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Standing in the warm hues of the setting sun, Optimus Primal stared at the horizon.
A full rotation around this system's star has passed since Dinobot died.
There was no place of burial - unlike some of the proto-humans, who hid the bodies under the dirt, Maximals had opted to disintegrate the frame of the dead; with nothing to place into the cold earth, there was no official place to visit to pay his respects.
Which meant that he could choose whichever spot made him recall the former comrade the fondest, and reminisce there on his own.
Looking over the field of flowers, ones which the warrior grudgingly learned appreciation of, Optimus briefly wondered if Rattrap had done something similar - out of the Maximal crew, they were the closest with the ex-Predacon. Maybe the other mech was somewhere, drinking some contraband high grade and bickering with the memories to help soothe their aching sparks. They spent a relatively short time with Dinobot, but the impression on their lives had been left, carved deeply into their beings.
"What a waste of a warrior, was it not?"
With alarm, Primal turned to look at the sitting form of Megatron, legs crossed as he perched on top of a large boulder. The surprise of not noticing the t-rex before - or worse, not noticing his approach in his time of quiet reflection, where his steps should have been easy to hear - quickly gave way to confusion; the words were spoken with less vitriol than he would have expected coming from the Predacon. Preemptively switching to bot mode, he started to power up his weapons with a low hum in warning.
"Fret not, Optimus Primal - I do not come to quarrel, no," the purple mech assured, looking up at the starry sky above them, one of the servos raised placingly. The energon build-up was slowly creeping across his frame, the wisps of the surplus charge sweeping across the plating, but the bot didn’t spare it longer than a glance; he had a few more minutes before his systems would provide a danger warning that he would need to heed. He only turned his optics towards the firmament, dotted with lights of the faraway celestial bodies, making Optimus look at them as well - somewhere out there was where Dinobot's spark had gone, far away from their conflict.
Unsure about the odd change of pace, but used to Megatron's weird games which either left him tired or angry, he climbed up to join the bot on top of the rock, watching him closely - better to keep him in line of sight, where he could control if there wasn't some nefarious scheme happening right above his helm.
The leader of Maximals could have been tempted to call the Predacon’s expression wistful, had Megatron not smiled in a more familiar way that spoke of trouble - bringing him back to the usual dynamic and breaking the impression at once.
"Though it pains me to ignore the opportunity to take you out, yes… So openly weak, so obviously unfocused!" he gloated, looking at the mech pulling himself up, sitting on the edge with a huff.
"You said you weren't looking for a fight, so maybe don't give me reasons to start one," Optimus warned him, shaking his blaster semi-threateningly to drive his point home; he earned himself a scoff and roll of optics, at which he pulled the weapon away, holstering it securely.
"Relax, you Maximals are all wound up so tight!" the Predacon leader chastised him as well, stretching out to lay on his back, servos intertwined below his helm. His unprotected front made him appear deceptively vulnerable to attack; Primal had to remind his processor, against the whispers of his beast mode, that he couldn’t let his own guard down so easily, nor was the other as easy to take down as he looked like.
"And whose fault is that, I wonder?" he decided to ask rhetorically, with a pointed glance towards his opponent; sitting as he was, his back was open for attack from the t-rex, making him feel ridiculously unguarded. Relenting, he lowered himself on his elbows, hearing a chuckle from Megatron’s direction.
"The implication is noted, Optimus, but don't kid yourself that it will be taken into consideration," the Predacon replied to him anyways, shifting slightly as he beamed a self-satisfied grin back at his enemy.
"I'd be a fool to think so - I have met you, Megatron," grunted the Maximal, voice filled in equal measure with dry amusement and exhausted misery; the other mech laughed at this loudly, frame shaking in delight, startling whatever fauna was in the vicinity into a run. Primal couldn’t help a grin of his own, shoulders waggling to match the oddly enjoyable exchange.
After a moment they fell into companionable silence, the sound of the disturbance they caused fading away.
"You know me, Optimus," Megatron said suddenly, mouth curling in a soft smile as he turned on his side, facing the gorilla directly, as he added "And yet you are here, right within my reach, annoying me with your presence," optics filled with curiosity. This time, it was the Maximal that kept on looking up at the sky, shaking his helm at the question.
