By The Lady Razorsharp
song text by Journey
...In the glory of an innocent age
A king is born to a house filled with rage
One man's fear is another man's truth
One fear...
Megatron cast his optics skyward, his young mind brimming with possibilities that stretched far beyond his vorns. A squadron of Seekers whined past, hurtling through Cybertron airspace faster than the sensor could follow, and the young mech smiled. Such power, such grace--but that was not why he smiled.
He smiled because he had seen a vision--one he had told to no one, not even his parents--one day, he would be The One. He would command his troops through the skies, and lead them to victory, free them from being gladiators who killed each other for the sport of Autobot princes. It would take time--time beyond time, in fact--but it would happen.
At play with his siblings and friends, Megatron was content to be a child, patiently awaiting the day of his destiny. The vision of his older self smiled back at him like a mirror image, then settled back into slumber.
...The blind suffer at the hands of sin
Lines are drawn where the boundaries begin
Ten thousand broken by the madness within
Broken...
"This is MADNESS!"
The words echoed in the council chamber, repeated from a thousand harmonizers, buzzing in the confusion that was a symphony to Megatron's audios. How he loved to throw the Autobot council into utter chaos--not that it was difficult, anyway--just by presenting his ideas in open session.
"Megatron, do you know what you are proposing? Overtaking other worlds simply for energon is plundering, looting! We are a peaceful society, we have no wish to--"
His ruby optics steely impassive, Megatron stilled the old councillor's words with a glance. Suddenly, they were drawn to a young, red-and-blue plated mech, his face half-obscured by a gleaming silver battlemask. This one was about Megatron's age, and had gained a position on the lower echelons of the council by both physical prowess and his powers of reasoning. Today, he caught Megatron's eye by the way he had been sitting quietly, not joining in the uproar of argument when Megatron had presented his expansionist idea. Now he felt the ruby optics on him, and the masked one rose slowly to his feet.
"I will concede, esteemed Councillors," the young mech--an Autobot, by his markings--began, his calm voice carrying through the chamber, "that Megatron is correct in his reasoning. We must explore new worlds other than our own, and we must try to gain energon from new sources. Our own have all but died away, thanks to the idle waste of our predecessors."
For a moment, Megatron's optics glowed, but his face remained expressionless as the Autobot continued.
"But...this attitude of submission through peaceful tyranny--this I cannot counsel."
"What do you propose, then, Optimus?" asked the Autobot Elder, every audio suddenly pricked to hear this new opinion, this new concept that flew in the face of Megatron's argument without fear.
Optimus looked directly at Megatron, who had remained motionless in the center of the chamber. "We must send out probes and find suitable places for colonization, that would enable us to draw energon, as well as study the indiginous area. We must not come as conquerors, but as students, scientists, and explorers."
Spontaneous applause broke out amongst those assembled, the Elders falsely relieved that the conflict had been avoided, but Megatron's anger suddenly burned white-hot. How dare this Autobot take his plans, plans that had taken millenia to refine, and overturn them with a few kliks of reasoning and pretty words? He turned on his heel and left the chamber without a word, feeling Optimus' optics now on him as he walked away.
Outside, Megatron found Soundwave and Shockwave waiting for him, and was about to scold them harshly. It was dangerous for Decepticons to be seen congregating in groups of three or more these days, with the tide of Autobot oppression running high. Before he could speak, the two blocky mechs motioned for him to follow, and they led him down deep under the surface of Cybertron, to an abandoned generator factory, blasters drawn and ready during the entire journey.
The three Decepticons slipped inside, and when Megatron turned, he saw the biggest gathering of Decpticons he had ever seen, standing down on the factory floor. When they saw him, they erupted into thunderous cheers that shook the walls.
"They have all come to join you, Megatron," said a familiar voice, and Starscream stepped up to Megatron's side. In disbelief--Starscream had been pulled out of the Seeker Corps and imprisoned for his well-known support of Megatron's ideas--Megatron embraced his best friend in the universe, and Starscream smiled as he answered the unspoken question in Megatron's optics.
"The Autobots thought they could hold me in their prison, but nothing could keep me from watching you come into what is rightfully yours." The Seeker spread his hands out over the crowd, and immediately they fell silent.
"My fellow Decepticons--Let us end this time of terror and oppression! Let us make sure our children can live in a Cybertron glowing with peace and power!" He turned to Megatron, his grin wide. "Let us follow Megatron to victory!"
The crowd went crazy, chanting Megatron's name as Starscream stepped back. Smiling as his childhood vision clicked into place, Megatron stood and reveled in the pure devotion he felt radiating from the throng. Surely, with an army of ten thousand, he could fulfill his destiny...
..Hearts of stone, pride without shame
Wicked prophets kill while speaking his name
As the heavens fall from the skies
Falling....
...Visions came and went again, appearing to Megatron as they had not since he was a child. He saw dead Autobots strewn like dolls before him, Optimus Prime broken and gasping, challenge in the blue optics, even in the throes of death...
Silently, he sat and sipped from a small cube of highly refined energon, alone in his command chair in the underwater Decepticon HQ, letting the visions and dreams and plans wash over him like the ocean waves themselves.
It was always night in the depths of the Terran sea, but his internal chrono read 23:58, the last day of the Terran year. New Year's Eve, and here he sat, quietly getting drunk in a darkened room--a token remembrance of the glorious parties that were Decepticon tradition on the Cybertronian New Year. He took another swig of the concentrated semi-liquid, feeling it simultaneously sear and cool his throat. If he didn't know better, Megatron mused that he would be of the mind to feel sorry for himself.
