Work Text:
A Different Path
"With a paint job that flashy, down here and all that armor? A mech that big? He's got to be a gladiator. Wonder who he pissed off, though. He looks slagged, and his transponder's totally trashed."
"Dunno, but maybe there's a reward for turning him in?"
"Could be. These parts aren't gonna fit anything but the gladiator mechs and if we try and sell 'em there, they'll want to know where we got 'em..."
"I guess. Transform already and I'll get him on your bed."
"No way, mech, he's fragging huge, you're gonna squash me!"
"You got a better idea? We leave him here, someone else is gonna find him."
"Yeah, howsabout YOU transform and I hook him to your winch and we drag him. I mean, not like scratched up paint'd be our problem, right? He's already kind of a mess."
"Fine, but that reward split better be WAY in my favor."
He onlined his optics cautiously, already aware from the sounds around him that he was not in Ratchet's familiar infirmary. Someone was pounding on a piece of armor. Ratchet didn't work on armor in the med bay, or let anyone else do it. Something about the noise disturbing his patients.
"You're not one of ours, and none of the other trainers have reported runaways." A strange voice said. "And I know you're awake." There was a thump as something smacked into his chest. "Sit up and see if that finial stays attached. You're not exactly standard parts and I'm not exactly a medic." The stranger sounded grumpy enough for one. Optimus had wondered, vaguely about that, but the times he'd been under anyone's care but Ratchet's were so far removed from current memory, as was everything else from when he had simply been Orion. Optimus sat up.
"Where am I?" He asked.
"Kaon. The Ludus of Hardstrike."
"Kaon? Ludus?" The battle had been outside of Polyhex, mounting a distraction while Mirage and Jazz attempted to extract an undercover agent who had been awaiting interrogation in the cells of the Decepticon stronghold there. Optimus's main role in the battle had been a careful attempt to bait Megatron into a personal attack with more firepower than he would have sent against a simple incursion team, and it had worked, apparently a little too well. He'd been distracted, carefully gauging the battle and retreating in stages to draw Megatron out as far as possible. The last moments of the fight were a blur- the blinding green light of the strange beam weapon that had hit him while he was concentrating on the hand-to-hand engagement with Megatron- why was he in a gladiator school, of all places, instead of offline, or chained to the foot of Megatron's throne, or something equally humiliating? And the ludi had been gone for decavorns- one of the few things he could not bring himself to regret about the war.
"Yes, Kaon. I'm Reload. Look, you're obviously no stranger to fighting. You're on the schedule, as of now." The mech buffeted him upside the head, none too gently, apparently testing the repair of Optimus's audio finial. "There, that's staying on. Looks good."
"I beg your pardon," Optimus said politely. "But I am not a gladiator. I need to return to my troops outside Polyhex."
Reload laughed. "If you weren't, you are now. Less you want me to just detonate the acid bomb next to your spark chamber. One ping from me and you lose containment- without damaging what parts of you I can salvage, because let me tell you, that's some damn nice armor. even if none of the rest of it is likely to fit."
It wasn't two breems after he awoke that Reload's helpers had escorted him to what amounted to a cell. Optimus hadn't resisted overmuch- his self-diagnostic system had been flashing urgent errors at him since he started the process running, warning of a foreign body lodged against his sparkcasing- presumably the acid bomb Reload had warned him of. And the helpers were pathetic- cowed, and above all, young, even for their bulk. "We're not old enough for the games-" the taller of the two, a bright, electric blue said, when Optimus asked. We train for now, and but it's one of the rules that even the illegal trainers like Heavyblow and Reload respect- no sparklings in the arena."
"Ah." Optimus said. He'd had a vague idea that the gladiators were like most military-framed mechs, somehow, sparked more or less ready to go directly to work with a vorn or less of training.
"You're supposed to refuel," The shorter mech held out a cube of murky energon- cheap fuel, but nothing truly foul. He was a lurid orange with curved purple stripes running up each arm and across his faceplates. If these colors were typical of the gladiators, well... his flashy paint job made- adopted on a rarely-indulged whim after acquiring his new alt-mode after landing on Earth- made the misidentification at least a little more understandable. "Reload put you on the schedule for tonight."
"Tonight?" Optimus couldn't keep the dismay out of his voice, accepting the cube but not unsealing it immedietely.
"Afraid?" Orange sneered.
"You're a fighter- nothing to worry about. Not the top of the program. I think you're going up against one of the newbies they want to season, anyway." Bright blue said. "You should polish yourself up. Supplies are in the cabinet. Burst or I will come get you in 3 cycles." He spun on his heel and shut the door behind him. The lock engaged with a beep.
