Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?”

― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Dinobot grimaced at the sight of his crewmates gleefully taking potshots at their Maximal prisoner. The leggy bat yelped in pain and fear as she danced around the lasers aimed toward her pedes. She let out an exasperated “Oh, for the love of-!” before being brought to the rocky ground by another bout of energon poisoning-induced electrocution.

From his hip, he distantly heard Skold ask if he wanted to take a shot, with Terrorsaur egging on the brutality fervently. Just half a hic away, the Maximal began to shut down.

“I think I will take a shot,” Dinobot grumbled, lasers already heating behind his optics. He directed his gaze towards Tarantulas’ transformation lock and braced to shoot.

Dinobot could feel Tarantulas’ scream as the laser made contact and destroyed the prototype. The Maximal was released from its hold and she immediately shifted to beast form to make her escape.

“Fail me once, Dinobot,” Megatron snarled, “Shame on me. Fail me twice? Predacons- destroy him!”

Dinobot narrowly dodged the swipe of Tarantulas’ claws as the spider charged toward him. The mad scientist was incensed. 

“That prototype was one of a kind!” Tarantulas hissed between blows. “You destroyed my baby!”

“Your baby was an abomination ,” Dinobot snarled as he brought his pede to crash against Tarantulas’ chestplate with a clang. “You will pay for this!” Tarantulas howled as he went down.

“Do you have no sense of loyalty?” Dinobot ducked to avoid a torrent of fire from Scorponok and turned to face his remaining crew members. He grit his dentae in disgust at the sight of them, disappointed in himself for offering them his loyalty in the first place.

“Blind loyalty is for the simple-minded,” Dinobot growled, and grabbed Terrorsaur to chuck him at Scorponok. “I’ll kill any enemy that I face in battle. I live to fight. But I also respect my enemies. There is no honor in torture!” He threw out his elbow to connect with Waspinator’s mandible as the bot attempted to take him from behind.

“Traitor!” Skold howled as she sunk her armored fist directly into Dinobot’s face. His faceplates stung in surprise at the small turtle’s strength and audacity. Dinobot could feel her anger coming off in waves.

“I have not betrayed myself or the principles I believe in. I’ve just stopped pretending that Megatron’s beliefs are anything that I can respect!” He spat, and somersaulted away, shifting into beast mode for agility. “It’s not too late for you, Skold. You can do better,” he added before swiping his dewclaw at her.

“I don’t abandon others! They didn’t abandon me!”

Dinobot dodged a snap from her jaws. “You’re too young to understand yet,” he transformed to grab her shell, “If victory is to mean anything ,” Skold retreated into her shell with a frightened squeak as he hefted her up, “It needs to be achieved as honestly as possible.” Dinobot tossed her frame like a lobbing ball into Megatron, knocking the whole crew back into the Darksyde.

“Computer! Initiate Darksyde security defense protocol, code OMNICRON-D7.”

Acknowledged. Full lockdown initiated.

Dinobot let out a satisfied smirk as the hull doors of the Darksyde whirrred and kliked to a shut. He’d successfully bought himself enough time to put a sizeable distance between himself and the Predacon base before the next solar cycle. Backing away from the hull, he slipped into his alt-mode. If I had known I was to defect today, I would have snatched the disks while I had the chance, he groused internally. I’ll have to come back for them.

Before he could sprint off in the night, Dinobot was distracted by a distinctive grunt to his side.

The Maximal!

It appeared that despite Dinobot’s destruction of Tarantulas’ device, the Maximal had not found the strength to flee. He tapped his dewclaws thoughtfully as he watched the bat give a pitiful attempt to flop away on shaky wings. She paused to let out a cry as her frame convulsed from the residual effects of energon poisoning and electrical torture, and then resumed her flopping.

Well, she’s certainly not going anywhere for a while. He stalked a bit closer, just out of the Maximal’s view. He pondered the consequences of helping the bat further. He did not not owe this bat anything, but it didn’t feel right to abandon it, defenseless at Megatron’s doorstep, especially after all the trouble he went through freeing her.

