Chapter Text
At First Sight
Part I
Architects had originally designed the central Pit of Kaon to hold twenty thousand observers. At this moment, well over thirty thousand mechs crowded its seats, overwhelmed its walkways, and crushed against each other in its balconies. Their voices rose together in an eerie, pounding refrain that shook ash from the support girders and vibrated through every tense strut of Optimus Prime's frame. His spark fluctuated, throbbed, and quickened until it synchronized with that incredible rhythm.
MEGATRON
MEGATRON
Mechs pushed against Optimus from all sides. They surged like a dark tide, drawn like magnets to a single pole, their attention focused as massive gears turned and the great doors began to grind apart. The sound of the crowd rose into a single, shattering outcry, and then the noise tapered off into disturbing silence as Kaon's champion stepped out of the shadows and onto the gladiatorial floor. Converted mining floodlights rendered Megatron into unforgiving angles. For an instant, Optimus struggled to recalibrate his optics. His first impression of the mech was nothing but powerful lines and massive shapes—perhaps carved from stone, perhaps rendered from steel.
The contrast of shadows eased when Megatron lifted his head. Red paint marked the vulnerable plating beneath his closed optics and scrolled across the armor of his chest. Beneath the veneer of fresh polish, Optimus saw deep scars.
Megatron lifted his distinctive helm in both hands and activated his optics. The crowd shouted in one incredible voice.
Optimus stared, and the interior of his chest throbbed with a rhythmic ache that echoed the energy of the crowd.
MEGATRON
Not a cheer for a beloved performer. Not even a chant for a popular combatant. It was a battlecry for a hero.
Megatron bared dental plates filed to perfect points, but Optimus would not have termed the expression a smile. Around the unexpectedly refined construction of Megatron's head, four symmetrical fins gleamed with golden patterns of sensor relays, and they gave him the silhouette of an brutal warrior god. Those fins folded inward around his faceplates in the moment before Megatron donned his helm. Then he turned to face the opposite set of doors with the gaunt smile of an executioner.
Those doors groaned apart. Mechs around Optimus jostled against him and vied for a better place, a closer look, in this cheapest of viewing platforms in the Pit. If not for his unusual height—even under the constraints of a heavier alt mode as part of his disguise—Optimus would have seen precious little of the arena.
A chirp echoed through Optimus's internal comm lines. Through its link to his operating parameters, Teletraan had taken note of the quickening of his fuel cycles and the stress on his ventilation systems, and it had formulated a wordless but pointed inquiry as to his status.
Optimus divided his attention long enough to reply. ::Received. Status normal. Continue monitoring.:: Teletraan double-chirped in affirmation, and Optimus focused again on the figure entering the arena.
Brutalion hulked out of the shadows to face Kaon's champion. He was half again as large as Megatron, and the weighty crunch of his steps made the floors vibrate and set the arena lights flickering.
Overhead, a voice in digital tri-harmony spoke the name of each challenger and their city of origin. It began a countdown from ten.
Arms unfolding into wedged blades with serrated edges, Brutalion flexed his armor and widened his stance. His heavily modified form revealed few indications of his original function; he might once have been a dockworker or a factory drone. When the Pit bosses had recreated him for battle, they had armored him past all recognition. Even his wide-set optics now glittered from behind overlapping plates of more than one material. Long spikes rose in bristling patterns from his shoulder plates, preventing an easy strike at the base of his neck cabling.
By contrast, Megatron's long frame looked spare, clean. His legs widened at the base to balance the weight of arms powerful enough to wield a grade Omega pickaxe. Four nanokliks on the clock, and he remained motionless except for the widening of his smile.
Two nanokliks.
And one.
The crowd roiled with a massive shout that struck against Optimus's audio receptors like a physical blow. Brutalion roared back at them, back at Megatron, before he charged. Megatron prepared himself with a backward step and a subtle rotation of the gears in his shoulders. He carried no weapon, integrated or otherwise—his reputation had solidified around the claim that he could deactivate his opponents with nothing but his own hands. True to form, he caught Brutalion's first strike against the side of one shoulder, and metal plating dented and sheered. The proximity allowed him to reach underneath Brutalion's guard, wrench a hand into the gap between hip spar and abdominal plating, and rip free long tangles of sparking wire.
Snarling, Brutalion tore away and stumbled backwards three steps. Mech fluid dripped along the angles of his hip and down one leg, and he bared his dental plates as Megatron discarded the wiring with a twist of one wrist.
They had taken the measure of each other, and they collided again with a screaming clatter of metal and the rising howl of the crowd. They exchanged blows that would have killed lesser mechs on contact, and Optimus knew now that no matter what the demure aristocrats of Iacon might like to say as reassurance to each other, these fights were not staged. This time, Megatron reeled back out of Brutalion's grasp, and one of his optics flickered with damage. A thin trail of energon wound downward from the edge of that optic and smeared the paint below it.
Brutalion wiped at his shattered jaw with the hilt of one blade. He said something that Optimus couldn't hear over the rumble of the crowd, but whatever it was, it made Megatron grin. Ribbons of energon gleamed on his dental plates.
With that grin still in place, Megatron took the offensive, striking forward with one fist, then feinting just outside the slash of Brutalion's left arm and its attached blade. He spun to kick, and Brutalion grunted at the impact. Two armor plates tore free of his lower chest and spun away into the crowd. With a snarl, Brutalion pivoted on one wheeled foot and used his greater reach to his advantage. Swinging both arms around, he caught Megatron across the back with both blades. Metal buckled and sparked. When Brutalion pulled away, a thin shadow of oil coated his arms, and energon spread from double slashes to trickle downward over Megatron's hip joints.
Optimus leaned forward and his ventilation systems hitched. Under no circumstances had he expected to see Megatron defeated.
Face plates transformed—turned primitive in rage—Megatron whirled on Brutalion and struck back with his fists. Reeling backwards, Brutalion nearly overbalanced into the crowd, and outcries of sudden panic and fierce glee muffled the sounds of battle for just a moment. Brutalion regained his center of balance, then took back the ground he had lost. He swung blindly, one optic broken, and Megatron bared those fangs and retreated one step, then another.
The floor was slippery with oil. Even Megatron's treaded feet lost traction and forced him to bend to lower his center of gravity. Brutalion sneered, lifted his right blade, and sliced it down toward the back of Megatron's neck.
Spark quickening, Optimus almost cried out. Megatron shifted and skidded just out of the way.
Then he slammed a hand down against the back of the blade, driving the point into the arena floor. Harnessing that momentum, Megatron launched himself over Brutalion's head, avoiding all those spiked points by bare microns. His hip joints revolved in a full semicircle.
The turn brought Megatron to the arena floor facing Brutalion's back, rather than facing away. Thwarted by his own downward momentum, Brutalion tried to recover—tried to turn—but Megatron turned with him, brought back one fist, and bared his fangs with feral triumph as he drove a hand inward and upward through the thinner plates over Brutalion's spinal struts. Even above the roar of the crowd, Optimus heard the crack of one of those struts, then another.
