Mechs who survived in the wild for an extended period as sparklings tend to not outgrow certain juvenile traits.
Here we have Orion demonstrating that he still very much has his teeth, and even though it's not really polite to bite someone that doesn't mean he won't :)
Inspired by @robotspacealien 's Pitfighter Pax AU, which I love! I was scrolling through the posts and thought, what if Orion’s first opponent was Megatron? And what if that was on purpose? 🤔
Summary: Gladiator Megatronus seeks out the unusual opponent fortunate enough to survive a round against him in the pit. A connection is made, and certain paths are undoubtedly altered forever...
Warnings for: violence, injuries, medical malpractice, threats of death and violence - the kind of dark stuff you’d expect from this premise. I didn’t want to make it too graphic though haha
Enjoy~!
'Medbay'. It's a pretty word for a slaughterhouse, where the injured survivors have to watch their dead opponents be harvested for parts before anyone bothers to tend to the living. Sometimes the wounded die while they wait. Sometimes that’s not an accident. More corpses, more organs, more money. There is little the vultures known as medics won't do.
Megatronus isn't supposed to be there – doesn't need to be, for that matter, not after that round. There's barely a scratch on his plating, and he can feel the optics on him as he stalks through the passageways, hear the whispers that follow in his wake. "Rigged", they whisper when they think he’s out of range, and while the accusation makes him want to start denting faceplates, Megatronus can hardly blame them in this instance.
He’d known the match was a farce from the instant he'd stepped into the ring. He, Megatronus, the Slagmaker, the Scourge of Tarn, the whatever else his sponsors want to call him, against that. Some pretty Iaconian middle-caste about half his size with barely any armor and a piddly little axe for a weapon. It had briefly occurred to him that it might be some sort of trick, that his opponent might have hidden artillery, or that a dozen more would burst from the stands and swarm him… but no. The terror in those optics had been very real.
Megatronus isn’t cruel. Not when he has a choice. He'd let the mech get a few superficial hits in before ending the match quickly and cleanly as possible. No toying with his prey. No indulging the crowd.
He'd stood there afterwards feeling dirty and used, looking up at the stands as the audience muttered their disappointment. He had chosen to end that round with silence, refusing to dignify it with a rousing speech or grandiose statement. Let the crowd see it for the joke it was. Let them hunger for a real show, so that the mechs in charge wouldn't try a stunt like this again.
But the mutterings from the crowd had changed. Surprise had swept through the audience, enough to make Megatronus turn with his blade at the ready…
But it wasn't an attack. The body on the ground had twitched, groaned, made an effort to move on cracked and broken metal. Somehow, miraculously, his opponent had survived.
Barely. Long enough for the medics to scrape him off the ground while the crowd cheered and the sponsors talked and the masters began plotting a dramatic, thrilling comeback.
For if the mech survived.
Megatronus had followed him, away from the roar of the crowd and the clash of weaponry as the next round started behind him, down into the grimey twists and turns of the passages under the arena. Down into the mockery of a medbay where the dead are deconstructed and the injured lie in limbo.
No one stops him. No one dares.
The little mech is still alive, for now at least. They’d put him on a rickety berth in the far left corner, tucked away until someone remembers he exists. Megatronus strides through the muted chaos of a slaughterhouse in full swing, ignoring the moans of the wounded and the energon splashing under his pedes. The surgeons barely bat an optic, continuing their grisly work.
Megatronus reaches the berth in the corner, and at last gets a better look at the little mech. Not that there's much to look at under the dents and gashes and splatters of energon. The scuffed red and blue plating, cracked windshields, and battered audial fins are all typical of the average middle-caste nobody Megatronus had gauged him to be. So what did he do? What did this little Iaconian do to be thrown into the pits, to be punished and humiliated in front of a ravenous crowd?
Blue optics open. One is cracked and flickering, unable to focus. The other stares at Megatronus, surprisingly alert from a mech who should be dead. Most would be fearful, faced with the one who tried to kill them, but there is only a tired wariness in his gaze.
His vocaliser fizzes with static. Megatronus has to lean down to hear what he has to say.
"Here to finish the job?" the little mech rasps.
It's enough to earn a low, rumbling laugh from Megatronus. Few mechs have the bearings to do more than beg for their lives. This one is unusually defiant for someone beaten half to scrap. It is positively charming.
"Perhaps," says Megatronus, letting the threat linger while he moves to kneel by the side of the berth. "You know, I don't believe I ever got your name."
The little mech smiles crookedly, revealing cracked front denta. Interesting. Megatronus doesn’t believe he caused that damage.
"Orion Pax," the little mech says. "Archivist." Then he winces. “Former archivist, I mean.”
"Orion," Megatronus repeats, feeling the name on his glossa. "I am Megatronus."
