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Three Dozen Weapons (Of Mass Destruction and Lesser Abilities)
The little mech stares up at him with the hopeful eyes of a calf ignorant of the human taste for veal. Megatron wants to eat him alive. Sadly, that desire has little to do with any sexual desire and far more to do with Megatron’s desperation for excitement. He has been starved and, unfortunately for the little mech, starvation has castrated him too.
“I am not going to kill you,” Megatron begins, to the apparent confusion of the simpleton. He shrinks back, his confidence wavering but not lost entirely. It is admirable that he had any to begin with, Megatron supposes.
“I am not going to kill you, and so I am not going to fight you, as much as I desire to.”
“You desire to kill me?” asks the little mech, sounding quite off put. “Is that related to my desire to berth you?”
“No,” Megatron replies. The back of his processor has decided to inform him he should be grateful the mech hasn’t run screaming to Optimus, but he steadfastly ignores it. “I have no reaction, positive or negative, to your desire to frag me. It will never happen.”
The mech nods as if in thought, then shrugs. “Well, alright then. Not killing me is the best I could get, then.”
Megatron is suddenly overcome with bitterness. Murdering the mech had never been an option, not with that Autobot brand on his shoulder and Optimus Prime’s optics peering over Megatron’s own. Slagging Pits to it all, he needs this truce to work. Soundwave had been clear: peace or extinction. Megatron hadn’t fully comprehended that peacetime would mean more than the cessation of hostilities- it requires his own girdling.
The little mech walks away, unpunished for his brazen confidence and, far more importantly, leaving Megatron with nothing to wrap his hands around. In that moment, his frustration consumes him, leaving him blind to a more insidious development.
He is not the only one watching the little mech walk away unscathed. The balance of power is shifting like sand underneath his pedes and he hardly notices, too engaged with his own bottled rage.
---
It does not take long for the shifting sand to get into Megatron’s metaphorical boots, so to say. And when it does, he is quick to notice.
It would be hard not to notice a half dozen mechs attempting to weasel their way into your berth.
That is, perhaps, an uncharitable way to view it, but Megatron is feeling rather uncharitable at the moment. Peacetime has lasted a surprising five and a half months. He has destroyed three-hundred and six training dummies, each less impressive than the last. He has been banned from the interfactional training facility for three weeks and two days, with five days to go. He feels as if his frame holds barrels upon barrels of high octane gasoline being slowly squeezed to immense pressure, waiting desperately for the point at which it can explode forth and bring the death of his species with it. Or for a match. A match would do.
A half dozen mechs keep prodding him with lit cigarettes.
Tarn is not a surprising suitor, not with his rather obnoxious hero-worship. He also isn’t a terrible candidate, and in any other circumstances Megatron would not brush him off as readily as he does now. But his frame is awash with the desire to fight, and Tarn is not a mech whom Megatron wishes to hurt unexpectedly in a berthroom setting. It would be dangerous for all involved, and Primus knows Megatron does not want to find Tarn’s breaking point.
The Autobot speedster – the two Autobot speedsters, Primus help him – are fragile and bizarre in their manners. Megatron warns them of the consequences of bedding down with the enemy commander, and they backpedal only so far as to allow them to oggle with ease.
Where Tarn and the speedsters are motivated by, as far as Megatron can tell, a combination of lust and curiosity, the second half of his collection of suitors are surely motivated by a desire for power. Power or some other inscrutable, other thing.
Overlord, for example. Megatron’s isn’t so much of a fool as to fall into berth with a mech whose hatred for him burns so bitterly. Overlord does not feel lust for Megatron, he feels lust for having Megatron. Megatron does not want to be had by him.
Overlord is by far the most difficult mech to turn down, only because Megatron finds him the most difficult to stay his fist’s for. Overlord says his name with none of the respect due and none of the fear earned. He eyes Megatron like the DJD watch the next name on their list, full of terrible promise. He can’t possibly think that Megatron will agree, he only wants to watch him squirm in front of their considerable audience.
And Megatron does squirm, keeping his answers short and biting until Overlord eventually relents. He has been made vulnerable, unable to keep his mechs in line, and he resents the Autobots for their ridiculous pacifistic take on discipline. And everyone knows it, now.
Megatron doesn’t think Sixshot isn’t attracted to him, but he finds it hard to believe that would be his primary motivation for showing up at Megatron’s door with three crystal bouquets and two bottles of dubiously sourced highgrade, requesting entry. Thankfully, the mech has the sense to be turned down in private, saving Megatron the humiliation. But Sixshot only shrugs and says “it was worth a shot.” Primus.
Motormaster has a level of emotional and mental stability that could only be envied by Starscream, and even then only on Starscream’s worst days. He corners Megatron in the mess hall during the second lunch shift, when the large room seems small around the crowd of hungry warriors.
The appropriate Decepticon response to being inopportuned against the wall of the mess hall would be to flip the offending mech over the nearest table and blow him to slagging dust. But Megatron is missing his fusion cannon. So the second best option is to flip him over the table and beat him to death with his servos. But, to Megatron’s great disappointment, Optimus Prime had joined him for lunch and is watching the scene with a crooked eyebrow and a judgmental look.
Granted, Motormaster hadn’t touched him. He had simply...leaned too closely, and jostled Megatron’s meal, and insinuated that he himself is the only mech with power to match Megatorn’s own, and isn’t that just absurd? Is that not begging to be put in his place?