"You could have stayed silent and left before I saw you- oh, wait, no, how could I forget!" Primal replied in mock surprise, smacking his chestplates dramatically in exaggerated astonishment at his own misstep. Turning to the mech to finally glare back, he said teasingly:
"You are incapable of keeping quiet when there is an opportunity to hear your own voice."
"Such accusations!" Megatron replied in the same manner, as he rested his own servo on his helm - a picture of theatrical anguish. Optimus only snorted at that display, used to those antics by now. Seeing the fake indignation on the other’s face, he felt calmer at the familiarity.
Almost… comfortable.
"You didn't have to join me up here," the Predacon muttered, taking a brief look at the energon build-up levels; the lack of vocal warning was good, but it was a matter of time before he would have to shift back. He didn’t expect to bump into Primal on his little extrusion, but he couldn’t bring it in himself to regret calling out to the mech, even if he didn’t count on him coming up to stare at nothing in particular together.
"You didn't seem to mind," Optimus replied quietly, tilting his helm; if he was being criticized for acting differently, he would make sure to drag Megatron for it as well.
Letting out a soft sigh, they both fell quiet, watching the sky, ignoring the charge building up on their plating to the anguish of their internal system managers.
"I miss him every day, you know?" Optimus murmured, somber; the distraction of the other mech fell away, giving way for the mourning he came to do on his own in the first place here.
"Ugh, such a Maximal notion…"
The repulsion in the sentence was nearly tangible, making Primal look back at Megatron who screwed his face up in a grimace – like the idea was revolting enough to make him want to purge his tanks right there and then.
"You said it yourself, his death was a waste!" Optimus countered, raising himself, towering over the Predacon with accusation, unhappy to hear such a tone being taken with regards to his dead comrade. The other only clicked his lips in annoyance.
"Of a warrior, yes - I held him in high regard as a soldier, and it does pain me I couldn't keep him for longer," the bot explained, as if disappointed with such an overly emotional reaction. Not liking the looming presence above him, he started straightening himself up.
"But there is nothing for me to miss - he defected to your side, after all," he threw in as a defense, as they both ended up sitting again, side by side. Primal was still fuming, but at the weary grumble coming from the Predacon leader he forced himself to take a calming in-vent, bracing for whatever was going to come.
"Yet even now I have to admit that I still find myself accounting for his presence in the battle simulations," Megatron admitted with a grunt, stroking his armor lightly.
Optics resetting, Optimus had to admit it wasn’t what he was expecting to hear, but with a smile on his own, he realized he appreciated the change.
"I sometimes do that for the patrol roster, so I understand that very well," he remarked from his end, thinking about all the times he needed to scrap a plan because he kept on adding Dinobot in the operations. It was making him sad every time, but now at least he knew he wasn't the only one with this affliction.
"He was a reliable mech," he mentioned in a happy voice, glad to be able to bring out good memories like that; it was easy to forget the nice things that when buried alone in the sense of loss.
Who knew talking with his enemy would be so therapeutic?
"Very. Efficient, too," the t-rex agreed, nodding his helm. He reached into one of his compartments, pulling out a small portion to refuel; sipping on it slowly, he stared into the night. After a moment he harrumphed angrily, putting the container down.
"Shame about him and his honor, though, that was the least useful part of him - the least Predacon characteristic among otherwise pretty package," he complained loudly, pinching his nose. It wasn't hard to understand he was still regretting losing a valuable pawn.
"I liked that in him, so no wonder we clicked better - your loss, my gain," Optimus laughed in return, enjoying the other's defeat on that front. They suffered lots of uncomfortably Predacon ideas being thrown around with Dinobot present, but the mech still fit well with the Maximals.
"Touché," Megatron replied, taking another sip; it prompted his enemy to take his own one out. Seeing that, the t-rex threw in another observation in the mix:
"He was a right bastard sometimes, too."
"Oh yes, absolutely," his opponent said immediately, having no qualms about that; he still was trying to discern precisely why his friend decided to eat his clone, and how that fit in the code he lived by. All those months have passed, and he was nowhere close.