The defeats handed to him since awakening on this mudball planet had been devestating--again and again, he was made a laughingstock to his troops and his enemies. He had been confounded at every turn, but refused to give up for more than the time it took to regather his troops and reform his strategy. Smirking bitterly, Megatron took another substantial drink, the liquid only sharpening his resolve, where it would have made others pass out long ago. His troops--the ten thousand loyal mechs who had screamed his name that night--had been left behind in the chase, and what remained with him were of nearly no use.
Especially Starscream, his best--no, former best friend in the universe. Starscream had proved no more worthy than the rest, cheating, conniving, backstabbing whenever Megatron's face was turned. The agony of that spurned comradeship ate at his soul like acid torture, but he pushed it away as he had done so many times. At least Soundwave was loyal, and though Megatron yearned to rekindle his friendship with Starscream, he knew Soundwave would prove stalwart to the end.
He tipped his head back to drain the last viscous drop of energon from the cube, then straightened and crushed the shell in his hand. The cube crumpled, flared, then died, and he stood and fitted his fusion cannon to his forearm just as his internal chrono turned over.
00:00, 2002. Happy New Year....and indeed it would be happy, for it was now time to retake Cybertron.
...Brother to brother, blood on their hands
Desolation in the kingdom of man
Holy vengeance is the justice of hell
Mercy, mercy..
The pain had subsided for now, but Galvatron's temples still throbbed with the aftereffects of Unicron's pointed personal assaults. He reached deeply into his own soul, finding his old resolve like a favorite passage of a textfile, wanting to engrave the words and feelings on his new memory. If he could but keep this part of himself, and not lose it to Unicron's agonizing cautery, he would succeed.
He had come to accept his new form reluctantly, rationalizing that his old one was too damaged to sustain him. It was a small point of pride to allow, in the wake of his larger destiny. Did it matter what his outer form was, as long as the results were the same? Galvatron brushed the thought away with an indulgent smile.
In all truth, the pain of watching his troops degenerate into nothing but brawling thugs was far greater than what he had endured at Unicron's hands. He had wanted to cry out, to order them to stop their foolishness and bind together, that the Autobots were weaker than ever--! His vocoder had filled with energon, choking him even as he tried to speak, his injuries overriding even his unbreakable will. If there was anything Megatron--and now, Galvatron--detested, it was weakness.
Now weakness was a thing of the past. Newly formed, brimming with power yet untapped and commanding others who had been granted the same second chance, Galvatron knew that it was only a matter of time before destiny's pendulum swung in his favor once more. He smiled as he thought of Ultra Magnus' face--or, morover, how it would look when he plunged his hand into the Autobot's chest and brought out the Matrix, making its softly pulsing glow the last vision Ultra Magnus ever had.
Galvatron's smile faded as his thoughts turned from dreams of the future to recent events. In a twist of the bitterest irony that he could ever conceive, it was Starscream who had set him adrift in Unicron's wake. Without that, Megatron would have slowly perished there on the floor, dying quietly while his troops slugged it out toe-to-toe above him. With the simple gesture of his arrogance, Starscream had done the thing that would fulfill his friend's destiny, and for a moment, Megatron's soul had sang with joy and forgiveness for all Starscream's treachery.
Then Galvatron had taken over, and joy turned to murder. Trapped inside Galvatron's steely resolve, Megatron had wept when he saw Starscream through the twin windows of Galvatron's ruby optics, and howled in agony as he watched the Seeker's ashes drift away.
...Wings of fire....
...Drums of thunder...
...No more, no more...
The ruin that was Galvatron's psyche churned with a seething, agonizing fire. Randomly, he laughed in sporradic bursts of manic sound, his ruby-red optics burning twin pathways of hellish light into the darkness of his throne room. On the outside, he was the perfect picture of raving insanity, complete with nervous ticks and a hair-trigger temper, and Cyclonus despaired to see him spiraling deeper into madness with the dawn of each new cycle.
On the inside, however, Galvatron was very much coherent, desperate to break through the haze of pain and disturbance that he had been left with when Rodimus Prime destroyed Unicron.
Rodimus Prime. The new leader of the Autobots, formerly just a snot-nosed underling in the rank-and-file. The utter irony, the wrenching effrontery of Optimus Prime to give the Matrix to this candy-painted child!
Galvatron's scowl deepened and his claws dug slowly, brutally into the already shredded arms of his once-proud throne. He could see the whelp's face before him, the blue optics bulging wide as Galvatron's hands pressed with all their strength around HotRod's steel neck, cutting off the young Autobot's combustion intake. Pleasure coursed through Galvatron's powerful frame as he relived the Autobot's struggles growing weaker, heard the punk's breath begin to falter and die away, the light in the optics flickering.
Oh, the sweetness of an Autobot's death-rattle--! Just a few nanokliks more, and he could climb off HotRod's oxidizing body and hold the Matrix in his hands, victorious--!
The pleasure was denied, like a climax cut short by a dash of ice-cold solvent. Galvatron jumped visibly, audios ringing with echoes of the chain breaking, the vision of the Autobot suddenly coming back to life and ripping the Matrix from around his neck still dancing before his optics. Tortured, his soul screamed as the dream receeded, taking with it the moment of clarity the blue-white spark of the Matrix had afforded him.
..One more cry in the night, one more
One more war left to fight, one more
One life cut down by fire
One life's angry desire
One more....
*The End*
Back to theTransformers Fanfiction Homepage
Back to the Shadowspace