The resulting four weeks were quite…interesting to say the least. With Megatron as a prisoner, Optimus wasn’t sure how to feel. He decided to visit him. He entered the cell and found Megatron restrained to the wall. “Megatron,” he greeted.
“Prime.” Megatron’s return greeting left a silence.
“So,” asked Optimus, “how’s this gonna play out? Are we gonna spend the next hour posturing, or are we gonna rise to the occasion and have a civilized conversation?” Megatron scoffed.
“‘Rise to the occasion’? What is this, a summit meeting? I’m bolted to the wall, riddled with inhibitor chips, and all I need do is cross my fingers at you before I face termination by electric restraints! Hardly an ideal position to have a frank exchange of ideas!”
“Fair point.” Optimus then undid Megatron’s restraints and pulled out a pair of chairs. “Take a seat.”
“So,” said Megatron as he sat down, “what does my little brother want to talk about?”
“You surrendered after you made your proposal. Why?”
“Didn’t we just have this conversation?”
“No, we went through the motions. One provoked, the other reacted; same as always.”
“What happened to the Decepticons? Who’s taken my place for now?” Megatron was deflecting the issue.
“Megatron…”
“Please don’t tell me it’s Eggman!” Genuine worry crossed the Decepticon Lord’s face.
“Megatronus! …Look, forget the factions outside, all right? Right now, it’s just you, me, and a conversation we’ve put off for five years.”
“I don’t know about your end, but I’ve been preoccupied enough to almost forget this. You know, what with the war, the continual keeping of my house in order, the pain I cause the fleshlings. Pit, sometimes I have to scrape blood off my hands.”
“Megatron, do you even realize what you’re saying?!” protested Optimus. “Everything, every word you’re uttering, it’s all steeped in hate!”
“I’ve learned to hate when I was in my room while we grew up together. Oddly enough, I have an Autobot to thank for it, an Autobot with friends in high places who taught me all about violence and its application. Calm yourself, it isn’t you. No…it’s our dear Dion. You’ve heard him utter his usual Anti-Decepticon rhetoric, haven’t you?” Optimus looked away. “…Ashamed, are we? Well, after five years of conflict against a faction I once supported, I live to hate it! Hate sustains me! There are moments where I wonder if I feel anything else anymore. Lust, rage, ambition, I wonder if I’ve moved beyond them. In fact, over the past five years, I’ve realized there are two constants, hate…and you.” Optimus snorted.
“I’m surprised you can find a difference between the two.”
“Optimus, let me clarify something; I don’t hate you. Don’t get me wrong; I hate what you represent, and I hate the obstacles you’ve put in my way; but I understand why you’re trying to stop me. I forgive you that much. But there’s a question I need answered. Do you hate me? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you say that.”
“…Yes…No…I don’t know.” Optimus ran his hands down his face. “I don’t know how I feel about you. Hate feels too simple for me, too…easy. It might sustain you, Megatron, but makes me feel…less.”
“…Were you always this sanctimonious and I was just blind,” snarled Megatron, “or was it something you worked at when you got the Matrix?! Behold, the infallible Optimus Prime! Wise for his age, charismatic for a guy who had others fill in for him during boring meetings, compassionate for a bot in his late adolescence! A red, white, and blue paragon of virtue! How tiring that must be! The insecurity, the loneliness, the agonizing self-doubt!”
“You’re talking like you know me.”
“I’d be a pretty terrible brother if I didn’t. I know you better than anyone else and it terrifies you.”
“What terrifies me, Megatron,” Optimus was in a correcting mood, “is the sheer monotony of the past five years, even with Unicron thrown into the mix these past four weeks. It’s just you and me, trading blows, making threats, going through the motions while everything we care about crumbles. And it isn’t just today where you can find a similar situation. Our species’ whole history is an exercise in galactic fratricide. A race-wide cry for help. Is it any wonder the Galactic Council turned its back on us during the climax of the previous war? Can you really look me in the optics and say that you’re surprised that the universe, at large, still fears us? Entire civilizations rose and fell in the time it took us to get nowhere at all.”
“Ah, but the rules of the game are different now, Optimus” replied Megatron. “Our war is actually picking up speed where the previous one stagnated. I remember back in the day when whole centuries would go by without a single shot being fired. Both Autobots and Decepticons spent millennia preparing for battles that were over in a matter of minutes.”
“And for what?!” asked Optimus. “Really, answer me, for what?! We’re doing the exact same thing as our forefathers did from where I stand! Before this whole mess went down, I fought to stop you, simple as that! But you…what IS it you’re fighting for, Megatron? I thought I knew, but…” The Prime sighed. “…Okay, let’s play ‘What If’ for a cycle here. What if you HADN’T surrendered and Unicron wasn’t part of the equation? Let’s say the Decepticons won this war, what does victory look like?”
