#i feel like a dove ascending to the skies i am free (not)

[seumyo]

I rise along with the supposed leaks of the mha epilogue what did I miss

[entropic-introspection]

Don’t let me on kinkmemes, I steal the prompts, strip them down and rebuild them like the weirdest looking revved up hot-rods that only vaguely resemble their original purpose and kind of decidedly unsexy unless you’re into that sort of thing

In this our first installment: Jailbreaks, basic premise building, the Magnus Hammer, fighting, a sad lack of banter, more fighting, and Decepticon sedatives

“Decepticons! Transform and rise! UP!” Megatron roared, slamming one of his swords against his heavily plated forearm. He was met by answering screams and clangs, an unholy cacophony to rupture the usual foreboding silence over Trypticon prison. The pathetic Autobots swarming the area panicked like the ant-droids they were, looking for a leader and finding none. General Strika was quite thorough in that regard.

“Time estimate,” he barked into his comms, freshly restored to him.

“We require five breems to reroute the power to necessary areas,” Oil Slick reported, speaking over what sounded like a great deal of cursing in the background. “Possibly more. Why do the Autobots build so small?”

“Understood,” Megatron said. “Strika, status?”

“Holding,” she said. “All of their anti-aerial measures have been disabled, so we have far less to fear. Ground troops are scaring out any Autobots that remain within our perimeter while our fliers keep it clear.”

“Good,” Megatron said. “Is there anywhere you need me?”

Strika snorted. “Keep flying in plain sight and be a pretty figurehead. The troops have missed you, my lord, and if you get hit by a sniper it will be an excellent reminder to keep a look out.”

Megatron grinned. “So dismissive of Autobot warriors, still?”

“More that I am almost entirely certain that you are too stubborn to go offline any time soon,” Strika said. “You disappear for fifty solar cycles and return with the location of the Allspark, nearly take Omega Supreme for the Decepticon cause, and if nothing else you finally offlined Starscream. If you were to take a sniper shot to the cranium, I am convinced that you would come back with the ability to see the future, or talking to Unicron or some such nonsense, if it didn’t just bounce off that thick helmet of yours.”

Megatron barked out a laugh, although he kept a wary eye on the buildings that cut through the horizon. Since Trypticon was a fortress refurbished into a prison, it was surrounded largely by empty land, but you never knew. It was crawling itch in his plating to not know, but he was so familiar with the feeling that he was able to dismiss it with ease. Besides, he was finally free, out from his cramped cell and the ridiculous Autobot demands, back at his rightful place as leader of the Decepticons.

Back in control. Anything else was secondary.

“Movement! Airborne enemy mech, incoming!”

Well, nearly anything else.

A neat turn brought him to face the mech marked on his radar, distinctive red and blue not quite zipping through the skies, but moving at a good clip for being someone never designed for flight.

“General Strika,” Megatron purred, swinging his swords through a quick kata in warm up, “I do believe this one is mine.”

“Do not engage!” Strika snarled. “Our goal is extraction, not a rematch! You cannot-”

“Cannot what, General?” Megatron asked, speeding forward to meet the young Autobot. He heard Strika take a sharp invent and let it out with a hiss. She wouldn’t get the full effect of the dominant coding he was leaking everywhere like a new-sparked idiot over comms, but she would certainly know it was there.

“I ask,” she said carefully, “That you remember that we must return you home safely. Engage the puny Auto-scum if you must, but please pull back when we are ready to warp. Else I will shoot you out of the sky myself and drag you along the ground.”

He considered her proposal. It was tactically sound, after all, and submissive enough to please his frazzled coding. He could forgive the last line, as Strika herself had more highly dominant code than submissive, and he was no doubt putting her through a good deal of stress.

“Understood,” he said. “I will withdraw on your mark, General.”

Megatron spun through the sky, for no purpose other than the joy of flight and to revel in his new found freedom. It was also a semi-impressive looking maneuver that the Autobot in front of him wouldn’t be able to replicate without sending himself into an ungainly downwards spiral. He was only mildly disappointed that his opponent didn’t try to mimic him, instead keeping his approach simple and level.