Optimus Prime shakes his helm, no, as if he’d read Megatron’s thoughts. Megatron reconsiders the merits of the truce. He could blow it all up for the pleasure of beating Motormaster’s optics through his helm and into the table. Optimus blinks slowly, I know you won’t. A threat.
Motormaster glances at Optimus, then back at Megatron. “Oh,” he says. “That is just hilarious. You’re fragging the sanctimonious do-gooding Prime? I should have just killed the slagger, if I’d known you weren’t going to get there first.” He steps towards Optimus, arm half-raised as if considering attacking.
His words make it through Megatron’s processor with the pace of a snail on a leisurely stroll, but make it through they do. He sputters in delayed shock. “What the slag are you on about?” He asks, attention now fully on the key-ed up Motormaster. “I won’t frag you because you are an ugly, egotistic fool with one pede in the psych ward. The idiot Prime was telling me not to flip you onto the lunch table and force feed you your own optics.”
“Eugh,” says Optimus. Megatron ignores him and continues on his rant. He feels as though he is letting some of the pressure filter out from his glossa, a little more with each decibel he raises to.
“Do you think that I have been muzzled? Do you think I am weak? I assure you, the strength required to hold back from breaking that ludicrous box off your helm and beating you with it is no little thing. Your only saving grace is that I prioritize the rebuilding of Cybertron over my desire to pull your pedes off your legs and stuff them inside your spark chamber. And for some ridiculous reason Prime here seems to think keeping your sub-par CNA in the gene pool is worth listening to your inane threats. Keep yourself in check, or else the Autobots might find out just how useless you really are.”
And that does shut Motormaster up, at least for a little bit. Megatron leaves the mess hall feeling rather proud of himself for handling the situation so well, and a little better, having relieved some of his fighting tension by verbal abuse alone.
Unfortunately, his threats had introduced a new idea into the helms of the idiotic cafeteria-goers. And suddenly, both factions are awash with the realization that they ought to be pairing up, settling down, and preparing for all the young new bots set to be delivered from the soon-to-be fired up hotspots. Afterall, if Megatron is so dedicated, then surely the war is well and truly over.
And, they seem to think, if Megatron is so dedicated...
The fragging requests morph into courtship requests, and suddenly Sixshot’s ridiculous attempts at flattery are Megatron’s new norm. The motivations appear evenly split, as they were before, only now they are all vying for what Overlord had wanted, having Megatron. Megatron hates it.
Every quick glance and accidental touch ratchets something higher in his stressed frame, like a hammer being raised higher and higher for a stronger downward strike upon the anvil. Every gift left on his desk, on the desk he leads a planet from, is another small humiliation. The pressure builds and builds with every proposition and inappropriate touch, and he Can’t Let Any Of It Off.
It was ridiculous to think he could be kept from the training gym, honestly. He is their co-ruler, he cannot be denied access to his own slagging training gym. So he blasts open the door when his keypad doesn’t open it, and he storms his way through the main room and to the storage closet, and he pulls out a dozen training aids and sets them to their highest setting and lets them loose in a smaller offshoot training room and he destroys every single one. He finds another storage closet. He retrieves a dozen more from their charging booths. He holds one arm behind his back this time, and kills them all the same. He finds another storage closet.
They are simple things, the training droids, meant for close-combat practice and learning new skills, and they were not designed for a warlord on a rampage. It does not matter how viciously he pries their helms from their bodies, Megatron finds no relief in it. One handed or two, blindfolded or not. It is too simple. There is no danger.
And he is running out of droids.
What he does next is, in hindsight, not well-thought out. But it is desperate. He needs a challenge. So he takes his blade to his frame and impales himself on it. And suddenly he is left with a clock and an impediment. His processor, now keyed to this real danger, identifies the droids as actual threats.
It feels wonderful.
And it is wonderful, how much more difficult it is to destroy them when he is bleeding out. How much more real it seems, with the training floor covered in energon. He grins, triumphant, as the second to last one falls. It is wonderful.
Until Optimus Prime barges in, a look on his face as if he were the one struck and not the droid.
This is wonderful too, Megatron thinks, joyous. Optimus can watch him dissect this next opponent, with one hand clutched at the wound on his chest and the other still holding the helm of his previous enemy.
But Optimus Prime barging in clears the way for followers, and his battlefield becomes a true mess of curious busybodies. This includes Tarn, who steps past Optimus’s shell-shocked frame and lets his optics travel up Megatron’s frame like he wants to lick the energon off him.
“You look fantastic, my liege. May I do the honor of dispatching your last opponent?”
And Megatron’s wild grin and generous joy flee him like a cyberrat fleeing a turbofox. His wound, he decides, hurts far more than he had intended. There is more energon, too, than is healthy. Briefly he wonders if the truce could survive his own death. Sad, that his genes might be the ones to leave the pool, rather than Overlord’s.
“It’s ok, I’ve got you,” he hears Optimus say. There are servos on him. Megatron cycles his optics to make sure they aren’t Tarn’s, or any of the other looky-loos. They aren’t. “Come on. Let’s go to the medbay.”
But Megatron cannot go to the medbay, because Tarn has requested to kill his enemy for him. As if Megatron were incompetent or, Primus forbid, interested in allowing for Tarn’s help. The pain from his wound has been slowly building, and Megtatron knows if he does not act soon it might hinder his movements.