Gradually, the crowd quieted. Another crack splintered through the arena.
Brutalion struggled, but Megatron had one arm locked around his chest, preventing him from raising his blades, and Megatron's other arm buried itself deeper and deeper in Brutalion's chassis. Heaving, desperate, the challenger struck out with his swords, and both blades dug into the ragged metal of the arena floor with groaning force. Bracing his weight, Megatron shoved his fist deeper yet, and Optimus could see the cables knotting with the force of his grip. Brutalion screamed, a long wail, and then his remaining optic flickered as his voice rasped into hoarse static.
“'Til all are one,” a mech beside Optimus intoned. He was not the only one—dozens of mechs around them picked up the refrain, as Megatron tightened his grip yet again. Brutalion's optic went dark; he went silent. Megatron extracted his hand.
Energon spilled across the floor. Oil spattered over the crowds of mechs closest to the carnage; Optimus flinched when drops of it struck his antennae. The wrecked hulk that had once been Brutalion collapsed to the floor, and Megatron stood above him with both hands fisted and dripping with vital fluids. The voice of the crowd became a rhythm more powerful than any music Optimus had ever heard.
'Til all are one
Megatron did not shout, but Optimus heard him nevertheless under the chant of the crowd. He spoke past gritted dental plates. “I still function.”
Optimus had witnessed lives extinguished, but only as a slow decay—never by brutality. He shuddered in a raw mixture of fascination and revulsion, and Teletraan blipped at him again in concern. After a moment's hesitation, Optimus responded with reassurance, and he copied his sensory input from the last several cycles into a single file. He had come quite some distance to see Megatron in living metal, and he would rather not risk the loss of the experience.
::Sending footage,:: Optimus said. ::Archive.::
Teletraan beeped in acknowledgement and accepted the file. Back on the arena floor, the announcer had declared Megatron the victor, and drones had begun to remove Brutalion's lifeless shell. Optimus had heard rumors that the Pit bosses recycled the parts of fallen gladiators after each match, and now he did not doubt their truth. He wondered, however, if many of Megatron's opponents ever proved salvageable. In the upper seats of the arena, money changed hands, and around Optimus, betting began for the next fight. Megatron raised both arms to the roar of the crowd, and then he strode toward the doors through which he had entered.
A strange, slender mech leaned out of the shadows to greet him, and Megatron paused to listen. Their conversation was far below Optimus's audio range, and from its current satellite position above Kaon, Teletraan would fare no better. At length, Megatron cast his deepening scowl out over the crowd in the arena before entering the doors. The other mech, his frame unfamiliar and his faceplate consisting of a gleaming visor in red, retreated into the recesses of the doorway and disappeared.
::Check the records for information on this mech,:: Optimus asked on impulse, and he transmitted a single-frame image of Megatron's unknown friend. Teletraan indicated a wait of some duration.
Many of the mechs around Optimus had lost interest once Megatron had left the arena. Cleaning drones moved across the floor, and the next match did not begin for another half a breem. Some of the crowd gathered in knots around the creditors and collectors, but others drifted out the multitude of arched doorways, venturing back into the shadowy tunnels of the Forge. Optimus considered his options and followed through the nearest exit. The interior resembled less a viable building and more a warren, and whatever the original architectural plan for the structure, Optimus could not comprehend it. His goal—meeting Megatorn, face to face—remained just out of reach, and he still lacked any reasonable notion of how to achieve it.
On impulse, Optimus changed his trajectory. He left the broader tunnels filled by the audience members and detoured into the narrower, taller tunnels that led deeper into the gladiatorial hive.
He passed pairs and triads of mechs in the passage, but none of them paid him much mind. Once, he had to excuse himself around a pair of Seekers engaged in deep conversation, and the two huffed through their vents when they had to reorient their wings to let him past. A tiny mech, too small for anything but a symbiote, scowled at him in wary suspicion but sidled out from underfoot without challenging his presence.
Teletraan pinged and Optimus acknowledged it. //Three possible matches to unknown individual. All are carrier class. One, Sailstar: musician of the Rylosect movement. Obscure for the last forty-six vorns. Two, Bitmount: criminal accused of second-tier theft and grifting. Incarcerated, presumed deactivated. Three, undesignated mech, possibly flight-capable. Present at the licensed gladiatorial match between Tankrome and Tsunamax, seventeen stellar cycles ago. No further records.//
Although Optimus waited, no further information was forthcoming. ::Conclusions?:: he prodded.
//Third possibility is most likely. Label data sector for future information?//
::Please do.:: Under less public circumstances, Optimus would have chuckled aloud. Teletraan found the notion of intelligence gathering—it declined the term spying—highly engaging. Then again, so far as the members of the Science Consulate and Optimus himself had determined, the AI's primary programming had always revolved around locating and cataloging vast amounts of data.
“You're an unusual specimen.”
Gritting his dental plates together in annoyance, Optimus turned to face the mech who had spoken—and found himself looking up. The instigator stood two full heads above him, and the dual sensory fins at either side of his helm nearly brushed the tunnel's ceiling. Half again as broad as Optimus and far better equipped with armor and weaponry, he would have made a fine match for Megatron...and little wonder. Teletraan was pinging incessantly, but Optimus had already recognized the mech from poor-quality recordings of other gladiatorial matches.
::Clench. Yes.::
Teletraan responded with a little whirring note of uncertainty and distress. Trying to broadcast reassurance in return, Optimus considered his options. Depending on exactly what Clench wanted, this encounter could prove useful. The information that Optimus had gleaned from the data grids before his departure had suggested that Clench and Megatron had divided Kaon's underworld in halves, and despite the efforts of each to eliminate the other, both sides remained at any uneasy deadlock. No matter Clench's purposes, probability reports indicated high levels of danger.
“I'm new to Kaon,” Optimus said, glad to activate the simple program that disguised his voice. “Out of Iacon.” Lies based on a foundation of truth were always easier to remember.
Clench adjusted his stance with a casual flex of powerful cables, and in the process, he blocked any path of escape through the tunnel behind him. No going back, then. “Funny.” Optimus would not have expected so soft a voice to come from so massive a mech. “You don't look exactly...Iaconian. Not a gladiator, either...not any kind of Pit mech, that's for sure.” Optimus resisted the impulse to jerk away when Clench purposefully raised a hand and tapped a single, sharp finger against Optimus's chest plates. The impact vibrated just above Optimus's spark. “You come for your first taste of someone's spilled energon?” Clench said with a smirk just visible behind the shadow of his withdrawn battle mask.
“Something like that.”
“Feel like I should warn you. You've wandered into dangerous territory, mech.” Clench leaned in, and Optimus felt crowded nearly to the point of panic. “Gladiators use these tunnels for business.” He ran a ventilation cycle, and the clinging heat of it crawled over Optimus's plating. “For pleasure, too. Did you come here looking for excitement? Hm?”
