Prime really didn't want Merlin to leave. From the beginning he had known he wouldn't be staying at the Autobot base forever, and that the presence of a wizard didn't necessarily mean protection from more malicious magic-users. He had been proof of that… though letting his thoughts linger on that for too long still made him uncomfortable.

But some part of him wanted to convince Merlin to stay aboard the Ark anyhow. And at least it seemed like he wasn't alone in that respect. What seemed like half of his forces stationed here on Earth had gathered at the doors of the Ark to wish the old wizard goodbye. His allies had long since departed, vanishing as quickly as they'd arrived, but it seemed Merlin wanted a proper farewell and not to simply fade into thin air.

"Aw man, are you sure you have to go?" Wheeljack sounded less like a highly accomplished engineer and more like a whiny sparkling. "We didn't even finish the magic-resistant shields! An' there's so many other projects I drafted up for us to work on together! An' you're takin' off before we can even get started?"

Merlin chuckled softly. "I enjoyed our research together, Wheeljack, even if it did end in a few too many explosions. But my time aboard the Ark has come to a close. With Maleficent no longer a threat to the Autobots, I must move on. There are still other practitioners of the darker magicks out there… and with Jafar now free from his lamp, we've got yet another to worry about."

"And you're certain you can't use our help?" asked Elita. "I know more than one of the femmes under my command are itching for a fight with him after he destroyed our base."

"Understandable, but I doubt that's a fight you can win," Merlin replied. "A djinn bound to his lamp is dangerous enough, but a free djinn, one not bound by the laws of the lamp, is a threat only the most powerful magician – or another, more benevolent djinn – can stand up to." His eyes twinkled, as if he knew something he didn't want to divulge at the moment. "But I admire your spirit, Elita. Optimus, keep her around, all right?" He winked up at Prime.

Prime chuckled softly in reply. "I'll be sure to." He lightly squeezed Elita's hand in his.

"What about the Heartless?" asked Bumblebee. "What if they come back? Now that we've dismantled the keyblade, we don't have anything to fight them off." One of the first things Prowl had ordered once the battle was over was for the Matrix to be restored to the Prime. Unfortunately, the only way to do that had been for Merlin and the other magicians to take the Prime Ascendant apart… and while the rest of its components were still in Bumblebee's possession, it was powerless now without the Matrix to fuel its energies.

"Without Maleficent, the Heartless are disorganized and without a leader," Merlin assured them. "We have other keyblade wielders who should be able to mop up the remainder. But should the worst happen… well, someone will be here to reassemble the Prime Ascendant for you."

The wizard stooped down to pick up his traveling bag. "And with that… I'll be off now. I've an alien creation to drop back off in Hawaii before I can return to my other duties. You take care of yourselves, Autobots and Witwickys, and keep an eye out. You never know when a little magic might spring back up in your lives."

Prowl groaned from somewhere behind Prime.

"Merlin… we thank you," Prime told the magician, kneeling to better address him. "The Autobots are indebted to you and your allies, and we cannot repay you enough for what you have done for us."

"Us too," Sparkplug added. "Without you, my son and I would have been in way over our heads. Thank you for everything."

"Thanks," Spike added. "Though… I won't lie, I'm gonna miss Stitch. He can be hyper and destructive, but he's actually kind of cute once you get over that."

Stitch peered out from behind Merlin and gave a snarl. "Only Lilo allowed to call Stitch cute."

"Now, now, Stitch, the boy meant well," Merlin assured him. "And Carly, I do hope the fairies weren't too overbearing with you."

Carly rolled her eyes a little, but smiled. "They did get annoying, but after a while I guess I just saw them as eccentric aunts. They're not half-bad… for fairies, I guess. Will we see them again?"

"Given that the Witwickys are direct descendants of Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora, I would say that's a definite possibility. Your family has always been touched with a little fae magic, and perhaps that accounts for a lot of your luck in dealing with the Decepticons. Well, and some good old-fashioned smarts never hurt anyone either. Goodness knows intelligence is just as powerful as magic in some respects… oh dear me, I'm rambling again. I'd best be off before I get distracted again."

And with that, Merlin and Stitch vanished in a puff of white smoke.

Prowl gave a deep sigh of relief. "If I ever lay optics on anyone claiming to be a magician or a fantastic creature again in my functioning time, it'll be too soon."

"Aw, c'mon, man!" Jazz laughed. "That was the most fun we've had on th' Ark in ages!"

