Chapter Text
Wye
A punch collided with the side of her jaw, a proper punch would have a splitting pain sensation, but this was nothing more than a slight nuisance. The punch lacked precision, and if there had been any more force behind it, her adversary would have broken her hand. All signs point to an animator.
Cheers, burts around them as she fakes stumbling back, allowing her shoulder to hit the corner of the makeshift ring that creaked underneath her weight.
The crowd seemed not to understand the difference between a proper fight and one that can’t even be considered a friendly match.
Her adversary was a Thrulkun, a species with naturally strong build, including an extra set of limbs. With proper training and coordination, ‘Rosette’ could have been a decent fighter.
There was no hesitation as Rosette lunged forward, using two arms to swing an upper cut. She could take that hit head-on; she was sure it wouldn’t even phase her. But that wouldn’t be entertaining .
Once the fists made contact against her chin, she threw her weight onto the ropes while taking sharp breaths as if simple breathing was difficult.
And if it wasn’t entertaining, people would not bet on who will win. The crowd loved the show as they chanted applause; they had clearly never seen any real combat. If they head, they wouldn’t see this as entertainment.
A bell echoed throughout the reakery warehouse signaling the end of the second round. She could see it in Rosette’s four eyes that she wasn’t done, sending another blow directly in the center of her lower core.
She clutched her stomach, acting as if she didn’t see the blow, as she dramatically let her body crumble to the ground. That strike had carried enough power to make a regular person throw up, so she faked coughing and gasping for air.
The crowd seemed to take no kindly to the unseen blow, an uproar shook the warehouse walls. Too loud . Her ears wanted to instinctively flatten themselves to block out the painful sound, instead, she focused through the chaos to pick through the noise for words.
Cheers and boos, threats and pleys. Many shouted their own advice towards her, to use her claws and to get her head into the game. Nothing useful, they see the fight as nothing more than a game. They are blind to see the balance behind it all.
Through the poorly lit building, she focuses her eyes on Rosette's movements. The way her weight shifted with every step or how uneven her breathing was as she flounced around.
Rosette seemed to enjoy hyping up the crowd with boxing in the air, seeming to love the attention. She, on the other hand, hated it.
“Hey, Loser,” Rosette shouted loudly as she mockingly pressed her finger into an L shape to her forehead. Childish .
She had held onto hope that tonight there would be a good fight. One that allowed her to see a fighting style she’d never seen before, or an opponent strong enough that they could handle a few of her punches.
Tonight, all the fights have nothing more than regular folk trying to make money or a handful who want to let out steam by hitting something.
Rosette pursed her lips, seeming annoyed at the lack of reaction. She wanted to rile her up, but she simply lacked the knowledge of where to aim for the pressure points.
“Don’t worry, I’ll give you some money for a bus ticket back home,” Rosette whispered loud enough that Wye could hear.
There was no point in letting this match play out any longer, there was nothing to gain.
The bell hadn’t finished ringing when she sprinted at 20% of her top speed. An experienced fighter would be able to react, but Rosette didn’t even have her guard up.
Full-strength punch would break bones, and a well-placed hit could kill; it was a fine balance to knock out an opponent. Her right hook hit Rosette just hard enough for her eyes to roll to the back of her head before her body dropped to the ground.
Silence fell thickly onto the crowd as they tried to wrap their minds around what occurred.
The hit was too clean and precise for the fighting ring, she needed it to look somewhat believable. Any prying eyes could see through the act.
She stumbled forward, acting like the punch had been a fluke, that she was unable to keep her balance after a long, drawn-out fight, but the truth was that her feet weren’t seen sore.
Mentally, she checked Rosette for any serious injuries; breathing had stabilised, and her heart rate had been dropping to a resting rate. Other than a swollen face and a headache, she would be just fine.
Dal, the pudgy ringmaster, hurried to the stage. he took a second to catch his breath through his tusks before speaking. “We have a winner!”
Realisation hits the crowd as they begin to cheer and curse. Dal tried as always to reach for her wrist, but she simply stepped out of his reach as she made her way out of the ring.
Unlike the others, she didn’t raise a fist in triumph or strut around the ring; all she wanted was to get back into the shadows. The attention was overwhelming, as if someone was choking her.
She didn’t make it far as a crowd formed around, they wanted her to celebrate with them. There's nothing to celebrate .
“Hey, beautiful. Let me buy a drink.” A man offered, his breath reeked of booze. He was a big build and from the calico on his hand, he was a blue-collar worker. He would work perfectly.
There was a sparkle in his eyes as she made her way towards him; he stood taller with each step, and once she got close, anyone could see the height difference.
A smirk spread across his face, and his parting lip showed that he was missing a front tooth. “What do you drink, love?”
That single word carried a weight so heavy that it could destroy a person.
