlight that led to Spin Out’s calculated success. And it was calculated.
Spin Out was exactly where he wanted to be. A cunning, unrepentant mech with the silent power and patience to replace Pit Bosses.
No need for applause. He was his own audience. His only critic.
He got to know the cast of his play face-to-face, while simultaneously studying their frames and personalities for their weaknesses. Their strengths. Make a comment here, then there, and it would cling to them. Hooks threaded then stitched into the sketch — the foundation layer of a future scene. A nudge here, a secret ration there — he could bolster their courage beyond their abilities, or embed a doubt with a perfectly timed wince that would cause them to crumple.
He never tried his manipulations with Megatron.
Maybe, because unlike the other wretches tossed into the ring, Megatron had volunteered to enter the Pits of Kaon while still well into the prime of his mining quotas. He had wanted to make a statement. A point that would give his disposable life meaning.
Mutual respect. A kindred spark.
Game recognized game.
At least, that’s what Megatron had come to believe, but that in itself slowly became obvious as a mirror. Upon his arrival into the spotlight, Megatron’s rage had been unfocused. He hadn’t had a greater plan for rebellion. No grand designs for his Uprising.
Until that little dip of a helm.
Spin Out had seen the beginning sketch of Megatron’s Uprising before he had.
That insidious, manipulative little bow.
Megatron had liked seeing it when he passed. It tempered his unfocused rage into ego and ambition.
When Megatron finally managed to pin Spin Out down and confront him about it — let Spin Out know he could not hide behind a mirror, not when Megatron could see through the cracks — Spin Out had simply bowed his helm lower.
“If the lead performer has complaints about the backdrop getting stale,” Spin Out said, sporting a glimmer of a smirk. “Perhaps, a renovation of the theatre is finally in order. Under new management.”
Megatron had laughed. The first genuine sound of amusement he’d ever made in those crooked, hallowed halls.
As the movement grew in secret, beneath the pedes of their oppressors, it had been natural to make Spin Out his heir to his inevitable empire, should Megatron fall.
After all, Spin Out had been a decepticon long before Megatron had known to make it a proper noun.
The green glow of the CR chamber’s illumination reflected off Sideswipe’s scuffed, custom red paint, making it appear black. From the outside, he watched the bubbles rise within the cylinder and he picked one to follow, visually tracing its vertical path to the top.
He couldn’t really call it his, not in terms of ownership, just because it was where he had first come online. It belonged to The Cause. Like him.
Like his twin.
Sunstreaker had already been online and outside of ‘his’ CR chamber, ignoring Megatron entirely, as he stared at Sideswipe in his. Already judging him. Already sketching flaws. The first feeling Sideswipe had belonged to Sunstreaker —
Annoyance.
At Sideswipe, for being too slow.
It had quickly become the theme of his life.
Now, Sideswipe flicked the CR chamber’s wall, then cupped his hands against the plexi-steel glass to better see the shadow moving inside.
“Stop touching things. I’m not hunting for a new hand if you lose another one.”
Wincing, Sideswipe rubbed over his chest from the sting of his brother’s words snapping at him over their bond, but as he pulled away from the CR chamber, he smiled back at him, knowing full well that Sunstreaker would hunt down the perfect match if Sideswipe needed a new… anything really.
His brother just couldn’t stand looking at Sideswipe if he was missing a piece, or twelve.
“Yes you would,” Sideswipe called him out on his lie. ”You have a list of compatible ‘donors’ all picked out, and probably update it after every match depending on casualties — now I’d wager it’s listed in order of paint colours.”
That got an actual, audible growl out of Sunstreaker. Which meant he totally did.
Along their bond, Sideswipe cackled, his mouth lifting to match his private amusement.
It was even funnier after Sideswipe realized that meant there were mechs walking around in the Pits who Sunstreaker had only deemed ‘worthy’ of his notice as ‘potential Sideswipe parts.’ Sideswipe turned, wanting to see his twin’s face as he asked if Sunny saw the mechs as a sketch with a fully rendered hand or knee guard — or was the hand just hovering in detail mid-air, amid all the kill points Sunstreaker mapped on their frames.
But Sideswipe didn’t get to ask his question. His grin quickly wiped off his face as Megatron arrived, and Shockwave handed over their results.
“This is always such a waste of time,” Sideswipe complained, privately over their bond.
“Like you have always been a paragon when it comes to valuing the use of yours,” Sunstreaker sniped back.
“How much longer are we going to have to do this? I hate it.”
“That’s because you always get bad marks.”
