The Becoming of Things Chapter 22: Epilogue: The Lady and the Tiger, a transformers fanfic

Becoming of Things

Epilogue: The Lady and the Tiger

"At this rate, that miniature star will reach activation energy enough to self-sustain," Prowl confirmed via comm as he inspected the view of Cybertron's skies. "At that stage, it will be impossible to stop the birth of a new star where she is."

"Is that even possible?" I demanded, racing behind Optimus and Megatron back to the battlefield. The Metrotitan was no longer fighting, only because its defence drones were focusing more on building a wall. They were waiting... for what?

"I have given up on considering impossibility where Dahlia Su is concerned," Prowl replied. "Prima was the leader of the Thirteen Original Primes. It would also account for the Warrior of Light moniker. But why would the Fallen... what did she say to him to make him help her?"

"Sentinel!" Optimus hollered towards the rather bullied scientist Prime turned space-bridge technician. "They escaped. We must evacuate!"

"The planetary space bridge won't make it in time!" the other Prime hollered back, calculating with Starscream.

"Call a retreat!" the other screeched.

"Our home-world is about to plunge into that star, and you can't do anything?" Megatron demanded.

"There has never been a scientific reason for Cybertron's continued rotation, gravity and atmosphere without a sun before," Sentinel Prime flatly delivered. "The fact that Cybertron hasn't plunged into thousands of minor and major gravity wells in the course of Cybertron's slumber seemed like a miracle. Right now, though, Prima's madness is going to destroy Cybertron if it continues, or if that star cluster reaches nova, much less supernova."

"But, that technique of turning one's spark into a star-"

"It's suicide," Sentinel flatly delivered. "I have no idea how the Original managed it, or how the Fallen managed to copy such a technique. Or even how much energy she would expend before collapse, since that star would be likely skip over the stages for nova and supernova, to reach hypernova. There is nothing we can do to save Cybertron now."

A lot of the mess that happened would have been recorded. I just remembered, seeing Prima suddenly go out of control, and I realised that it would be a method just like Dahlia; go for broke. Sure, it was horrific and fatalistic, but it was Dahlia. Crazy and unstoppable and... weak. Doomed to the sidelines otherwise. Living millions of years to search for Earth and return, only to die here. Waking up and realising that everything was changing, and eating, sleeping and music were no longer the same.

What have we done? The question followed me as I clasped at Prowl, desperately waiting amidst the hopeless pull of gravity, the song echoing around us...

...the song...

Unknown soldier lying on the floor,
Explosions forever,
Now you take me away from danger...

We had always covered up your face,
Out there who will watch your back?
Because I don't know if I can stay here...

Game over,
Now we hate our brothers
No longer can move my feet...!

"We're going to die!" Starscream... well, screamed.

"Calculations for the space bridge ruined!" Sentinel yelled. "We won't make it!"

"No..." Sideswipe moaned as he was tackled by the other pair of twins.

But it's
Keep on keeping on,
And it's I just wanna know
Inside it's I don't want to know
Over head they fly high it's going
On and on and on,
Will we oversee the smile of love and peace for everyone?
You can be sure,
I'll be back again...

"Please remain calm and take shelter," Prowl and Soundwave directed. "The planet will at least shield us enough to reach the stratosphere... perhaps."

Prowl moved to wrap his arms round my chassis in return. Maybe I felt his spark chamber, but then, I was breaking down and ready to die as I heard the song, the music of the spheres.

Broken window glass is everywhere,
Explosions forever,
Now you save me from oblivion...

We had always covered up your face,
Out there who will watch your back?
Because I don't know if I can stay here...

Game over,
Now we hate our brothers,
No longer can move my feet...!

"Can't you hear that?" I asked, optics widened. The song...

"Doesn't matter," Prowl murmured as we waited, seeing the star flare... and age?

The first hint I got was when Starscream stopped screaming. In fact, the Seeker, with some help from the battered Jetfire, was consulting with Sentinel Prime. Impossibly, gloriously, the star hung suspended there, a new sun for the metal planet.

And I remember a long time ago,
I'll be there for you and please wait for me.
Oh you must believe me...
Better you believe your mind.

Impossible, glorious, and even stranger because Megatron, side-by-side with Optimus Prime and Sentinel Prime was there. All three had detached the parallel processing cables, choosing to gawk at the sun as we felt Cybertron shift into orbit and the first sunrise in millennia over what had been Iacon.

"Finally!" Jetfire cheered, celebrating at the apex of the Metrotitan. "Cybertron is saved!"

"Cybertron..." Megatron whispered, collapsing to stare at the heavens, upon which the phenomenon of Rayleigh scattering was covering Cybertron's heavens once more. "You are saved at last."

But it's
Keep on keeping on
And it's I just wanna know
Inside it's I don't want to know
Over head they fly high it's going
On and on and on,
Will we oversee the smile of love and peace for everyone?
You can be sure,
I'll be back again.

Nobody had moved or spoken, much less shot at each other, for nearly a cycle. Sunlight had spread over Cybertron's surface, warm and amazing and singing. Silence had started because of the sunrise. It continued because of what we had done, and what the human had restored to us. Under sunlight, the disaster lay bared from darkness, not interrupted by the starlight of the past. The utter destruction. The remnants of fallen mechs from both sides. The char marks from Cybertron's civil war, and the brutality of it upon all, be it Autobot or Decepticon.

"How much more must be sacrificed?" Optimus had asked at last, and his voice had been hushed less from awe than weary sorrow.

Megatron looked out over the destroyed world with no immediate answer, and seemed to give the question real thought. "No more."