Perhaps I should just leave her. He looked down at the Maximal, still trying to scrabble away, panting from exhaustion. He looked back at the horizon.

A thundering WHUNG! came from inside the Darksyde . That was almost certainly Skold. She must be furious at him.

He thought of the pack of Predacons inside the ship, now agitated and vengeful, and looked down at the Maximal again. She wouldn’t stand a chance. Skold’s glyphs echoed in his mind. I don’t abandon others! 

WHUNG! WHUNG!

Would he still be honorable if he left her?

WHUNG!

“Oh, Pit!” He snarled, and stomped over to the struggling Maximal. “Get up! We’re getting out of here!”

“Get up! We’re getting out of here!”

Nyx startled at the sudden voice. She flipped around to look up at the voice. Her optics met with the piercing reptilian stare of the velociraptor who had freed her from the transformation lock. Nyx’s spark thrummed wildly. The Predacon! What is he doing out here?

“We don’t have much time, Maximal. The Darksyde’s lockdown protocol lasts a solar cycle. Let’s go.”

Nyx heaved herself up as much as she could. “Why should I trust you? You guys almost killed me!”

That received an aggravated huff from the saurian. Way to antagonize the enemy again, Nyx. “I spared you from an undignified death at Tarantulas’ servos, did I not?”

Well. She couldn’t argue with that fact, gruesomely as the Predacon had put it.

“Now hold on, normally I’m a reasonable bot, but after the day I’ve had I think I have a right to be a little skeptical. You’re a Pred. What’s the catch?”

Another frustrated huff. She was testing her luck. “There is no catch, Maximal. Other than that your chances of deactivating out here are significantly higher should I rescind my offer.”

Nyx narrowed her optics. 

“Okay.”

“It is settled then. Maximize and I can walk you to the end of comms-blackout.”

Nyx strained and tried to shift back to her root form, with no avail. She let out a frustrated grunt, and turned to the Predacon.

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

She could feel the residual crackle of Tarantulus’ device in her circuits. Nyx shifted uncomfortably from the reminder of the torture she had experienced. The Predacon cocked his head toward her. 

“Ah. It would seem that you did not escape unscathed.”

Nyx shot him with an incredulous raise of her optical ridge.

“Oh, really? I couldn’t tell. I thought electrocution was completely harmless.”

“Careful, Maximal, I could change my mind, and leave you to rot.” 

Distantly remembering the Predacon’s speech about honor during his defection, Nyx decided to dig in. “Sure, but is it truly honorable to leave me, a tiny little Maximal, defenseless and directionless in a data desert?”

“You mistake my honor for chivalry.”

“Of course.” Nyx blinked with faux innocence. She received a grumble in return, and then watched as the velociraptor whirred into root form. Nyx let out an undignified squawk when the towering Pred leaned over to pluck her off the ground. The Predacon began striding east.

Sensing that this would take a while, and that she had no other choice, Nyx settled in.

“So uh. My name is Nyx. What’s yours?”

The Predacon groaned to the sky.

Chapter Text

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”

― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Cheetor had lost track of how long he had had his servos in the Axalon’s circuitry. He and Nyx had been working tirelessly since the crew had onlined from their emergency crash a couple cycles ago. Except that for half of that time, Nyx had been MIA, and no other bot besides him on the ship seemed to give a frag that their pilot hadn’t returned from her joyride yet.

Cheetor had followed Optimus’ suggestion to keep on trying to reconnect their comms link with the protoform pods, but with little success. He had tried to bury himself in work to avoid thinking about his friend, alone and in the dark on this strange new planet. 

It’s not that Cheetor doubted Nyx’s competency, but his friend had a history of digging holes she couldn’t get out of. Stellar cycles ago, a band of thieves, much like their current Pred problem, tried to smuggle out transwarp drives from a Praxian shipyard close to their original station. Nyx “resolved” the issue by slamming their crew’s warp-hopper into the local spacebridge before they could leave planetside and make their escape. Praxus appreciated her ingenuity in capturing the thieves, but the thousands of shanix in damage? Not so much. Nyx’s… creative way of piloting often landed her in hot oil with their superiors, and consequently the Axalon. Her strategic brilliance came at a destructive price, and what was left of their ship was proof of that. (He really wished that she could have figured some other way to get the Preds off their tail).

