Megatron had nowhere else to go. With the Autobot kingdoms to the south and east, and the lava fields to the west, vast as any ocean, Megatron had no choice but to head north. North was ice and mountains, but he would rather take his chances in that cold wasteland than risk venturing into Autobot territory. Neither Kaon nor Tarn were part of the Autobot Alliance, and the Autobots guarded their borders ferociously. It wouldn't matter that Megatron was a rebel and an exile – the brand on his chest meant nothing to outlanders, even though it marked him as a shamed mech to everybot in his home cities.

He didn't have much in the way of belongings. He packed quickly and then went with the watchmechs as they escorted him to the city gates. He walked proudly, despite the contempt in the optics of the crowd as they watched him go. He felt nothing but disgust for any of them anyway. They were short-sighted fools who refused to see the truth.

One day, he vowed as he passed beneath the shadow of the great gates of Kaon, he would return, and they would be so grateful they would welcome him down on their knees.

His face grim, Megatron pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and set out.

The road leading north wound through several mechanomiles of small hamlets, most of which were abandoned, before petering out in the foothills of the mountains that marked the edge of the so-called "civilised" lands. Beyond that jagged range was hostile and largely uncharted terrain, and, if one believed the legends, home to everything from wild bird-mechs to actual predacons. Huge storms raged there, and the ferocious winds and untamed currents in the air made it impossible to fly far enough to find out if the legends held any truth. Megatron chuckled bitterly to himself. Such tales were unlikely to have any basis in reality – what he expected to find was simply an unforgiving landscape scarce in fuel and shelter, and probably his grave. Still, he was too proud to simply lay down and accept the fate expected of him, which was to die rather than endure the shame of exile. Megatron would not throw his life away so flippantly on such a fragile thing as honour.

At the last village before the road disappeared, Megatron paused. It was little more than a cluster of rusted old huts, their roofs blown or burnt away, the narrow streets littered with debris. No one had lived here since the last war, at least, Megatron thought. He picked his way to the edge of the village and spent a while staring at the misty mountains. Their craggy surfaces rose almost completely vertically into the frigid sky, and Megatron saw snow on the highest reaches, before the peaks disappeared into the clouds.

It was getting dark. He would spend the night here and then continue in the morning. For the hundredth time that cycle, he cursed his worthless alt-mode that forced him to travel on foot.

He bedded down in the shell of the biggest house in the village. It must have belonged to the head of the community, long ago. Now it was a paltry shelter for an exile, a mech whose brand marked him as the lowest of the low. He sighed and closed his optics. He wasn't worried about being attacked or robbed, not out here. Even if somebot was trying to eke out an existence out here, he had nothing of value to take. He fell into recharge in the knowledge that he would need all the rest he could get in preparation for what was to come.

The next morning dawned crisp and cool. Some of the mountain chill had made its way this far down the foothills, and Megatron felt an ache in his joints that didn't bode well for a future life lived in the harsh northern cold. He was too old, he thought to himself, for any of this foolishness. Why hadn't he simply kept his head down, done his work, and lived out the rest of his days as the miner he was designed to be? He could even have been content, provided he didn't think too much… maybe. Probably not, but it was a nice fantasy now, when he was taking the first steps into a dangerous unknown. He didn't feel fear, so much as trepidation, and a grim kind of acceptance. If he met his death in the mountains, or in the tundra beyond, at least the fools he left behind in Kaon wouldn't have the satisfaction of hearing about it.

He made himself a breakfast of a couple of sips of energon, then subspaced the rest of the cube and set out, step by grimly determined step, to cross the mountains. Even if he died when he got there, he decided he would find out what lay on the other side.

By midday he was just hitting his stride. His body ached — he had taken quite the beating during his capture, and before that, the arena had given him his share of aches and pains — but the air up here was clean and clear in a way it never was in the city. His processor felt like it was running faster, and his spark exulted the more he considered his newfound freedom. He felt alive, and unshackled.

He paused atop a plateau and sat down on the edge. He pulled the partly-drunk energon cube from his subspace, one of only a few containers of fuel he had been permitted to take with him, and took a few sips while he contemplated the view.

He was a free mech. An outlaw he may be, but he was answerable to no-one and nothing, save for Primus if he chose to bother himself with such a mech as Megatron. It did feel liberating, and he found himself actually smiling as he enjoyed his solitary freedom. His spirits renewed, he rose and continued his journey.