A cheery sound came from the other bot's vocalizer; turning towards him, Optimus noted Megatron held his servo out with a ration, waiting for him to catch on with the program.
A smile made its way on the gorilla's face, as he took out his own in return, stretching his arm to meet the other half-way.
"To Dinobot then - may his memory live on," Primal offered a toast, clinking the edges softly before sipping indulgently from the contents.
"The good and the bad," the Predacon raised his own ration, taking a long swing as well.
The critical warning came out of Megatron's direction, while Optimus noted his own levels were nor too far out. With a sigh, both of them switched back into beast modes – it was time to go back to their bases.
"I'll be seeing you here in a year, hmm?" Optimus asked, surprised to find that he actually meant it – he felt lighter after all of the back and forth between him and his enemy, while the pain associated with thinking of the dead comrade diminished by a small fraction, a little bit less biting. Megatron thought about it for a while, before he turned his helm slowly side to side, uncertain.
"Perhaps, though it feels disgustingly Maximal to indulge in such a pitiful display again - I'm sure Dinobot would have found it all sickeningly useless," he commented in lieu of properly answering, letting a shudder rock his t-rex form to showcase his loathing better.
"If it makes you feel better, Megatron, I could challenge you to a duel or something, to soothe the bruise on your ego, inflated as it is," Primal offered half-jokingly, letting himself down onto the ground from the boulder, waiting on the bottom to see how the other mech would deal with the drop.
"Such flattery, Optimus," the Predacon grunted out, testing his footing – he made his way up in this mode, he would find a way down as well. It didn’t help he needed to make sure he would not actually flop down in front of the other bot who was watching him focus with a wide smile on his face, arms crossed. Instead, Megatron decided to do what he usually did when nervous – he started talking even more.
"But no, you are annoyingly persistent in not dropping dead when I want you to," he admitted aloud with a weary groan, hopping down onto the ledge on the side, tail helping him keep the balance, to his own surprise. One step closer to the ground, he carried on:
"And if I did manage to win, I'd have to drag you back to the base to prove you are actually deactivated for good."
Using the time the other took to roll his optics, with another less-graceful slide down he made it close enough to risk a straight-up jump without tipping over his own toes. He took the chance, landing heavily on the dirt below, as he feigned just how much of a bother that would be.
"How do you think I'd do that, hmm? Have you seen my arms?" he waved the short appendages around, emphasizing just how unproportionally tiny they were. Primal only grinned at the flailing motions; if the Predacon was hoping to appear more dignified this way, he failed spectacularly, but he was in too good of a mood to point it out.
"So no, until I figure out how to take you out once and for all, I'd rather stick to other avenues, yes…" the mech clarified, using the opportunity to let his internals get back in order at the harsh landing; he managed not to fall, but the strain on his body to not do so was more taxing than he expected. Seeing the error messages fall away, he gained some of his confidence back.
Back on solid ground, legs less wobbly, Megatron decided to dismiss the other with another short gesture, starting to walk towards the base – which was coincidentally in the same direction as Optimus's, who breathed out a chuckle and soon appeared at his opponent’s side.
"Well, I'll be there to thwart your schemes again and again, so it's business as usual," Primal noted with humor, noticing the Predacon slowed down his steps to match his more leisurely pace.
"I'd expect nothing less," the other retorted with a degree of glee. It was fantastic to win over mechs like Optimus, the sheer pleasure of pulling one over the Maximal was always worth the hassle. It kept his wits sharp, which was what he needed to focus on if he was to win the Beast Wars…
"Still, if we don’t kill each other within a year, can I expect to see you here?" the question from his enemy brought him back from his thoughts; shrugging his small shoulders, he nodded his head minutely.
What could be the harm? By then he hoped to be rid of his opponent anyways…
"It's a date then!"
Stopping in his tracks, the t-rex turned back to look at the cheeky grin of the other leader with narrowed eyes. It was obvious he was trying to throw him out of balance with those comments, that damn Maximal bastard…
"I am going to make your death so painful it will become a stuff for legends, Optimus Primal," he vowed, walking again at a brisker stride; another bout of laughter reached his ears, as the gorilla yelled after his retreating form, not making any effort to catch up with the Predacon:
"Promises, promises, Megatron!"