Optimus sank down to sit on the berth. How had he ended up in Kaon? In a gladiator school that, unless it had somehow been running in secret for vorns, should have been defunct for ages, preparing mechs to fight in combat games that had been gone since the first years of the war, when Megatron recruited the gladiators as some of his first soldiers. It had to be something with that strange green beam weapon- and he must be in the past. It wouldn't even be the first time that the Decepticons had used some sort of chrono-weapon, and it would hardly be the last, either. All Optimus had to do was stay alive, and stay nearby, so that when Wheeljack and Perceptor inevitably managed to capture and re-engineer the weapon, he could return to his own time. Unfortunately, Optimus had a feeling that this might be easier said than done.
"If you're thinking about resisting, don't." It wasn't Burst or the blue youngling at the door, but Reload.
"Why? There is always a choice." Optimus sat on the recharge berth that stretched across the back of the cell. It was surprisingly generous-he'd been able to lie down without curling his legs or transforming into his alt mode to rest on the conductive surface. But most gladiators, he remembered, were his size or larger- frequently military and industrial models who had become obsolete- or, as the energy crisis grew worse (would grow worse), who could not afford to keep themselves fueled any other way.
"I don't have to detonate that bomb in your chest to hurt you. Velocity didn't tell you earlier, did he? Probably hoping I'd pick someone else for the bad news. You don't fight, or you don't fight well enough? Every blow I think you should have landed gets dealt to him. Good practice for him, anyway, little blue slagger. He'll be in the pit soon enough anyway."
Optimus couldn't keep his optics from narrowing. He'd automatically closed his battlemask at the sound of the door opening, and he hoped that was enough to keep the trainer from reading his face. "What makes you think I care?" He asked, tone carefully level.
"You said yourself, you're a soldier. A commander of mechs." Reload grinned. "You care."
"He's not one of mine," Optimus said.
"Keep telling yourself that." Reload sent a datapulse of some kind, and there was an unpleasant jolt on Optimus's sparkcasing. Optimus put a hand up to his chest before he could stop himself, purely reflexive. The spark chamber was buried deep inside a mech, protected on all sides by not just redundant layers of armor but by structural components, wiring, lines for coolent and lubricant and the main resevoir for each. Work on it was done only in the utmost need, and only in the very best conditions. Every other part of a mech could be replaced, in essence, either via a deliberate reformat to a new configuration or a reconstruction after accident or injury- but sparks were essential to their deepest selves. "I might have also installed a static shock device against your spark chamber too. As long as I was in there." He pressed the button again- another shap, unpleasant pain.
"It's not so bad," Reload said, voice crawling with patently false sympathy. "We don't expect you to kill your opponent the first time out. Nice if you do, though."
Optimus had stood, then, with little more prompting. "You're despicable." He followed Reload through narrow, poorly light hallways for a breem, only gradually becoming aware of the strange vibrating roar that underscored all the other sounds in the ludus. It rose and fell, indistinctly, until they came up a short flight of stairs to a metal grate and door set into the walls. Reload opened it and motioned for Optimus to step through, shutting it quickly behind him with a clang.
"You're not the first bout. There, stand there. I recommend getting out right quick when it opens at the top. " Reload shoved an energon axe- his own, he realized belatedly - at him and hurried away.
A blue shadow separated itself from the wall as soon as Reload had turned the corner. "He's right, you know-" one of the young mechs from earlier said, leaning his arms against the bars of the grate. "The gladiator you're facing- he's new, but he's got a reputation already. Hits hard, hits fast- and don't expect him to settle for a surrender. He's killed both the mechs he's faced so far, the first one after Brakeline had him on his knees, it was amazing. Brakeline got him down, ripped one of his arms mostly off, and when Brakeline asked for his surrender he gutted him with his bare hands- well, bare claws-"
"I'm not a gladiator." Optimus said flatly. The young mech reminded him of a combination of Bluestreak, covering anxiety with chatter, and Bumblebee, desperately eager to explain some new thing that had fascinated him. It made Optimus sick to realize that for these mechs, the gladiatorial games were a thing to be intrigued by. The thought of that wasn't new, but it was one he'd not considered in a long time.
"No, but no one expects much out of the new guys- just kill him quick as you can and worry about showy another day." The young mech advised. "And if you lose, well... he's got no mercy, but he's not one to draw it out, either." He pushed away from the bars and stood up at the sound of a buzzer. "There's the warning. Good luck." He turned to leave in the same direction Reload had taken.
"Wait, what's his name?" Optimus called after him. There was no response. The elevator creaked and moaned as it began to rise up, and the dull roar resolved itself from an indistinct buzz to the actual sound of mechs cheering. The arena itself wasn't really as big as Optimus would have expected- enough room for two mechs to run a little at each other, but not to allow for any sort of vehicular combat in its current configuration. The footing was some sort of sand mixture, already stained violet and clumped where energon and lubricant had been spilled. The arena itself was brightly lit by overhead spotlights, but the stands beyond were mostly in shadow- Optimus could pick out optics, but no details. There had to be thousands of mechs present though. (A disturbing thought- this was the largest gathering of his own people that he'd seen in decavorns, all assembled to watch their own fight to the death for nothing more than amusement.)