He was making his way through a narrow, rocky pass as dusk approached. He had been walking for seven orbital cycles, and making fairly good time or so he thought. He could no longer see the lowlands and the shape of the city on the horizon when he looked back — now mountains obscured his view, as he had travelled deeper into the range. He didn't think a civilised bot had ever set foot this far — at least, not and survived. He received a chilling reminder of his folly in travelling this way when he rounded a boulder in his path to find a corpse, long dead and almost rusted almost down to the struts. Megatron paused, and took a moment to crouch beside the dead mech to inspect his body. He brushed at the mech's chest, displacing great flakes of rust that stuck to his hand. He shook them off. The corpse was too degraded for him to make out if there had once been a brand beneath that rust. However, the chunks missing from the mech's torso and legs, and the entirely missing left arm, told him a story of how the unfortunate bot had lost his life. It hadn't been the cold or starvation that had taken him, but something else. It might be Megatron would get to face his end in battle after all — the dead mech sported the marks and scrapes of huge teeth. He had been partially eaten, and then the rests left to be picked over by cryo-crows.

From that moment, Megatron travelled more carefully. He recharged during the day, and travelled in the night-cycles, fighting the bitter cold that crept into his very struts and threatened to seize up his entire frame. There wasn't much around that he could burn, save his precious energon supply, which was already dwindling despite his careful rationing.

It was one such cold night that he was descending a scree covered decline into a small, sheltered valley where had hoped to rest a while when he realised he was not alone. His EM field flared out as his sensornet went onto full alert, but he was under-fuelled and exhausted, and his reactions were slowed as a result. He sensed movement on his periphery, and ploughed on ahead, only to realise too late that shapes moved in the valley below him as well, darting between the huge standing boulders. He halted, his feet slipping on the scree and sending pebbles skittering noisily down the slope. Dots of red light shone in the darkness ahead. They must have been tracking him for days, he realised. It had been several cycles since he'd found the corpse, and the initial shock and fear of its discovery had had time to fade. He hadn't made enough effort to be stealthy, and in his spark he had foolishly believed the terrain too harsh to support that much life. That assumption was to be his downfall.

He decided to continue descending and try to gain the valley floor before engaging the predators. He would be at too much of a disadvantage if he tried to fight on the slope, he'd never keep his footing on the uneven, shifting ground.

Even as certainty of his approaching death closed around his spark like a fist, his fuel pump pounded, setting his lines alight. The thrill of battle had been too long ago, and he smiled in blood lust.

He grabbed the first turbowolf that dared to attack. He seized it by the scruff of the neck and hurled it into a boulder. It made a satisfying crunch when it hit the rock, but regained its footing and shook itself off before returning to its circling brethren. They were closing in on Megatron, and he couldn't keep his optics on all of them. They were large creatures, with four legs that each ended in vicious claws, and pointed snouts filled with razor sharp teeth. They barked and howled as they harried their prey. They were hungry. Megatron fought them off, but they wore him down as the joors passed, and he swayed on his feet, bleeding from a dozen small bites and scratches. Exhaustion would make him falter, and then they would be on him.

The sun was just rising when Megatron finally reached his limit. If he hadn't been so low on fuel, perhaps things would have been different, but he had used up all the strength he had. This was to be the end, then. He fell to one knee, and heard the beasts howl in triumph, no doubt tasting his energon on their slavering glossae already. Megatron bared his teeth and yelled. He railed against his fate — this ignoble, meaningless death was beneath him. His head swam, but he forced himself back onto his feet. His fuel lines roared in his audios.

Just as the wolves were about to descend upon him once and for all, he realised the roaring he heard wasn't his fuel lines at all, but something else. The wolves heard it too, and fled, yipping, into the shadows. Megatron, suddenly alone on the mountain, cast his optics skyward just in time to see a trio of jets streak across the sky.

