Orion's Body 2: He's Back

Chapter 1: Five Years Later

Megatron woke up with a groan, it's been 5 years since Unicron's Kettle and the deaths of Mirage, Swindle, Orion Pax, and... Starscream. He has been hopping from hotel to hotel, couch surfing, and hitch hiking to stay ahead of the possible manhunt for him. He has to settle down sometime, find a place. But where can he go? His Sire is probably dead, or moved, or something. He takes out his personal comm cell, turns it on and checks the news, he searches up his old hometown, he sees a website advertising the town and clicks on it, it is full of pictures of landmarks, tourist attractions and of course the now legendary falls. He recognizes the school, the restaurant he and Orion would hang out in after school and get food. He recognizes the luxury mansion Mirage's family lived in and have end of the year parties filled with drugs and hanky panky. He sees the empty lot where the town's only dive bar, Dancitron, once stood.

He pauses, he remembers the fire still, it seared itself into his memory, he remembers the heat, the screams, the flames engulfing the scaffolding, he remembers grabbing Orion's hand and pulling him to the washroom and climbing out the window to safety. He sighed and moved the screen to see the local graveyard, he zooms in, and looks at the gravestones, technology advanced fast from the once common flip phone style comms and bulky monitors, everything is now more sleek, slim, with cool looking lights that glowed multiple colors and made you feel like an uber tech god. It baffled Megatron, he managed to get his servos on one after working jobs for weeks on end.

He saw the gravestone for Mirage, it looked ornate and more like a mausoleum than a grave, it was clean and fresh. Must have been taken shortly after the funeral. He wasn't there for it, but he remembers the aftermath of it at school, the memorial service and the flowers and what not. He remembers seeing Orion strutting down the hall looking like a model fresh off the assembly line, all shiny and attractive. He sighed.

Then he spotted Swindle's grave, it was simple, plain, utilitarian. Nothing flashy or ornate, he sees that the picture had flowers on the grave, purple and yellow flowers to match Swindle's color scheme. Probably one of his brothers. Still, his last words to Swindle were a simple hello, and they sting in hindsight, had he known what was going on, the demonic transference and cannibalism, he could have stopped Orion sooner, saved Swindle from dying... then he saw the next grave over, and immediately his spark twinged in pain.

Starscream.

Starscream definitely didn't deserve to die. Not him. Why him? Why of all the mechs in Unicron's Kettle, did Orion go after him? He never got a definite answer during their fight in the abandoned pool. All he got was a declaration of Orion threatening him and saying he swings both ways. He'll probably never find out. But, still, Starscream died, as a 16 year old bot, not a 96 year old mech, surrounded by grandkids like he and Megatron talked about when they were still fresh in their relationship. They wanted 2 kids, mech and femme each, and about 4 grandkids. Now all Starscream got was an early death, in an abandoned and dirty pool, surrounded by thorny vines and grimy floors instead of smiling faces. Megatron sniffled, vision fogging from tears welling up, he squeezed his optics tight to fight them away. Crying isn't going to fix anything.

He moved on, soon he saw another grave, it was carved to look like it was decorated with roses, and stood out in a tasteful way. The carved letters popped out to Megatron.

'Orion Pax: Beloved Son, Gone Too Soon.'

"Not soon enough." Megatron muttered, Orion was a sore subject to him, they'd been amica endura since the days on the swingset, the soccer field, the sandbox.

But Orion had to go out and see Elita and her stupid band, and get swept up into their creepy van, where he was sacrificed and subsequently possessed by a demon that turned him into a cannibal. It wasn't fair.

His mind drifted to the conversation they had in the locker room.

"You're killing people!"

"No, I'm killing bots, specifically bots with spikes."

Megatron soon sighed, and was about to turn off his comm cell when a pop up ad dinged, he looked at it, and his spark dropped to his fuel tank.

Live tonight at newly established bar Auto-Bop, come see Disciples of Orion tonight to commemorate the Tragedies of Unicron's Kettle!

Oh no.

Oh Pit no.

Fucking Pit.

Why of all the fucking places? Did this band choose this fucking town? Megatron sat up, and went to the closet, he opened the doors, and grabbed the bag, it was full of clothes and supplies like energon cubes and a charging cable. He slung it over his shoulder, and left the room. He had a look of determination on his face.

Back to his small town hell.

Back to where it all began.

Back to Unicron's Kettle.