"Define fun," Prowl said dryly.

Prime left his second- and third-in-command to bicker good-naturedly and turned to go back into the Ark. Elita and Bumblebee followed close behind, the former nestling her hand in his, the latter staying close to his side like a golden shadow.

"Are you doing okay, sir?" asked Bumblebee.

"For the twenty-seventh time, Bumblebee, I'm just fine," he assured the minibot with a little laugh. "You don't need to ask every thirty astroseconds."

"I know, I know," he replied. "It's just… it's hard not to worry. After seeing Nemesis and how he took you over… I'm sorry, I shouldn't talk about it, should I?"

Prime felt his spark ache at those words. He couldn't imagine how horrifying – and traumatic – it had been for the Autobots to watch him turn into a monster, to see the specter of Nemesis overtake him. He could only be grateful that only a handful of his troops had seen him in that state. And Ratche, Ironhide, and Jazz, thank Primus, still treated him the same as ever. As for the others…. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were still a little skittish, and Grimlock had avoided him since the day of the battle. Ratchet assured him all three would come around eventually, once they had some time to process what they had seen and accept that Nemesis was gone for good. He could only hope.

"I won't forbid you from talking about it," he said at last. "And Bumblebee… I can promise you that Nemesis isn't coming back, if that's what you're worried about."

He shook his head. "I'm not worried about that… I know that wasn't you. But… I can't help but feel responsible…"

"No, 'Bee. Don't beat yourself up about this. What happened, happened. And it turned out all right in the end." He rested his free hand on the minibot's shoulder. "If I had to do it all over again, I would still take that shot for you."

He could feel Bumblebee's joints relax beneath his hand, and that in turn eased some of the ache in his spark. Despite everything, he hadn't lost the trust of one of his younger soldiers. Somehow, knowing that Bumblebee trusted and believed in him meant a great deal to him.

"Enough of this dark talk," Elita urged. "Seeing as I'm here until Ultra Magnus sets up a new femme base on Cybertron, why don't you two give me a tour of the base here?"

"With pleasure," Prime replied, and he led her further into the base. The war would separate them far too soon, and so long as Elita was on Earth, he intended to make the most of his time with her.

Maleficent's faceplates contorted into an expression that couldn't seem to decide between annoyance and amusement. "Well… I suppose that's a LITTLE closer to what you intended. Try again."

Soundwave dropped his hands and regarded his handiwork without a word, though even through the mask it looked like he was smirking. Rumble and Frenzy weren't as reserved and nearly fell over themselves laughing. Ravage cupped a paw over his muzzle to stifle a laugh, and even Buzzsaw and Laserbeak tittered with glee.

"I gotta say, the peacock form's fitting," Rumble got out between bouts of laughter. "Considering how often you used to strut around with your olfactory sensors in the air."

"Hey Soundwave, maybe next you should try making him a chicken!" Frenzy cackled. "Be even more fitting for him!"

Starscream flapped his wings and screeched at the cassettes, his tail feathers fanned out in a brilliant display that nonetheless quivered with fury. Then he turned to glower at Soundwave and Maleficent, silently demanding that they do something about the smaller mechs.

"Don't look so put out," Maleficent advised him. "Considering your little assassination attempt, we could easily leave you locked in an organic form and consider that your punishment. I think Megatron's being quite generous in allowing us to restore you to your true form."

Starscream twisted his neck around to glare at Megatron. The silver warlord just glared back, and Starscream gave a squawk of irritation and folded his tail back up, settling down to await Soundwave's next attempt.

"Try again, Soundwave," Maleficent ordered. "And this time do not allow outside thoughts to intrude. They can disrupt the spell too easily. And Rumble and Frenzy, do not try to sabotage his efforts again."

"Oh come on, thinkin' 'peacock' as hard as we could at him was fun," Rumble retorted.

"Weren't even expectin' it to work, but hey, we're not complaining," Frenzy laughed.

"Both of you shut up," Megatron snapped, though he didn't bother to hide his grin.

In the weeks since the disastrous battle against the Ark, things had more or less gone back to normal aboard the Nemesis. The Decepticons had accepted Maleficent among their ranks with remarkably little fuss – even Soundwave and Shockwave, once vehemently opposed to her presence, had no objections. It seemed the loss of her powers and her permanent transformation to a Cybertronian form had eliminated her as a threat in their optics. And even the corridor Maleficent had altered with her magic had been restored to normal, with Maleficent only insisting that her quarters remain untouched.