A polite smile slipped across her face, a skill she practiced for hours till it had become instinct.
The man kept his eyes locked onto her body, as if he blinked, she would be gone, and he was right. The moment his eyelids slid closed, she drifted to his right and then pivoted behind the man.
His bulky build worked perfectly to block her view of her, letting her seamlessly be swallowed up by the crowd. To be just another face in the sea of faces.
By the time the man turned around, she was gone. Kit always called it Ghosting. To be in someone's sight and in then next, vanishing into thin air. She was pretty good at it before meeting Ki,t but he had it mastered.
Once in a crowd, it was highly unlikely for any prying eyes to keep track. She did have identifiable features that worked against but her height made up for the difference.
No one noticed her presence, and she liked it that way.
Megatron
Since before the first shot rang out all those millennia ago, he had pondered countless questions. Politics, military strategy, and everything in between. Recently, however, he would catch himself wondering a single question, one that would destroy everything he’d built over the centuries. It was a question he refused to entertain in his helm.
“Knockout, what do you have for me?” Megatron spoke with a tone of authority that commanded respect.
The medic was quick to put away his tools as he picked up a data pad. His digits scratched the pad as he scrambled to find the right file. He had been tasked with gathering information on the recently recovered artifacts.
The artifacts they recovered were different from the others. It didn’t look exactly Cybertronian; it resembled more of a fleshing pocket watch. Silver in color, it has detailed metal carvings of what could be assumed to be water. The only thing of interest about the artifact is an engraving on the back, words written in old Cybertronian. Time isn’t on your side.
A cryptic threat.
“From what I’ve gathered so far-That it was a gift from the Primes themselves to an unknown individual,” Knockout spoke as his digit scrolled down on his tablet. “It has only been mentioned once in any of our archives, which makes it more difficult to determine its function.”
Megatron found it odd that there were no records of this artifact. What weapon would even the Primes keep out of their records? Including poems and legends.
He narrowed his optics to observe the silver watch that lay motionless on the table. What mystery could be hidden in such a delicate device?
“I’ve taken scans, and its internal mechanism is astounding, even though the technology is prehistoric.” Knockout enthusiastically speaks, seemingly unaware of Megatron's shoring patience.
“What is its function?”
“I’ve… yet to determine- but once I get offrizen to open it up-“ Knockout didn’t get a chance to finish his excuses when the ship shook violently.
The ship shifted, sloping down on its east side. Megatron simply shifted his weight to keep upright, but the medic didn’t have the foresight; his frame was a tangled mess of limbs as he slammed into the far wall.
They were under attack, and the explosion seemed to have damaged their east engine; they were dropping out of the sky. He was needed on the bridge to give instructions to his soldiers.
In the corner of his optics caught a glimmer of silver, as the artifact slipped off the table. It was instinct to reach out, his servo easily catching the artifact midair.
His autoreceptors picked up the faintest sound of metal clicking.
Wye
The cold night wind brushed against her skin, and she enjoyed the fresh air that didn’t smell like sweat and booze. It carried a story that she could decipher, each smell was unique.
Without looking, she could tell who left and entered the barn just by smell alone, most were outtowners but a few she recognized from town. In the back of her mind kept track while her eyes stared up at the night sky.
It was a cloudy night, blocking her view of the starry night sky; it would have been a great view from the barn's rooftops. She settled to look west to the far distance city, its lights almost as bright as the stars
“Wye!” The ringmaster, Dal yelled out as he stomped out of the barn. He was losing patience, but she didn’t feel like heading down till the last drunker left.
She glided across the shingles before stepping off the edge, landing on her toes not to make a sound. The ringmaster's back was towards her, still unaware of her presence. Dal would be easy to kill, though everyone in the town would be.
To not to scare him, Wye purposely dragged her heels against the ground as she approached. It made just enough noise to gain Dal’s attention.
His frustration faded when his eyes landed on her, switching to a friendly demeanour in hopes of making her more comfortable. To get her guard to drop.
“That was an incredible fight!” Dal cued, he always complicated things when he tried to sweet-talk.
“A challenge next time.” Wye spoke with a calm voice, as always thought she’d been frustrated. The past few fights had been amateurs, there was nothing that she could learn from those fights.
“And that wasn’t?” Dal had a crooked smirk as his eyes drifted down her face. “She got a few pretty good licks on you.”
Nothing of consequence, her skin didn’t crack, and there were no bruises to speak of. The only color to her light gray skin was from the cold, making spots a bit more white.
“Alright.” Dal sighed, breaking the silence. “I’ll schedule you next week with an undefeated champagne.”
He rummages through one of his pockets before pulling out a wad of cash. Stacks of crumpled-up bills neatly wrapped with a rubber band. Dal toasted it softly towards her, Wye caught it without looking.
Underground fights are against the law, and the betting for sure was illegal, but she got a cut from each match. If she decided to win.
