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Leaving the headquarters, Ethan tightened his collar.
Yvette hadn't accepted the ring in the end. There was no need to spell it out. Ethan knew that for the coming acquisition, his senior sister intended to pay out of her own pocket. Before the company's first month of salary had even landed, she was already dipping into her personal savings, and it made him more than a little embarrassed.
Sitting inside Bumblebee, he addressed his watch.
"J.A.R.V.I.S. Pull up the account expenditure breakdown."
"No problem, sir."
A projection appeared inside the car, and looking at the list of expenses, Ethan felt a headache coming on.
You never know the cost of running a household until you run one. The two billion for the tower, plus the investment poured into the Hidden Dragon program. And that wasn't the half of it. The single largest expenditure, by a wide margin, had been the construction of Underground Laboratory One. No wonder the lab was so effortlessly convenient to use. It turned out he'd built it by throwing a mountain of money at it.
After a moment's pang, though, Ethan put the matter out of mind.
Tonight, a certain someone he'd been anticipating for over a month was finally about to wake up.
---
Inside Underground Laboratory One.
Bumblebee, Blackout, Ironhide, Jazz, Ratchet, Bonecrusher, and Barricade. All seven Transformers were gathered.
At the same time, in a rare move, Ethan had put on the Mark VII inside his own laboratory. Even so, a sense of unease sat in his chest. Recalling the raw performance of the one about to wake, as it was rendered in the original Transformers accounts, his current lineup was genuinely insufficient to be certain of anything.
"J.A.R.V.I.S. Put every weapon in the lab on standby. The moment this one wakes, if there's the slightest sign of him slipping out of control, hold nothing back. Put everything we have into him."
At Ethan's grave tone, J.A.R.V.I.S. did not dare treat it lightly.
"Yes, sir."
Every firearm and pulse emitter in every corridor of the underground laboratory came online. This time, not to repel an intruder from outside, but to restrain the beast about to wake within.
"Master. To be safe, you should wait outside."
The one who spoke, from off to the side, was Blackout.
Hearing a Decepticon say it, the Autobots for once did not argue the point.
"As much as it pains me to agree, Master, he's right this time," said Ironhide, oldest and most senior of the Autobots present, his tone worried. "This clansman hasn't even woken, and already I can feel a thread of pressure off him. He is a dangerous character, without question. If he wakes and slips his leash, I'm afraid..."
Hearing the counsel from both factions, Ethan shook his head.
"Your lives were given by the Spark, and as the one who holds the Spark, I have to be present. Otherwise he'll go berserk for certain. Besides, with the armor's protection, I shouldn't run into any real trouble."
"But..."
"Enough. My mind's made up."
The Transformers wanted to press further, but seeing the set of Ethan's resolve, they all fell silent.
Everything ready, Ethan drew a deep breath and closed the faceplate of the armor.
"J.A.R.V.I.S. Begin."
"No problem, sir."
Command received, J.A.R.V.I.S. moved the large mechanical arm into motion. Under the taut attention of Ethan and every Transformer in the room, the arm lifted the prepared Spark and eased it toward the chest of the Megatron chassis.
The instant the Spark came within thirty centimeters of the body, its perfect stillness broke, and it flared to life as though it had heard a summons. The light swelled, brighter and brighter, until it spilled outward as a flowing current of energy.
At the same moment, the chassis, as if answering the same call, generated an enormous suction, and it drew in every scrap of the Spark's radiated energy without losing a single drop.
Every Transformer in the room registered shock.
Just what kind of monster had their Master built? When they themselves had been woken, the Spark's energy had been actively fed in while their bodies passively received it, and in that exchange a great deal of energy inevitably bled off into the air. But now, the chassis lying at the center of the lab was instinctively plundering the energy from the Spark, and it wasn't even conscious yet. It had no life in it at all. This was too much.
And that was only the beginning.
As the energy poured out, the chassis's appetite was plainly not satisfied. In the next instant, under Ethan's dumbfounded gaze, the Megatron chassis pulled the Spark bodily into itself.
Ethan went numb.
You can do that? You're not even alive yet, and you're already this domineering. If I actually let you live, you'll turn the world on its head.
But thanks to that outrageous move, the energy transfer that should have taken half an hour showed signs of finishing early.
Thump. Thump.
An immense heartbeat reached Ethan's ears. The other Transformers didn't notice it. The sound belonged to Ethan alone. Every time it rang, it meant a new Transformer was waking, and it meant the System was helping Ethan forge a connection with this new life.
In the next second, the hand, as large as a grown man, moved without any warning. And then the eyes, each the size of a palm, snapped open.
Illusion or not, the moment those eyes opened, the temperature in the entire lab seemed to fall several degrees.
The newly woken Megatron was still adjusting. He tilted his head slightly, and his intensely aggressive gaze swept across the waiting Transformers and Ethan.
With a single instant of eye contact, Ethan's spirit was seized by the Megatron in front of him.
Tyrannical. Cold. Cruel.
Those were the emotions filling those eyes. At that moment, Ethan had no doubt that his Mark VII, which had withstood a million volts of discharge, might not survive a single exchange in the hands of this Decepticon leader.
And the Transformers, seeing the newborn monster's gaze turn toward them, felt their own plating crawl.
What in the world was this thing? Why had the impulse to submit risen in their hearts from a single look?
It wasn't their fault. In this world, through the System's modifications, the Transformers had become Ethan's research creations. But in their subconscious, the natural relationships of the original accounts still lived on, just as Bumblebee carried its hostility toward Blackout. And those inherent oppositions were nothing at all beside the pressure they felt now, a pressure that transcended the very levels of their existence.
Facing Megatron. The leader of a faction. Their survival instinct was screaming, at full volume, to submit at once.
But in this world, these Transformers would not submit.
Because standing behind them was a faith more important than their own lives.