Orion Pax dies when D-16 drops him into the Well of the AllSpark. The Matrix never chooses a Prime. D-16 seizes Megatronus’ T-cog and names himself Megatron, but is soon haunted by the ghost of Orion—silent, broken, one-armed, and painfully real. He follows Megatron everywhere, empty-eyed and still touchable. Megatron speaks to him like a lover, a curse, and a prayer… because even in death, Orion never truly left him.

The chamber is cold. He prefers it that way now. The warmth of energon, the hum of war-forges—they agitate him. Too alive. Too loud. But in this quiet—where the air is still and dust settles without fear—he can think. Or stop thinking. He isn't sure which he does more.

Orion is sitting where Megatron left him. Cross-legged on the floor beside the berth, one arm resting in his lap, the other nonexistent. His optics are wide, always too wide, like they’re stuck trying to see a future that never happened. Megatron stands over him, helm tilted.

“You used to sit like that when you read,” he murmurs.

Megatron lowers himself slowly—heavy frame hissing as joints realign—and sits beside him. Not close enough to touch. Not yet. He watches the ghost’s face. The faint flicker of ancient energon in his throatlines. The cracked lip of his mouth. That soft, slack openness that used to be filled with laughter and questions and biting little truths. He misses the way Orion used to look at him.