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This quarrel obviously had been brewing for a long time now, and it rankled Dreadwing even further to realize that he’d allowed this… wrongness to continue on for as long as it had. He was furious at Skyquake for not understanding. How could he not understand, when it was his duty to believe his brother and support him?! Betrayal cut into his spark like a dulled vibroknife. Nothing had ever come between them before, but Skyquake evidently did not value their bond as much as he did himself.
Dreadwing began to thrash as soon as his brother attempted to crush him, snarling as the thick armor plating of his torso began to buckle under the pressure. So this was how it would be? With an enraged howl, tHe last of his self-restraint fell away and he switched from defense to offense, slamming his head forward to smash his browplate against Skyquake’s, before he flipped them once, twice, punching and clawing at whatever he could reach. They rolled together through the silt, sliding down an incline and ending up dangerously close to one of the lava flows.
It was then that he saw it out of the corner of his optic: the Tox-En.
An idea dawned on him then, and he sneered at the innocuous container. The Tox-En was what brought this on. ‘It has made him mad, clearly. It is making us both mad,’ He decided, though he knew the truth to be quite different. He had gotten good practice at deluding himself throughout the years, however, and it was much easier to think that the Tox-En was what had driven the wedge between himself and his brother than acknowledge or address what the real issue was. He made his decision then.
He kicked out at it, hard, and the container sailed dreamily through the water and straight into the lava flow.
Under any other circumstance, watching the canister sail through the water and land into a volcano would have been amusing. The way it seemed to move in slow motion yet managed to reach its doom with neither twin moving so much as a cable seemed like a scene straight out from a comedy holovid. Skyquake was not amused now, however. He scrambled to his knees, optics squinting against the white-hot flare that the explosion caused.
Skyquake switched off his infrared for a moment, shielding himself from the worst of the glare. A shockwave rippled through the seabed, tossing him and Dreadwing back. Sand flew up. He irised his optics open to allow more light in, but it was dark so far down the ocean. The volcanoes offered little light, their molten lava nothing but an ominous glow at the fringes of his vision. He switched back to infrared and looked for his brother.
«Look at what you've done,» he said, his voice rough and low. «You fool!»
Dreadwing's emotions enraged Skyquake—the acute pride and relief, the scorn, the sense of righteousness. Getting to his feet, Skyquake lunged for Dreadwing, not caring about the drag of the water or the remnants of Tox-En floating in the water.
He had not known that Tox-En was particularly explosive, nor had he realized just how reactive it could be in response to exposure to intense heat such as that from a lava flow, but he could not say if he would have done anything different. Clearly the Tox-En was having some impact upon their psyches, for why else would they quarrel? It was a convenient excuse that justified his actions and his treachery, one he latched on to, if only to avoid thinking upon the real reason his brother had swung at him in rage.
The canister exploded with a water-muffled boom, and Dreadwing let out a grunt as the shock wave caught him and flung both himself and his twin effortlessly through the water. It took him several moments after that to overcome the ringing in his audio sensors and blearily take stock of the situation. The Tox-En had been (mostly) destroyed, and for that he was grateful, and relieved. He clambered wearily to his feet, noting that only small fragments of it lingered in the water.
<<"It was an accident!">> Dreadwing spat back, knowing in his spark that it was a lie and knowing that Skyquake knew, too; it was impossible to lie to one who was but another half of your spark. When his twin lunged, he sneered at him and sidestepped the best he could, before his infrared vision caught the tiniest of white-hot spots drifting near. He reached out and yanked Skyquake backwards away from it. <<"-Careful, brother, do not let it touch you!">>
Skyquake had been expecting a collision, bubbling anger and frustration to pour over and scald them as they exchanged blows at last—a proper fight, both on their feet, face-to-face as they tore each other down. For all that Dreadwing was the more level-headed of the two, however, he had always been the most unpredictable. When he yanked Skyquake forward instead of ducking or pushing him away, the green seeker let out a startled yelp, a stream of bubbles escaping from his mouth. He quickly shut it again, throwing a hand over it and working his throat cabling; no seawater had slipped into his frame.
He hooked an arm around Dreadwing, claws digging into sensitive seams with little care. Dreadwing's sudden burst of panic had cooled Skyquake's temper, but it was steadily rising back up. He ignored the flares of Tox-En around them, slowly drifting, bright stars in the bottom of a world.