The droid has been confused by the entrance of new people into the ring and stands, spinning, by Tarn’s side. Megatron pries himself from Optimus’s arms and lunges forward, sinking his blade in its chest. It stutters to a stop.
“I need no assistance,” he informs Tarn. He steps backward and feels Optimus’s servo on his shoulder.
Tarn appears disappointed, naturally, but not angry. “Of course, Lord Megatron,” he says. At least he has the decency to speak respectfully, where his gaze is not.
From behind him, Megatron hears Optimus mutter a put-upon “sure.”
---
Soundwave hovers over the medbay berth, juggling two minicons and a disappointed frown. He clearly disapproves of the iv line pumping energon into Megatron’s arm. Or rather, of the need for it. But he hasn’t said anything yet, and Megatron isn’t one to hasten his own talking-to.
Thinking of it now, with the ache in his stomach and only recently saved from the rambunctious jeering of Rumble and Frenzy, Megatron knows his actions were foolish. Only an unpracticed idiot would stab themselves enough to cause real damage, when the intent had only been the illusion of danger. He’d plunged too deeply in desperation, and now he must sit through Soundwave’s inevitable lecture.
Soundwave drops Rumble and Frenzy helm first on the medbay floors, to Buzzsaw’s apparent delight. “Behave,” he orders, and the lot of them scatter-off to do the opposite, but at least they’ll be far from Megatron’s medical equipment.
It had felt wonderful though, Megatron thinks despondently. While it had lasted, it had been the most fun he’d had in months. The thrill of it, of the challenge, of the energon. He’d missed it desperately.
“Lord Megatron: Behaving foolishly,” Soundwave says. “Lord Megatron’s Injury: Risks Peace.”
“I am sure you can keep Starscream in line long enough for me to get an energon infusion.” Megatron lifts his servo and fiddles with the line clung to it. “It was certainly better for the peace than ripping out Motormaster’s optics, and I didn’t do that, did I?”
“Motormaster: inconsequential.” Soundwave grabs Megatron’s servo and pins it to the berth, ending his fiddling. “Lord Megatron: Has a problem.”
Megatron growls, and it comes out more as a sigh. “I do,” he admits. “I am bored, horrifically bored. This peace is slowly starving me, and everyone can see it. I cannot fight, I cannot defend myself, and so half the slagging populace is attempting to weasel into my berth."
Soundwave doesn’t say anything for a long while, not even through his normally expressive, visor-shielded countenance. He is likely processing a hundred responses, searching for the optimal outcome. Megatron can only hope his ‘optimal outcome’ is not found by tying Megatron to his work-desk and monitoring him like a mother hen.
After another moment of two, Soundwave nods and speaks. “Soundwave: Has a solution.”
---
Soundwave’s solution is a plan of such tactical genius that it makes Megatron miss the war. It is deceptively simple and yet gorgeous in that simplicity, the type of perfect manipulation most tacticians can only dream of.
It goes like this.
Megatron is dismissed from the medbay with orders to rest, and rest he does. His giddy anticipation is enough to fuel him for the week he is disallowed from physical exertion. He clears his desk of reports in a state of efficiency unseen before. He hunts down new tasks, rearranges his office furniture, and draws up plans for leadership of the new utilities commission, all in a state of joyous relief.
This naturally draws the attention of Optimus Prime, who obviously refuses to believe that Megatron can find happiness in anything that he approves of. He corners Megatron in his office on day four.
“What is going on?” He asks, with that annoyingly sincere voice of his. “You never explained what happened before – are you alright?”
“I am perfectly fine, excited to be back at work, and healing up nicely” answers Megatron, displaying a kind of honesty that Optimus should appreciate. Optimus does not.
“You stabbed yourself in the abdomen, Megatron. Forgive me for being concerned, but how am I to know you won't do it again?”
Megatron doesn’t think he can explain exactly what was going through his mind at the time. He isn’t sure Optimus could ever understand that bloodlust. He settles for a minor guilt-trip instead. “It was nothing, Prime. I was simply bored, having not had the luxury of beating you to the pavement in several months. I took it out on some training drones.”
“And yourself.” Optimus pauses, looks about Megatron’s newly altered office, then adds “you seem better.”
“I’m on office rest,” Megatron replies. “But yes, I am.”
“I am glad,” Optimus says, and he means it, which is bizarre.
His week of rest gives Megatron plenty of time to think about his own motivations, which he still stubbornly refuses to do. Optimus Prime’s visit does little to change his distaste for such self-searching, but his processor takes it as an invitation to do it anyway. It supplies him with one such epiphany a few hours later, as he fetches his evening energon.
The training droids had done nothing to sate him. In fact, the highlight of the event had been Optimus Prime’s appearance and subsequent horror. Megatron opts not to continue down that thought path.
The week passes slowly but fruitfully. And then begins the groundwork. Soundwave meets him in the line for rations during lunch hour. In front of them is the ever-chatty Sunstreaker, and behind them stands Knockout, reading a datapad. Megatron has no clue how, but he would swear Soundwave had a hand in that match up.
Megatron, for his part, thinks he performs his lines exquisitely.
