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“Surely there have to be more suitable venues than this hole in the ground—“ The complaint was cut off with a wave of Starscream’s hand.
“Shut up, Thundercracker.”
Thundercracker slumped down into his seat, crossing his arms. At least in this private box, the chairs weren’t covered in paint transfers from mechs who couldn’t afford fixative.
Though, Starscream thought, Thundercracker had a point.
Vosnian aristocrats weren’t generally common visitors to arenas of this caliber: small private boxes, poorly maintained, filthy, thick with the smells of spilled energon and oil. The stands below were packed with grimy mechs who either worked for a living or gambled or plied arguably legal trades. They jostled each other, screamed, laughed, and traded money when they weren’t spilling their cheap engex.
Starscream could still remember a life like that, struggling to get by and finding entertainment when and where it could be found, quality being of little import.
A roar went up from the crowd as a pair of minibots, one with drills in their arms and the other with some sort of ground-shaking equipment, brought down a mech several times their size. Energon, still activated, flowed out of the wounds as he fell to his knees.
A good show. A shame about the circumstances, dying for entertainment, but that mech would have died whether or not Starscream was looking. Might as well.
As expected for mechs of his current station, Starscream would be expected to patronize fancier coliseums, such as the hovering arena in Vos, with valorous champions and money bet for pleasure, not income. But not this one, not this literal pit in the ground with the dressings of a legal mutual combat establishment.
The one in Kaon was known for neither glamor nor honor nor fighters there of their own free will, most being either prisoners serving out their sentences or desperate indentured servants trying to earn winnings to pay off their debts to the pitmaster. The only socially powerful mechs who came here were the local senators and the aristocrats who claimed to oversee the provincial settlements out beyond the city’s walls. The duke at Kolkular didn’t even come here, even though the arena was quite the tourist attraction.
All of that was precisely why Starscream had come here.
Landless but with a title—barely—and a few resources, he had seen an opportunity in the social discontent. He was certainly closer to it than his so-called “peers.”
He’d been granted his dignity (and a luxurious apartment) as a reward for alerting the Winglord of Vos to an assassination plot that he had obviously had nothing to do with and had been so loyally and conveniently nearby to overhear. Before that, he, along with Thundercracker and Skywarp, had always been a wire’s breadth away from being just like the poor bastards in the arena below. Now, however, he had his foot on a rung of the ladder and he had no intention of letting go.
Thundercracker grimaced in his seat next to Starscream, turning his head away but not attempting to cover his optics.
“I don’t see what’s so fun about this.”
He had always had less of a taste for gratuitous violence than either Starscream or Skywarp. But they all knew that when push came to shove, he would fight just as fiercely as the rest of them.
“We’re not here for fun,” Starscream reminded him, idly checking his hand for chipping paint as the crowd cheered for the victors on the fuel-soaked sand below.
The announcer, already barely audible at best, was drowned out by the din.
The minibots were escorted off the field and the defeated combatant was hauled off to… wherever they hauled the bodies. He doubted they had a proper morgue on the premises. They would probably just scrap the loser for parts and melt down whatever was left.
If he could just… tap into that wellspring of discontent and harness it.
And he knew just how to do that.
The announcer called what was probably a name for the next bout. The only way Starscream could really be sure who was coming out was to look, especially as the crowd roared again. The regulars likely recognized the vague mumbling as something intelligible, but he had no intentions of coming back here after today.
There was one specific fighter that Starscream had come to see.
He had already sent Skywarp down to the pitmaster to negotiate paying this fighter’s debts. Skywarp was, for all of his flaws, a cutthroat negotiator and Starscream was glad to have him on his side.
Hopefully soon he would have yet another powerful force in his corner.
The hulking shape of what was visibly a manual class mech, despite the missing hazard paint, walked out of the tunnels that fed into the arena floor, seemingly unarmed.
Bold.