He sank down to his knees as the jets circled back around, and watched in a daze as they transformed into three winged mechs and landed in the clearing, surrounding him. The mech in front of him was presumably their leader. He was a frightful sight, his face a snarled map of scars, his navy blue and gold frame adorned with strange markings. He said something to him, but Megatron didn't understand the language. As the winged mech stepped forward, Megatron lurched to his feet and snarled. The jet paused, but it only took him a moment to realise Megatron was in no fit state to be a threat to him. He gave Megatron a grim smile and closed in. Megatron swung wildly, but his world was spinning. He was exhausted and leaking energon, and as he lost consciousness the last thing he saw was the jet's unfamiliar winged silhouette outlined in black in front of the rising sun.

"Where are you taking me?" Megatron asked as they trudged along. They had been travelling for the better part of two days, by Megatron's reckoning, and it was clear the aerials were unused to ground travel. One walked in front of him, the other behind, while the third took to the air and circled around, scouting the area ahead. Megatron's wrists were bound in front of him with some kind of heavy-duty metal cord. It made keeping his balance on the uneven terrain difficult, but every time he stumbled the navy and gold mech behind him gave him a shove to keep him moving on.

The mech in front was of a blocky build, with green armour spattered with scars, burns, and patches. He had thus far exhibited a gruff, taciturn manner, but that facade cracked when he looked over his shoulder and flashed Megatron a gap-toothed smile.

"To meet the Prince," he said.

He didn't offer any further explanation, only turned back and continued to lead the way along the treacherous path, but Megatron was left with a feeling of trepidation in his fuel tank. This Prince must be these wild mechs' leader, he reasoned. The bots who escorted him were a rough lot, by the look of them, and it stood to reason that the bot who kept such savages in line must be the worst of the bunch.

Later, when they paused to camp for the night, Megatron approached the green bot as he was taking his fuel. Although the blue and gold gave him a glare, no doubt preferring his captive to remain silent, Megatron was determined to get some more information out of the only one of the seekers who seemed willing to talk.

"Do you mechs have designations?" he said.

"Skyquake," said the green jet, thumping his own chest. He nodded to the blue mech and the third bot, a more slender model with a lilac and sky blue paint-job criss-crossed with black tattoos, "And that's Dreadwing and Slipstream."

"I am Megatron." He held up his bound wrists. "These are unnecessary. I'm clearly no threat to the three of you."

Skyquake seemed to waver, and glanced to the other two. The navy mech, Dreadwing, sat with his arms folded and a disapproving glower upon his face. He shook his head, but the third seeker sighed and said, "Oh, what's the harm?" Megatron was shocked to hear husky, feminine vocals, and he took a closer look at the bot he had assumed to be a mech. Femmes were so rare where he came from, and hardly any became warriors. This bot had a strong frame, just as tall as her companions, but now Megatron looked closely he noticed the slightly exaggerated swell of her chestplates, a telltale sign of a femme's larger spark chamber.

Skyquake reached over and undid Megatron's restraints, untying the cord and making it disappear into his subspace. Megatron rubbed his wrists and looked at each of his captors thoughtfully. He knew better than to attack. It would be better to bide his time for a more convenient moment if he decided escape was necessary. He wasn't completely convinced it was, at least not yet.

"How is it I can understand you?" he said.

Slipstream tapped the side of her helm and smiled.

"We uploaded a translator program to your processor while you were unconscious," she said. "We are speaking Vosian, but you hear us as if we're making those awful grunts that pass for your language."

Megatron paled. He didn't much like the idea of strangers tampering with his head, least of all when he was unaware.

"And why did you capture me?"

"Well for one thing you're in our territory now, although this is a little further south than we usually travel," Slipstream said smartly. "And secondly, you looked like you were about to be torn apart by those turbowolves. Is it so hard to believe we might have felt a spark of compassion for a poor lost mech about to meet his maker?" She posed the question while fixing Megatron with a grin that was distinctly wolfish in itself, so Megatron wasn't quite sure what to answer.

He said, "My thanks," and left it that.

"Tomorrow we reach the Eyrie," said Dreadwing. "There you will meet Prince Starscream, and he will decide what to do with you."

Megatron hid a smile as a plan formulated in his mind. Simple though it was, it might prove challenging to pull off. He would best this leader of theirs, and wrestle control of the tribe from him. Then he would use his newly acquired army of winged demons to return to Kaon and rain destruction down upon the heads of every mech who had disgraced him and cast him out. He would finish what he had started, and make this period of exile nothing more than a brief interlude in the tale of his glorious revolution.

