We Will Not Fight your War
Content rating: Mature
Warnings: Abuse, rape
Summary: Motormaster laughed. “We were new builds with guns shoved in our hands, but cuz we were built crazy and weren’t nice enough you didn’t give a shit.” His servos were shaking.
Motormaster is tired of him and his boys being their tools, their weapons. He will not fight their war any longer.
Notes:
Motormaster and the Stunticons leave the Decepticons after finally having enough of Megatron.
Motormaster remembered coming online. He remembered looking at his own form in wonder. He lifted and looked at his hand as it flexed and moved. He brought his hand to his face to feel it and smiled for the first time.
Motormaster then sat up and saw others like him stirring awake. Their thoughts and emotions exploded in his spark and mind. He felt like his eyes were opening again. Motormaster crawled off the platform he awoke on and met his brothers for the first time.
In those untainted, innocent moments they’d touched and held each other in joy and love. There was no need for words—they were his and he was theirs.
“...Hook, why are my new warriors cuddling?!”
The innocence ended.
Optimus Prime. His enemy. The one Motormaster had been created to kill. The Prime’s red, blue and white plating stained by ash and mud from the battle. The Primes body was bowed by exhaustion, yet he fought on.
Motormaster grinned and charged the Prime. His sword was in hand ready to drive it into the Prime’s spark. Optimus was caught off guard, and his optics went wide—
“—Stop you fool! The Prime is mine!,” Megatron roared. He shoved Motormaster out of the way sending him face first into the churned battlefield mud.
Motormaster pushed himself up from the ground and watched as Optimus and Megatron beat each other to a standstill.
Megatron called a retreat.
Then he saw it again in the next battle.
And again.
It was ironic in a way Motormaster thought. Megatron hated humans unless he could use them, but saw them as worthless for the most part. But it was humans that set Motormaster and his gestalt free. Connecting to the human network known as the internet was easy, but most ‘Cons didn’t bother.
Perhaps it was because the Stunticon’s had never known Cybertron. No one had played Hax with them, shared a holofilm or even taught them how to read beyond basic preprogrammed glyphs.
So they turned to the humans. They taught themselves to read their languages. Watched cartoons and videos. They read tiny paper books and listened to music on miniature human devices.They learned and the ignorance ended.
“T-This isn’t right,” Breakdown said.
“What?” Motormaster growled. His temper was simmering right now. The pain from the dents ached though his chassis.
“Megatron shouldn’t hit you. I‘m scared he’ll kill you one day,” Breakdown said quietly.
Motormaster hoped Megatron would. It’s get this shit over with and he would stop being a disappointment. No matter how hard he tried he was never good enough for Megatron.
Even when Megatron interfaced with him as a reward Motormaster felt hollow, it always left him scrubbing his plating raw.
But if he died his boys would be left alone with no one to protect them. No one to distract Wildrider from the jeering voices and his own recklessness. No one to protect Breakdown from the shadows and real mechs who would hurt him. To drag Dead End away from his apathy and depression. To save Drag Strip from his foolish goading and fragile ego.
“We could run away. Megatron can’t hit you if we keep away from him,” Drag Strip said.
“Are we having a road trip?” Wildrider asked. “I love road trips! Can I pick the music we play?”
“No. We try to run away he’ll catch me. He’ll turn on you if you try to protect me, and I ain’t letting that happen,” Motormaster said.
“He’ll kill us all eventually. I’d rather die chasing freedom then under Megatron’s servos,” Dead End said. He could feel that the rest of his Stunticons agreed.
So they ran.
Prowl and Jazz watched the footage Skyspy had captured from the abandoned airbase. Motormaster appeared to be snoozing on the dry grass with Breakdown curled up in his arms. Deadend had a tiny human book in his servos and turned the delicate pages with a finger.
“Want me to do something about them?” Jazz asked.
Prowl lowered his wings when he watched Dragstrip and Wildrider play wrestle with glee. “No,” he replied.
“Good,” Jazz replied cheerfully. “If you’d said yes, I’d have defected and joined them.”
Prowl wasn’t sure if that was a joke, and didn’t feel brave enough to ask. “I don’t think they are a threat to the Autobot cause. They’re even paying for gas at human fuel stations…with money from illegal street races admittedly, but they haven’t directly or intentionally harmed any humans.”
“Good but we won’t be the only ones watching them Prowl. Pretty soon the ‘Cons will come calling.”
“What the fuck are you doing here,” Motormaster growled. The Constructicons stood in a unit. They were trying to display strength but he could practically smell their fear.
Hook grimaced. “Apologising. We can reinforce and improve the temperature regulation of the hanger, add internet and radio access. Furnishings such as proper recharge berths. Defences.”
Motormaster laughed. “You think that’ll change anything? How do I know you’re not here to drag us back to Megatron?”
“Can’t blame you for not trusting us,” Bonecrusher said. “We’re still ‘Cons.”
“No, he doesn’t deserve trust.” Motormaster pointed at Hook “He was the one that on-lined us an’ pulled us apart before we even knew who we were.”
“So Megatron wouldn’t beat you. Or reprogram you,” Hook replied. “Please.I reconcile with my—“
“Fine. Do what you’re gonna do then...” Motormaster sighed. “Leave. Leave and stop making me feel sorry for you.”
“I...am,” Hook twitched and his mouth contorted. “...Sorry.” Then immediately the Constructicons got to work.
Motormaster sat on his new berth hours later. He remembered each time he went to see Hook after the latest rape or beating. Hook never once told him he ‘sorry’ for anything, but he’d look at Motormaster sometimes. He’d look with something like pity.
It wasn’t enough, and it never would be.
But defences didn’t stop Optimus Prime and several of his troops rolling up. The black and white second in command, Prowl, looked uneasy. Like he didn’t want to be here but didn’t feel he had a choice.
“We have come to talk. We wish you no harm,” Prowl said from the edge of the perimeter. His troops stood to attention with the late evening light gleaming off their guns.
“Yeah, then why have you brought an army?” Motormaster asked from inside the defence perimeter. His boys were waiting for his signal nearby. “Either clear off or Menasor an’ the laser turrets make you leave.”
Prowl’s wings twitched but he nodded and began to turn away.
Optimus held up his servo.“I wish to ask something. Before you were Decepticon warriors. The Autobots could—“
Motormaster laughed. “We were new builds with guns shoved in our hands, but becayse we were built crazy and weren’t nice enough you didn’t give a shit.” His hands shook. “You think you’re better than Megatron, don’t you?.”
“I don’t—“
Motormaster interrupted again, “You see us as broken children, not mechs who’ve fought to be free. That thing in your chest makes you think you’re better than us. That it’s your job to save us—we don’t fuckingneed saving!”
“But the Matrix—“
“Matrix is a lump of metal Prime.”
“You cannot talk about the holy relics of Primus like this!” The Prime backed away from Motormaster in horror.
“—where was Primus when I getting beaten? Where the hell was he when I was getting raped? You and Megatron can go blow each other up. We ain’t tools to be passed from hand to hand. We will not fight your war!”
The Prime had enough sense to leave. Him and his army slowly slunk away into the night.
One day Megatron would come for him, and one day the Prime would come back. Motormaster wouldn’t fight Megatron’s war and Prime wouldn’t win it. He wasn’t their weapon, he didn’t belong to anyone but himself and his boys.
Motormaster checked the edge on his sword. After all, he never said he wouldn’t end the war.