Especially since the arena staff were pulling a pack of very agitated lupanoids out of the opposite tunnel.
He was either being punished or showing off.
Leaning forward, his elbow on the railing for a better view, Starscream couldn’t wait to see which it was. Hopefully his investment would be worth it.
The last of the lupanoids crumpled to the ground after its head came loose from its body.
Megatron tried not to wonder whether the lupanoids had been actual mechafauna or “domesticated” beast-formers. Both options were equally likely and similarly cruel.
Regardless of the circumstances that brought him his opponents, his own choice was limited to either killing or dying… and so far, he had not considered dying to be a particular viable way forward.
He was yet another cog in the machine designed to crush the lower castes. Even if after the revolt he had escaped his originally assigned role and the striped paint that used to mark him, he was still stuck here, keeping the machine alive and well. For all of his pacifistic political activism in the past, for all of his controversial, inflammatory polemics, this was where it had gotten him… indentured servitude and the same choice every single day.
Kill or die.
He threw the dripping head, limp tongue lolling out, away as the crowd above cheered the death.
It bounced on the sand before rolling away, leaving a trail of sticky fuel in its wake.
At least he would get to walk away from this fight with a small measure of money in hand, after the pitmaster took his cut of the winnings.
Tomorrow, Megatron knew as he followed the staff back down into the dark bloodworks, he would do it again. Some other unlucky opponent, be they mech or beast.
Kill or die.
Megatron hadn’t expected to be called to the arena entrance, after the crowds had dispersed.
He had just barely had time to get all the lupanoid fuel off his plating.
Gladiators were usually left alone between fights unless “rent” was due. The meager lodgings and rations at the arena cost him most of what was left over after the pitmaster took his “share” of the winnings. Megatron, while not particularly caring for most aspects of his current employment, did enjoy the almost complete lack of supervision.
The pitmaster, Outback, a tall, scarred, elderly mech with heavy armor who had once been a gladiator himself, looked incredibly pleased with himself. Quite the feat for someone who had a visor and face mask to obscure his features.
Then again, he was holding what looked to be his favorite thing: the datapad he used for processing transactions.
If not for the ever-accruing debt of lodging, he would have sought refuge elsewhere. The “rent” fee was only ever a fraction of what was actually owed as part of his “contract” and he could put more of his personal money towards the principal of his debt. The amounts were just so astronomical that signing on was essentially selling oneself until either death or a miracle.
Still, it had been better than starving in the street. No one else was willing to hire a large ex-miner on the run for starting a revolt. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, after all.
That, and Outback had been willing to buy off local authorities who might have wanted to haul Megatron in… on the grounds that he kept winning, of course.
Megatron also hadn’t expected the pitmaster to be standing there with three mechs, slender with broad wings and beautifully embroidered jacquard, colored to complement their paint, hanging from their wings. Vosnians, wealthy ones, if he could guess by the clothing.
Fragile snobs.
Given the drapery, they likely almost never flew.
Well-to-do wastrels then.
Had he managed to somehow offend them? Were they offended on behalf of the lupanoids?
“I assume there’s a reason you called me out here,” Megatron said, approaching the group.
He half-expected the Vosnians to back away, but they didn’t. All three stood their ground.
The blue one stood stock still with a straight back, arms folded professionally behind his back. The black and purple one ignored him, swiping a card through the reader on the pitmaster’s datapad, purchasing… something. Or maybe getting a refund—No, Outback wouldn’t have been nearly so pleased about it in that case.
The third one, predominantly red and white, grinned at him. No, perhaps not “grinned.” It was too sharp, but not quite a smirk. Decidedly not “friendly.”
“Yes, Megatron, you’re out of here.”
“What?” He turned to face the pitmaster, shoulders hiked up. “What reason do you have to throw me out? I still—“
“Oh, no, no, you misunderstand. These nice Vosnians have cleared your debt.” Outback brought the datapad up to his visor, his eyesight not quite what it used to be after sustaining an injury to the face years ago. “And then some. Your contract is complete and you are free to go.”