“Optimus Prime,” Megatron said pleasantly once they were within audio range. “So glad you could join us for such a momentous occasion.”

The young Prime didn’t respond, choosing instead to glare over his battlemask, as if that were more intimidating than his attempts at banter. His grip on the Magnus Hammer shifted in preparation.

“Still depending on your toys?” Megatron asked with an indulgent smile. “Face it, Autobot,” he sneered, “Could you even defeat me on your own?”

Optimus’ expression didn’t change, nor did his posture.

“Very well then,” Megatron said. “Our actions will speak for us.” He raised his swords in preparation.

Optimus’s eyes flicked towards them, and he held up a hand, one finger extended.

Megatron stopped, nonplussed by the universal signal for ‘please wait, I am doing something right now’.

“Sentinel,” Optimus said, enunciating clearly, “I am here already. I am going to mute your comm channel now, so if you need to contact me, please do so through official channels. Give my regards to-” he paused, looking at Megatron. “Well. You know. Optimus, out.”

Optimus resettled himself in the air uncomfortably, wobbling slightly as he miscalculated his balance. “You were saying something, Megatron?” he said in the exact same neutral tone.

*

A too-small prison and officious Autobots leering at him for cycles had not been kind to Megatron. This was his moment of triumph and control, of proving that no puny Autobots could contain him, and to have this one in particular practically ignore him was simply the last strand to the fraying wire.

To the Pit with presentation. He roared in challenge as he ascended, and the heavens answered with thunder and lightning in return, crashing into Trypticon below. Strika’s plan must have been nearing completion, then, to elicit such a dramatic atmospheric reaction. Sparks danced across the ground below as his troops flinched, some trying to hide before correcting themselves, others almost gearing up for a fight they knew they wouldn’t win.

Anyone with dominant coding could issue a challenge as he just did; few could ever hope to match the sheer intensity and presence behind his. After all, most Cybertronians would never encounter a pure dominant code type in their very long day-to-day lives. Blitzwing’s Random face had laughingly described it as running into a steel wall when they were expecting clouds, and mechs reacted accordingly.

Except for Optimus Prime. He remained hovering, what little expression that was visible above his battlemask unchanged. Or, wait. There was a small twitch to his optics, one Megatron found himself sporting when Lugnut was feeling particularly obsequious.

Megatron dove at Optimus, awaiting an answering scream of challenge or defeat. Instead, the Autobot looped the Magnus Hammer in a long, crackling circle. His mask dropped to show his snarl, complete with pathetically blunt dentae.

“Slag off,” he growled, and threw back his head and howled. The Magnus Hammer sang with him in a hymn of thunderclaps as it practically pulled him through the air, encasing them both in a  corona of electricity. It was a sight to behold, but what held Megatron frozen was the compulsion behind it.

If pure dominant coding was rare, then it’s only match, indeed what possibly surpassed it in rarity, was a pure coded submissive.

This was not Optimus answering his challenge as an equal; this was Optimus denying his challenge any ground, unable to answer and not needing to as he flew through the storm, untouched, the Hammer itself serving as his leading partner, an avenging angel uncaring of such mortal squabbles.

It was beautiful.

It also hurt like the Pit, as the Magnus Hammer connected with Megatron’s side, crumpling plating and frying circuits. Megatron pinwheeled through the air like some sort of novice, trying to digest the last few kliks.

“My lord, we must go now!” Strika yelled over the comms as thunder crashed. “Before the build-up fries us!”

“Understood,” Megatron croaked, sparks crackling between his lips as they parted. “I may need some assistance disengaging.”

“It is already there,” Strika said, and Cyclonus dropped abruptly from the clouds, no engines running to give him away, and his foot slammed into the wings of Optimus’ jetpack. Yielding to physics, one snapped off entirely, and Optimus was sent spinning away, only barely retaining his grip on the Hammer.

“My lord,” Cyclonus said shortly, pulling up to hover beside Megatron. “Can you fly closer to the fortress unaided?”

“Yes,” Megatron snapped. “But I cannot transform at the moment.”

