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Cybertron’s not a large planet in the grand scheme of things, and its gravitational field is correspondingly weak. Matters are only made worse near the anomalous terrain in the south, where the vast canyons and low-hanging debris fields almost make it look as if something massive ripped its way out of the core of the planet. The surface there is a difficult place to live, for most ground bound Cybertronians, and it’s nearly impossible to eke out an existence in the furthest extremities.
In other words, it's cheap land down there.
Cheap enough to build a vast military base on, for a new experimental military jet model.
Cheap enough that when the whole flock of highly aggressive military jets revolted against the government that had commissioned them, the cost of the facilities was the least of their concerns.
And cheap enough that when the government, fed up with their failed attempts at cajoling and threatening their jets back under control, finally gave up the whole experiment…nobody really minded it when the disposal was messy.
The first wave of missiles were intended to strike the low orbit mobility jets on the underside of the Vertically-constructed Orbital Station. It would have left VOS-1 unable to maneuver, and vulnerable to a precise second attack that would ground it over unoccupied wasteland. But whether by malice or miscalculation, the attack came crashing down on and through a vulnerability in the shields instead, clipping one of the three massive antigrav engines. It belches out smoke, and the entire structure begins, ponderously, to list to one side.
Its shadow begins to eclipse a mid-sized settlement on the ground. From Soundwave’s distant cameras, the descent appears slow, but Megatron can see the atmospheric burn on the edges of the station. Terminal velocity. The jets, thickly armored and capable of surviving re-entry heat, are evacuating in great black clouds, but it’s almost certainly too late for everyone else.
The sky and ground finally meet, in a cataclysmic embrace that even the mechs on the other side of the planet could feel. The camera shakes, and the screen brightens to an unbearable degree before the signal is lost.
For the Autobot Council, it’s a problem resolved. For the Decepticons, it's an opportunity.
Megatron heaves himself out of his seat.
“Soundwave. We’re going to send rescue and recruitment teams. I think it’ll be best if I go myself.”
This close to the impact zone, smoke is so thick that none of the structures are clearly visible anymore. Megatron feels his way forwards with sonar and infrared, but it’s slow going. He heaves a sooty, unrecognizable obstruction out of his way, checking on the still frame pinned beneath it. This one’s deactivated too. What a waste.
His comms notifications go off.
Megatron— Lord Megatron. This is Thundercracker, formerly of the Station Guard. We’ve finished rounding up all able-bodied survivors from the outskirts. I’ve passed your message along, and every frame has agreed to join the Decepticon forces. There’s a couple thousand of us, I think, but Soundwave has the full roster.
Megatron pauses. A smile curls over his faceplates as he replies. Good. We cannot allow the governing bodies of our planet continue with their delusions of dictatorship.
Yessir. May I ask what our next move is?
Meet me at the closest refugee encampment. We need to send the survivors a message. Megatron looks around, at the leveled landscape. VOS-1 has been destroyed at the hands of the cowardly Autobots. But your spirit has not been quenched.
As Megatron tramps onwards towards the encampment, he drafts the speech in his head. Of course, his priority is to rouse the fighting spirits of the survivors. Megatron being here, heading the wave of first responders himself, is already a massive public relations victory— but they can push that further.
Another filtration system warning interrupts his train of thought. Megatron dismisses the whole queue and frowns. His progress is actually growing slower the further he gets from the epicenter of the impact. This far away, partially collapsed structures litter the ground, piled just high enough that alt mode travel would be more trouble than it’s worth.
He’s almost at the meeting place when an anomaly shows up on his infrared— a completely black rectangle at the side of the road. Megatron immediately heads for it. A panic room? Now that’s interesting. Perhaps there’ll be some interesting data for Soundwave to parse, or treasure to add to the coffers. Maybe even another surviving mech.
The panic room is more or less intact, but it’s obviously badly damaged from the fall. Megatron wrenches the door open with a tremendous noise and peers inside. The space behind it is small— enough room for one or two mechs and some emergency supplies, just about, but it seems quite empty. There’s some soft steelweave on the ground, and an overturned crate, and energon. Not that much of it, just a few battered cubes, but Megatron isn’t in the habit of letting fuel go to waste. He leans down to pick them up, and—
Something launches itself at him. Too slow to be a projectile— small, minibot assassin?— Megatron’s arm is already moving to slap it away before additional details register. Tail, hissing: Ravage??— don’t hurt him — and—
Megatron stares at the furious, yowling cybercat in his grasp. It’s tiny— much, much smaller than Ravage— but nobody would know that from the sound alone. Its claws skitter uselessly over his thick forearm armor, scarlet eyes glowing bright. It is, somehow, completely untouched in all the carnage.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, stupidly.