Optimus shifted his weight to his heel spars, ready to make an exit. “Not that kind.”
Incredibly, unbelievably fast, Clench shot out a hand and wrenched clawed fingers into the structure of Optimus's left arm. Optimus tensed, but kept himself from jerking away and doing damage to himself in the process. With uncomfortable effort, he resigned himself to the likelihood of a fight that he might well lose.
“Suggestion: desist.”
The orange glow of Clench's optics narrowed. Optimus angled a glance over his own shoulder and saw the unknown mech—Megatron's mysterious friend—standing behind them both and blocking the rest of the tunnel with outspread wing panels.
“I wonder why you would give a credit's worth of slag, Soundwave,” Clench drawled. His tone pretended nonchalance, but his fingers trembled against Optimus's interior components with suppressed rage. “This one ain't exactly your type. Must mean someone else has an interest.” His claws tightened and pricked along a critical fuel connection, and Optimus struggled to maintain his calm. “I'd like to know why. And why he can't be bothered to come on over himself, if it means so much to him.”
Teletraan updated its files with a triumphant click. Soundwave gave no indication of his intentions besides the obvious. “Clench: unworthy of Megatron's current attention. Repeat: desist.” That visor glittered from one edge to the other. “Or suffer appropriate consequences.”
Weighty steps preceded the arrival of two additional mechs at Soundwave's back. Both unfolded close-range weaponry adapted from equipment used in deep core mining.
Genuine or not, their posturing made Clench bare his dental plates in an unpleasant grin. He let Optimus go, though his claws left shallow punctures in two secondary fuel lines, and he withdrew a couple of steps. “Better finish your errand, then. Primus knows, your lord and master doesn't much like to wait. For anything.” Clench turned that grin on Optimus, and patches of rust showed between the seams of his dental plates. “Later, friend. Hope you make it back to Iacon...in more than one piece.”
Soundwave might have been looking at Optimus through that impenetrable visor. “You will accompany us.”
Folding his wing panels, Soundwave remained still as the other two mechs stepped past him. Optimus kept still in return, and he allowed the other two to grab and restrain him with nothing but powerful hands. “To where?” Optimus asked. He decided to use Clench's terminology. “To your lord?” One of the guards growled with the multitude of gears that lined his neck struts. Behind them, Clench chuckled.
The title garnered no reaction from Soundwave. “To Megatron. Suggestion: surrender.”
Optimus had already done so. Without argument, he followed the direction of his guards as Soundwave led them deeper underground. The tunnels narrowed, and the mechs to either side of Optimus dropped back a pace while keeping an excellent hold on his arms. The handful of mechs in these halls gave way at the first glimpse of Soundwave. Some scuffed or bent their plating, flattening themselves against the rough walls and dimming their optics, though Soundwave paid them no heed. Optimus followed as their group skirted the edge of a vast but low interior chamber, where two mechs he did not recognize fought in the center of a gathered crowd. Shouts and swearing faded into the distance once they entered a new tunnel and began a sharp ascent.
Teletraan mapped the corridors and additionally registered offshoots and possible directions. Optimus appreciated its expertise; his own sense of direction had never been strong. Now they encountered mechs more often, and Optimus recognized the symbol that recurred in coarse paint on each new wall. Megatron wore that symbol around his neck.
From the few holographic feeds and still images of the gladiator, Optimus had assumed the symbol represented a shield. So close, it better resembled an angular face, and its slanted optics stared at him in silent judgment from the center of a door at the tunnel's end.
They halted just outside, and Soundwave tapped gracile fingertips to the command panel. The panel flashed a negative in response.
Visor flickering, Soundwave took a backwards step. Optimus's guards glanced at each other, and one shook his head.
Optimus arched an optic ridge. “What now?”
Soundwave settled his plating and spread his wing panels, perhaps for better balance. “Wait.”
They waited. Half a megacycle slipped past, and then another. His guards lost interest in watching him so closely, and they drifted away to start a round of a game much modified, but still recognizable as traditional graft. Optimus leaned against the wall and opened himself carefully to Teletraan, and the AI readily shared all that it had gleaned from their walk through the interior of the Forge. Only Soundwave remained vigilant, unmoving, and only he did not need to jump to attention when the door beeped, unlocked, and cycled open.
“Enter.”
Both guards hurried to reestablish their hold on Optimus's arms. Soundwave waited until they had succeeded before allowing them through the door and into the room beyond, where the ceiling vaulted and the walls angled outward to give an unexpected sense of space. Soundwave did not follow them, and the door slipped shut and locked. At the opposite end of the room, on a raised platform, Megatron sat on a chair constructed from discarded plates of titanium. It might just as easily have been a throne, from his posture of cold, composed relaxation. His arms draped over the arms of the chair and hid them from view.
Optimus could see the brighter ribbons of new welds over one shoulder and against abdominal plating. More scars.
“An unexpected guest.” Megatron curved half his mouth into an unpleasant smile. “Sending and receiving messages to and from outside individuals is bound to attract my attention in the Forge. Even on a private frequency. Welcome to Kaon,” Megatron said with civility edged by menace. “Optimus Prime.”
Optimus deactivated the vocal distortion program. “Megatron.” He flexed his joints and assumed his full height. The mech at his left squawked in alarm and retreated three full paces, and the grip of the mech at his right loosened in surprise before tightening again in grim obedience.
With a buzzing snort of his vents, Megatron shook his head. “You may release him, Grategun. Somehow I doubt this constitutes an official visit of state.”
The righthand mech retreated with a bristling growl of deep-seated gears. Both members of his unexpected honor guard hovered close, nevertheless, and Optimus supposed that he understood their feral brand of loyalty. Megatron did not need their protection. They offered it, instead, as a demonstration of submission—as a voiceless sign of their respect.
“What is it that you're doing here?” Megatron edged forward against the seat of the throne and his optics narrowed. Optimus took a single forward step.
“No one knows that I'm here,” Optimus said. “If that is what you're asking.”
“That is not at all what I'm asking.” Megatron stood in a single, violent motion, and with a moment's surprise, Optimus felt his vents activate in a whirring rush. Descending from the platform, Megatron lowered his head, those fine features turned angular by the uneven light of the room, and he studied Optimus with such focused intensity that Optimus tilted his head and returned the measuring stare. “What do you mean by coming here to Kaon?” Megatron came to a halt just out of reach, his hands coiled into fists. His smile was sinister. “Perhaps your education has been lacking, since your arrival on Cybertron. Perhaps they haven't yet taught you that these games are considered illegal among the senators and aristocrats of the elite.” Megatron's voice lowered as he spoke through gritted dental plates. “No matter how many matches they finance. Or attend.”