“I’ve been thinking about this settling down,” he tells Soundwave. “The purpose of ending the war was to bolster Cybertron’s dwindling population, and people have been taking to the idea rather well. It is time to move on, I suppose. I would not mind if my role extended beyond leadership.”
Sunstreaker’s commline goes suspiciously quiet. Megatron doesn’t dare to look, but the subtle nod of Soundwave’s helm tells him Knockout’s optics have stopped moving across the page.
“But I find peacetime horribly boring,” Megatron continues. “If I am going to ‘settle down’, as everyone has been saying, I’d need a mech able of alleviating that boredom.”
“Naturally,” replies Soundwave. The line in front of them inches forward. Sunstreaker steps forward, but the long pause between his step and the mech in front of him is telling.
Megatron smiles. “So I think I will spend some time in the training ground ring. People will eventually garner the courage to fight me. If someone manages to put up a fight, manages to defeat me….well, I think I would have to conjux them.”
“A match-making scheme?” queries Soundwave.
“Well, I certainly can’t marry myself off to someone who can’t keep me entertained,” replies Megatron. A large gap has opened between Sunstreaker and the next mech, who is collecting his drink. It takes a full ten seconds of silence on Megatron’s part before the mech realizes and rushes to the front. From behind them, Megatron hears a speculative hum.
And so it begins.
The genius of this plan begins two-fold, solving both Megatron’s inherent need for battle and the problem of his incessant suitors. Both he (and Soundwave, he thinks smugly), are certain that no mech of either faction could defeat him in the ring, leaving him with a wonderful supply of challenging but not overly-threatening sparring partners. And, the perfect part – all such partners are willing and consenting to having the slag beat out of them, Autobot or not. He cannot be accused of inciting anything. The peace is saved.
Megatron quickly learns of another benefit the scheme might earn him. It is his own addition to the genius plan, to which Soundwave gives his own enthusiastic approval.
He gets the idea on the second day during his off-hours. He and Soundwave have taken over the sparring ring and have spent a good joor or so knocking each other about. It is a solid warmup, but nothing serious – a damaged spymaster would have terrible consequences, when peacetime has both factions in such close quarters. And anyway, Soundwave has never been a fan of over enthusiastic tussling, and neither want to give the impression that Soundwave is a potential suitor. It might scare away their prey.
Word has spread quickly – Soundwave estimates knowledge of Megatron’s ‘courting games’ has diffused to 55% of Cybertron’s combined population. Megatron can see that proven, in the calculating glances of the gym's other clientele. So far, none have dared enter the ring. Megatron doesn’t mind.
In the end, no one enters their name on the first day. Soundwave isn’t fazed.
“Courage takes time to gather,” he assures. “And plans take time to form.”
He is proven correct. The second day, Sixshot bounds over the roped fence, just as Megatron pins Soundwave to the floor. “Would you be interested in tapping out?” he asks.
“Affirmative.”
Megatron rises, offering Soundwave a hand and pulling him to his pedes. He watches Sixshot stretch, arms lifted over his helm, and eyes the two blasters swinging from his hip. This is when his genius strikes.
“Would you like to bet, Sixshot?” Megatron asks, leaning against the corner post. Soundwave ducks under the rope, but stays in the room, babysitting.
“Bet?” Sixshot lowers his arms and moves on to neck stretches, rolling counterclockwise, then clockwise. “On what?”
“You asked to court me the other day. If you beat me, I will take you up on that offer…” Megatron pauses a moment to watch the interest flicker in Sixshot’s optics. His gaze drops back to the two blasters at his belt-line. “...and if I win, I get one of your guns.”
And so begins the greatest accumulation of non-standard weaponry in Cybertronian history, by measure of pure firepower. All of it centralized in Megatron’s hands. He even strips several Autobots of their greatest assets. It is a slow hobbling of all that might oppose or, in the case of many of his Decepticon suitors, annoy Megatron.
And, with a suitor-base of heavily armed soldiers, Megatron gets several fights with each mech before they run out of collateral. The less scrupulous mechs do Megatron’s work for him, collecting exquisite weaponry through force or gambling success and then promptly losing to Megatron in the ring.
Sixshot, having too many scruples for his own good, taps out after Megatron strips him of both blasters and the three other high-powered rifles he keeps under his berth. The fights are glorious. This, Megatron thinks, was the best idea that ever originated out of Decepticon High Command. Starscream disagrees.
“That oversized, dump truck of a mech grabbed me by the wing and stole my null-rays!” he complains. Starscream had arrived in Megatron’s office while Megatron had been occupied elsewhere, and his ever-loyal second in command could never pass up the opportunity to sit behind Megatron’s desk. His pedes are thrown atop a short stack of report pads, his claws fiddle with an old picture frame, a gift from Rumble and Frenzy. “This is ridiculous. I want my null-rays back.”
Megatron steps into his own office with the caution of a mech previously victimized by Starscream’s antics; he looks up for falling traps and down for trip wires. “Which oversized dump truck?” he asks. It’s only been a week and a half of his off-duty fights, and he’s defeated four of his original suitors (the Decepticons), and two Autobot recruits who asked to double time, which Megatron allowed as it was only fair. And Ratchet, which was notable only as the curmudgeon of a mech had promised his wrench if he’d lost, and had then entered the ring, thrown the wrench at Megatron’s faceplate, broken his nose, and ducked out of the ring in a move that Soundwave announced was the closest to victory anyone had previously gotten.