Just as Dreadwing had predicted, the next day brought them within sight of what the seekers called the Eyrie. It looked like it had been a small city once. Ruined towers like broken spears thrust up from the snow on top of a lonely mountain, distanced from the other peaks by a vast frozen lake. It was a hard slog to get to for Megatron, who had to traverse the snowdrifts and cruel rock faces on foot while the three seekers flitted about, urging him to hurry up. He swore and considered trying to kill the lot of them, but he reconsidered when the air filled with the thundering of yet more jet engines, louder and louder the higher up the mountain he climbed.

At long last he reached the top. It wasn't a large settlement, although the towers themselves, broken as they were, loomed high above him, as though trying to touch the sky itself. Whatever settlement had stood here in a bygone age, all that was left now was ruins. The seekers of today had moved into those ruins, and as Megatron entered the shadows of the towers he saw their brightly coloured shapes flitting between the high buildings like turbohawks coming in to roost. On ground level, huge drifts of snow were piled up around the bases of the towers, untouched by footprints. Pink fires burned here and there in the heights, lighting up the quickly-falling dusk.

Megatron was directed without delay toward the largest tower. He struggled his way up a snowdrift to an opening in the tower wall. By this time he was both exhausted and fuming mad. Then he finally got into the tower and out of the damp cold air, he was ready to challenge the aerials' leader right away simply for the satisfaction of taking out his bad mood on just one of the smug seeker glitches.

He was led up a spiralling staircase, up and up until the air became so thin his fans strained. A glance out a broken window made him dizzy, vertigo seizing him and threatening to send him tumbling over the window ledge and into the icy abyss. At last they reached the top of the stairs. Here the tower was in worse shape than the lower floors, time and weather having taken their toll upon the stone walls. A set of ornately carved double doors stood in a wall half crumbled away. Skyquake and Slipstream opened them, while Dreadwing cautioned him to watch his glossa while in the presence of their leader. Megatron outwardly agreed, whilst privately vowing to kill the mech the first moment he got.

The last thing he expected to see, when he stepped through those doors and came face to face with the wild Prince himself, was the most beautiful mech he had ever laid optics upon. He had imagined the barbarians' leader to be much like those he commanded — brawny and rough, battle-scarred, a winged brute. That assumption was proven wrong the moment he was escorted into Starscream's presence.

Starscream received him in a tall, vaulted chamber, half of which had been sheared away in some past conflict, leaving the room open to the elements. The wind howled as it blasted into the ruined tower, but Megatron didn't feel the chill, not when Starscream pinned him with his burning red optics. Instead, he felt a flame kindle deep within his spark, one which he was already frighteningly certain would one day consume him entirely. The Prince was slender without being thin, his frame a perfect balance between grace and strength, and his armour gleamed bright white, red, and blue. His face was youthful and sported a wry, considering smirk. He lounged in his throne with one leg slung insouciantly over one of the chair's arms.

"Well, well," he said as Megatron approached the base of the dais upon which Starscream's throne sat, Dreadwing following him half a step behind to keep him in line. "What do we have here?"

"Megatron of Tarn," Megatron said. It was a miracle he found his voice at all. He felt like a young mech again, a mere stripling just off the assembly line, stuttering and bashful. He did his best to choke the life out of the feeling before he could embarrass himself.

Dreadwing bowed, then cuffed Megatron on the back of the helm and grunted, "Kneel in the Prince's presence, outlander." Megatron sank to one knee without protest, not taking his optics off Starscream. Starscream rested his chin in his hand and studied Megatron. His optics danced with interest, and perhaps amusement as well.

"We found him wandering one of the old trails in the border mountains," said Dreadwing. "He says he's a gladiator from one of the barbarian cities in the lowlands."

Megatron bridled at the mech's dismissive description of his adopted home city. Thus far he hadn't seen anything that proved things were any more civilised north of the mountains. The collection of towers where Starscream held court might have been a beautiful city once upon a time, but was now just a cluster of ruins, glittering on the mountaintop in the sun like a heap of broken glass. He didn't know what Starscream was the "prince" of, nor could he see how being the heir to wilderness and rubble was anything to boast of.

