A/N: Transformers Primeverse, pre-war Megatronus and Orion Pax. Basically my headcanon of the initial meeting between Orion Pax and Megatronus.

Part I

Nothing soured the achivist's mood more than being interrupted and questioned while he was in the middle of his workload. The solar-cycle was only half over when he received a summons to Senator Doren's office. It was either a very good thing or a very bad thing for most mechs. For Orion Pax it was simply a nuisance. Usually a trip to a Senator's office involved explaining why he altered routes of code or changed data protocols. Orion honestly felt that these meetings were a waste of time.

There was nothing for it. The fact was that Orion was good at what he did and could probably put out an amount of work equal to 10 mechs above his station. Rather than his skills being celebrated, he was hauled into offices and asked to explain himself. His explanations, Orion knew, were being used to teach entry-level data caste members. Orion preferred to teach his methods himself but... well. One wasn't supposed to extend himself past the duties his station dictated, after all.

The Senator's halls were easily accessible to the Scholarly castes. While not a scholar himself, Orion was responsible for organizing and archiving a vast amount of information in Iacon's Hall of Records. The information itself came from the upper echelon of the caste; Medics, Scientists, Engineers, Mathematicians, Theoreticians, Legal administrators; all the Grand Thinkers. Orion was only responsible for cataloguing the information, which wasn't on the same level as producing it. But try organizing some brilliant scientist's non-sensical scrawling and see if that didn't grind one's gears.

The Hallways were an endless collection of tall pillars that supported a cavernous ceiling. Gorgeous detailing drew the optic to intricate carvings that told the story of the Senators, the heroic Primes, how the Alphas were chosen to be the keepers of Primes. The stories were familiar to Orion, but it was the artwork that always stuttered his vents. He always wondered how one thought to produce something of such immense beauty. He made a point of appreciating it whenever he could.

At Senator Doren's office, Orion entered his visitor's code. The heavy door slid to the side, allowing Orion's access. The older Autobot sat at his desk, which was a mess of datapads stacked precariously. He glanced up and rose from his seat with a pleasant, "Ah. Come in."

As he expected, the Senator's office was filled with datapads and holographic screens. Aside from the clutter the room had a spacious, sterile office. The Senator stood in front of him, taller than Orion. Face to face, Orion performed the customary greeting for those of a lower caste. He gave a deep bow and kiss on the back of Doren's hand. He laughed at the archivist.

"Sir?"

"It's been a long time since anyone's treated me so formally." Senator Doren smiled. "I thank you for your consideration."

"Oh. Forgive me, if it made you uncomfortable - "

The Senator turned his back to the young archivist. "Kiss to your spark's content. Please. Have a seat."

Orion blinked, and then trailed after the Senator, feeling awkward. Orion wasn't used to this Senator. The others tended to be very traditional and formal in the way they spoke to Orion. He felt in his spark he should be glad this Senator tended to do away with such formalities in favour of equality but the attention made him... uneasy.

The discussion about data management and archiving practises seemed about average. Like the others, this Senator too complimented his organisational skills. No mention about a promotion, though. After a while, Orion got the distinct feeling this Senator wasn't really listening to him, but he powered through his litany of explanations anyway.

"You know," Doren said from across his desk, pouring himself two glasses of energon. "You've an agile mind, Orion. I wonder why someone of your standing wasn't snatched up sooner for a promotion."

Orion looked decidedly more interested.

"We've had an influx of social media hit our educational data nets recently. They're not archived properly and I'm afraid we simply don't have time to sort it all out. Most of the time it's harmless non-sense but recently some questionable material has been making its rounds. We're actually going to open a whole new division. And we need someone capable to run it." The Senator winked and passed a glass of energon to Orion.

The archivist felt a rush of anticipation. Orion knew certain arrangements with Senators didn't follow official channels, but at least his work was finally being noticed! His fingers quivered as he reached for the cube of energon. "Thank you, Senator." Orion looked forward to a drink after that unexpected good news. It was cool and went down his intake with a sweet, pleasant sting. Oh, that wasn't energon. Orion stared at his empty glass.

Senator Doren smiled. "Not used to the good stuff?" He chuckled. "A mech of your station isn't used to such treats, hm? In that case, please enjoy it."

"Please don't take offense I am... simply unused to s-such...ah..." A rush of heat hit Orion's systems unexpectedly and he faltered. Doren smiled, his manner almost grimly calm.

"The Media Division will require someone of with a strong tank, I'm afraid." Doren said smoothly as he sipped his highgrade. Orion thought it was odd the conversation continued despite his obvious of lack of highgrade tolerance. "Some of the material we uncovered was a little bit lewd in nature. I'll play you one such feed, if that's alright."