“Motormaster!” Starscream tosses the picture frame in a random drawer with enough force to shake the whole desk. Considering the frame had been from the remains of Rumble and Frenzys’ least favorite battle-cruiser, Megatron isn’t particularly worried about it. “This charade of yours is ridiculous! And I want my weapons back.”
Megatron shrugs. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll win them back as soon as Motormaster works up the nerve to challenge me again. I don’t see the problem.”
“You don’t see the-” Starscream throws an overdramatic hand in the air. “The problem, you stupid fool, is that peacetime is working for us! It’s working! We have actual influence on Cybertron's direction. And you are going to screw it up. You are going to get poisoned, or weakened, or defeated by some other scheme and end up obliged to conjux some random, and then you’ll be miserable, and Optimus Prime will be miserable, and everyone will be miserable, and then everyone will be Dead!”
Megatron has had many millennia of practice dealing with Starscream’s paranoid rants. He rounds his desk and grabs the back of his chair, which he promptly dumps Starscream out of. "I’m not going to conjux anyone,” he says. “And if I did, it would have no effect on the peace treaty. Do you know what would ruin the peace? Me throwing you down the trash chute. Move.”
Starscream moves, complaining all the way. “Of course it would affect the slagging peace treaty!” he practically shouts. “You are Cybertron’s most eligible bastard right now, and the Autobots know it.”
“I believe it’s pronounced ‘bachelor’.”
Starscream storms around the table, flicking his wings dramatically. “This war ended because you went to Optimus Prime and said ‘Cybertronians will go extinct if we don’t come together in an interfactional orgy, fire up the hot spots, and raise some of those newsparks together.’ And Prime thought ‘yes, finally, I can hit that-’”
Megatron raises an eyebrow. “He’s actually been doing a lot less ‘hitting’ now.”
“And that’s the problem! It’s all fine and good to lead the mech on, he deserves that, but running about promising to bang any mech that can do what he’s been doing for the last four millenia? You’ll slag him off, or worse, he’ll decide you are off the market and get over you, and then we are back in the trenches again.”
Megatron...had not been expecting that argument. He blinks, dumbfounded. It’s a ridiculous, paranoid, unreasonable argument. Optimus Prime agreed to their peace offer because when he was younger his tutors took him back to his maker and requested seven more optimism chips to stick in his brain module. The only thing that Megatron could do to endanger that peace would be to act violently. Him pretending to leverage a place in his berth for some fights does not affect Optimus Prime.
“If that was a valid theory, Soundwave would have thought of it first,” he tells Starscream. Starscream snorts.
“Fine,” he says. “Maybe Prime won’t stop advocating for us just because you are whoring yourself out. But he definitely won’t be fighting harder.”
This, too, stumps Megatron. “Advocating?”
Starscream rolls his eyes, then, upon seeing Megatron’s confusion, smirks and leans down. ”You know, how he’s been tamping down Autobot suspicions behind closed doors. ‘No Prowl, we shouldn’t use this opportunity to assassinate Megatron. No Ironhide, don’t shoot Megatron in the panel.’”
“Of course, I’m certain Prime will allow his weapons expert to shoot me in the panel as soon as he decides he will never be able to frag me,” retorts Megatron, feeling quite put upon and not certain why. “In fact, I bet he’ll order it.”
Starscream rolls his optics again, but doesn’t bother continuing with the ridiculous argument. He leaves instead, with a few more harsh but generally meaningless words, and pauses in the doorway only long enough to say “get me my null-ray back, moron,” before he slams the door.
Megatron slumps back in his chair. His first instinct is to ignore Starscream’s ranting, as is usually the best course of action. But, while the idea that Optimus Prime might want to frag him is not unreasonable or terribly surprising - clearly many mecha want to frag him - the idea that it might be the reason for the successful end to their war grates him.
Upon further introspection, this gut reaction is perfectly sensible; if Optimus Prime is biased in his decision-making, then Megatron’s little game may, as Starscream so unhelpfully pointed out, cause him unease. Or worse, bitterness. Or even worse, to lose all interest. Megatron is willing to admit to himself that, in a completely non-romantic sense, he appreciates Optimus’s attention.
But of course there it would be unwise to make any decision based only on Starscream’s testimony, so Megatron calls Soundwave to his office. Soundwave comes, and is thoroughly unimpressed by both Starscream and Megatrons’ deductions.
“Optimus Prime: will not permit violence over something so trivial,” Soundwave lectures. “Optimus Prime: more intelligent than you.”
Megatron is surprised to find that Soundwave’s assurances do not alleviate his newfound worries. In fact, they make him feel somehow worse. Not the last statement on Megatron’s intelligence, which he doesn’t take too seriously. But the new reality that Optimus might simply not care that Megatron is going about promising his spark in exchange for a quick fight or two.
Actually, now that Megatron thinks about it, Optimus hasn’t said anything about his latest endeavors. At least not to Megatron’s face, though they’ve spoken twice a day.
He can’t simply not know, not when videos of Ratchet’s sort-of-victory have spread through both factions like a wildfire. He’s friends with the medic, for Primus’s sake, he has to know.
Naturally, the best course of action is confrontation. So Megatron makes the quick hop two doors down to Optimus’s office and, upon knocking and receiving confirmation that Optimus is not engaged in some other activity, enters.