Optimus eased a step closer and had the satisfaction of watching Megatron's struts stiffen in response. “I had heard. And I doubt you've imagined for a moment that the Council of Ancients has any idea where I am.”
With a chuckle, Megatron shook his head. “No. They wouldn't have you here. Not in the very Pit of the world.”
“Is that what Kaon is?”
Megatron's optics glittered. “Could it be anything else? You've seen the brutality here. We're covered in ash and the energon of other mechs. What would you call it?”
Something true, Optimus thought, but he looked back into Megatron's burning optics and said nothing.
“Optimus Prime,” Megatron said. “How the Council treasures you. Their marvel. Their honest miracle. The last living Prime. Barely half a vorn since your public debut, and I've heard the tale of their discovery of you more times than I care to count.” Discomfited for the first time, Optimus lowered his optics and shifted his weight, and Megatron arched his optic ridges in exaggerated surprise. “Modesty? Truly? I doubt your predecessors shared your humility.” They stood so close that Optimus sensed the radiant heat of Megatron's systems. Those fangs gleamed. “You're their visible representation of tradition and purity, and you've just watched me kill another mech with nothing but my hands.”
“Yes,” Optimus murmured.
Optics narrowing, Megatron gave him an equally narrow smile. “But you aren't afraid. Not of me. Are you.” Megatron was not asking—he could see the truth, and Optimus confirmed it by shaking his head. He hadn't taken such pains for secrecy, hadn't traveled so far through the Badlands just to waste time on fear.
“Look at you,” Optimus said. He wanted to touch, but he kept himself in check. “I've never seen anyone quite like you. I wanted to meet you for myself.”
Visible evidence of Megatron's surprise proved strangely satisfying, and Optimus stared back into the gladiator's widened optics and listened to the hiccuping stall of an engine powerful enough to shift bedrock. The movements of that mighty frame turned momentarily uncertain, and Optimus almost lifted his hands to grip those massive shoulders and balance them both. The urge was indescribable in its intensity. Instead, the rattling movement of one of the guards behind them broke the moment, reminding them both of their audience, and the lapse allowed Megatron to regain his poise.
“That paint is flaking everywhere,” Megatron said underneath a smirk. He swiped two long fingers against the plating of Optimus's shoulder, and the tips came away blue with transferred color. “You won't be able to hide what you are. Not here.”
Optimus agreed. “Not for long.”
“Are you counting on my protection, then?”
“I hope for your consideration, at least.” Optimus lifted one optic ridge and indulged in a wry smile. “My death would be something of a diplomatic catastrophe. For Iacon, first of all. But then for Kaon, too.” He could picture the Council's reaction to his murder, and while Kaon might eke out its grim existence with little governmental inference for now, the Senate's patience with organized crime and death sports could not last indefinitely.
The darkly narrow curve of Megatron's smile suggested that he recognized the threat. “You have my consideration, then.” Rubbing his fingertips together, he removed the remnants of paint. “You have my interest,” he added.
Optimus chose to accept the compliment. “I also hoped that you might show Kaon to me.”
“This is hardly a tourist destination. Shall I show you the black markets? The prostitution rings? Perhaps the smelting pools?”
“Show me where you've come from,” Optimus said, and he meant it in all sincerity.
Visibly wary, Megatron stared back at him with optics of smoldering red, and Optimus felt judged as thoroughly as if he had opened his chest and let Megatron examine his spark. He must have rung true, because at length, Megatron indicated a door at the back of the throne with a jerk of his head. “Come, then.” His smile glittered, sharpened by the tips of his fangs. “I'll show you.”
*****
They rumbled out of the sullen hulk of the Forge and descended into the sooty shadows of Kaon proper. Overhead, the sky seethed with ash and boiled crimson with the distant glow of smelting fires. Under the constant hum and pulse of massive machinery at work, voices rose now and then in rhythmic shouts or sudden shrieks, and Cybertron itself beat with a primordial rhythm of heat and slag and violent death. At any moment, Megatron expected this last Prime to turn away, like all his predecessors, and return to Iacon to lose this memory in comfort and compliance. Instead, Optimus followed in his wake and observed without comment—without quailing.
The factory had fallen into disrepair, and pollution had so blackened the transparasteel of its windows that they could make out nothing of the interior. A fire had swept half the twelfth floor, and no one had bothered to complete the repairs.
“My frame was produced here,” Megatron spat. The interminable fires of the nearby slagheaps limned Optimus's ill-fitted alt mode in crimson. “One of millions in the same basic model. Like them, I was designated a number.”
Optimus had chosen a mode with extensive treads, but he kept sliding backwards along the patched embankment. “D-16.”
“You know more than you let on.” Uncomfortably exposed, Megatron growled with his engine.
Finally secure in his footing, Optimus kept still, but Megatron noted a certain tension lining even his vehicle mode. “I have friendly connections to Cybertronian intelligence databanks. And I wanted to know more about you.” Optimus made the confession without any noticeable regret, and Megatron supposed that explained the encrypted data transmissions that had originally alerted Soundwave to an unusual presence in the Pits.
Megatron spoke with clipped impatience. “The mines I labored in have collapsed. I suppose you know that, as well.”
“They say you killed the Overseer.”
“No.” Megatron reversed his treads and turned back for the main road. “I should have,” he admitted. “But I did not.” Optimus shocked him by touching him—just a bare brush of side against side, in vehicle mode, and he had drawn away again before Megatron could protest. The friction lingered, and Megatron suspected that Optimus had streaked that paint against his plating, but Optimus said nothing, and Megatron overcame his minor irritation.
They drove over a grated roadway that provided bare protection from factory runoff, and Optimus preceded him until they reached an outcropping of blackened Therynin steel. Against the backdrop of coarse metal and spilling slag, the Prime shone eerily beneath all that cheap paint, and he drew to a halt just before the ground went unstable. Optimus transformed and straightened, and Megatron wondered for a moment why no one had stopped them—how no one had noticed what and who had followed him out into the surface hell of Cybertron. Then Megatron transformed and ascended the rise to stand beside him—a head taller than Optimus, but Optimus subtly shifted his frame and rested his weight in Megatron's direction, offering wordless acknowledgement.
Megatron crossed both arms over his chest and frowned. At the other edge of the spill, mechs with plating far heavier than any gladiator worked at the bank of the river of molten metal, dragging out bits of resistant metal for use in patching the furnaces. Sometimes they hooked the frames of empties, cast into the smelting pools. Once, Megatron had lent his strength when they snared the massive dorsal armor of an old Omega Guardian—some of the interior circuitry had remained intact despite the heat. They bent low over the river, and their long, hooked poles loosed trails of sparks into the sky.
“I hate it,” Optimus said. Firelight licked over his faceplates and reflected from his optic lenses. “But there's beauty in it.”
Trying his best to hold onto his annoyance and render it into anger, Megatron curled his hands into fists and struggled with the weakening of his resolve. This place had shaped him, had broken him, had strengthened him again. No outsider should so easily view Kaon as he did.
