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“Is that your cannon, or are you just excited to see me?”
If that question had been posed before the procedure, Megatron may have been agitated enough to shoot the mech in the chassis. The words themselves were enough to send disgust through his processor, but it was because of the question rather than who had asked it. The lack of reaction in his blue optic must have caught the other mech’s attention since he froze, giving Megatron the opportunity to slam the end of the cannon against that purple helm. With the other mech stunned, he quickly moved away.
There was a tense silence, even with the ongoing chaos around them. Megatron took a moment to turn his optic away, catching a glimpse of Thundercracker and Skywarp as they attempted to carry an unconscious Starscream from the battlefield. Truthfully, Megatron had been prohibited from entering the battlefield after his recent stunt. However, as the medic, he found that disobeying Commander Starscream’s order was necessary if they wanted to keep more Decepticons alive. Besides, how could he have stayed inside the base when the communication lines were blaring the same message over and over?
‘Commander Starscream has fallen! Fall back!’
He genuinely thought his wings would crack at how fast he had flown over. Fortunately, it had merely been a misreport. The axe had taken most of the chassis off, but the spark was still intact. If he had been a second later, maybe the Decepticons really would have lost their leader. Luckily, as per usual, his presence on the battlefield was always enough to distract the mad Prime from pursuing who he had been fighting. His relief for Commander Starscream was short-lived though as he was left alone with the Prime. No other mech would dare to intervene now.
“Your optic…” It was whispered so quietly that he’d nearly missed it. Megatron trained it back towards the mech before him, a sort of indignation rising in his spark. But not at the Prime, no, it was only a reaction to the audacity of this mech to mention his optic when he was the cause why one was missing in the first place. Even now, it was difficult to look at the other without focusing on the singular blue optic on the Prime’s faceplate. His optic that the other mech had torn from its socket. “Do you recognize me, Dee?”
Although he knew the carnage around them was because of the Prime’s inability to relinquish power, Megatron could almost understand what his old self saw in Optimus Prime. Maybe there was still a part of the Prime’s spark that was Orion Pax. Surely there was, because why would he have created reprogramming to rid himself of the feelings he’d held for the other mech? If Orion Pax had truly died, then his old self would have had no reason to hold on. He would have had no reason to commit such an unethical act to free himself from the sparkbreak.
“My memory circuits are intact, Prime. I know who you are.” He kept the cannon trained on the mech in front of him. The emotional part of him was aware that there was something inherently wrong about the emptiness in his spark. He was missing a crucial component inside him. The memories of their past were still there in his processor, but there was nothing to feel - as though the memories were merely flashing images. “You were once Orion Pax, maybe you still are, but that doesn’t matter anymore. You are nothing more than the enemy of freedom to me.”
There was a tense silence before the Prime began to stomp his way towards him. He didn’t hesitate, firing off a singular shot that the other mech immediately dodged. The Prime didn’t dare get any closer, instead, his mouthplate opened - showing how hard the other mech was venting. The Prime’s red and blue optics had softened, even if they still held lingering traces of anger. They flickered to the rest of the Decepticons still left on the field, as if searching for someone to blame. Then, his gaze was drawn back to him. “Dee… what have they done to you?”
“According to my memories, you always insisted we should not be afraid to do what we want. That it is our right to… be more than what we are and that we should make our own choices.” His tone was even, unable to feel a hint of guilt despite shooting at a mech his old self had once loved. The emptiness in his spark was unbearable, but Megatron had no way of reversing the procedure - not that he wished to do so. “Why do you try to deflect the blame instead of believing that I made this decision myself, Prime?”
“Because you wouldn’t dare—” The Prime growled out through gritted dentas. A disbelieving smile appeared on the other mech’s faceplate, his servos twitching by his sides as though he wanted to pull Megatron closer - either to keep him in his arms or shake him, Megatron was not quite sure. His memories of the other mech were confusing. At some points, Orion Pax had been rather clingy. In others, he was rather pushy. “You wouldn’t dare… Come on, Dee. A mech like you? We both know you wouldn’t do something so cruel to anyone. I thought that was my job, remember?”
“I distinctly remember calling you cruel.” He nodded. His old self must have been desperate if he had resorted to reprogramming technology. If the emptiness in his spark was unbearable, Megatron had to wonder what the sparkbreak must have felt like. He wondered if it was the same reflected pain that was on the Prime’s face, as though he had lost something he could never get back. “Understand that the me before you feels nothing for you, but I believe my old self loved you very much. He must have if he was willing to break his own moral code.”
The Prime had closed his optics, letting Megatron’s words wash over him. Then those optics opened, and the mouthplate was back on. “A new technology you created then?”
“I created it, yes.” Megatron started to back off, seeing from the corner of his optic that most of the Decepticons were beginning to retreat. He could hear his own communication device beeping rapidly, an order to fall back.
The Prime followed slowly after him, those optics trained on his faceplate. “Care to share?”
A rueful smile found its way to his dermas. “So you could use it for your own selfish gains? I’d rather you take out my other optic than ever give you the blueprint.”
“Oh Dee, I wouldn’t use it for selfish reasons.” The other mech had the audacity to laugh. “I only want to fix you.”
“You’d only make me worse.”
He turned while indiscriminately taking a singular shot at the mad Prime again. He didn’t know if he hit his target, having already transformed into his alt and flying away.
Now that he had properly met the Prime after the procedure, Megatron couldn’t help but worry that his apathy would only make the other mech more wrathful.