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Killing Pax had been laughably easy, and perhaps that’s what scared D-16 the most the moment his guidance system recognised he shot him.
For a nano-klick, he thought he missed. Desired it, with every inch of his chassis; and in that klick of time, the cannon went off and plasma-fire erupted between them. The recoil sent him reeling backwards; metal and wiring shredded, exploding into shards that scraped his plating, clawed over his face. Instinctually, he closed his optics. When he reopened them, Pax had skidded backwards, and Iacon’s cityscape was visible through the hole D-16 had made of his chest.
“Oh,” Pax said, rather dumbly. He tottered backwards, as if drunken: his pedes traced the edge of the cliff that led over into Iacon’s heart. Then, as simple as letting out a final ex-vent, he fell.
D-16’s spark stopped.
It was about then his chassis finally started moving. He lunged forward and grabbed Pax’s remaining hand -- shock, and nothing more filling emotional circuits as he stopped his friend’s fall. Pax’s optics were flickering -- but the fusion cannon had done its job, as D-16 had wanted it to, carving anger into heat into solid plasma that left nothing, left absolutely nothing of the life behind those optics. As he watched, unable to do anything but hold on, the blue died out slowly.
I killed him, he thought.
It was not a thought he was unfamiliar with. Every fraggin’ joor spent in that glitch’s presence had been an endless loop of that dilemma; I killed him , because he hadn’t checked if the tunnel was stable enough for Pax to go scouting ahead; I killed him , because he hadn’t stopped him when Pax snuck out of shift to make trouble. But that had just been emotional circuits overfiring, worried . This time, his logic circuits were chiming in agreement. There was nothing left of Pax’s spark. There was nothing left to salvage. This was a mistake Pax couldn’t bounce back from, and D-16 felt --
D-16 felt --
Frag, he thought in a sort of horror: frag, he felt free.
For wasn’t he? No longer would Pax cause him anxiety. No longer would Pax be a tax on his spark. No longer would he haggle with guards, and take blows for Pax, and shield his dreadful optimism from prying hands. The relief that was the absence of responsibility was a greater guilt than firing the cannon-shot. The agony that was the absence of responsibility was even worse.
He blinked. In-vented, and ex-vented. His emotional circuits, he recognised vaguely, were overloading from the swell of everything -- but after years of manually shutting them off and discarding his feelings -- well , a part of D-16 thought with glee, let them burn . There was a thrill in it, just as there was disgust, and relief, and a muted incomprehensible horror that this was to be the rest of his life, feeling like Pax, feeling without Pax.
I killed him.
Movement stirred behind him. Iacon’s golden guards were screaming through the air toward him. Sentinel was clawing his way, spitting energon sideways as he tried to drag himself to safety. Orion’s coworkers were just beginning to recover, moving up -- and behind them, the outstretched digits of Soundwave and Shockwave reached out to pull them back. The world was moving, churning on while D-16 wasted precious moments on Pax, again .
Pax had jumped in the path to save Sentinel Prime.
Pax had jumped in the path to save Sentinel Prime.
It was then his logic circuit chimed up. It reminded him, in short callous tones: Pax was dead . D-16 had killed him . Everyone had seen. With that knowledge, it added: They’ll make him a martyr for Sentinel’s cause, and outlined Cybertronians in his optics’ peripherals. Ratbat, Decimus, Senators: elites who stood in soiled silence, shell-shocked. Well, until those oily logic circuits of theirs began working again, which then they’d take Orion’s hopeful optics and his small smile, and notch it into every wall until that optimism turned to distorted loyalty. Pax died to protect Sentinel Prime, he could hear the holo-vids claim; he was killed in anger by anarchists.
Rage bubbled, then, smothering everything else until D-16’s optics ached with the strain. But even then, that twisted elation rose with it: gleeful, laughing. For it was funny. Funny, that even in death Pax left his mess for D-16 to clean up. It was just like him. He was so sick of it. He was so, so sick he could scream.
He looked unto Pax. Pax’s optics were flickering -- like the stubborn glitch he was, his chassis was clinging to life like he could wrestle his fleeing spark back into his chest-plates. D-16 hated him for that, too: for not dying right away, for making him make this choice.
He vented. Then, with his denta bared, he snapped: “I'm done saving you.”
Dropping Pax had never been so easy.
Vorns later, the circuit readings his guidance system fed to him when he killed Pax would still echo. No matter how many times he would try to ignore the data, it would crawl back into recharge: the warning of [ full-capacity, 3, 2, 1 -- obstruction! ] and gentle heat of Pax's forearms as the mech tried to shove his cannon down from its aim at Sentinel's cowering form. The kick of the cannon point-blank against Pax's mesh. The terrified jump of D-16's core.
( I killed him. )
There was some comfort in the memories of that moment, though, that prevented Megatron from erasing the data permanently. It was a good reminder of Pax’s mercilessness. That, while D-16 had killed his friend, in a way Pax had also killed him. And he hadn’t been terribly effective at it -- no, no. Even when he took D-16’s spark and crushed it between his servos, he’d been so selfish. Didn’t follow through. Didn’t squeeze. He left his poor friend slowly bleeding, slowly dying in wake of his shattered chassis -- and so Megatron had to rip D-16 apart as he ripped Sentinel in two.
Pathetic.
Still, he could never hate Pax for that. Hated him for many things, like sleepless cycles and data-purges so violent he woke up screaming. But never for killing D-16 like that . Pax had carved a hole in D-16 so deep it would never heal, & the power of such cruelty? Megatron admired it. Megatron coveted it. It made him wonder if such capacity for torture still beat in Prime’s spark. That (and how D-16 of him to think this) perhaps Optimus would do the same upon him .
Yes, Pax had taught him a valuable thing while leaving the miner’s broken body bleeding on the seats of Iacon’s Senate next to his fallen prey. From destruction comes life. From destruction, belief. From destruction does one truly become who they were meant to be.
Good riddance to weak things.