Orion sat there with the heat pooling uncomfortably in his chassis. It made the rest of him feel very warm and very heavy. Instead he tried to sit still and not look like a few gulps of highgrade didn't just do him in. "I... n-need to leave." Orion slurred. At least he thought he did, but the Senator activated a media file on the holographic monitor. The archivist resigned himself to at least watch the file.

The scene opened up with the feed pointing down at someone's pedes. There was a booming sound of many voices in some kind of arena, the clash of metal, and raucous cheers. Then the feed went up, and stilled, as if mounted on a solid surface. The arena was nothing like Orion had ever seen before. In fact, it was like nothing he'd ever seen in Iacon before. Here there were elegance and neatness in the architecture. Walls, seats and barriers looked like it had been made with whatever raw materials could be stitched together with iron cable.

"Is this Kaon? Is that a... a pit fight?" Orion asked Senator Doren. He suddenly became aware of Doren's proximity to him, uncomfortably close enough that his EM field tickled against his. It worried and disoriented Orion.

The footage was grainy. One mech was down, writhing in obvious agony, its battle-weary frame spilling pale blue energon from many injuries. Orion covered his mouth and flinched as he saw the opponent's powerful hands rip up plating and warp framework. The crowd was uproarious as they stood in their seats, fists in the air and chanted the Gladiator's name or hollered obscenities.

The silvered mech raised his arms, jagged denta gnashing together as he roared at the crowd. The chanting became unified, louder, coalesced into a single, booming entity.

Then the silvered Gladiator tore into the loser's pelvic plating.

Orion's optics swirled wide in horror as he choked on a protest. The highgrade turned to acid in his systems and fear at what he was seeing made him so sick he nearly passed out. Orion stared at the Senator, wanted to ask how he could even think of showing him something like this. When no explanation came he turned back to the monitor as if his answer would be there. He should have known better.

The crowd was positively insane with activity. Things were heaved in the air, there were shouts and hits exchanged and ... and... by Primus, some of them were fucking. Orion became aware of a hand on his shoulder that coasted to his neck, stroked the side of his faceplate, the corner of his mouth. But Orion stared straight ahead at the holovid. The silvered mech in the centre of the madness had the downed mech's legs around his hips. He thrust himself into him hard and fast, faceplates strained. The mech beneath him let out a wretched sob and looked away, one arm thrown over its optics.

Orion couldn't bear it anymore. Highgrade or not, he staggered up from his seat and firmly dismissed the sound of it as it clattered backward. The Senator reached out for his arm and held fast, preventing his escape. "Are you upset?" He laughed.

"Please, I..." Orion's ventilations cycled fast, completely out of his control. He didn't know why his eyes glanced at the monitor again. The victor had spilled himself on top of the downed mech. Glowing blue rivulets had splashed across his thighs, pelvic plating and up his chassis. The colour was a bright contrast to the dull, gunmetal grey that was now the loser's colour. He was dragged out by his feet.

Orion yanked himself away from the Senator's grasp so hard he pulled the older mech off-balance. The archivist was long past proper greetings and departures as he found his pedes, his sobriety and terror and all but sprinted out of the Senator's office.

He'd left Doren's office at a dead run, bowling over anyone who'd gotten in his way. Thankfully, only one or two mechs saw him leave the way he did. Not one of them offered assistance. The archivist found Ratchet's co-ordinates on a common location unit mounted to the wall. Of course Ratchet would be in his lab at this time. Once he knew that, Orion was on auto-pilot as he headed there quickly, as if trying to outrun the incident rolling around in his processor. Orion charged the medic's lab door.

Ratchet didnt even flinch from his spot in front of the data unit. "Put him on the berth, take his I.D. chip back with you and leave my payment on the desk."

Orion blinked. "Ratchet, what?"

Now the medic turned, looking a little startled. "Oh. Orion. What's wrong?"

The archivist just stared a moment. "Who is coming in here without an I.D. chip and a payment for you?"

Ratchet stared back, his face as calm and placid as a lake. "You first."

Orion looked distressed, then shook his head. "I saw something horrible. And I think I insulted a Senator?"

Ratchet left his station and approached the archivist. "What did you do, sneeze on his hand?" He asked, referring to the customary greeting reserved between Senators and lower castes, the kiss on the back of the hand. The medic's amused expression fell away as he placed his hands on Orion's shoulders. "Orion, you're shaking. Here, sit down and tell me what happened." The medic guided Orion over to the berth and helped him sit down. Orion leaned forward and rested his head in his hands.