Cyclonus nodded. “Then I am sure the medical team will wish to see you,” he said neutrally. “Let us hurry.”

Megatron descended, thoughts whirring furiously. Cyclonus remained several feet back, field tucked below his plating, a nearly invisible presence even now. Megatron was uncertain how the mech even presented; it had never come up before, and he hadn’t seen the other’s reaction to his challenge or Optimus’ response. In calmer days, it wasn’t a problem. Today, it made him bristle.

He tucked those feelings away and stood straight as he landed, pain ignored for now. Strika looked him over critically, unfooled, but nodded approvingly anyways.

“My lord,” she said, field restrained and projecting as much submission as she was capable of. “As you command.”

“Decepticons,” Megatron said over comms, voice rough, “Let us return to our brethren with this piece of our home.”

Thunder boomed, rattling struts and shaking windows and so much lightning crashed into Trypticon that even those with specialized optics couldn’t see past the blinding light. When it all faded, Trypticon was simply gone, and the Decepticons with it.

Two flier remained, though. They drifted through a grid search pattern until they spotted what they were looking for, at which point the spiralled in to land practically on top of Optimus Prime in his crash crater.

“Optimus Prime, sir!” Jetfire said cheerfully. “Is good to be seeing you!”

“Less good to be seeing Decepticons are all gone,” Jetstorm said just as happily, leaning over to help Optimus stand.

“But is good, because Ultra Magnus is awake!” Jetfire said, looping one of Optimus’ arms over his shoulder.

“But is tricky, because we cannot be telling him about all of problems at once without relapse,” Jetstorm said as they started walking towards the city proper, dragging the Hammer behind them.

“We is thinking he maybe be mad at Commander ours, but not all problems his! Now some are yours,” Jetfire said.

“I’m glad I could help,” Optimus said flatly, faceplates stuck in a mullish expression.

“We be glad too!” the twins said together. “Happy times all around!”

“So very happy,” Optimus agreed dully as they made it past the cleared land around Trypticon and back into the Autobot friendly expanses of the planet-wide city, as marked by numerous posters reminding everyone to do their part with energon rationing, war-time production, constant vigilance for spies, and of course, to know your place in The Great Autobot Machine.

“Sir is not happy,” Jetstorm confided to Optimus.

“Sir thinks you are being disrespectful and forgetting own code,” Jetfire confirmed.

“Submissive glitch should not be making decisions like this!” Jetstorm said in a very bad impression of Sentinel’s voice.

“Cannot be thinking straight, not fit for duty!” Jetfire said with a slightly worse impression.

Optimus groaned. “I can walk, you know,” he told the two of them. “I’ll comm and Ratchet and-”

The twins shook their heads vigorously. “Who you think be sending us?” Jetfire demanded.

“Said he would be telling Sentinel we be goofing off at work if we did not come back with you and all pieces!” Jetstorm added indignantly.

“I’m missing a wing to my jetpack,” Optimus tried.

They gave him a pitying look and kept walking, and Optimus let himself be dragged along. Well. At least he had a medical excuse for why he couldn’t go see Sentinel Acting Magnus and Ultra Probably the Actual Magnus. His processor was already aching from Megatron’s over-the-top pompous ass dominant challenge, and he didn’t want to deal with more inane dominant posturing for the next stellar cycle.

--

“Optimus Prime,” Megatron began in a thoughtful tone, sitting on an examination chair in the med-bay, “is a pure submissive.”

General Strika, recognizing the tone, immediately turned and administered a Class F Decepticon Emergency Sedative by punching him the face and into unconsciousness.

“I am not dealing with him until I have had time to reunite with my consort and gotten our people back into some form of order,” she said, glaring at Scalpel, the doctor on duty. “See to it.”

Scalpel cackled and saluted. Dominant coding and command structure meant nothing in a Decepticon medbay if you got to the sedatives first.

~+~+~+~

An authorial aside note from my editing process that I liked way too much to delete entirely, goes where the asterisk (*) is

[The disrespect is fucking real, Megatron realized. He supposed his saving grace was that General Strika wasn’t here to point and laugh. Well fuck that.]