This time, Optimus must have sensed his internal conflict, because he turned his head and caught Megatron's gaze with a questioning expression.
Megatron parted his lip components, but he chose not to answer. Instead, he descended the outcropping. “Follow me. Let me give you a...wider perspective.”
Returning to vehicle mode, they wound away from the pits and the main factory district, circling back toward the black pyramid that concealed the Forge and Megatron's adopted base of operations. They might have taken to the tunnels that wormed through the underbelly of the city, and thereby gained some relief from the pollution and the overhanging darkness of the twisted sky, but Megatron preferred to punish them both with the full experience of Kaon's distress. The building he had chosen stood relatively tall at two dozen levels—much higher than that, and the pollution prohibited habitation. The interior ramp led upward in mazing turns, and Megatron pushed his engine hard, gaining speed, daring Optimus to compete in such close quarters.
The Prime did not disappoint. They accelerated, skidding around each other and brushing occasionally against the walls of the tunnel with long trails of sparks. The tunnel narrowed as they neared its apex, and Optimus pulled ahead for a close victory as they burst out onto a geometric balcony with a heavy overhang.
Optimus had to transform and skid to a halt to avoid sliding right through the balcony rail, and Megatron chuckled as he unfolded back into his root mode. He hung back, letting Optimus absorb this view of Kaon from above. Hundreds of factory smokestacks belched sooty clouds into the sky, and the flickering glow of signs for bars and clubs and betting houses blurred with the unsettling flare of the smelting pits.
“It's worse than I expected,” Optimus admitted. The city cast him all in shades of black and red. He had lost more of his remaining veneer of blue paint during their race, and the quality of his plating created lurid reflections against the walls.
Regarding Optimus with narrowed focus, Megatron turned his back to the near wall and rested the edge of his shoulder spar against the metal with a subtle scrape. Hook had repaired him just a megacycle ago, and they had chosen to continue his gradual reformatting. The new connections ached. “You wanted Kaon,” Megatron said, and he shifted his plating just enough to ease the itching of replaced wiring. “The city of ash and slag. I hope you didn't expect a particularly warm welcome.”
“There's warmth here.”
Optimus lifted his optics past the horizon, and Megatron heard the click and whirr as superior lenses refocused on the sky above the shielded dome of Kolkular. A permeating hiss filled the air. Within moments, the rain chattered against the overhang and fell in a gleaming curtain just beyond their balcony.
“Like an inferno,” Optimus murmured. He stretched out the tips of his fingers toward the falling rain.
Megatron caught him around one wrist and yanked him backwards. Optimus impacted against Megatron's chest plating with a grunt of belated protest, and he was still for a klik as his stabilizers adjusted. “That's acid,” Megatron growled, and the fins of Optimus's temple antennae twitched at the vibration of his voice. “Idiot,” he said, but roughly and with more exasperation than rancor. “Haven't you heard of Kaon's acid rains?”
“Yes.” Optimus's wrist turned against Megatron's hold—just a subtle exertion of strength, testing the grip—and then the tension eased out of Optimus's frame. “But the Science Consulate reported last groon that the weather patterns have vastly improved.”
They stood so close that Megatron could feel the subsystemic flutterings of Optimus's plating. “That's an outright lie.”
Optimus canted his head ever so slightly and watched the rain. Manually pushing his vents to their widest aperture, Megatron drew in the strange sweetness of his scent: oil, acid, and the darker blend of soot and slag that shrouded all of Kaon. The etched glyph at one side of Optimus's helm caught his attention, and he followed the curves and angles with mingled admiration and frustration.
Prime. It meant many things.
“Why did you come to Kaon?” Megatron asked again.
Optimus shifted his weight backwards, onto his heel spars, and the armoring of his back rubbed against the fastenings of Megatron's chest plates. Their ventilation systems synched—each cycling atmosphere from the other, warming them both in response to the chill of the weather. “I'll tell you,” Optimus said. Megatron's fingers twitched; he wanted to rest a hand against the attractive jut of the Prime's hip. Forestalling any overtures, Optimus turned, facing Megatron without moving away, and their optics met for far longer than was necessary or safe. “But shouldn't we go back?”
Wanting to reverse their positions, wanting to pin Optimus against the wall and judge the strength of that metal with his hands and his dental plates, Megatron managed a rough chuckle in response. “Not until the rain stops.” The notion of damage hardly disturbed him, but he was no idle fool, stepping out under a chemical shower to prove his endurance.
Optimus leaned closer. Megatron could see flecks of gold deep at the centers of those blue optics, and to his embarrassment, his intakes hitched in visceral response.
With a sigh of loosening joints, Optimus stepped fully past the boundaries of Megatron's personal space and touched him for the second time—the backs of his finger joints brushing along the plating beneath each of Megatron's optics, then following the scrollwork pattern over Megatron's chest plates. Unaccustomed to such bold physical contact, Megatron might have intercepted that hand, if he hadn't still had a grip on Optimus's wrist. Instead of demanding a halt, Megatron slipped his thumb into the joint. Wiring buzzed under the caress, Optimus's core temperature jumped by ten degrees, and Megatron pulled them entirely against each other under the shadow of the overhang. His free arm looped around Optimus's back, settling over the spinal struts with proprietary weight.
“You aren't what I expected.” Megatron had not meant to speak aloud.
Optimus trembled with a low and bittersweet laugh. “I wasn't quite what the Council expected, either.”
Arching his optic ridges, Megatron leaned against the wall at his back and ignored the twinges caused by their combined weight. “Are they true, then? All the rumors of their discovery of you?”
“More or less. I don't remember. I was deep in stasis lock.” Optimus was not telling everything—Megatron was learning to keep at least one audial tuned to the undercurrents of communication out of Iacon, and he had heard classified reports that a dying crew had hardwired their last Prime into the functioning AI of their ship. He knew that a branch of the Science Consulate believed the Prime had retained some minimal awareness during all his million vorns trapped in that ship's wreckage. “They expected someone with wisdom...with dignity. Not a protoform repurposed into an adult. Not a sparkling that had never even taken on an alternate form.”
“My impression of the Council is that it is composed entirely of backwards-thinking lunatics in various stages of delusion.” Megatron quirked his lip components, and once again he felt the shudder of Optimus's low laughter. It was perhaps the most pleasant sound he had ever heard.
“You aren't far off. In all honesty.”
Given Optimus's current focus on truth, Megatron supposed that he could ask his questions in more detail. “They rarely give you a chance to speak in public. You said a dozen words in all at your own presentation to the Iaconian elite. Is the Council so afraid of what you might say?”
“Yes.” Their closeness hid Optimus's expression, but Megatron could hear his smile and even the touch of regret that backed it. “They have no idea at all what I'll say. I'm a stranger here, you see. Not just in Kaon, or even to Iacon. This planet is larger than any of my memories suggest. It's...unfamiliar. They would rather keep me on a short tether.”