"Senator Doren showed me a Gladitorial fight." He said. Ratchet arched an optic ridge. Orion let out an exasperated vent of air. "A Kaon fight... the loser was raped and killed in front of everyone." Saying the words made Orion's head swim and he swayed on the berth. "He invited me to his office, said he wanted to discuss something with me." Orion said. "We had some highgrade and I thought he was going to promote me. He talked about the Senators opening up a new media division and he said he wanted me to run it. But then he showed me that recording and..."

Ratchet was quiet as he brought an energon cube to Orion. The liquid was cooling on his heated systems and Orion downed it gratefully. "He must have given you the good stuff, Orion. The highgrade's hit you pretty hard and disoriented you." Ratchet continued. "The pit-fights in Kaon are barbaric. Sadly, the Kaonites' culture is based on coercion, not exchange, like ours. There isn't much we can do about it." Ratchet explained, gently.

"I can accept that they are different from us, but that... It's vile, Ratchet!" Orion hissed as he pushed himself off the berth. "Beaten into submission in front of a crowed, mutilated, used and then finally dragged out by his feet as if he were garbage. I don't believe they are so different from us that such horror is common-place or enjoyable." Orion's vents heaved.

"Orion, you're shouting." Ratchet said, and held out his hand, beckoning the archivist to him. Orion sighed, the indignity of it all leaving him and he approached Ratchet with true fear on his face.

"Imagine being that mech..." Orion rubbed his arms and shuddered.

"Sit down." Ratchet said gently. Orion did, and the medic pulled him close. "All Iacon is able to do is pull out the mechs who show promise. The ones who aren't violent, who show a great deal of competence with the work we assign to them, the ones who do not identify with Kaon's culture of violence. And that's all."

Orion looked hurt. "But that's not enough, Ratchet. Not if things like that are still happening. "

Ratchet thought very carefully about what he was going to say next. "You saw what happened to the loser. The reality is that it's probably happened to the victor as well, at some point in his career. It's what enables them to be so terrifying and brutal to each other. But there is nothing you can do about it. We can only help when we can, I'm afraid."

Orion heaved another heavy cycle of air. "Head back to your room, Orion. I'll drop by after my shift."

"I should go back to my workstation. Or maybe apologize to Senator Doren. I didn't exactly leave with his permission."

Ratchet scoffed. "Oh, screw permission. What did you do to him anyway?"

The corner of Orion's mouth twitched upward. "In my rush to get out of there, I think I knocked him on his face."

The two mechs snickered at each other as the thought of a Senator in such an undignified position was really the topping of a rather upsetting afternoon. Orion's gaze shifted to Ratchet's mouth and then he leaned in and placed a shy, soft kiss on it. Ratchet returned the gesture, but felt Orion stiffen ever so slightly. He pulled back slowly, and smiled kindly at the archivist. He ran a thumb a gently across Orion's chin. "Feeling better?" he asked. At Orion's nod, Ratchet got up from the berth and ushered Orion toward the medical bay doors.

"I still want to know who's paying you and why they don't need I.D. chips." Orion whispered.

"That information will cost you more than you an afford, Orion Pax." Ratchet whispered against Orion's audial. "Get." He punctuated the word with a pat right on the other's aft. Orion gasped and his hands dropped to protect his rear end as he nearly tripped out of Ratchet's medbay. Ratchet watched Orion go, a smile on his faceplates.

Alone in the medbay once again, Ratchet sighed. Senator Doren was a filthy glitch and he wasn't unknown for taking in a lower caste member as a berthmate. Such a practise was supposed to be done discreetly. There was a 'don't ask, don't tell' understanding that existed with all caste members. The fact that Orion had been made a target of a higher-up's attention made Ratchet seethe, but he was glad the stuck up Senator had been turned down and ungracefully so. Ratchet supposed he should have told Orion about that and the real reason why a Senator would have what equated to a snuff film in his office, but Orion had been upset enough at just that feed's existence. Besides, the medic knew no Senator in their right mind would force themselves on someone in the scholarly caste, not even Doren.

Orion had had yet another illusion of Iacon shattered today. It seemed like every week he was finding out one more dirty secret or filthy truth that brought Iacon closer to the shadow-side mechs everyone shunned. Orion thought fetish pornography in a Senator's office was bad? Try being the medic who was asked to "fix up" the victims who came out of Kaon. That was something to lose your mind at, as Ratchet had discovered.

Iacon was rotten. Kaon just had the decency to wear it on the outside.