Shaking his head at the thought of Nyx’s antics, he returned to detangling the wires in the sensory panel that seemed to have a processor of their own. He could only hope that Nyx wasn’t making more trouble than necessary for herself out there.

After just a few joors travelling with her… captor? Rescuer? Road trip buddy? All three? Nyx had deduced exactly three certainties about Dinobot:

1. He doesn’t like small talk (which makes Nyx’s determination of these certainties all the more impressive, in her humble opinion).
2. Dude has a serious thing going on for honor. (Is it a metaphor for his long-lost lover or something?)
3. When he does speak, he monologues., and it’s in this weird, obsolete rhythm of glyphs, almost like a sparkbeat. (She could have sworn hearing something akin to it in her proto-batch education vorns ago).

Unfortunately for Nyx, this information was basically useless to her. Weaseling out the personality ticks of the errant Predacon only offered the reward of temporarily distracting her from the pain in her circuits and the humiliation of being carried like a protoform through enemy territory by the enemy . If she ever made it back to base, Cheetor would hold it over her head for stellarcycles.

“Test your communicator Maximal, we should be just outside of the dead zone.”

Nyx leaned forward with a surge of excitement.

“You don’t need to tell me twice! Nyx to the Axalon, over!” 

Nothing.

“Helllooo? Roger? Anybody? Scrap.” She turned to Dinobot sheepishly. “Either my comms are shot, or we aren’t out of the dead zone yet. Or both.”

“How ideal. ” Dinobot spat in a way that indicated this was definitely not ideal.

“I’m serious! Listen, I didn’t ask to have my internals barbecued!”

“Oh, really? That is not the way it seemed when you directly provoked Megatron, a highly volatile individual, by attacking the most fragile part of his ego. I’d call you brave if it wasn’t such a suicidal move.”

“Like defecting from those maniacs isn’t also suicidal?!?”

Dinobot didn’t reward her with a response. Jeez, another sore spot? This ‘bot is turning out to be less mysterious than I thought.

“Alright, that was a bit harsh. Sor-”

“Are you able to maximize now?”

Aaand we’re deflecting from apologies now. Nyx checked her internal readouts. “I think my systems have calmed down enough. Put me down and I’ll try.”

Dinobot complied. She couldn’t tell if the strain in his arms was because she was heavy or if Dinobot was seriously holding back on just dropping her to the ground. It wouldn’t be the first time she had ticked someone off to that level. Megatron’s ugly helm, leering over her as the conduits hooked to her circuits jolted painfully, optics blazing red as he demanded everything she knew or else-

Nope! Nopenopenopenopenope she was not going to think about that right now. It was time to focus.

“Nyx, maximize!” To her relief, she did, and let out a joyful leap at her success. Or, at least, that’s what her processor told her, because her optical feed was showing that she was faceplate-flat in the dirt. “Ow.”

Dinobot let out a rumble of laughter. “I didn’t think you would bite the dust this early, Maximal.”

Did he seriously just make a joke ?  

“You do remember what my name is, right?” Nyx grumble was muffled. She lifted herself up and dusted the dry soil from her frame. “What now?”

Dinobot fixed his gaze broodily at the mountains on the horizon, like a renegade in a classic Acid Wastes holovid. “Terrorsaur said that he shot you down over a marsh forty-five kliks from our base, just beyond those mountains. He did not see your ship, and our successive scans revealed nothing within three-hundred kliks of the Darksyde. What exactly, pray tell, were you doing out there?”

Nyx ducked her head. “Opti-, er, my captain asked me to stretch my wings and do a scouting sweep around the perimeter of our base. I might have gotten a little carried away.”

“That is an overstatement.” Dinobot brought a clawed digit to his chin. “Do you still have the data you gathered on your joyride?”

“Hey! It wasn’t a joyride!”

“Nevertheless, if you still have the data, then perhaps-”

“I can track my steps back to base!” 

