A/N: *yawn* General lack of coherency brought on by lack of sleep. Mmmf. Here ya go... very Megatron Origin-y. There ya go. *zzzzz*

5. Another Side

They called it the Golden Age. It was touted as a time of liberty and prosperity, and of credits and energon for everyone. And that was fine for some… the upper classes, the wealthy Autobots, the Senate, those mechs who lived in the glittering towers of Iacon or the upper levels of Polyhex or the suburbs of Simfur. They recharged, went to work, came home to a family and some energon cubes, recharged again.

They never stopped to think about where their energon came from. They never saw the mines, the dark holes in rocks far from Cybertron, in the outliers. They never saw the miners, filthy mechs who knew only the swing of a pick and the flash of unstable, unrefined energy crystals. They never spent orns down there, in the stifling heat, never sure that the next swing wouldn’t strike an explosive shard and bury them all, never sure that they could scrape enough crystals from the rock to meet their quotas and earn their daily ration. They never lost their jobs to drones, never had to look for an occupation with the handicap of no experience, no cleanliness, no friends in high places.

Rich mechs like that never stopped to think about how it was in the other cities, in the refineries, in the factories. Their creators had been rich, too, buying them flashy frames with slick altmodes. They weren’t subjected to mass-produced shells, pre-set programming. None of them were rejected if they differed from the rest of the flock; none of them were seen as failures, as freaks if they rebelled against their predestined function.

For the rich it was a Golden Age. For the powerful, it was an age of corruption, of bribery, of stockpiling.

But for the rest, it was the Pit.

For the others, there was a shortage of energon, a shortage of jobs. There was a dark Altihex, practically a ghost town. There was a crumbling Vos, the ground (where no one walked) littered with lifeless frames, fliers who hadn’t even had the energon to continue functioning.

And there was Kaon. The unemployed miners came here, the outcast factory or military builds came here; poor mechs from all over Cybertron poured into Kaon’s lawless underbelly in search of credits and energon… especially energon. Processor-numbing, internal-grinding hunger is something Autobots never experienced. Its power was remarkable.

Kaon was the capital of Cybertron’s criminal underworld. In Kaon, ironically the headquarters of the Autobot security forces, anything went. The black market, the bootlegging, the prostitution rings, the arena fights. The only way to survive was to elbow your way into one of these shady establishments. The gladiators of the arena, in particular, were worshipped by the rest of the lowly, dirty, hungry poor. And one gladiator, in particular, was better than the rest.

His name was Megatron. He had been a miner on one of Cybertron’s moons, but he, like the rest, had been replaced by automation. So he had come to Kaon, and he had caught someone’s optic, and he had been introduced to the vicious sport of arena fighting. These were no-holds-barred battles to termination—enough to rid anyone of the last vestiges of weaknesses such as kindness, pity, or mercy. Any reluctance on Megatron’s part was stamped out by necessity.

Megatron was the kind of mech who could please a crowd without really trying. He had the perfect build for it, too: tall and imposing, a powerful tank altmode, well-kept silver armor, unusually bright scarlet optics. He was a natural fighter, skilled even before training. He was the champion of the arena, leader of the top team, having slaughtered his way up the ranks to reach that position, and therefore commanded an incredible amount of power. The best fighters clamored to join him, and even if they could not, everyone in the underworld admired him. There was something about Megatron that made them love him. It was evident whenever they spoke his name, in almost reverent tones, as though he were some minor deity who deigned to walk among them. Megatron will free us, said they. Megatron will lift us to the sky. Megatron will end our hunger. Megatron.

He was also one of those who saw the corruption of the Senate for what it was. He had tasted poverty, lived to bear the load while the Autobots ate rust sticks. And so Megatron had ideas. He made plans. It started small—thefts, riots, threats. And when the Senate refused to act, it grew. Bombings. Kidnappings. And then it became massive… a planetwide movement, a strike for freedom and justice, the liberty of the poor and hungry, originating in Kaon, Megatron at its head. The Decepticons rose up from the darkness, from the seedy depths, battling the old ways that had driven them down.

It should have been easy. After Kaon, it should have been fast… the Autobots should have seen the error of their ways and changed them. Surely they could see that the uprising was for the best! Surely they wouldn’t stop their counterparts from taking their rightful place in the world. But they did, and so the display of unity became a war, and the war went on.

And on.

For thousands of astrocycles the Great War raged, the Autobots stubbornly refusing to give in. The leaders of the opposing forces, Megatron and Optimus Prime, each believed that their respective faction was in the right. The War eventually drained Cybertron of its resources and the Autobots and Decepticons went out into the galaxy to continue their battle. Countless planets were caught in the crossfire and devastated, scoured of their energy sources. The Autobots continued to commit atrocities that the Decepticons had never foreseen.

Circumstances drove the War to a tiny blue planet called “Earth” by its people. They were tiny, primitive organic creatures calling themselves “humans.” Their technology was pathetically inferior to the Cybertronian, but by the standards of organics it was quite advanced. The Autobots befriended these humans, the poor misguided creatures, and this gave them an unexpected advantage. The assistance of the humans was the push the Autobots needed and the Decepticon forces were weakened. They battled each other in the space between Earth and Cybertron, near the Axis cluster. It was the most devastating space battle of the War… countless brave Decepticons were brutally terminated. Finally a chance shot broke through the shields of the Decepticon flagship, Nemesis, and destroyed the bridge along with Megatron… an anticlimactic end, but the universe does enjoy cruel jokes.

Following the Axis defeat, the Autobots claimed victory. They brought the surviving Decepticons back to Cybertron, which had revived over the many astrocycles.

Do you know what an astrocycle is? A thousand vorns. Can you imagine an astrocycle? You’ve lived for perhaps a centivorn. Picture nine more. That’s one astrocycle. Now imagine ten thousand astrocycles. A hundred thousand centivorns. Ten million vorns. That’s how long the Great War lasted. The Academy gives it maybe fifty vorns at most… and they never mention Megatron’s name. Not once… never.

Perhaps that is because of that certain magic of his name… Megatron. Just the word gave us hope, once. Now, if an Autobot hears us say it, we’ll be beaten to scrap in nano-kliks. Because the power that makes us brave frightens them. They’re afraid of a ghost.

The Senate was quick to reinstate itself following Axis. And the Senate was quick to push the Decepticons down, down even further than before, reducing them to slaves.

Do you know what it is to be a slave? It’s taking the energon you’re given and drinking it only because you’ll offline if you miss even a day’s ration. It’s taking orders even if you don’t want to; it’s being divided individuals; it’s being powerless; it’s having thrusters and wings but being chained to the ground. It’s remembering what it was like to be free but not being free.

Decepticon freedom was war, but it was freedom. We were powerful. We had energon, we had identities, even if we only knew them from what the Autobots shouted when they saw us. We could walk and talk and laugh and drink and interface and recharge and fly whenever we liked. But now we have nothing.

The Decepticons were forced into slavery; the chain of command was broken, trines were split, commanders were divided from their troops. The Autobots took every precaution to ensure that their fallen foes would never rise again.

But the Decepticons were strong. They would rise again. All it would take was a memory, a ghost, the whisper of a magic word.

Megatron.

A/N: Primus, Starscream, you're not bitter at all... XD