“My marks aren’t bad,” Sideswipe snapped, shoving Sunstreaker through their shared spark. “I consistently get ‘unremarkable’ which in Shockwave-speak means I’m hitting all my metrics.”
“Does it?” Sunstreaker taunted, smirking along their bond without so much as a twitch of its evidence on his face.
“We can’t all ‘surpasses expectations’ every time.”
“You could arrive on time, and apply yourself.”
“I do apply myself! You just overly apply yourself.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“You clearly keep making it a thing just to make me look bad!”
“I only have to stand next to you to make you look bad, because your face —”
“This is not what we discussed,” Megatron said, the datapad snapping as it was crushed between his hands.
Through their bond, Sunstreaker steadied Sideswipe’s impulse to flinch.
“Stand still. Joints and armor loose. Don’t give him reason to redirect by showing weakness.”
Sideswipe managed to keep his armor from clamping shut, doing his best to stand casually for evaluation like his spark wasn’t threatening to launch into orbit.
Shockwave reset his optic at the pieces of his datapad crumbling to the floor, then retrieved a back up from his laboratory bench.
“My Lord,” he said. “Mechanically splitting a spark to enhance the talents of a single mech into two frames is a procedure that has high degree of potential deviation in the calculations due to quantum chaos. You and Spin Out were warned of the risks.”
“You warned me he would be like New Builds,” Megatron snarled. “Not that the heir to my inevitable empire would no longer speak.”
“An unpredicted result, certainly,” Shockwave said, bold enough to hand Megatron a replacement for the datapad he broke. “As you can see in subsection 4.3, his vocalizer is functional, and the pathways to use it exist within his neural network. He is choosing not to engage them. I hypothesize it is a by-product of the faster-than-light communication between his shared spark halves. Use of his vocalizer simply cannot compare to the alternative he has more readily available. A minor complication when you examine the numbers, and see that Sunstreaker is outperforming Spin Out on all other metrics —”
“He is certainly outperforming him on stubbornness,” Megatron muttered, dragging his finger up the screen as he scrolled to Sunstreaker’s most recent performance evaluations.
“The perfect General should be stubborn,” Shockwave defended the results of his experiment, “confident in himself and his assessments, unswayed by external influences.”
Sunstreaker crossed his arms, leaning against the examination bench behind him, lifting his chin a fraction in defiance.
The corner of Megatron’s mouth twitched up as he caught the movement, only to drop into a scowl as he caught Sideswipe standing as still as he could a few paces away from his twin.
“And what of the internal influences?” Megatron asked.
“Irrelevant,” Shockwave said. “Sunstreaker’s progress exceeds all my predictions, far out pacing his second.”
“Except on social metrics,” Megatron said. “How can he inspire and command my legions if he does not wish to speak to them?”
“With his skill,” Shockwave said. “When he is announced do not underestimate how they will rally to him. And as you can see in section 18.3, I predict his social scores will be remedied once he grows into his full power.” Shockwave’s solitary, red optic locked on Sideswipe, traveling the length of him as if categorizing all his ‘spare’ parts. “In the end, I conclude that he will far exceed expectations, My Lord.”
“He better,” Megatron said, shoving the datapad back to Shockwave, uncaring if the exiled scientist had a grip on it before he let go. “Sunstreaker, with me.”
“Should I come too?” Sideswipe asked over their bond, uncertain of his place as an extension of Sunstreaker’s duties, his twin blending seamlessly into step, drafting perfectly in Megatron’s wake.
“Do whatever you want,” Sunstreaker said, walking away without so much as a glance back. “But he’s in a mood.”
Before Shockwave had finished fumbling the datapad, Sideswipe had made his exit — his custom red paint Sunstreaker always mixed for him, blending quickly to black.
The plates of Sideswipe’s face were crumpled inward, sharp where it’d been slammed against his more delicate interior structure. Each time Sunstreaker’s fingers pressed against a collapsed segment, pain sparked white-hot through Sideswipe’s sensory network.
But he didn’t flinch anywhere that could be seen.
Didn’t pull away, only pressed closer along their bond.
To do otherwise would be visible weakness.
The roar of Megatron’s frustration with him still rang in his audials, a vicious echo that had him fighting the urge to clamp his armor tight to brace for further impacts.
There had been no further impacts this time. Sunstreaker had been there and intervened, then quickly whisked Sideswipe away to their room, a dip of his helm toward their creator. A silent promise he’d handle it, and Megatron should focus on more important matters than disciplining the useless second of his Half-and-Half heir.