Free to go and get arrested or murdered in a back alley.
“And since you don’t have any personal possessions, there’s nothing you need to clear out from downstairs so… off you go.”
Megatron opened his mouth to protest about what in the hell he was supposed to do now, but the Outback had already started walking away.
“You’ve been a champ but money makes the world go around, you know. If you ever find yourself down on your luck again, you know where to find me.”
And just where to stick a blade, he thought, watching the door slam shut behind the old mech’s back. If he came back, it wouldn’t be to sign another one of Outback’s predatory contracts.
Then again, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Outback had always loved money more than his own array, so why would Megatron, desperate and on the run from the law, be of any higher value?
Jaw set, Megatron turned back to face the Vosnians. They had a lot of explaining to do, wealthy or not.
The blue one remained unchanged, though perhaps there was a flash of worry in their optics. The black and purple one smirked like he knew a secret. And the last one, whom Megatron presumed to be their leader, stepped forward, unafraid.
“Now, I suppose you must have a great many questions—“
“Why did you pay him off? I cannot be bought!” Megatron pointed an accusing finger right at the mech’s nose. “Even if you’ve cleared my debt and gotten me thrown out, you cannot buy me!”
“Buy you?”
The mech scoffed, putting an affronted hand to his chest before ducking right around Megatron’s arm to draw close. He even placed his other hand right on Megatron’s arm, sliding along the length to move the arm away. It was as though he had no sense of the danger he could be in.
“Nonsense. What I want… is to hire you.”
The transport had already been… modest in size, but now that they had stuffed a huge manual class mech in the cabin, it was practically claustrophobic. Skywarp and Thundercracker had vacated the interior to ride on the driver’s bench on top. Thundercracker was given command of the controls as Skywarp was terrible at avoiding collisions.
That left Starscream alone with their new… “friend” inside the transport.
That was fine. Perhaps a little privacy would put the tetchy oaf more at ease.
Megatron hadn’t agreed to anything yet, of course, but had consented to getting in the transport and hearing out their offer after a brief introduction. He still seemed none too impressed with his liberators, but that was to be expected. Mechs from the lower castes were understandably mistrustful of those above. Plenty of reason to be. He probably only got in the transport because it was safer than dodging the authorities on the street for however long this little ride would last.
That was fine.
Starscream knew he would have the deal sealed before long.
If only Megatron would stop silently glaring at him.
“I imagine you’d like to know just what I want to hire you for,” Starscream said, crossing one leg over the other at the knee while he reclined against the cushioned backrest of the transport.
It was cheap as far as private transports went, but it had been within their budget when they had purchased it second-hand. It probably still looked like a lavish luxury to Megatron, who seemed unwilling to relax into the comfort around him.
“I’ve been waiting for you to spit it out, yes.” Such venom. That could be useful later.
Starscream grinned.
“Good.” He made sure to flash his polished teeth, showing off the points of the purposefully sharpened ones. It was street mechs who commonly sharpened their teeth. An edge to defend oneself if otherwise disarmed. Starscream had kept up the practice, a link to his more humble origins. “We have a lot in common, you and I. I think we could get along.”
Megatron’s optics narrowed at him, scrutinizing, but he said nothing and did not move from his stiff posture.
“You see… I wasn’t always alt-mode exempt. I wasn’t always so blessed as you see me now.”
So far, so good.
“You see, that sort of thing—rising above one’s ‘Primus-given station’—can attract enemies. I wanted to hire you to protect me.”
Megatron scoffed but remained otherwise rigid. Disciplined. Very good. Starscream could use that.
“No, no, don’t be so quick to judge. It’s you specifically I’ve sought out and not just for your… martial prowess.” Starscream wagged a paternalistic finger at him, as though scolding a misbehaving new-build. “I’ve read your writing and, you see, I agree. What I want is to help other break their chains like I have, like you have. I need your help.”