“You slipped their leash.”
Optimus made a low rumble of agreement. “For a little while.”
Megatron would have liked to pretend that Optimus's next response made no difference to him. “How long, exactly, do you plan to stay?”
“Just long enough.”
“Long enough that they don't notice you've gone missing, you mean.”
“No.” Optimus smiled. “Just a little longer than that.”
Wondering if Optimus had meant this little jaunt into the Cybertronian slums as nothing but a show of mischief—a way of acting out against the Council of Ancients by demonstrating his own contrariness—Megatron frowned. “I don't need the sort of trouble you're sure to bring me,” he said. “You've come here with nothing to offer except the attention of the Council Guard and the vested interest of the Senate.” He was too close, even now, to the dangerous circumstances of his rise to power. His operation could not bear detailed scrutiny.
“Do you really fear that attention?” Optimus turned his head, and the tips of his antennae skimmed along Megatron's lower jaw. The sensation stilled them both. “You've been courting it. You've been begging the notice of Cybertron for the past ten stellar cycles.”
Megatron bared his dental plates. “On my terms.”
With a soft cycle of his vents, Optimus shook his head. “You won't be allowed to pick and choose. Not for much longer. I heard you, Megatron—even in Iacon, other mechs are hearing you now. How long, do you suppose, before the upper classes start taking as much an interest as the lower?” Megatron hissed, but he could think of nothing to say that was not further acknowledgement of the point. “I believe in what you say,” Optimus continued, and his voice lowered to the pitch of intimacy. “I want others to hear it.”
Subdued and vaguely flattered despite himself, Megatron considered the proper response. “And what shall I do, when the Guard discovers that I have possession of you? Plead ignorance?”
“I can't prevent them from finding me.” That bitter tone reentered Optimus's voice. “Eventually.”
Megatron buzzed a snort. “They won't be pleased to discover your location. You might have picked a swifter way to destroy yourself—leaping directly into one of the smelting pools, perhaps—but I can't imagine a more certain path to deactivation than rolling into Kaon without so much as a point of contact. You had no assurance of my good will.”
Silence fell between them for a cycle or two. Apparently, Optimus did not intend to argue the point, although a measure of tension had coiled in the cabling of his back.
“You never promised me your protection,” Optimus murmured at length, and when his fingers splayed against scratched and pitted chest plating, Megatron found his arms and his hands tightening with reflexive force. “Do I have it anyway?”
Megatron growled. “No one will touch you.”
One smooth thumb stroked along the seam of Megatron's chest plates. “I believe you,” Optimus said.
Megatron supposed he should be disgusted by so much open honesty. No one would survive long in Kaon, behaving like this with any unknown mech, and such trust would destroy even a Prime in short order. No one in this city cared much for who they stripped and dismantled, so long as they left no evidence.
But then again, Optimus had not chosen to trust any common mech. He had come to Megatron, and to Megatron alone.
That thumb kept stroking, stroking, and Megatron struggled not to fidget under the maddening friction. The sensation left him hollow with longing and aching for fulfillment in ways he would rather not name, when he had little time and even less energy to expend on such distractions. Despite that fact, his fingertips eased into the gaps between Optimus's plating and brushed at the edges of raw circuitry. Optimus's engine turned over and settled into a vibrating purr.
“The rain has stopped.”
Megatron came back to himself with a flicker of his optics. The change in the weather had escaped his notice, but then, acid rains never lasted long. He hesitated over his next offer, but impatience and desire pushed aside his wariness. “There's something else—somewhere else—I want to show you.”
Pushing himself fully upright, Optimus left a steadying palm pressed to Megatron's chest plates. “I'll come with you,” he said.
*****
Optimus had found himself subjected to all manners of high grade following his upgrading and his presentation to the public, but nothing had set his circuits buzzing quite so quickly as the contents of the cube that Megatron had pushed into his hand. He had drained that one without suspecting its potency, and just as quickly, Megatron had given him another. Sipping this one, he tried to retain some control over his perceptions—over his actions—and he leaned back in a padded seat near the bar and felt the entire length and breadth of his sensory network buzzing with overcharge. He could no longer quite recall the name of this oil house. He barely remembered how they had come to be here, and he had asked no reasons of Megatron. There's something else I want to show you, Megatron had said, and Optimus had followed.
Around him, the lighting flickered and the mechs of Megatron's inner circle swirled through the shadows like winged and warrior-framed primitives of the underrealms. Few individuals remained any more sober than he did—even Soundwave swayed in the corner between the seats and the bar, and the tips of his wing panels brushed against the walls in rhythm with the music.
Admittedly, Optimus might have lapsed into uneasiness despite the high grade—he was vulnerable here, no question—but Megatron had not strayed far.
Tilting his head against the back of the seat, Optimus adjusted his line of sight to bring the gladiator into its absolute center. Megatron stood at the bar, his face in profile, his dental plates gleaming for a moment in a grin. The two mechs at his far side grinned as well, and their shoulder plates trembled as they laughed. They were similar in build—perhaps even spark twins—and their patchwork plating and mismatched weaponry hinted at a recent life as empties or worse. They were selling something, and they kept showing it to Megatron, who humored them but gave no indication of real interest in anything but the half-empty cube in his hand. The powerful lines of his frame shifted, the edges gleaming when he laughed. Again, Optimus recalled that first glimpse of him in the arena: all shadows and harsh planes of bright silver. A shiver travelled the full length of every strut in Optimus's back.
He could pinpoint the moment that Megatron became aware of an audience—when his shoulders lifted into subtle angles and the quality of his ventilations changed. Megatron let his optics slide to one side and met Optimus's gaze.
Disinterested in pretended bashfulness, Optimus stared back at him with an expression that betrayed all the ferocity of his admiration.
Megatron's optics brightened and blazed. He turned, facing Optimus completely, and his shift in attention left the two mechs talking first at each other and then to the back of his helm. System readouts recalculated at the edge of Optimus's peripheral vision; Megatron was running hot. Merely overcharge, perhaps, but Optimus felt the skip and flutter of his own ventilations in response. Behind Megatron, the two hopeful businessmechs exchanged a glance, and one of them dared to tap a hesitant fingertip at Megatron's shoulder plating. The warning growl they received in return rivaled the music in volume, if just for a moment. Other nearby conversations faltered. The offending mech flinched backwards out of easy reach.
Abandoning his unfinished cube and the patchwork twins, Megatron crossed the room in a handful of steps and slowed to a halt in front of Optimus. His broad frame blocked the view of the rest of the room—nothing but the two of them, Megatron trapping him in the seat—and Optimus had no complaints.
“Come here,” Megatron said.
Staring up at him, Optimus flickered his optics and chuckled. “Of course. If I could stand.”