The room Sideswipe shared with his twin was barely worthy of being called one. Small enough that Sideswipe could touch both walls if he stretched his arms out, with a single berth that couldn’t accommodate even one of their heavily armored frames when laying down, let alone two. The walls were scored metal streaked in rust, scratched and dented by countless gladiators before them, and the light bulb overhead flickered with a tempo that was as familiar as his own spark’s pulse — five steady blinks, then darkness, then one long flare before the cycle repeated.
Sideswipe sat with his legs off the side of the berth, Sunstreaker twisted in beside him, holding his face tilted up toward their lonely unreliable light, one hand cupped firmly under Sideswipe’s jaw while the other worked on manually popping out the damage.
No expression formed on Sunstreaker’s face, but his frown was transmitted clearly over their bond. He was cataloguing each crumpled facet, calculating how long the self-repair would take.
Through the halls, echos of stomping and cheers rippled in waves. Ebbing and flowing with the endless tide of entertainment. The stables beneath the Pits of Kaon were never quiet. The very air moved through the twisting corridors as a giant beast exhaling violence. A near constant percussion seemed to travel through the walls, through the very berth they sat on. Right now, Megatron was in the ring, and the crowd was working itself into a frenzy — probably a kill strike, judging by the way the roar peaked, then droned on.
Sunstreaker pressed his thumb against the worse of the damage, and Sideswipe’s optics reset briefly as the plate began to yield, begrudgingly bending to Sunstreaker’s will and popping back obediently toward its original shape. Not perfect, judging by the way Sunstreaker’s frown deepened along their bond, growing to irritation that he’d have to look at these physical flaws on his brother’s face until they healed.
The creases would remain for sometime yet, reflecting light sources in new ways, and constantly driving Sunstreaker to distraction.
It was best to get his mind off it, before he started yelling at Sideswipe — picking apart his every flaw too.
“Do you think Spin Out actually volunteered to have his spark split in two?” Sideswipe asked, the question coming out of him, half-formed, even as he thought it.
“Yes,” Sunstreaker answered over their bond as he always did, no hesitation, no hint of doubt along with the certainty he pushed through their connection.
Sideswipe’s frown formed on his face. “I know that’s what Megatron said — that this was the path he scripted to victory — but how can you be so sure?”
“He was bored, so he wanted to be lobotomized into you for kicks and giggles, and give all his best talents to me,” Sunstreaker joked, except —
There was a truth to part of it.
Sunstreaker was absolutely certain Spin Out had been bored.
Sideswipe would have laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of that if his face didn’t still throb so much. So, his laughter was transmitted where only Sunny could feel. “Kind of a leap to go from being bored to getting split in half. He basically signed up to die.”
“He transformed for The Cause,” Sunstreaker corrected, suddenly serious as he sent a sharp flick of irritation across their bond. “He is you, and he is me. No part of him extinguished.”
“Just his memories,” Sideswipe muttered, rubbing over his spark from Sunstreaker’s sudden elastic whip of his mood.
Sunstreaker’s prodding hand stilled against Sideswipe’s face. Then, there was only the roar of the arena venting down their necks as Sunstreaker’s focus shifted to the flickering light casting their long, distorted shadows against the wall. Abruptly, Sunstreaker released him, turning away. He positioned himself on their berth facing the door, settling into a stillness he could maintain for a lot longer than Sideswipe could ever manage while monitoring the corridor for threats.
In parallel, without discussion, Sideswipe swung his pedes onto the berth in the opposite direction. His back pressed against his brother’s, warm even through their heavy armor plates, and he felt Sunstreaker’s frame settle more firmly as their combined weight found its balance point.
Sunstreaker always took first watch when Sideswipe was damaged. Second, and third watch too.
The flickering light strobed their shadows against the wall, projecting their frames as a monsterous solitary form. Five blinks. Darkness. One long flare.
“Maybe…” Sunstreaker said, and his voice over their bond was so disturbingly hesitant. “Maybe he didn’t want them. Maybe his memories weren’t worth remembering alone.”
Sideswipe stiffened, his spinal strut going rigid against Sunstreaker’s back, throwing off their easy balance.
“Wait…” He switched, pulling the question into their private world, into the space that existed only between their sparks. “Do you remember being him?”
Sunstreaker hadn’t reported that to Shockwave — to Megatron. To Sideswipe.
Through their bond, Sideswipe felt Sunstreaker shrug — or rather, felt the intention of a shrug. “Only a half drawn sketch, erased. Impressions on a metal plate, another image rendered in red and yellow on top.”