Freeing the masses would earn Starscream their undying love and adulation. He would have power and resources… and no one would be able to oppress or control him again.
“I see why Sentinel Prime is so frightened of you, rightfully so, but he won’t come for you in Vos. He can’t stand the Winglord.”
He watched as Megatron’s optics shifted, from a stern glare to wide in confusion, like he hadn’t expected this, not from a comparatively wealthy aristocrat.
“If you help me, if we help each other… we can make that happen. While I have resources, you have the sparks of the downtrodden.”
Starscream’s grin grew wider, knowing that his words were sinking in.
Any moment now, Megatron would realize what was being offered: everything he could ever have wanted.
“I want you to be my second-in-command, but before that can happen, while everything is still put into motion… there is an intermediary position available to hold us over.”
He sighed theatrically and dramatically slid down the seat of the transport, throwing the back of his arm against his forehead in faux dismay.
“My beloved bodyguard died in a tragic accident last month and I’ve been inconsolable ever since.”
For many upper caste mechs, a “bodyguard” was often synonymous with a “lover,” in addition to the expected protection duties. It was a sneaky way to find an official posting for a partner that wouldn’t have been socially acceptable.
Starscream, having ensured that he had spared no expense on personal grooming today specifically, hoped that wouldn’t be too off-putting. After all, who could resist the lightly perfumed wax he had used? Or how it made his natural paint colors shine with a glossy finish?
Besides, he was sure even a paintless guttermech like Megatron could clean up nice too… or he could stay covered in the spilled fuel of their enemies like a ruffian if he really felt like it, if the mood called for it. The lupanoid fuel at the end of the day’s match had been quite charming in its own… homey way. It reminded him of his own days of fighting for his next meal, though it was more keeping it from thieves rather than for public consumption of glorified violence.
Starscream was flexible.
Either way could be fun.
Of course, that would all be voluntary aside from maintaining the pretense in public. Though it needn’t have been a pretense.
“I’m afraid it keeps happening. The poor things drop like flies. I may be cursed to perpetual sparkbreak, but surely… surely that won’t happen to you? I certainly hope it doesn’t.”
Starscream winked, hoping Megatron was clever enough to pick up on the ruse.
A cover story, an official narrative.
All so convenient to explain why a towering mech with a reputation for skilled violence would be dutifully following Starscream around. While Starscream didn’t really need “protection” as he was sure Megatron would doubtlessly soon see with his own optics, it was the story that mattered, for the public eye.
All he saw, however, was Megatron skeptically raise an optical ridge.
Ah, yes.
The benefits.
He would want those, an essential part of any self-respecting job offer.
That was probably the source of the hesitation.
“Of course, you’ll receive a regular stipend, with included in-house room and board, and access to the finest medics in Vos.”
Still reclined, he waved his free hand in the air.
“And if you’re feeling a little pent up, you might find your duties could include some voluntary late night shifts. Flexible ‘scheduling’ is one of the perks.”
Starscream flapped his wings enticingly—as much as he could while practically lying down anyway—to underscore the point, the jacquard smoothly sliding across his polished plating.
Megatron finally moved, leaning away as though insulted at the insinuation that interfacing might be expected of him in exchange for his freedom.
“I’m not a buymech—“
“No, no, of course not,” Starscream interjected. “Entirely optional and has no bearing on your compensation, but with you as my personal ‘bodyguard,’ it will be assumed by outside observers.”
He finally sat up, shifting a little to keep his legs crossed for comfort.
“So what do you say? Do we have a deal, tough guy?”
There was a reluctant sigh from the other side of the transport.
“Very well, you have a deal.”
“You see, I knew we could come to an understanding.” Wings canted high with pride as he stretched out a hand in a wordless offer to shake on it. “I look forward to seeing how you perform. You can start immediately.”