"I know." Pax’s smile takes on a pained edge that has little to do with his physical wounds. "I… I read your work."
"Oh?" Megatronus leans in a little closer, so that his words are hidden safely beneath the clash of the chaos behind him. “You’re one of my supporters?”
Pax nods fractionally. "They found out. They… they didn't like it."
Ah. That makes sense.
Megatronus doesn't have to ask who 'they' are, for there are few beings on Cybertron who can destroy a mech for the simple pleasure of reading. In a way, Megatronus is lucky – he is, at the moment, relatively safe. True, he could die any day from an opponent's lucky shot, but he makes his masters too much money for them to dispose of him on purpose.
Besides, what does it matter if some low-caste mining frame gets uppity, starts spreading seeds of rebellion along with his speeches? Few believe that his words will ever reach those who matter, who want real change.
But they could.
And they had.
"So they tossed you into the pit to die at the servos of the one you admired," Megatron concludes. “How… poetic.” Then he grins. "Do you know what that means? They are afraid of you, Orion Pax. You have power."
A defiant anger flares in Pax’s optics before exhaustion overtakes him.
"I was trying to help," he says despairingly. "I didn't do anything wrong."
"I know." Hidden by the shadow of his chassi, Megatronus slips a servo into Pax’s. Slim fingers twitch weakly, curling around Megatronus' claws. "You shouldn’t be here, we can all see that. They sent you here to die, but you fought against me and you survived. Few can do that, Orion.”
“I didn’t want to fight,” Pax groans. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“And yet you fought admirably,” Megatronus lies – although thinking back, Pax could have done far worse. He was graceful, agile, quick-witted and sharp. Easy to underestimate. With the right training, he could become a formidable warrior. “We have the same enemies. Are you going to let them win?”
Megatronus begins to speak, but quickly cuts himself off. Someone is approaching from behind. He glances over his shoulder, fangs bared in a warning snarl.
But it is only Shockwave, a question in his gaze as he looks between Pax and Megatronus. He has his tools ready. He only asks how he will use them.
Megatronus hesitates. He has plans, and he cannot afford to let them be derailed by unexpected factors like pretty little Iaconians. It doesn’t matter what he wants, what he likes, or what he feels towards this beautifully rebellious Orion Pax. Not when so much rides on his success.
But… Megatronus has plenty of gladiators on his side. Perhaps what he needs is an ex-archivist.
Besides, he is running out of time. Already Pax’s biolights are fading, and his fans are starting to rattle as his frame runs out of power. Pax has a warrior’s spirit, but with those wounds his spark will only last so long, and it would be… a shame. A waste. To let it flicker out and die.
Megatronus leans down until his lips brush a battered audial fin. “Do you want to live?” he asks, slowly and deliberately, giving the words the weight they require. “I must warn you, the healing process here is often more painful than the injuries themselves. Say the word, and your suffering will end. Your death will be as quick and as painless as I can make it.”
Orion’s servo clenches. “I want to live,” he snarls, and instead of the instinctive fear of death there is a wonderful determination there, a furious desire to survive that warms Megatronus’ dark, bitter spark. It is the same unbending will that brought D-16 from the mines to the sunlight, the same will that made him Megatronus. Orion is going to survive, because he refuses to let himself die.
Megatronus leans back with smug satisfaction. “Then you will learn to fight.”
“You will teach me?” Orion asks, a glimmer of excitement in his one working optic even as Shockwave readies his saw.
Megatronus grins. “It would be my pleasure, Pitfighter Pax.”
The barely working light buzzed to life at the top of the staircase, but Orion's optics remained glued onto the shimmering particles of glass and rust swirling across the dry land. They were soon to be carried up into the night sky by the heavy smoke released from the mines and refineries below, the clouds of white, grey and brownish-gold glittering as if conjured from a sparklings imagination. Instead of watching the sight he'd seen too many times to count, Megatronus admired the expression Orion was making, and the subtle changes as he observed. A family of turbo foxes built a den nearby, and Megatronus stored the image of Orion's face as they finally emerged deep into his memory files.
"Beautiful," the mech whispered, so quietly as if the creatures could actually hear him across such great distance. Megatronus hummed in agreement, and reluctantly turned his attention back to the view below.
Inspired by the AU talk with @robotspacealien✨ Is it clear how much I love it yet?
Orion gains an anonymous sponsor sometime fairly early on into his time in the Pits (once it was pretty clear he wasn't going anywhere), and the very modest allowance for extra fuel allows him to return a favor.
Megatronus seems to not know how to react to the act of kindness...
Too bad no one will have the balls to tell him that, according to Kaonite courtship customs, he might as well have slapped a "This Is Mine" sticker on the Champion’s ass.