It made sense why Sunstreaker hadn’t written that down to explain to Shockwave. Though Sideswipe couldn’t feel the same himself, he could feel how it made sense to Sunstreaker as if he were painting the blurry gradient of Spin Out’s transformation to their existence into being. Together, they were each the shape of someone else that had once been there. One. Pressed against the surface of Cybertron by gravity, distorting the air of the Arena as he moved through their world, through history and made his marks on it, then erased — leaving only the imprint of his solitary existence as he was painted over into two.
Megatron would certainly understand the description if Sunstreaker just told him. There was a poetry to it. A rhythm. And Sunstreaker was more Spin Out than Sideswipe could ever seem to be. At the same time, Sideswipe felt why Sunstreaker hadn’t told Megatron yet. Saying it out loud, it felt like a desecration of the sacred.
It was incredibly difficult to explain to a mech who had no idea what it was like to be plural instead of singular.
“How do whole-sparked bots even function? What do they do with their uncomfortable thoughts and emotions? Process them alone?” Sideswipe asked, stretching his imagination and unable to bear the thought of trying to understand it before relaxing against his twin again, letting his weight resettle back into their familiar balance. “Impressions, even as a half-drawn sketch… I can’t even imagine what life would be like without our bond.”
In the distance, the crowd erupted again. The foundation shuddered with the force of their approval.
“I can,” Sunstreaker said out loud.
His first words given to the open air of Cybertron were said in a quiet, unyielding, confidence that traveled through the point where their backs met, vibrations transmitting through armor plating and into Sideswipe’s frame. The unfamiliarity of it — hearing his brother’s actual, physical voice resonating through a mechanical vocalizer rather than his effortless, internal one — made Sideswipe’s spark lurch in its chamber.
“How does it feel?” Sideswipe asked back, matching his brother’s tangible whisper, as if they were sharing secrets out loud they feared might shatter their inner world.
“Boring.”
Sunstreaker’s external voice reflected the peak of his interest in communicating himself with the physical world around them.
A monotone.
I can.
The first words Sideswipe had ever heard his brother say out loud.
They seeped from his memory files to repeat in his audial as he stood next to their assigned berths in the Autobot barracks, holding Sunstreaker’s half-drawn sketch of a crystal Jazz had handed him in the Medbay of pristine horrors.
Boring.
The last word Sideswipe had heard Sunstreaker say outside the world they held sacred — until he heard him speak to Jazz, a declaration that Sunny still believed in Megatron and The Cause even as he walked away from it.
Sideswipe had catalogued his brother’s first words, filed them away in his memory core. They felt more recent now. Imprinted into him like a sketch, freshly erased. Whatever Sunny had done when he —
When he had… done that thing Ratchet didn’t have a word for, had he… become Spin Out again?
Maybe his memories weren’t worth remembering alone.
In his final transformation, Sunstreaker was supposed to become greater than Spin Out had ever been. More ruthless. More cunning. More strategic.
The perfect General. Dedicated to The Cause.
He just had to sacrifice the part of himself that was Sideswipe. Take what he needed from him and toss the rest. Erase his weakness.
Should I come too?
Instead, Sunstreaker had defected, taking Sideswipe with him. And now Sideswipe held the tangible proof that Jazz had been able to see — something Sideswipe had always missed —
Sunny had always thought Sideswipe was perfectly fine as he was.
Do whatever you want.
Separate. His own mech. Doing whatever he wanted while Sunstreaker was trapped in near endless training and strategy sessions.
Becoming an Autobot was a tactical decision. Sunstreaker’s only genuine allegiance was to Sideswipe.
The only world Sunstreaker saw fit to ‘bother’ defending with his full power was the one they shared between their sparks.
It was still far too big of an emotion for Sideswipe to handle alone.
With Sunstreaker throttling his side of their bond, it still felt so surreal. As if the entire foundation of Sideswipe’s identity had been shifted to the left when Ratchet disentangled him back out of his twin.
Boring.
That had been the only truth Sideswipe ever knew about Spin Out; one that was free of Megatron’s view of him. Of the comparisons. The endless comparisons. Megatron’s voice snapping at him as Sunstreaker’s second: Spin Out would have moved faster. Spin Out would have anticipated that. Spin Out would not have faltered.
It had always been Sunstreaker who had felt a glimpse of who they’d been before they’d transformed — before one became two.
Boring.