“Control over that which would destroy us. Optimus, trillions of races have learned about how our biology works. In victory, we wouldn’t forget that there are races that want revenge.”
“A mechanical master race. Technoism.”
“Something along those lines.”
“…No,” denied Optimus, “that describes the Decepticons, not you. Let’s still play ‘What If’. I’m dead, the Autobots are no more, Cybertron is yours, countless planets are brought under your sway, the Decepticon Empire is resplendent, and you sit in the center of it all, what then?”
“The real work begins. Repopulation, a true rebirth of the Cybertronian race! A new Golden Age, one that would put the previous one to shame! Imagine it, a civilization free of conflict, all needs are met! No want, no unhappiness, no dissent, peace through tyranny!”
“And autonomy, personal responsibility, and free will? Where are they in this brave new world of yours?”
“They’re a passing thought.” Optimus considered his words.
“…You know, in some respects, we’re the same. Peace, prosperity, happiness, I want them too, I just don’t see them as something to be imposed.”
“Don’t you DARE put yourself on my level!” growled Megatron. “I am a visionary! I spoke out! I resisted the weight of the police state Cybertron had become! Tell me, what were you doing outside of a few paltry speeches?! The High Council carved up the Decepticons according to rank! It felt like functionism, dictation of life at Xitran levels, the levels Shockwave and Soundwave experienced! It was social engineering of the losers in the most LITERAL sense! Someone had to say ‘no’! Someone had to say ‘enough’! and I was the only Autobot to have had the ball-bearings to do so! ‘Freedom is the right of all sentient beings’, where in the Pit were you as hundreds of Decepticons lost their jobs and thousands became Empties?!”
“I’m not the Transformer I was before this war began,” said Optimus. “Do you remember when we first fought face to face alone?”
“The Battle of Westopolis.”
“Westopolis. G.U.N. lost 200 soldiers when they assisted the Autobots. You cost them an army, you cost me allies.”
“You cost me an arm, you and that axe of yours,” growled Megatron.
“In any case, no, it was Seaside Hill. It was just as the war was picking up.” Megatron’s optics flickered as confusion crossed his features.
“You either have a better memory than I do, or I made a bigger impression on you.”
“If it wasn’t for that battle, I wouldn’t have taken you half as seriously as I do now.”
“They all stopped to watch us, didn’t they?” asked Megatron. “In Westopolis. My Decepticons, your Autobots and G.U.N., they all stopped to watch us fight!”
“Which one?” More optic flickering from Megatron came from Optimus’ question.
“…Pardon?”
“Which arm did I take?”
“My cannon arm, you always go for that, not that I wouldn’t have done the same.”
“All I remember is you throwing me into the air, then slamming your fist down onto me as I was over a tower spire,” recalled Optimus. “It took Ratchet six weeks to fix me up and six more to get me fully resuscitated.”
“It didn’t kill you though, nothing ever does.”
“Westopolis was nothing compared to the beatings you’ve given me over the past five years.”
“Such as?” invited Megatron.
“The Battle of Green Hill Zone,” replied Optimus. “You tore half my head off with your mace. Or the Sunset Park Zone Campaign when you…”
“When I threw you onto the tracks with a rather large train highballing towards you,” finished Megatron.
“They practically had to find all the pieces judging on the trajectories alone! And don’t even get me started on Mazuri!”
“You want to play this game with me, Optimus?! The Red Mountain Offensive! You used a sharpened rock to split me in two from shoulder to crotch! Shoulder! To! Crotch! You missed my Spark by centimeters! And what about Emerald Coast?! The then base of operations for the Radniks?! That sentient explosive, aptly named ‘Bomb’, was powerful enough to reduce me to cinders! They had to shovel me into the CR Chamber! And on the subject of Green Hill Zone, you toppled at least three of those stone loops onto me while I was in alt-mode! My t-cog jammed, and my holo-form went offline! I was a normal tank for a full month!” The two brothers then chuckled softly, recalling the battles.
“We can end it here,” offered Optimus. “Seriously, we could end it all here and now. I don’t care what’s going on outside this cell. What it all comes down to, Megatron, is us. We could end this war with a simple handshake.” Megatron gave no response. “…They want to see you dead; you know.”
“What about you?”
“I just want to know why you’ve surrendered.”
“Does it matter?”
“I think it does.”
“We’ll see, Optimus, we’ll see.” Megatron got up and allowed Optimus to fasten the restraints to the wall.