Starscream had flapped his way to the Nemesis a week after the battle, still trapped in his goose form and honking up a storm. He had unbent his pride enough to seek help from Maleficent… and had been irate to discover she no longer had the ability to undo his transformation. And quite frankly, Megatron had been tempted to either squash the Seeker-turned-feathered-organic for his treachery, or just leave him stuck as a water fowl for the rest of his life as punishment.

That had been before he learned that Starscream hadn't acted alone in his assassination attempt. The knowledge that two of his most loyal subordinates had nearly murdered him rankled deeply; never mind that their target had been Maleficent, he did not take such treachery lightly. Both mechs were far too valuable to simply execute, but Shockwave had been swiftly demoted and sentenced to fighting on the front lines among his drones until he could earn his way back into Megatron's good graces.

Soundwave, meanwhile, had a more creative punishment in store. For if Maleficent was to be believed, his Communications Officer had the potential to become a magician as well… and unlike Megatron, he possessed his own innate talent and didn't require a blood bond with a more experienced sorcerer to work magic. And though Maleficent could no longer work magic, she still retained the knowledge necessary to do so.

It was only fitting in Megatron's CPU, then, that Soundwave learn the art of magic from her. Neither the tape deck nor the former Fae were necessarily happy with the arrangement, but they had complied. And the luckless Starscream would serve as a handy test subject while Soundwave learned to master his powers.

The peacock gave a shrill cry as he flickered with azure light… then his feathers hardened, taking on a metallic gloss. His eyes shone bright red, and the fan of feathers trailing behind him became overlapping plates of steel. By the time Soundwave finally dropped his hands, snuffing the glow of power, Starscream had shifted from organic bird to mechanical.

"That's a step in the right direction, at least," Maleficent noted. "No more for today. We have made progress, but there is much more you have to learn."

Starscream shrieked and beat his wings, as if to insist he couldn't remain like this.

"Oh, hush," Megatron growled, shooing the cyber-peacock away with a wave of his hand. "Even a change of form hasn't made you any less obnoxious. Perhaps we should leave you like this to learn a little humility."

"Doubtful," Soundwave noted, in as close to a joke as the Communications Officer ever got. "Starscream: slow learner." He opened his chest, letting his cassettes climb back inside, and walked out without another word. Starscream trailed after him, still grumbling and squawking to himself and ruffling his metallic feathers.

Maleficent huffed a snort of air through her vents. "You should have killed Starscream when you had the chance. Soundwave is correct – he won't learn a thing from this experience. He'll only be all the more determined to kill you after this."

"I'm fully aware of that," Megatron replied. "And I accept the risk. Starscream is a vain and backstabbing pain in the aft, but he has his uses. And better to have him close where I know what he's up to, than off on his own plotting Pit-knows-what."

Maleficent nodded, though she wore a slight frown of disapproval. But she didn't say anything, only turned to face the room's wall-to-wall window. She folded her arms over her chest and gazed out into the hazy blue of the surrounding oceans, sinking into her own thoughts.

Megatron moved to stand beside her, though he kept silent, not wanting to disturb her. The former Fae had adapted remarkably well to life as a Cybertronian, far better than he had expected. She still had some organic mannerisms, but she was slowly learning the ways of his kind as well, gradually assimilating herself into her new culture. He felt confident that within a few more of this planet's lunar cycles, no one would ever be able to tell that she hadn't been a robotic life form all her life.

And yet there were moments like this when she let her guard down, when it was all too obvious that she felt she had lost something precious. She never wept or cursed her lot in life – that wasn't her way – and she seemed determined to make the best of her new situation. But Megatron would catch her staring pensively off into space, or murmuring the words to a defunct spell, or watching Soundwave cast a small enchantment with a look of longing and envy on her faceplate. She would quickly shift her expression whenever she thought he was watching, but he knew the truth.

When the silence between the two of them began to strain, he spoke again: "You miss it."

She didn't question his statement – she knew perfectly well what he referred to. "For thousands of years I was one of the most powerful of my kind. I knew the thrill and wonder of working magic, of letting the power sing through my veins until I thought I would explode into a supernova of arcane power. And now I find myself a mortal – a long-lived mortal, but mortal nonetheless. I cannot so much as light a candle now… and seeing Soundwave working the same powers I used to wield, even on such a small scale, is… difficult."