“...Yes.” The Predacon seemed a bit miffed at being cut off. “I shall accompany you to your base.”

Nyx stiffened. Yeah, remember when she said she had this guy figured out? Scrap that. “I thought that you were honorable, not chivalrous.” She teased.

“Once again, this is not a matter of chivalry, protoform. It is of logic. You,” He pointed a claw at her, “Are still too damaged to survive the journey alone, with no comms to boot. And before you jump to conclusions, and think that this is some sort of charity, remember that I too am in an unfavorable position as a defector.” 

“So I’m just your bargaining chip in case things go sour? After what you did, I don’t think Megatron would spare you, even with the appeal of a returned prisoner.”

“You misunderstand me.” His tone grew serious. “Maximal, I intend to join your crew.”

“But not the Maximals.” 

“No.”

Nyx let out a sigh. Well, not giving me back to Megatron is good enough for now. “I guess we better get a move on then.”

“Lead the way, bat.”

To say the least, their journey was not going well. In fact, it wasn’t even really going, if Nyx was being honest. She was pretty sure that they had passed the same rock formation at least twice, and Dinobot had somehow grown even crankier, which was something she didn’t know was even scientifically possible. She was trying to shoulder on, but even her confidence in their navigational success was dwindling. Primus, and I’m supposed to be good at this, too!

As if on cue, Dinobot let out a growl. “Are you defective, Maximal? Because it would appear that we are going nowhere!”

“I don’t understand what’s wrong!” Nyx exclaimed. “I’ve been retracing my flight path exactly , and- Oh, no.”

“What is it?” Dinobot hissed urgently.

Nyx felt as if she could cry. “I. I think my navigational files got corrupted. I don’t know when- Maybe in the torture chamber, or when Tarantulas had the transformation lock on me, or, or-” Her optics fritzed. Scrap. She hated feeling so powerless. Apparently taking her dignity wasn’t enough, Megatron had to take away her competency too. 

“Calm down!” Dinobot snapped. “Panicking will do us no good. I should have anticipated this anyway. We must carry on before Megatron’s crew catches up with us.”

“But how will we get back to base? You don’t know the way and I can’t even trust my own processor!”

“Then we will just have to do it the old-fashioned way .” Dinobot said as he leaned down and dragged a clawed digit through the dirt. 

Tarantulas’ Lab.

“Computer! How long until the Darksyde completes lockdown procedure?”

Approximately nineteen joors until Darksyde lockdown cycle ends, sir.

Tarantulas hummed to himself. As enraged as he was at the murder of his precious creation, he could wait. Tarantulas had always preferred to scheme his revenge anyway, in order to plot every intricate detail of suffering. Yes, nineteen cycles was just the perfect amount of time to spin a uniquely painful and nasty punishment for the traitor Dinobot.

Chapter Text

“Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting / 
That would not let me sleep.”
― Shakespeare, Hamlet

Only half a joor had passed since Dinobot and Nyx had begun their tracking endeavor, but the blazing star above and the hunger in their tanks had stretched the time into a gooey mess and had scorched the ground beneath their pedes. The horizon pitched into a white line, mixing the azure sky and the cinnabar landscape into a hazy white line. 

The pair were following a dried stream track. It was a deep gouge in the dirt and looked promising when they first started following it. Perhaps it would lead to the lush forests close to where Nyx’s crew had crashed. But the streambed was very old, Dinobot knew, baked into the dirt by the yellow star and told of another biome long gone. But it was their best lead. Their only lead. 

What a nasty situation I am in, Dinobot groused internally. He thought of the events that brought him here. Galavar’s speeches and oozing, about becoming Megatron and restoring the Predacons to their proper place in society, the very same place the original Megatron had promised their ancestors thousands of vorns ago. In truth, Dinobot had joined Megatron for greatness. His life on Cybertron, as a Predacon, offered him no purpose and no glory. There would be no honor for him to die quietly in a decaying hab-suite in Southern Cybertron. He thought that perhaps he could die a hero in this fight to see his people have justice. And so he signed on as Megatron’s security director. But Dinobot had only been willing to put up with Megatron’s cruelty to a point.