Megatron
His helm felt as if he had been through a few rounds with Optimus Prime. It wasn’t just his helm but his whole frame ached. Something fierce, but there was something else that Megatron couldn’t place. His frame felt off as if not his own.
The artifact had been activated, and he’d been in the blast range; it had to be a biological weapon.
With the limited information, there is no real record of the artifact or the cure that would be needed, which would slow down Knockout's progress in making an antidote.
His symptoms faded to nothing more than a helmache. Which left two options: there was no record of the artifact because it was one of the Prime's failure’s or that he passed the first stages of the virus.
There was no time to waste pondering on the question; if the ship had gone down, it would be moments before the Autobots would be on the crash site.
His ‘optics’ flickered to life, allowing him to take in how badly the ship fared without his leadership. Taken aback by the sight of a bright blue sky, instead of the metal ceiling of the medical bay.
Has the ship been destroyed? No, he could hear noises around him. Chatter that sounded like small talk rather than military orders. The sounds around him sounded more like a bustling city than a war zone.
Could the artifacts be some kind of transportation device? If that was the case, he needed to get his barring.
Megatron didn’t even get to his knees before his ‘frame’ froze. He rarely ever felt surprised, let alone shocked, but as his ‘optics’ met his lower half, he experienced both.
What lay before him wasn’t his metallic frame but one resembling a fleshy organism; his shock had only worsened when he realized it was not just his lower half but his upper as well.
His helm raced for solutions to his predicament of questions.
It couldn’t be Shadowplay because the buildings around him had minimal flaws. There weren’t any extra numbers of windows or oddly placed doors in the nearby buildings, the buildings looked simply made out of wood and other flimsy materials.
Tracing a servo-hand through it’s-his hair, it moved relstictly, which is something that holograms still struggle with, or at least that’s what he has heard.
What other explanation could there be for him being… a human? This had to be the Prime's artifact doing, it wasn’t a virus but something much worse.
There was no reason for his spark to lose composure. Megatron just needs to reverse whatever he’d done to the artifact to get him here in the first place.
His digi-hand flexed, and when he looked down, there had been nothing in his fleshing hands. Megatron made a frustrated growl, This was not how he expected the day to go. His eyes scanned across the alleyway, looking for any sign of the artifice.
The streets are covered with what Megatron could make out as several pieces of plastic, garbage. Nothing but garbage.
A feeling crept in, one that angered him to his spark. Megatron was just like any other Cybertronian; he did, in fact, feel fear, but he made it a habit to overcome it. Fear had a tendency to take control of oneself, but Megatron refused to let anything have power over him.
“Hey, no sleeping here!” A deep voice called out.
Megatron's head snapped to the voice. If he hadn’t been so distracted, he would have noticed the creature’s presence.
The creature was not human, it might have a similar build with four limbs, but Megatron was sure they’re teeth didn’t grow out of their mouths.
“What have you done with my artifact.” Megatron growled. It wasn’t a question but a demand.
“What am I? Your mother!” The creature joked, but Megatron was in no joking manner.
This creature didn’t have a clue who he was speaking to. Megatron had the full right to kill him where he stood.
He might have been in a different body, but that changed nothing when it came down to his strength. His organic limbs did well to hold his weight as he stood still, he towered over the creature who now seemed to understand the situation better.
“I’ve never seen it.” The creature stuttered, his gross eyes flickering around his frame. “You were asleep in an alleyway, you were probably robbed by the first passerby.”
That wasn’t the answer Megatron wanted, he would just order Starscream or Soundwave to track it down for him. At the moment, he needed to gather as much information as possible.
“Where am I?” Megatron asked with a more gentler tone.
Megatron could easily threaten the creature into answering every question he desires, but circumstances require other means of attaining the answers.
There are unknown elements in play, and the last thing he wanted was to appear on any military radar. Any organics wouldn't hesitate at the chance to kill him.
“That kind of night?” The creature acted like he now’s how Megatron felt, it got under his… skin. “ The planet Kentaurus is inside the Capella Galaxy.”
He’d read of the systems from reports, but it had been nothing more than a passing thought. Where did that leave him?
“I know a guy who might know where to find your watch.” The creature might not be as useless as Megatron first thought.
“Bring him to me,” Megatron commanded.
The creature made a weird gasping sound that Megatron could only assume was a form of laughter.“That’s not how it works, you need money.”
Megatron could feel himself losing his patience, and it seemed the creature noticed it too.
“Well, it’s your lucky day. I know how you can make a quick buck.” The creature stated. “I'll start asking around for you, while you make a few coins.”
Nothing can be built in a day, he supposed that it would take time for it to reach out to its contacts.
“What is it?” He wasn’t going to stoop down for any work.
“Fighting.”
Fighting, that something he could do, even in this pathetic body.