CHAPTER 29

I had to do it. There was no other choice.

Or is that merely what I have told myself, in the vain hope that my own words can absolve me?

Megatron shifts into his vehicle mode and launches himself at me. I grab for his wings, for his fusion thrusters, and try to disable any part of him and so drag him to the ground—to no avail. The one chance I have is to ground him, to deny him his aerial superiority, but there is little else I can do but cling to his wings and fuselage as Megatron launches himself through the human metropolis with enough speed that their silicate viewports shatter in his wake.

His panoplia is proofed against impacts, from energon cannons and blades and anything that might find him during the treacherous journeys between stars. To Megatron, the human structure at the end of the roadway might as well be a solar wind, and he plunges through it like a meteor. There are humans inside. I am aware of them, in flashes, diving for cover, trying to find some sanctuary, however slight, from the wrath of Megatron’s passage.

If we fail here today, there will be nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

Megatron spins endlessly, and I am thrown free. He is already incarnating himself once more, ripping up the roadway, humans scattering in every direction, and I charge to meet him. My chances of prevailing against Megatron are slim. He is larger, stronger, and ruthlessly experienced in the art of victory. And that had been before the High Council had forged him into the very sword and shield of Cybertron itself. But, more than that, where I have spent countless years fighting and searching, my systems worn down by time and by violence, Megatron has spent that time in stasis. He has not even taken a form more pleasing to the local inhabitants. He is what we were made to be. And while we may have been equals, once...

I am less certain of that, here and now.

We collide, we grapple. Megatron forces me to one knee, and I strike his mandibles. He leans in, optics narrowed, expression grim. “The humans,” he says, “don’t deserve to live.”

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For this is the crux of Megatron’s perspective, and it is also his weakness. The Decepticon cause may be just in the eyes of his disciples, but to their leader is little more than an argument of doctrine. Little more than an extension of the debates and discussions we had, so long ago, when we had both been known by different names...

His final argument.

Part of me hopes that I can, even now, reach him. Dissuade him.

I clutch at Megatron’s gorget. “They deserve to choose for themselves!”

Megatron’s face twists, but he does not falter. He wrenches my hand from his collar, parries my next strike, wraps me in his arms, and snarls, “Then you shall die with them!”

He hurls me over his shoulder, wrenching an energon relay out of alignment, like he’d never left the rings of Kaon. I hit the ground, slide, and feel the scattered human vehicles collapse beneath me. I do not know if they were manned. I cannot bring myself to know.

Megatron, standing in the middle of the roadway, is already raising his fusion cannon. “Join them in extinction!”

His weapon is already charging, and I am too far to reach him. I rise to my feet, swinging my right arm to bear, deploying my energon cannon, and snap off a shot.

Too quick, too wide. A plume of molten metal flares free of Megatron’s pauldron, and he spins with the impact, one full revolution in not even a human second—and fires.

The fusion bolt strikes me in the chest, dead center, and rips me from the ground. For a second, my spark stills, and I regain my senses as I collide with another human structure. It collapses with me and I hit the ground, shattering the concrete and asphalt, masonry and objects falling around me. Were I a lesser Autobot, I would not be able to realize that I have survived.

My systems are shocked. Groaning, I look down at my chest armor and find it split open and molten, scorched down to my protoform. I can feel my spark flickering, and then burning brightly once more. I force myself to stand, and to fight. Slowly, painfully, I shake my head to clear my encephalon of the static that clings to it, and rise for the final duel.

One shall stand, and one shall fall.

But the roadway is clear, and Megatron is gone. He will not finish me off, not yet. For this is an argument, and all of this destruction has been in the hopes of proving a point of madness and atrocity. I can sense him, tearing through the air and I can see, ever so faintly, the light of the AllSpark, fading into the background radiation of this world and I know, in my spark, that something terrible has happened.

I am too damaged to roll out. I break into a run. Yet, as I race through the thoroughfares of the human city, I can do little but consider the simple calculus of war. Megatron is stronger than me, faster than me...

There is only one conclusion.

I cannot defeat him.