“I have a question,” he begins, drawing Optimus’s attention away from his report pad. Once he has Optimus’s full gaze, he continues. “I would like to know your opinion on my activities in the gym.”
Optimus shifts his jaw, a sight now visible as his battlemask sits on the corner of the desk. “That is not a question,” he says. “Why don’t you sit down?”
Megatron sits on the chair across from Optimus and waits, knowing his not-question will receive an answer in due time. He lets Optimus stall for as long as he needs.
“I prefer this latest series of fights over the incident with the drones,” Optimus admits, finally. “I like that there are medics available, and that you do not feel the need to harm yourself so as to level the playing field.”
“In most cases,” Megatron interrupts. “Though with some of your Autobots I am certainly tempted. It is not fun when their heads practically bash themselves in.” Without his mask, Optimus’s grimace is a far more splendid thing. Megatron takes a moment to enjoy it.
“I will admit…” Optimus starts, then stops. He raises his servo to rub at the underside of his chin, like he does when he is contemplating some report and has a question he thinks might be embarrassing. It’s rather endearing. “I will admit that I do not understand the purpose of the bet,” he says. “Collecting their weaponry and...that rumour, of a sparkbond?”
Ah, of course. Megatron had never explained his issue with the suitors. He had thought it self-evident, but it only makes sense that the Autobots might be confused, despite how basic the power plays are. Megatron will explain, he decides, and then Optimus will understand that the promise of his spark is only a ploy. He will remain on the market, in Optimus’s eyes, and therefore will continue to have Optimus’s attentions.
“It was, as the humans say, an issue of killing two birds with one stone,” he says. “You must remember, I was being approached by quite a few mechs who wanted to sleep with me, so as to achieve a form of status.”
Optimus’s brow furrows. “Motormaster?” he asks. “That’s what that was about? How would sleeping with you be at all beneficial to him?”
Megatron briefly considers that Optimus Prime might be stupid. But he isn’t, and Megatron knows that, so this must be another cultural difference. He collects his thoughts and deliberates over the best way of explaining the situation.
He settles for the blatantly obvious. “If he could berth me, he could claim influence over my decisions,” he says. “More so, he may actually influence my decision making process.” Megatorn shivers in disgust at the thought. “A half dozen suitors were vying for power. Now I have two dozen of their weapons and have gotten to beat the slag out of them, too.”
Understanding glimmers in Optimus’s optics, but his frown is not alleviated. Instead, it deepens. “So you have no real intention of finding companionship?” he asks. “You were being untruthful?”
Megatron considers his answer carefully. On one servo, to affirm this interpretation would mean to shut down any interest Optimus may have in him, interest which - according to Starscream - heightens his own influence over the Prime’s behavior for the benefit of the Decepticons. On the other servo, Optimus’s tone is almost accusatory, and Megatron’s first instinct would be to deny his little deception to preserve whatever trust Optimus may still have in his words.
But that would be a lie in of itself, and a pointless one to boot. Of course, there is a third option. Obfuscation, of a type.
“I would not say I am opposed to the concept of coupling up and guiding a newspark,” Megatron says. “Only that I am entirely uninterested in my current candidates.”
Optimus nods warily, as if expecting the words to process into some new meaning in his mind. After a long quiet moment, he asks “If someone does defeat you, how will you turn them down?”
Soundwave had not bothered to consider this eventuality in depth, as it had been silently understood that Megatron would simply shove his fusion canon into their abdomen and politely request they rescind the offer. He does not think Optimus would approve of this method, though, and so it takes him a while to scramble up an answer. When he does, it is not particularly strong.
“I would make it known that attachment to me is disagreeable,” he replies.
“And when a mech is aware of that fact before, and finds your disagreeability its own type of charming?”
Megatron smiles and leans forward, ensuring their continued eye contact. “Then I will simply have to blow their processor out in the berth, record their ecstatic pleading, and blackmail them into fleeing the planet,” he says, confident the response will short Optimus’s processor for long enough to end the conversation. He is successful, if Optimus’s unblinking stare is to be believed, but it doesn’t last long enough for a strategic exit. Not when Megatron wastes so much time staring at Optimus’s wide pupils.
“Few of my Autobots have participated,” Optimus says eventually. “You’ve been collecting weaponry. You’ve been disarming your own soldiers.” This is true, of course, except that Starscream’s null-rays and Sixshot’s blasters are more likely to be returned to their owners than Ratchet’s wrench. Megatron does not say this.
“Well, it is peacetime,” he says instead. “What would they need them for?”
Megatron leaves the office feeling secure in Optimus’s attraction to him, or at the very least a mildly obsessive interest. He finishes his work quickly that cycle. Then he collects Starscream’s null-rays.
Over the next week it becomes clear that Ratchet’s participation has opened his ring to a new group of competitors. He is not unused to fighting mecha that want to slag him more than frag him, but now even the facade of lust is gone for half his competitors. He thinks that is quite alright, up until Ironhide rejects the bet for his weaponry.
“Why would I do that?” Ironhide asks. “I don’t wanna conjux ya. I wanna beat your aft to the ground.”
Megatron can’t only take weapons from his Decepticons and a few Autobot suitors. He thinks quickly.
“Then if you win, you will be able to publicly reject me,” he says. Ironhide considers this for a while, staring forlornly at his gun.