He caught sight of the Maximal rubbing her chest, right where she had been hooked up to the interrogation circuits. He should have paid more attention to the neon-blazing signs that led to this event. The unnecessary violence, talking to a rubber ducky like a trusted confidant, the ability to give Tarantulas free rein of a state-of-the-art lab and still recharge at night. Dinobot felt like a fool for not leaving sooner.

“The Devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape,” he grumbled to himself.

“Sorry, what? The Devil?”

Dinobot was shaken from his thoughts. He looked up to see an inquisitive Nyx, with her servos on her hips and an optical ridge raised high in amusement. A wry smile in spite of her apparent exhaustion.

“It is nothing.” 

“There you go with the brooding, again.”

“I heard that!” Dinobot snapped. This Maximal was infuriatingly nosy. Dinobot was positive that there had not been a single silent nano-cycle this entire journey. “Do Maximals not appreciate the virtue of silence?”

Nyx rolled her optics. “Virtue of silence? Ha! That’s rich, coming from the ‘bot who served under Megatron, the Pred who never shuts up.”

“Megatron is not representative of the Predacons, and does not honor our values.”

“How so? He seems like the model Pred to me.” She shuddered slightly. “Though definitely more bloodthirsty…” 

“You are merely thinking of what Maximal command has taught you,” Dinobot growled. “Ironhide and his underlings are afraid of another Great War, and demonize us so we cannot get the power we need to return to our rightful place in society.”

“Um, that didn’t really answer my-”

Nyx was interrupted by a simultaneous ping from their respective fuel systems.

“Well, scrap. You wouldn’t happen to have any fuel on you, would you?”

“Negative.” Dinobot ran a quick scan of their surroundings. “And it appears that despite this planet being rich with energon, there isn’t any within reasonable distance.”

“Not that we’d even be able to convert it if we found some.”

The pair fell into an uncomfortable silence. Without fuel, it would be pointless to carry on.

“Maybe… no way, that would be crazy,” Nyx half-muttered at his side, shaking her helm slightly.

Dinobot turned to face her more directly. “What is it? We are without options. Whatever… ideas you may have could be of import.”

“I dunno, I have a feeling you might not like it,” Nyx winced awkwardly. “It’s kind of out there.”

Another ping! sounded from his fuel system, but not Nyx’s. Concerning, but that detail would have to wait for later. 

“Just spit it out! We don’t have much time!” Dinobot hissed.

“Alright, fine!” Nyx wobbly threw her servos up in the air. “Back at the Axalon, I saw Rattrap eating some local fruit. I don’t know if it converted to energy for him, but at least he could process it, so maybe we could do the same?”

Dinobot was beginning to see what Nyx was saying. “And since we are in a place with an obvious lack of fruit, you are suggesting…”

Nyx glanced down at his talons. “Yeah. I'm suggesting that."

"Well," Dinobot’s lips curled in a sneer, "we'd better start the hunt, then." He folded into velociraptor form and trotted off.

“Hey, wait up!” Nyx scrambled to jog behind him. “Where are you going?”

“Finding us fuel, like you suggested!” Dinobot snarled.

“Well, wait up! Let me help!”

Dinobot rolled his optics and slowed to a trot. The Maximal jogged up next to him.
 
“So, what’s the plan?”

“Find a beast,” Dinobot paused for dramatic effect, “and kill it.”

“Well, that’s um… great. I was thinking of something with more. Steps. And strategy.”

Dinobot let out a snarl. “Does it need to be strategic?”

“Don’t tell me you’re that stupid!” Nyx stomped over and poked him hard in the fuel system. “We’re both running low on juice and if we don’t play this right, we’re not gonna get a second chance!”

Dinobot closed his optics and hissed softly in frustration. She was right. Unfortunately. Infuriatingly.

“Alright then, what would you suggest, little strategist?”

Nyx huffed. “Okay, ignoring the sass there. I did have an idea…”

***
“Just so you are aware, this is the worst plan I have ever agreed to,” Dinobot grumbled to Nyx. The two were crouched behind a pitifully small and shriveled shrub to the side of the streambed, peering over at the plan.