Megatron rested his hands on his hip joints and frowned, an oddly petulant expression for so massive a mech, but then his lip components lifted into a smirk. “The Kaonian idea of high grade is probably more potent than refined.”
“I would agree with that.” To his own vague surprise, Optimus managed to set his cube to one side without sloshing it all over the furniture. He settled back into place and then stretched out a hand that trembled only incidentally. Megatron was not quite close enough to touch. For a moment, Megatron looked down at that hand, and then he took it in his own. His fingers wrapped tight around Optimus's wrist. The pressure created startling bubbles of feedback along Optimus's sensory net, and he dragged his fingertips along Megatron's palm to hear the gladiator ventilate once, harsh, loud. “Why here?” Optimus asked.
Coming closer, Megatron eased into the space between Optimus's parted knees. Metal ghosted along metal, tantalizing. “I like this place.” That would be reason enough, but Megatron continued. “The proprietor owes me something. Those that are...unwelcome...are kept out.”
Ah. Optimus understood him. For a given definition, this place was safe.
“We needn't stay,” Megatron said, and his voice dropped into an undertone that focused all of Optimus's attention. Prickling sensitivity, not quite uncomfortable, spread through his connectors and found an answering awareness in Megatron's optics.
Promising heat cycled through his systems. “Yes,” Optimus said, and at that moment someone dared to interrupt by resting a hand against Megatron's upper arm.
“Megatron! My favorite gladiator. My favorite customer, too. Knew just where to find you.” The voice carried a slick undertone that stiffened Optimus's struts. The mech to whom it belonged seemed formed mostly of shadow, and his plating gleamed with strange reflections, like wet oil. Unusually large optics shone violet from the tapered points of his face.
For a slow, silent moment, Megatron stared at the offending hand, and then his optics narrowed as he lifted them to the other mech's face. “Swindle.”
Swindle seemed clever enough to realize the danger. He withdrew his fingers with a practiced movement that looked casual instead of hasty, and he hazarded a grin at Megatron's darkening scowl. “You're just the mech I need. Just wait until you see what I've picked up.”
“I'm not currently interested in any deals,” Megatron replied. His fingers tightened, and Optimus could not decide if the grip was a warning or a promise. “Business or otherwise.”
Swindle's grin widened, and he laughed as if Megatron had made a joke rather than delivered an ultimatum. When Swindle spoke again, his voice had smoothed into a different tone—lower and less genial, more direct. “I think you'll want a look at this. It was a steal, if you know what I mean. I picked it up with you in mind.”
Optimus observed the fine shift in Megatron's optics—a different sort of interest.
“Where were you.”
Grin sharpening, Swindle tilted his head when Megatron looked at him again. “Kolkular. Somewhere...underneath the Vosian embassy.”
Megatron's ventilation hiss and corresponding hesitation brightened the unsettling glitter of Swindle's optics. Dental components brushing together, Megatron tightened his grip on Optimus's hand until the pressure bordered on pain. “I don't suppose this could wait.”
“Not really.” Mouth components tightened as Swindle shook his head. “Really need to get it out of my servos and into someone else's circuitry, in fact. Going, going, gone. I've been looking for you.”
Megatron's chuckle caressed at Optimus's receptive sensors. “I was otherwise occupied.”
“You're preoccupied,” Swindle noted with a tidy smirk in Optimus's direction. “But you're going to want a look.”
“Yes.” Abruptly, Megatron's full focus returned to Optimus, and Optimus canted his head and smiled into the intensity of the gladiator's frown. Megatron appeared at war with something in himself, and Optimus could discern the outcome of the conflict as material greed fought physical desire and the former trumped the latter. “You will stay here,” Megatron said in so low and threatening a tone that Optimus pulled at the hand around his. Megatron moved a step closer in response. “You will go nowhere else until I return for you. Or until I send for you. Repeat it.”
Optimus laughed, but softly, and his fingers curled against Megatron's palm. “I'll stay here.”
“That will do,” Megatron muttered. Disentangling their hands, he turned to Swindle, and his frown deepened. “Let's keep this quick.” Swindle bobbed his head in eager agreement and hastened in the direction of the exit. With a sharp gesture from Megatron, Soundwave collected himself and straightened before following the two of them. Before he disappeared into the crowd, he cast a narrow glance in Optimus's direction, and the meaning was clear enough.
Sit. Stay.
Optimus decided that he did not mind the explicit order, under the circumstances—not when he felt incapable of going anywhere.
His compliance faltered a bit as the first megacycle passed into the second. With Megatron's departure, the atmosphere of the oil house began a subtle slide in a different direction. The music changed to a faster beat, turning increasingly frenzied, and the tri-level floor filled with mechs painted in gaudy shades over the gray and black of their Kaonian base frames. Darkness showed through every scratch. Groups of mechs ordered high-grade energon blended with consumption-grade oil, and the mixture created a blueish haze of combustive fumes. The place reeked of glitz laid heavy over garbage. Optimus found himself longing for the raw atmosphere of the Kaon outside these walls.
At first, the others in the establishment had avoided him, but that, too, changed with the atmosphere. The newly-arrived mechs and femmes had not seen him with Megatron, and the paint of his disguise had worn enough to make him a curiosity rather than a part of the background. A pair of low-ranking gladiators bought him a drink, which he took great care in refusing. Even after that rejection, they hung about in the nearby corners, too close for comfort, and only the sudden appearance of Grategun finally compelled them to try their luck elsewhere.
Grategun loomed over Optimus's chosen seat for several cycles in ominous silence. No one else dared to approach in his presence.
“Thank you,” Optimus said.
Grategun met his gaze only after several awkward moments. “Not all of the mechs here are Megatron's,” he grunted at length. “Watch it.”
Right. “Where are you?” Optimus asked. He should have assumed that Megatron would leave some sort of watch over him, and the knowledge of Grategun's protection let his struts ease into something far shy of relaxation, but nevertheless more comfortable than his previous anxiety. He could now observe this place with interest rather than apprehension.
“By the door. Keeping my sensory network tweaked on high.” Pausing, Grategun looked at Optimus again, and something else—something soft and bright—entered the flat red of his optics. Optimus had seen that look innumerable times since his introduction to the Iaconian public, but he had not suffered it once since his arrival in Kaon. “Is it true?” Grategun had lowered his voice nearly to the point of unintelligibility. “Are you—”
“It's true,” Optimus murmured, choosing impulsive honesty over considered care. Megatron had already spoken the truth in front of this mech.
Grategun stared at him for a click longer. “Primus.”
Optimus decided against correcting him, and relative silence fell between them again.
“You chose right,” Grategun said. Optimus turned his attention back to his guard, but Grategun was looking with great determination at the far wall. “Megatron. You chose right. I would follow Megatron into the Pit.” The words buzzed with a ferocity that tasted like electric charge. “I already did, I guess. There's nowhere else to go but up.” Turning on one wheeled foot, Grategun shouldered aside the unlucky mechs in his path and stalked back toward his position at the door.