“Fine,” he eventually agrees. “But I’m not giving you this one. I got another.”
Megatron accepts those terms and happily spends the next half hour tumbling about the mat with a mech who becomes less angry and more excited the longer they wrestle. Despite himself, Megatron has a wonderful time. It is nice to have a partner who finds the fight enjoyable. Megatron spends the last ten minutes or so purposefully falling, so as to prolong the battle. But a rejection would sting his pride, so eventually he pins Ironhide to the mat and compliments his stamina. Ironhide is exhausted (or perhaps elated) enough to take the compliment agreeably, and Megatron secures a promise of a future tussle. Perhaps one for the cannon.
His list of Autobots expands. Chromia comes the day after, citing Ironhide’s enjoyment. She loses her thermo-blaster, but calls it worth it for the black eye she gives him alongside it. Blurr is an interesting challenge, but eventually gives up his sniper rifle. Wheeljack comes along for the fun and decides to stay for his own bout, during which Megatron wins his greatest prize: a brand new, secret Autobot time squeezing gun.
“Prowl is not going to be happy I gave you that!” jokes Wheeljack, in oddly high spirits. He is correct, Prowl is not. Megatron takes his grenade launcher.
Optimus finds him in his office the day after that. He politely requests the grenade launcher and time squeezer back. Megatron politely declines.
“He took the deal,” he says. “I would have conjuxed him.”
“No you wouldn’t!” Optimus replies, incredulous.
“I would have accepted his rejection in shame.” Megatron knits his fingers together on his desk and meets Optimus’s optics. “Anyway, I let him punch me a couple times. He should be grateful. You should be grateful. I’m easing tensions.”
Optimus does not appear grateful, but he leaves agitated, which implies some level of emotion concerning Megatron. So Megatron counts that as a success.
Jazz thinks the whole thing is rather funny. He proffers up his sound gun. “I have a couple more,” he says. “And I think I will frag you, if I win. I think it would be funny.”
A funny frag is better than being touched by Overlord, so Megatron isn’t too concerned. He takes Jazz’s sound gun and the near constant sex jokes and decides it was a rather enjoyable experience.
“Jazz should not have given you his weapon,” says Optimus later, sounding tired. “That is Autobot technology. I heard the fight was flirtatious. Would you have-” he pauses. “Just give me the gun,” he ends.
“Nah,” answers Megatron. “I did enjoy your spy though. Have him come around again.”
Crossblades gives up a thermal cannon the next day, and Mirage gives him a missile the next. This trend is interrupted by Motormaster, who once again offers up Starscream’s null-rays. Megatron wins them back, thankful he’d found them before Starscream had a chance to complain. Then Ironhide gives him a proto-type for his machine gun.
“Don’t think I don’t see what you are doing,” says Optimus, but he doesn’t ask for anything back.
Megatron, on his part, is finding the whole experience truly magical. It is like the best parts of war with none of the bad, he decides. Free fights, a fair amount of bloodshed, some good old-fashioned scheming, and no war meetings. He is in heaven, and slowly disarming the Autobot population as he goes. In fact, he’s practically a peace-monger, with how many weapons he’s removed from the hands of the people.
But fighting the Autobots is a bittersweet thing. There was one thing he got in war that he can’t now, and that is an opponent in Optimus Prime. Sure, disarming his army is an entertaining struggle, but Optimus has stopped bothering to insist on the return of his peoples’ weapons.
Still, he counts the scheme a success and would gladly continue along for as long as mechs have weaponry. Or Starscream’s weaponry.
“Megatron: should not let his guard down,” worries Soundwave. “The bet still stands.”
It is true that his suitors have not given up. And it is true that Megatron has gathered his own share of injuries over the last several weeks. He can’t take a day off to heal, as it might imply a sort of victory from the last mech to fight rather than an accumulation of small wounds. And the growing collection of weaponry on his desk does little to conceal his bent plating.
“Megatron,” Optimus says, having put his report-pad down on a small free space on Megatron’s desk. He looks at Megatron with a bizarrely sincere concern. “You cannot keep this up. All of my warriors will be defenseless and you will have a permanent limp.”
“I prefer your Autobots without guns, Prime,” Megatron replies. “And last year you hit me straight through a dam with an ax the size of my helm. I can handle a few dents.”
Optimus’s mouth remains in its contorted frown. “You’ve had a fight for four weeks straight,” he says. “Multiple fights a day. That is ridiculous and dangerous. Your digit is broken.”
Two of Megatron’s digits are broken, in fact. He can’t have them fixed or wear an aide, as it would certainly be commented upon. He wouldn’t be able to go ten paces without someone insinuating he’d lost. He tells Optimus as such. “And anyway,” he says. “I am having fun. I have eliminated nearly all of my daily stresses. I have refrained from throwing Starscream out the window seventeen times. I have your faction’s greatest weapons. It’s a good trade.”
“It is perfectly fine to toss Starscream out a window,” Optimus replies. “He can fly.”
So his body is wearing down enough for some to notice. That’s fine, he’s sure Soundwave can schedule in a meeting or something to keep him occupied for a day, or keep his challengers busy. He’d ask Soundwave to do that, if he didn’t wake up everyday excited for a new fight. It’s a game, collecting a rifle here, a sword there. And he likes showing up to work in the morning with a new dent. Optimus notices every time.
