I've Done It Again

Megatron wasn't the first to regain consciousness. He onlined and found himself laying down with his servos cuffed together. His fusion cannon was gone, dismantled and removed from his arm. Optimus was next to him, scowling at the floor, and his subspace compartment was hanging open. Energon ran down his jaw and neck, leaking out of a gash in his cheek.

They were both in a large, moving container. Megatron recognized it as an old fashioned trailer. He hadn't seen one in ages. There were a few other people locked in with them, silent and anxious. One was sitting, not cuffed, and had his blaster equipped as he sat near the doors in boredom.

"What the frag is this?" Megatron demanded, snapping the cuffs in half and standing up.

"Robbers and bot trafficking," Optimus answered in a dull tone.

The bot at the back stood up in surprise and pointed his blaster at Megatron, who grabbed it and ripped it out of his arm. "Are you stupid?" Megatron asked him. "Don't you know who I am?"

"They don't," Optimus sighed.

The mech yelped. "No!? Help!!"

Megatron kicked the doors open and threw him out. There was another vehicle behind them and the mech slammed into it, breaking the glass, and then went flying. The horrified, high-pitched scream vaguely reminded him of Starscream. The vehicle pulling them transformed with a shout and Megatron felt the trailer stop.

"This is ridiculous," Megatron looked back at Optimus with indignation. "What kind of cybertronian doesn't know who I am?"

"That's what you're upset about?" Optimus asked.

Megatron looked at him angrily. "What else would I be upset about?"

"These trafficked people?" Optimus suggested, gesturing around them with his bound servos. "Or being robbed and kidnapped, perhaps?"

Two of the criminals approached Megatron from behind, pointing their blasters at him and aiming to kill. Optimus looked at them, knowing without doubt they stood no chance. Two shots glanced off of Megatron's powerful back before he turned around and another hit him square in the chassis. He sneered and prowled forward, grabbing both mechs and disarming them.

"Optimus, tell me, why are these bastards on Cybertron?" Megatron demanded, throwing them to the side and looking back at his rival. "Don't your Autobots have identification methods to avoid this?"

"I'm sure they've had a difficult time identifying anyone who doesn't come to them for registration," Optimus explained. "It's not as if they can monitor the whole planet. Reconstruction efforts have barely even begun and I've been dead the whole time."

Reinforcements finally arrived in a group of seven more mechs and two femmes. Megatron went about knocking their lights out as Optimus made up even more excuses for why the scum of creation were waltzing through Cybertron's tunnel system. Right as he was explaining that most Decepticons were criminals by Autobot standards and pardons were practically sitting in a neat pile at every landing dock, Megatron slammed the last guy into the floor and then lugged him at Optimus. The former Prime yelped and jumped up, but he couldn't avoid the body before it crashed into him and sent him back down to the floor.

This was happening far too often.

Megatron ignored Optimus's struggling and started ripping the cuffs off of the other prisoners. "Go look for a fusion cannon," he told one of them.

"The guys who took it are already gone," Optimus informed him grumpily. "They took the matrix of leadership too."

"And you just let them get away?" Megatron snapped the cuffs off the last prisoner a little too aggressively and then moved to stand over Optimus with his arms crossed. He gave a condescending stare.