Sunny was certain Spin Out had volunteered for it — his singular existence fragmented into two separate beings, simply because he’d been so fragging bored. So good at being a mirror, at disappearing, at performing and predicting the script — that boredom had been so unbearable, he’d willingly laid under Shockwave’s scalpel.
Let his spark be mechanically divided for the kicks and giggles.
For something new. A new act. A new perspective. A new scene. A new character to embody.
Gambled his entire existence on the unknowable chaos of the transformation.
But maybe Sunny had just been seeing his own reflection when he claimed Spin Out’s boredom as his own. Maybe Spin Out had been Megatron’s perfect heir, devoted to The Cause, and Sunstreaker had betrayed everything he’d sacrificed to create because life without Sideswipe would be too boring.
Sideswipe would never know. Neither would Sunstreaker.
Even fragmented into them, Spin Out remained what he’d always been — unknowable. A mirror reflecting back what others wanted to see, revealing nothing of what actually existed beneath.
Had Spin Out sat alone wherever he disappeared to in the Pits and tried to write the script of his own future? Was it nothing but an unbearable emptiness that only stretched ever farther with no end?
Had he looked at his own story and despaired, seeing only the same as when he looked at his reflection in a mirror: nothing real, nothing true. All lies. No one knew him.
No one ever would.
Because maybe this was what Spin Out had planned all along — a brilliant tactician, performer, and master manipulator — he’d engineered an escape from the Pits, his memories, his boredom, and his past, setting the political theatre of his suffering around him ablaze in the finale of Cybertronian history’s longest running con.
Or maybe, that’s the reflection of him Sideswipe wanted to see. That the bond he created between the two halves of his shared spark — their connection, had mattered more to the themes of his life than dominion, revenge, and power.
That transformation — even one that erased him — was much more preferable to spending one more second as alone with his memories as a singular being in a universe designed for connections.
Connections that Spin Out had to watch get severed, again and again in the bowels of Kaon.
Connections that Spin Out, like Sunstreaker, could see. Sketch. A world of illuminated threads that shadowed over everyone around him.
Until it all became so obvious. Every response a script. Predictable. Boring.
I can.
And Sideswipe swore he could kind of almost feel the impression of it too, now. When Ratchet had Sunstreaker under anesthetic, Sideswipe had experienced a glimpse of how terrible and disgusting it was to move through the world as one.
To be one.
Boring.
Sideswipe pressed lightly along their connection. His hand against the door to the twin of his spark. Not a knock, not a plea for attention. Just a touch. To feel that he was still there.
Sunstreaker felt… he felt…
The corners of Sideswipe’s mouth tilted up as he tacked the half-finished sketch on the wall above his assigned berth in their squeaky clean, fancy new barracks then kicked the rest of his half unpacked box of stuff under the one assigned to Sunstreaker.
Sunstreaker felt mildly entertained, and there were no energy bars or armed Autobot guards stopping Sideswipe from getting in on the action. They were Autobots now. He could just — and Sunny could — and they could —
“Rude!” Sideswipe hammered on the door of their bond. “You’re having fun without me?”
“No.”
Liar.
“Feels like you’re having fun.”
“… I made an Autobot cry.”
“Is there blood?”
“…”
“There’s blood! Aw, c’mon, Sunny —”
“Barely enough worth mentioning, let alone the noise they’re making.”
“Don’t start breaking them already, we just got here, Sideswipe scolded even as a grin stretched across both their bond and his face.
“Stop smiling so hard,” Sunstreaker snapped, clamping tight on their bond he’d started to release. “You’re making me look deranged.”
Sideswipe transformed into his alt mode and zoomed into the hallway, his tires burning skid marks up the walls as the took turns at reckless speeds, cackling out his speakers.
This. This shared world, this bond that meant he was never truly alone — Sideswipe could feel the impression of it now, like a glimpse of a vision he’d once had and couldn’t forget.
Spin Out had wanted a life of genuine connection more than anything.
At least, that’s what Sideswipe chose to believe as one half-of-a-partially-drawn-imprint-of-a-sketch Spin Out had left behind.
He frankly didn’t care if Spin Out had wanted to serve The Cause as Megatron’s perfect General, and Sunny’d just betrayed everything he sacrificed for. Ruining it. Spitting on it.
Because in Sideswipe’s opinion, he and Sunny were taking the sequel to Spin Out’s Greatest Show on the road.
In its fully chaotic, unpredictable, entertaining glory.
And if that wasn’t what Spin Out had envisioned for his future as he laid down on Shockwave’s operating table, well —
Fuck him.