He takes a missile from Hound and a null-ray from Blitzwing, which may or may not have been Starscream’s, and another null-ray from Tarm, which had Starscream’s signature on it, and a pistol from Sixshot that probably was not Starscream’s. And then, one day, Elita One comes up to the ring.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m going to kick your aft. Can I conjux you when I do?”
Megatron smiles and extends a hand to help her up and into the ring. “Sure,” he replies, “If I can have your energon blaster when I win.”
Elita One hauls herself in, using Megatron’s arm as leverage. Then she lets go of him, takes another step closer, and makes a show of shaking her pauldrons out. “When I win, I will conjux you,” she announces loudly. The gym gets a little quieter. “Take this bet, and I’ll nail you to the berth like a virgin at a Dual-Lens casting party.”
Megatron briefly considers a world in which Elita One does best him, and finds himself a little stuck. She will follow through, of that he has no doubt. But the whole room is watching, and it is too late to ask Soundwave to schedule a meeting. He could pull a fire alarm, Megatron supposes, but it wouldn’t be a particularly subtle escape.
“Fine,” he agrees. “And when I win, I will give your blaster to Starscream.” He probably owes the mech something, by now.
They circle for a few seconds. She looks him up and down, searching for a weakness. This, he decides, is why he has left the dents. She has no way of knowing what has damaged form beneath it and which does not.
He allows Elita the first opening, and she takes it without hesitation. The first fist in his gut is a mild annoyance, the second borders on nauseating. He grabs her by the shoulders and tosses her across the ring.
Elita One does not stay down long. This time, she goes higher, flipping herself onto Megatron’s shoulders. Her thighs squeeze at his helm, her fingers claw at his face. He falls backwards.
“Ow, fuck,” she says. The sound of her helm hitting the floor still echoes around the room. He rolls.
The battle remains on the floor for a while longer. He pins her, she pins him, neither holds stay for particularly long. Then her digits wrap around his broken ones and pull.
Megatron hisses in pain and, once his processor restarts, in betrayal as well. She has not been watching his fights and she has only rare meetings with him. Someone told her which of his digits were broken. He knows who.
Pain has never held Megatron down long. He twists both arms from her grip and reaches for her throat. His greater mass enables him to topple her, and he keeps her pinned to the mat with pressure to her neck cabling. She can escape, he knows, and likely with ease. Her pedes are free, after all.
She has only just begun this predictable escape when they are interrupted.
“Enough!” someone shouts. Megatron pauses. The someone is Optimus, he realizes, standing by the side of the ring with one hand atop the railing. “Enough,” he repeats. “Elita, get out of the ring.”
Megatron glances at Optimus, then down at where he has Elita pinned, then back at Optimus. Elita does the same, from the looks of it. Optimus steps up onto the ring and swings over the fencing. ”
"Out,” he repeats. Megatron loosens his grip and Elita slithers free like a wet eel.
“But if I leave now who is going to frag Megatron into sanity?” she asks. Optimus points out of the rink. Elita doesn’t wait for a better answer; she slides through the roped fence and hops to the floor.
“Really, Prime-” Megatron starts, having only just made his way back onto his two slightly unsteady pedes. Optimus transforms his fist into his signature ax, then promptly detaches it from his frame and drops it onto the floor.
Megatron looks at it. “Ah,” he says. “Okay.” He would be feeling excited, he realizes, if only he weren’t so dumbfounded. Yes, this is exactly what he wanted, a fight with Optimus Prime. He raises his fist, and Optimus approaches.
What would he do with an ax like that? It would have to go on his office wall, of course. Somewhere central, in between the cannon and the time squeezer. He needs to make this last though, he decides. There is only one ax to lose.
Optimus begins to circle, Megatron lets him, turning so as to avoid showing his back. Maybe neither of them will win, he realizes. Maybe they will fight for an hour and then go back to their hab suites across from each other and never do it again. That would be a shame.
Optimus lunges. Megtron dodges, only to find that Optimus had slid back and twisted his hips into a perfect roundhouse kick. It collides with Megatron’s hip. He catches the leg and takes the impact. Optimus twists out of his grip.
Or maybe Optimus will win. They hadn’t made a clear bet; Megatron does not know if he wants the pride of having rejected him, or if his preferences go the way of Elita One’s. Megatron doesn’t know which he would prefer.
Optimus throws a punch. Megatron blocks it and throws one in return, landing a half-decent hit to Optimus’s nasal ridge. With his opponent’s optics stunned, Megatron can throw another punch unblocked. He opts for an uppercut. Optimus practically growls.
No, Megatron realizes, he does know which he would prefer. His digits are smarting, his dents stinging. He knows how he wants this fight to end.
He makes a fatal mistake- he blinks.
By the time he opens his eyes, he is back on the floor, a pede on his chest and a servo around his throat.
“Surrender,” says Optimus Prime.
And so ends the greatest scheme in Decepticon history, having won three dozen or so enemy weapons and Optimus Prime's spark. Megatron grins, hooks Optimus's ankle with his hand and pulls it outward, toppling Optimus on top of him. When the echo of their plating meeting fades, Optimus's grip around his throat is loosened.
"Alright," replies Megatron, enjoying Optimus's half-straddle. "I surrender."
Yes, Megatron thinks, when Optimus's focused look breaks into a shy smile, this was the most successful scheme of the war effort. He might even be prepared for peace.