«It was no accident and you know it,» Skyquake accused. «Why did you do it? What do you care what weapons we use so long as they aid us in furthering our Cause? Answer me! When have the means ever mattered,» he asked, his claws digging in deeper, «after all the wrongs we were done before we rose to claim our freedom?»
He twisted in his brother’s hold, trying to hook his own claws somewhere sensitive even despite having hauled Skyquake out of harm’s way. For all his attempts to avoid having to face the issue head on and deal with it, Skyquake countered him in turn, until finally Dreadwing realized that he had been metaphorically cornered. There was no denying the chasm between them anymore, and no amount of pretending that a chunk of radioactive poison was responsible could erase it.
<<”You were not there when it was used! You have never had it used on you, and I would rather go offline than risk you becoming a victim of it!”>> He spat, wings taut and EM field flaring in agitation. <<”If we used it, we would be no better than those who wronged us. There is no honor in it!”>>
Skyquake stopped trying to sink his claws into his brother, pulling back just enough so he could peer into the face that was so much like his own. The infrared didn’t allow for a great deal of detail to seep into his visual feed, but he didn’t need it. Skyquake knew his twin, and the emotions in their bond were all he needed. He frowned, but there was no anger in it.
At last, Dreadwing’s words seemed to register. It still bothered Skyquake how his brother claimed to know better simply because he had been there, but the green seeker allowed himself to think that maybe, despite how preposterous that sounded, Dreadwing was right. Skyquake hadn’t actually been there when the biochemical weapon had been used, and he hadn’t met with its devastation in person. Dreadwing’s memories of it—the gritty images and feelings—would never compare to having been there, but at least he had an idea. He remembered Dreadwing’s fear.
There was much Skyquake would do for the Decepticon Cause, that was true. But would he condone a weapon that could accidentally rob him of his just brother as easily as it could win them the war? Skyquake wasn’t sure, but deep down, he knew that the answer was no.
Other weapons could be used. The Decepticons were nothing if not resourceful. They would rise to meet the challenge and they would triumph, and they wouldn’t put their own comrades in danger with such a volatile weapon in the meanwhile. Still, their Master would want an explanation for their empty hands, and Skyquake wasn’t keen on lying to him. Besides, he felt his brother needed to understand that his brash actions couldn’t go unpunished. If he had to face judgement for them, then so be it.
«Let us head back to the Nemesis,» Skyquake said, voice tired. He loved his brother, but right now he would rather be away from him. «Our lord will be awaiting us, and he will need to hear of what took place here.»
With that, he disentangled himself from Dreadwing and took off, propelling himself upwards at a slow pace. Below he left his twin, and around him hung the bright dots of Tox-En, suspended in the ocean’s darkness.
Slowly, slowly, comprehension began to bleed across the bond they shared. Compared to the blinding rage of before, this gradual shift of paradigm was like a gentle, cool breeze after gale-force winds. Dreadwing sagged ever so slightly in Skyquake’s hold. To have shared such vulnerable memories… it had troubled him greatly to expose any weakness, but who could he trust if not his brother? His fear had been the thing to finally jolt Skyquake out of this madness, though, and for that, he had to be grateful.
That did not mean Skyquake was happy about it, that much was clear. His twin may have begun to understand why he had done what he had done, but Dreadwing was beginning to realize that he could not assume this was anything but a shaky, tentative truce. Skyquake’s claws ceased trying to dig into sensitive transformation seams, but the discordant currents that ran between them still remained. Resentment and mistrust simmered just beneath the surface. Though their quarrel brawl had ended, never before had he been so painfully aware of the growing chasm between them.
‘How can this be fixed?’ He thought desperately to himself, frustration superseding his relief. ‘How can I fix this?’
There was nothing more for them to do here. With any luck, the lingering fragments of the Tox-En would settle to the sea floor and be buried in the silt, never to be used against another Cybertronian again. His spark ached to hear the weariness in his twin’s voice… but what Skyquake said next felt almost like a kick to the chest. Did his twin plan on reporting his treachery to their lord and master? Lord Megatron would not be pleased when they returned empty-servoed, but he would be even less pleased to find out the true reason two of his strongest and most loyal warriors failed to bring back his prize. If Megatron learned that he had deliberately destroyed the Tox-En, a court martial by fusion cannon would surely be his fate.
There would be repercussions for his actions, but it would be dishonorable of him if he were to run from judgement now. With a long, heavy look, Dreadwing watched the scarlet-and-yellow shape that was his brother ascend through the water, before kicking off from the seabed to follow.