“Pshh, it can’t be worse than your half-engineered idea to leave the Preds. And shhhh! You’re making too much noise.”

The irony. Dinobot rolled his optics.

Nyx had devised a relatively simple plot to draw their kill. Make some noise, pounce and kill. Risky, but their only choice. To attract a beast, they had smashed Nyx’s portable navbox to produce a shrieking, hopefully prey-like sound. 

Joors seemed to pass as the navbox fitzed, sputtered, and wailed to the waning blue sky. Nyx and Dinobot lay in tense wait. Smaller creatures skittered by with mild interest and alarm, none worth the energy it would take to pounce.

Time continued to sludge by, and Dinobot could tell that Nyx was starting to fade. Her optics, though fixed on the bait, were starting to droop. Dinobot opened his intake to speak but was interrupted by a low grumble and sniff from the direction of their trap. The two bots snapped to attention. A huge quadruped, scaly and marbled with horns and a fat tail, sniffed at the navbox with its snout. It batted the box with its claws in interest.

“Now!” Nyx hissed.

Dinobot launched toward the beast and barreled into its side, taking it down with a surprised garble. Dinobot reared his claws and scored into its flesh. The animal’s terrible jaws opened to reveal rows of dripping fangs. Before it could strike, Dinobot rolled away and jumped on its back to pin it. The creature bucked and struggled against Dinobot’s claws. Bellowing, it swung its horns and Dinobot hopped off, the deadly strike just grazing his flank. The beast rose to its legs and began to flee.

Scrap! It’s going to get away, he thought.

“Gyahhhhhhh!!!” Nyx shrieked from his left, spooking the beast back into Dinobot’s range. Taking the opportunity, he let out a vicious snarl and plunged his dewclaw into the creature’s neck. Red liquid gushed from the wound and the beast staggered to the ground once more, shrieking until it wheezed into a death rattle. The eyes grew filmy as the animal stilled. 

“Woah, that was intense.” Nyx approached the corpse carefully as if anticipating that it would reanimate and lash out. She poked its leg. “What a hoss!”

“A shame we had to fell it,” Dinobot said, and he meant it. It was a truly majestic creature, and it no doubt had once ruled this patch of desert. He lifted his helm to the darkening sky in a silent prayer. To Nyx’s credit, she stood silently to the side while he prayed. 

After finishing his prayer, Dinobot laid the creature out and used his dewclaw to cut the flesh into cubes, reminiscent of the processed energon back on Cybertron. He tossed a few cuts to Nyx, who looked slightly ill at the prospect of eating it but was too hungry to argue. Satisfied that the Maximal had enough to fuel, Dinobot bit into the sinew and muscle himself. The flesh was tough, rubbery, and spoke of a difficult and unrewarding life in the desert. Dinobot hoped that it had been worth the struggle and that the beast would sustain them for the next few solar cycles. Immediately he felt a surge of satisfaction and renewed energy. Internally, he watched his fuel gauge tick upward with relief and excitement. The Maximal was right. A happy wing flap to his right signaled that Nyx had noticed, too, and had begun to tear delightedly into the meat cubes he had cut. Both consumed in hurried silence, punctuated by snaps of leathery flesh.

***

“Oh, Solus,” Nyx sighed and sprawled on her back. “I haven’t felt this full since we left Cybertron!”

“Agreed.”

“I mean, look, we didn’t even finish it!” Nyx gestured to the remaining animal carcass. “We’re gonna have to, like, carry it or something.”

“A waste of energy, surely.”

“Not if you do the thing,” Nyx pointed her digits and slashed the air.

Dinobot sniffed. 

“But that can wait. We worked hard today.” 

“Agreed, once more. This planet’s night has begun. We ought to rest.”

Nyx nodded. “With the kill, we have time now, to plan and stuff.”

“Lots of plans, with you.”

“I’m not rewarding that with a response.” 

“You already did.”

“I give up! I’m going to recharge.” Nyx rolled to her side with a huff.

Dinobot rolled his optics and did the same.