The cybercat pauses its caterwauling to stare at Megatron like it’s judging him. It blinks, revving its tiny engine, and then arches its head down to bite Megatron’s servo. A component goes crunch, loudly.
Megatron does not squeeze the stupid thing’s head off, although the temptation is real. He tries to extract his thumb from the little menace’s grip.The cybercat snarls and bites down even harder.
Despite himself, he’s somewhat amused. “I am a thousand times your mass. I’ve killed Predacons with nothing but my servos. What is your plan here, you stupid cat? Are you going to bite me to death with those tiny fangs?”
As a non sentient creature, its language processors aren’t nearly advanced enough to understand what Megatron is saying. But perhaps something in Megatron’s tone reassures the thing that he means it no malice, because its jaws gently relax. Megatron slowly extracts his trapped digit. The cybercat squirms, bracing its hind legs on the ridges between armor plates on Megatron’s palm. With its position secured, it licks Megatron’s energon off its fangs and chirps.
Megatron’s spark absolutely does not warm at the sight. He brings the animal closer to his chest anyways, supporting its hindquarters with his other hand. Like this, he can finally take a good look at the creature. It’s brilliantly colored, with a red pelt and white underbelly, and bright blue legs. Practically Autobot in coloration, were it not for its properly Decepticon red optics. He takes a visual capture and sends it to Soundwave.
“You’re a little fighter, aren’t you? Good. It’s so hard to find suitably motivated troops these days. I have high hopes for the Vosians, and you certainly haven’t disappointed so far…”
Above, a jet wheels and descends. A bulky blue jet flips out of alt mode and lands in front of Megatron. The mech snaps a clean salute. “Sir,” he says. “This is Thundercracker, from comms—Primus!”
Thundercracker stares, eyes wide open in shock, at the cybercat.
“You know this animal?” Megatron asks.
“That’s the Air Commander’s pet cybercat! Some exotic breed that he got as a gift, I think?” Thundercracker moves his open hand closer and clicks his tongue, voice gentle. “C’mere, Little Pretty. Recognize me? It’s TC.”
The cybercat ignores him completely to keep licking Megatron, and Thundercracker visibly wilts. “The troops would take turns watching over it. I can’t believe that it’s still alive— I hadn’t the time to think about it at all, in the chaos.”
“I see,” Megatron says. Experimentally, he wiggles his fingers at the cybercat, and it bats at them cutely, finally managing to catch another one of Megatron’s fingers and shove it into its sharp little maw. Thundercracker lurches forwards. Megatron laughs. “What a ridiculous name for a feisty little creature. We’ll have to call you something more fitting, for sure…”
“You’re going to keep him?” Thundercracker asks, visibly surprised.
“Why not?” Megatron says. Most of his attention is still captured by the feeling of the cybercat’s rough little tongue on his fingers. A warm tingling sensation spreads in Megatron’s frame.
“Well, that’s fair enough.” Thundercracker says. He eyes Megatron speculatively. “And I guess you’re way bigger than any of us. You’ve probably got antivenins and stuff anyways, so it should be fine.”
“Antivenins?” Megatron repeats.
“Uh, yeah?” Thundercracker says. “The bites aren't that much of a problem, but the paralytic venom left me knocked out for like, a whole shift once. I guess cute little things have to be able to protect themselves too, on Cybertron.”
Megatron belatedly realizes that the warm tingly sensation has intensified quite a lot. Actually, it’s getting quite difficult to register anything from his whole sensornet.
Soundwave finally replies to Megatron’s initial image capture. MEGATRON. PUT THAT THING DOWN RIGHT NOW. ETA: 5 KLIKS. BRINGING MEDIC.
Megatron’s vision goes momentarily black. When it clears, he’s staring up at the sky. He thinks that he can hear Thundercracker yelp in shock, but that’s not important. There’s only one thing on Megatron’s mind.
“Nobody kill that blasted cat,” Megatron manages to slur out. “Because I’m going to strangle it my sleffffffjjjjjjjjllll—”
All told, Megatron is only knocked out of commission for less than a day. When he boots his systems back up, however, the first thing that he sees is that fucking cybercat sleeping on his chest.
“You,” he forces out. The sound wakes it up, and it scrunches up its smug little animal face at Megatron.
“I’m going to feed you to a smelter,” Megatron continues. “Just you wait. As soon as I get up—”
The cat, completely uncowed, splays itself back over Megatron’s broad chest. It stretches out its bright blue front pedes and rests them gently against Megatron’s chin, as it begins to vibrate. Megatron looks at it, thoughtlessly vulnerable and eyes narrowed in pleasure.
“This isn't over,” he growls. “Damn brat.”