"Well, Megatron of Tarn, you were caught trespassing in my realm. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Megatron looked up at the mech he had come here with every intention to kill. For the first time since the notion occurred to him, he started to have doubts. Throughout Kaon's history, only the strongest were allowed to lead, and a leader could be relieved of his power by any warrior courageous enough to issue a challenge and win. It was only in recent centuries that these old ways had been abandoned in favour of southern, Autobot-style bureaucracy and corruption. These jets didn't seem like the bureaucratic types, but now that he was surrounded by a whole flock of them he was no longer so sure his warrior tactics would succeed. If Megatron challenged or harmed their leader, they may simply respond by killing him for the insult. He should wait and get a better feel for the dynamics in the tribe, figure out how the currents of power flowed within this unfamiliar civilisation. Maybe if he were smart about it he could stir up some dissent, try to peel some allies away from the prince and to his own side instead. He would have a better chance at conquest if he had some support.

When he realised Starscream was still waiting for an answer, he cleared his throat and said, "I had no idea that stretch of land belonged to you, or to anybody. Few bots ever venture this far north, and those that do don't return."

"I'm aware of that," Starscream said. "Why do you think that is?"

Megatron wasn't dumb enough to miss the implication. Those bots who did wander past the mountains and into the prince's icy domain, if they weren't eaten by turbowolves, were doubtless picked off by the seekers themselves.

"…I see. In that case, let me express my gratitude for not only saving my life, but sparing it also. It seems I am at your disposal." He almost choked on the words, but he had no desire to have his head blown off before he could learn more — and, though it galled him, this seemed better than being thrown back out into the snow.

"Don't thank me yet," Starscream said. He stood up, and Megatron's intakes caught. The prince was truly glorious to look at. "You're lucky my scouts found you when they did. We're heading north at dawn and won't return to this area for months. You'd have died on that mountainside with nobot to mourn you."

"Nobot would mourn me anyway," Megatron said. He disliked that he had needed rescuing, it made him feel small and weak.

"Is that so? Well you might still get your chance to perish un-mourned — unless you can fly, we can't take you with us."

He descended from the dais, and Megatron tamped down the instant flare of excitement that blazed within his spark as Starscream moved nearer to him. He followed the prince with his optics, cataloguing every motion. Starscream watched him in return, but in his case it was as though Megatron were a curious new toy, a puzzle to be figured out.

"We travel with only what we can carry," Starscream said. He was close enough to Megatron to touch, now. Megatron didn't know if he wanted to caress his cockpit or wrap his hands around his pretty throat. He compromised by doing neither. "Well?" Starscream said. Megatron realised his gaze had drifted down Starscream's body as he had been lost in his little reverie. Starscream had asked him something and he had been too distracted to listen.

"What?" he snapped, full of bluster. To his ire, Starscream looked more amused than ever.

"I said, can you fly?"

"No."

"So what ever are we to do?"

Megatron glowered, looked around, and then huffed. Without another word, he activated his T-cog. A few of the onlooking seekers primed their weapons as he started to transform, mistaking the sudden motion for an attack, but most watched in silence. Within seconds, the towering warmech was gone, and in his place was a simple handgun. Megatron fell right into Starscream's hand as though he belonged there. At the first contact of Starscream's palm against his grip, Megatron felt an indescribable thrill, and for some reason he was certain that the feeling of rightness he experienced was something he and the prince shared.

Starscream's optics were wide, a surprised, pleased smile upon his face. Megatron couldn't see him exactly, but he held Starscream within the net of his sensors just as surely as Starscream cradled Megatron in his palm.

A moment later Starscream released him and Megatron transformed once more, landing on his feet and standing to face Starscream with a challenge in his optics — challenging Starscream to mock or belittle him for having such a humiliating shape.

"Are you satisfied?" Megatron snapped.

Starscream blinked slowly. They were closer than they had been before Megatron's little demonstration, but Starscream showed no desire to put distance between them.

"Oh, far from it," Starscream drawled. "Not yet. But I'm quite sure I will be."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you just saved your own life, outlander."

"You mean you'll take me with you?" Megatron tore his optics from Starscream for a moment to look around at the other seekers. Not a one of them challenged their leader's decision. He looked back to Starscream. "For what purpose?"

Megatron didn't entirely like the look in Starscream's optics, nor the playful smirk upon his lips.

"Oh, I'm sure I can find some use for you," Starscream said.