Megatron frowned, sensing that the word "difficult" was an understatement. He couldn't begin to imagine how painful it had been for her to give up her powers, her very identity, to bring him back from the Well of All Sparks. It had to be torture for her to teach another, even if they were nowhere near the level of her former power.

"I can stop the lessons-" he began.

"No," she cut in. "The lessons continue. Soundwave has allowed his powers to stagnate for far too long. Someone must bring him to his full potential, and it must be me. To not teach him and make use of his full abilities is like being in possession of a fantastic weapon and leaving it to rust in your armory."

He thought to argue that point, but it would be useless. When Maleficent had her CPU set on something, nothing would dissuade her from it. Besides, she was the only mechanism aboard the Ark who knew anything about magic. There was quite literally no one else to teach Soundwave.

"I swear to you, Maleficent, that we will find a way to restore you to your full power." He took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. "I am in your debt, and I will repay it by scouring this world for the means to return you to your Fae form."

She turned to face him, her expression skeptical… but her optics bright with hope. "Don't make idle promises, Megatron. Someone will expect you to follow through on them."

"I fully intend on following through on this one." He chuckled and kissed her cheek. "You will become Fae again, and together we will make both Optimus Prime and Merlin rue the day they chose to stand against us. Until then… I intend to do everything I can to ensure you do not regret your decision."

At that, a smile finally crossed her lip plates. "I never said I regretted it. But I trust you to keep your word on that." And she leaned in close to rest her helm on his chestplate.

Megatron turned to the door to be sure it was shut – he would rather have his spark carved out with a dull knife than let anyone see him being affectionate. Then he wrapped his arms around the dark Seeker, holding her to him. The two of them stood together for a long moment, each content in the other's presence, letting their closeness communicate what they couldn't express with words.

Author's Note

Way back in the old-timey year of 2005, I decided it would be great fun to start a blog. This being the olden days before Tumblr and Twitter made microblogging super-popular, I ended up starting up Me, Myself, and Vader: Discussions With a Sith on Blogger, back before it became completely subsumed by Google. And since I found my real life to be unremarkable and not worth blogging much about, Me, Myself, and Vader was essentially a fictionalized account of my life – basically "the life of an Idaho nerd/fanfic writer, but with Star Wars characters crashing her house on a regular basis."

The blog ended up inspiring other "fictional characters living at my house" blogs, ranging from Harry Potter characters to, yes, Transformers, and by the time the whole thing came to a close in 2007 or 2008 (I'm no longer sure of the year), it had become less a semi-autobiographical blog and more of an informal RP experience. Characters crossed over between people's blogs, epic plot lines were carried out, battles between our characters and Emperor Palpatine and Unicron and Voldemort were fought, and all in all we had a rollicking good time even if said "good time" crossed over into Mary Sue territory on occasion.

Sadly, Me, Myself, and Vader no longer exists – I pulled the plug on it and the Wayback Machine has no record of it – and I have no idea if any of the other blogs are still up. The original domain name seems to have been snapped up by some kind of domestic violence blog, and I either didn't keep a backup copy of the blog or it got lost when I changed computers. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted…

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah…

Anyhow, the person running the Transformers blog (who, incidentally, got me into Transformers in the first place and quite possibly started this whole mess) ended up "shipping" two VERY unlikely characters, characters that I had not only written off as unshippable with anyone but weren't even from the same franchises. You guessed it – the "ship" in question was Megatron and Disney's wicked faerie Maleficent. And despite my initial "what the" reaction, I fell in love with the ship and resolved to do something with it after I was through with the blogs.

After years of sitting on this plot and wondering whether waving my crack ship about for the entire Internet to see was such a good idea, I finally got around to writing it. I wasn't quite intending for it to become the mass crossover it turned out to be, nor did I predict the ending would turn out like it did, but all in all I figure it all could have been worse. And given that I don't normally write "pairing" or "shipping" fics, I figured I'm entitled to one where I can indulge in pure crack.

Many thanks to Starwarsguru and Wrecker-Lady for being willing to draw fanart of this crazy pairing – and extra thanks to Starwarsguru for not only humoring my weirdness but providing excellent feedback on how to actually make this story work. (The ideas regarding the Sword of Truth and the Witwickys being descendants of Phillip and Aurora were her idea.) Many thanks also to Roseprincess for coming up with the ship in the first place, and apologies for taking your pairing and running off with it…

I have no idea if I'll write a sequel for this, but at this rate I won't say "never." After all, one story's "happily ever after" could easily be another's "once upon a time," right?