"ONE SHALL RISE," an announcer bellowed over an audio projector.
"ONE SHALL FALL!" answered the crowd. The grated door to the elevator opened with a rattle barely audible over the screams and cheers of the audience.
The open door faced the end of the arena, which was vaguely oblong, directly away from the other elevator that had risen up. Optimus ignited his energy axe and stepped out of the cage, turning to face the center of the arena and watching for the other mech, glancing from side to side and surveying what was in the space that he could use for cover or defenses. There wasn't anything-the door of the elevator cage had slid shut as soon as he'd exited and the cage itself was now slowly descending back into the sand, the dark star-shaped shadows that the bright stage lights cast around it in 6 directions shortening. But the other mech had taken advantage of his distraction to charge forward at Optimus, and was nearly upon him before Optimus even realized that he was in the arena.
His opponent was dark grey and had used the shadows of his own elevator to make his way towards Optimus without being quite so visible against the sand, and for all his bulk, he was fast.
"And that one shall be you." Hissed an uncannily familiar voice. Optimus only barely brought his axe up in time to counter the other's sword.
"Megatron." He blocked, twisting to bind the handle of the axe with the sword's hilt, a move that surprised him by working, and he found himself staring into familiar red optics, filled with the same hatred and burning anger as ever.
"So you have heard of me! By the time I am finished, they will call me LORD Megatron!" The other mech growled, breaking his sword free and kicking at Optimus's forward knee to try and unbalance him.
Optimus said nothing- what could he say?- but focused on avoiding the kick and returning with a backhand to Megatron's faceplates, one that connected with a /clunk/. Megatron's optics spun down and refocused as he shook his head.
"No witty repartee?" The gladiator asked. "No begging for your life?"
"You haven't defeated me yet, Megatron," Optimus ground out, taking a swordblow on his shoulder instead of allowing it to land on the side of his chest.
The battle surged back and forth. Fighting this Megatron was not, Optimus found, like fighting the Megatron he knew. This one was somehow more elemental, his blows more careless if equally hard, and he was less canny a fighter, missing several openings in Optimus's defense that the Megatron he knew would have exploited to try and bring the fight to a faster end.
And then, as quickly as it began, it ended. Optimus brought his axe down in an overhead blow that would have severely dented Megatron's helm if it landed. The grey gladiator brought his sword up over his head, bracing the flat of the blade on the reinforced palm of his servo to deflect the axe, trying to catch the hooked lower edge of the blade to disarm Optimus. Unfortunately, it had been a feint- one that Optimus hadn't expected to work- and a wild legsweep brought Megatron crashing to the ground where sprawled in the sand. Optimus quickly kicked the sword out of his hand, sending it flying across the arena to embed itself, point first, into one of the walls separating the fighting ground from the stands.
"Ask me for mercy," Optimus said. His spark raced, his cooling fans roared with exertion, and tension wires sang as his overheated chassis brought more heat to bear on them.
"No." Megatron replied. His intakes growled, fans clogging with the clumpy sand-and-congealed-energon mixture that they were sucking in where he lay on the ground. In the background, Optimus was vaguely aware of the crowed screaming for the gladiator's death around him.
"I could kill you here and now-" Optimus replied. His foot rested on Megatron's throat, the curved spike on his war axe poised to tear into the other mech's chest, impaling his spark through the armor and internals. Their eyes met, and Optimus's spark ached with hatred for a moment.. So much pain and suffering was the fault of this mech- the death of Cybertron could fairly be laid at his pedes. He could undo all that now.
Megatron didn't beg, simply staring into his eyes with a grimace on his face, servos brought up defensively as if to push the pede that pinned him to the ground off his neck. The anger and hatred Optimus expected in his gaze was present, but there was also something different. Something new. Fear. Optimus hesitated.
This Megatron was not the Megatron of his time.
"Give me your parole, and I will help you build a better future." Optimus found himself saying. The sound of the crowd was distant around them.
"I don't believe you." Megatron replied. "Why should I?"
"Give me a chance." Optimus said, then decided to risk it all. "I know you're planning rebellion."
"And you want to help?" Skepticism was edging out fear, along with a degree of calculation in Megatron's eyes.
"I want to change things." Optimus hedged. Megatron waited for a long moment.
"I can always kill you later." He finally said. "I give my parole."
Optimus pulled the axe away and removed his foot, reaching down to pull Megatron to his feet. "You can try."
Megatron clasped his arm, looking into his face with an expression that Optimus, for all his years of study of the warlord, could not place. It might have been surprise. As Optimus pulled him to his feet, the grey mech broke into an expression that Optimus truly had never seen before- an actual smile.
"I believe you do." Megatron said. "And changing things here is the least of what I plan to do."