For a moment, Optimus considered following, but he quashed the impulse in favor of picking up his discarded cube and swirling the unappetizing contents. His overcharge had largely passed, and he would rather not invite it back—he wanted the advantage of clear thought.
He could dismiss Grategun's words as the over-enthusiasm of a sycophant; Megatron had attracted plenty of those. Instead... He chose to remember that evidence of loyalty. It was affirmation. It was validation of the longing that had brought him out of Iacon, across the Wastes, and into the seething hub of Cybertron's lowest castes.
Around him, the venue grew steadily less civilized, but Grategun's presence had worked some sort of magic upon the crowd, and the few seats surrounding Optimus remained empty. That changed only when the two mechs from earlier—Megatron's patched twins—gathered their courage and crept closer. The one painted blue over gray finally dared to perch two seats down, orange optics filled with curiosity instead of malice, and when Grategun did not appear to shoo him away, Optimus made a beckoning gesture with one hand.
The blue one introduced himself as Switch; the other was Brake. After their intimate witnessing of Megatron's show of possession, they behaved circumspectly, and when Optimus declined anything further to drink, neither of them pressed the point. They assumed that Optimus, like Megatron, was from the gladiatorial circuit, and Optimus did not disabuse them of the notion. “Tell me about Megatron,” he said instead. Optics brightening with more than overcharge, Switch began to speak with enthusiasm on a subject of real interest to all three of them. The two mechs had known Megatron prior to his current fame. Within half a cycle, both were narrating one of Megatron's first fights—a double match of Megatron alone against two modified loading bots from the Praxian docks.
“Each one was so wide—” Switch spread his arms.
“Wider than Megatron is tall!” Brake finished.
“And Megatron, he managed somehow, he got between the two—”
“They all got tangled together. Megatron got his arms under their plating. Cabling everywhere!”
“All three of them went down,” Switch said. “It went up on the boards as Total Kill—all participants deactivated—until the cleanup drones pulled Megatron out from underneath. He lost both arms and a leg too, I think. But he survived.”
“He always does.” The new voice was low and sweet. It came from just over Optimus's shoulder.
Jerking forward, Optimus swiveled to stare at its originator. The seeker was pale gray—not painted, but polished, and the novelty of so bright a frame in so dark a place made Optimus reset his visual array. Narrowing violet optics in return, the new mech curled svelte claws over the back cushion of Optimus's seat. The angles of his wings flared outward.
“Survival is Megatron's key personality component,” the seeker said, face plates curving in a slow smile. “I think it was burned into his mainframe instead of coded.” Rounding the arrangement of seats, the seeker came to a halt in front of Optimus and stared at him. Wing panels stretched and gleamed under the flickering lights.
Optimus arched his optical ridges. “Do you know him?”
“Rather well.” Glancing sideways at Switch and Brake, the seeker flicked his wings with a sneer. “Make yourselves scarce,” he suggested.
While Switch opened his mouth in near-protest, Brake grabbed his twin's wrist and shook his head. They retreated, but the doubtful parting looks they cast at Optimus were eerily similar.
Once they had gone, the seeker folded his wings tight and high against his back, and then he arranged himself himself into the seat that Switch had vacated. “Kaon is full of hopeless acolytes,” he said, with a wave of his claws that barely brushed against Optimus's shoulder. His voice was smooth as refined oil.
Optimus gave no answer. “Who are you?”
“Slipshot.” The seeker dipped one wing panel and rubbed it against the back of the seat. He smiled. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Optimus murmured, and used the alias he had chosen before arriving in Kaon. “Orion is my designation.”
Smile fracturing into a grin, Slipshot said, “No, it is not. But the pleasure is still mine.” He leaned close, too close, with the vents at his neck gusting against Optimus's plating. “Optimus Prime,” he added, barely audible.
Optimus dared a glance toward the door, but Grategun did not appear, and after a moment or two, he let the tension ease from his struts. This mech must be part of Megatron's faction. “Who could have told you that?” he asked, with a cautious smile of his own. He had met a number of flight-capable mechs in Iacon, some seeker models among them. Slipshot, with his wide-set, upturned optics and his double-jointed legs, seemed familiar as a result.
“Who do you think?” Slipshot dropped a hand to Optimus's thigh. Claws curled over the plating like bold punctuation.
Regarding Slipshot steadily, Optimus ignored the unwelcome hand until Slipshot finally withdrew it. For a click, Optimus wondered just why Slipshot had come, and if Megatron had sent him...and if so, for what exact purpose. He could not imagine Megatron as the sort of mech who would offer what he wanted—who he wanted—to anyone else. “I imagine his business will end soon,” Optimus said at length, keeping his tone flat.
Leaning back, Slipshot crossed both arms over his chest and draped one leg over the other. “He left you here,” the seeker noted. “Alone.”
Irritation prickled just below the surface of Optimus's calm, but he dismissed it before he could determine its ultimate source. “That doesn't bother me.” Whatever novelties Swindle offered, Optimus doubted that they could hold Megatron's attention for much longer, and he reassured himself with the certainty of Megatron's eventual return.
Slipshot studied him for several moments, and then he smiled—wryly, as if in concession of a point. “He sent me.” The seeker adopted a tone of confession. “To collect you.”
Optimus's spark gave a pulse, one so strong that he almost pressed a hand against his chest. His fuel circulation actually quickened; he hadn't realized quite how much he had wanted out of this place. Now, with the opportunity so easily offered, he could hardly get to his feet quickly enough. “I can't imagine better news,” he said.
Humming faintly, Slipshot stood as well and stretched his wings. “We'll go out the back. Follow me.”
They exited the main floors. At Slipshot's direction, they entered a door to the back of the sound system and navigated a set of storerooms in near darkness. The throb of the music sent jarring vibrations through Optimus's audial components, and his visual feeds fritzed with static at the edges. Now the seeker seemed to be in a hurry, and he dropped all his languid pretensions to rush them into a narrow hallway behind stacks of crates. Another door was just ahead, and Slipshot went directly to the security panel beside it.
Optimus hesitated. The overstimulation of the music still created jagged waves through his sensory net. “Where is Grategun?” he asked. Slipshot had keyed open the door, but the passageway outside it was darker than the narrow hall.
Pausing at the question, Slipshot stared back at him with incomprehension flickering through his optics. His wing panels shifted, flattening in a way that Optimus recognized as discomfort—internal stimulus rather than external. Then the seeker's expression cleared. “He'll meet us there. Come on. Hurry.”
“No,” Optimus began, because the fog of eagerness had cleared and he had finally recognized his mistake—because he would see Grategun, at least, before he agreed to move another step—but something caught sharp and strong against the back of his neck and wrenched him around toward the door. Struggling, he clawed at any obstacle he could reach, including the two mechs who tried to subdue him, but the doorframe crumpled under his hold and he was jerked out into the darkness.