And I remember a long time ago,
I'll be there for you and please wait for me.
Oh you must believe me,
Better you believe your mind...

"Well, there are still reparations," Sentinel started. He was ignored. The two of them were still giving Sentinel the cold shoulder for odd, personal reasons which might escalate future wars; I've to sit them all done and talk about what the humans called really screwed up families.

There had been no shots fired, or promises made. There had just been sunlight, the sacrifice of the oldest opposites for Cybertron, and everything mercilessly illuminated by it. Sunlight that meant energy for the planet, fuel to be converted into energon... light to find metals for rebuilding, recycling of rubble for repairs...

Clouds were forming in the distance; the acid rains to sweep it all away. The titans underfoot rumbled, settling into recharge in the warmth of a sun, the wall of solar cells glimmering to absorb more power. Mechs faced the sun, unbelievably just basking in the warmth of its glow, without the intervention of arms.

Sure, Cybertron had a long way to go, and a lot of ugly history, but... there was a sun. There was energy. We could synthesise energy from it... we could find warmth and heat. As for reproduction...

I felt in my spark for the tiny coffin, the one where Dahlia's skeleton impression lay. I looked down at the skeleton Allspark, this ugly reminder of mortality that now housed life; that once housed a wonderful human, and a wonderful Prime, named Dahlia Su Daji and Prima... The skeleton glimmered in the sun of its ghost.

Six millions years of civil war, and this was how it had ended: in the warm silence, with questions unanswered and the spheres singing.

Our kind had space travel, and it was a matter of selecting personnel to scout it. Bumblebee was our scout, and he did his job admirably, albeit with a sort of reluctance.

I received the data packets of the image captures klicks later. Even though we had suspicions, seeing the new star- the new sun as a binary star, arranged so close as to hand suspended in the midst. Cybertron had fallen into orbit around the remnants of two old Primes, and now the new suns of the galaxy seemed to be happily shining in the remains of a wide-scale spatial and temporal locking field that had collapsed after stabilisation, if the surrounding planets' new curvature had anything to say.

So it seemed, and so I reported it at the next meeting.

"They are not sentient?" Megatron asked warily. The old Primes seemed to have a bad habit of dragging themselves back from the other world at a moment's notice. None of the Decepticons still wanted to get close to the

"It does not seem so," I neutrally answered. "Only time will tell."

"Taking one half of the star would solve our energon crisis," Sentinel mused.

"The new suns are interdicted from experimentation," Optimus automatically said. "Cybertron would require time at adapt to them once more."

Yes, time to repair, to get back up. To rise again.

"Did you think they loved each other?" Optimus asked at the end of an endless series of Autobot-Decepticon negotiations. It was long and slow, but the threat of a flaring sun and energy on Cybertron meant that neither side was willing to cave in.

"Who?" the former, or current, Lord High Protector glared.

"The Fallen and Prima," Optimus said.

I gagged. "Boss!"

"I would not know," Megatron simply reflected. "He never spoke about the murders. When he spoke of them, it was not kind. I believed it to be jealousy, or simple hatred, like how I felt hate for Sentinel and you some days."

"Oh." Optimus pondered. "I think... Megatronus Prime loved her, and that power of love conquered his love of power, until Prima died. It then became an emotion more passionate than hope, deeper than despair, stronger than rage. Stronger than good and darker than evil."

"That love seems remarkably similar to insanity," Megatron remarked, looking out to the heavens once more. "Did the Matrix tell you that?"

Optimus considered, pondering carefully. "Yes and no. Prima's wisdom is a double-edged thing, one prone to trip me as much as any other."

"Maybe all Primes love so very deeply as well." I speculated. "Perhaps that is their blessing, and their curse."

"So what is it that I love?" Optimus challenged.

"Ideals," Megatron instantly supplied. "You were always the idealistic one, no matter what. It is frightening, sometimes, how you and your ideals would always take on the world no matter what, and in those proclamations convince even those against you. I considered it a form of madness, but now I wonder if the great Primes held that sort of charisma naturally. It seemed so with Prima."

I remembered Prima, how she had bent the old Seeker Jetfire to her will, had immediately deduced the Fallen's plans and countered them, had still managed to manipulate the Autobots and NEST as a human civilian, and all the way back when we first met, institute her rules with nary an argument. Then I wondered if Optimus was capable of such magnificent bastardry as well.

I hope that never came to be.

"In one way, love screwed over and redeemed Cybertron," I mused to the Boss later. "It's... trite and cheap and fairly crazy."

"I see," Optimus consulted stacks upon stacks of image captures of the Simfur annals. The Matrix took pride of place amongst the annals, its light casting a cold pall upon the desk. "Prima wrote nothing during her function, but apparently the hallway leading to the sarcophagi chamber was her design. Alpha Trion kept meticulous records, though, some of these very well hidden. All the brothers found Prima demanding, but never realised that she was motivating them towards civilisation. They noted that Megatronus Prime was violent sometimes, but sweet on Solus Prime, and respected Prima, since they had harrowing arguments as well. Prima, though... the decision for each Prime to rule individually was not taken well."

"Why not?" I asked. "Makes sense to give them territory."

"Prima pioneered the functioning government of Simfur then," Optimus read. "The problem was living up to the legacy of a blind, mad mech that no one could depose, since a hostile takeover would mean admitting that the Primes were flawed and unknowing of what to do. Megatronus broke that particular, that Prime Nova had to depend on the blessing of Prima not to have the Dynasty sink to oblivion."

I pondered. "Why did they kill Prima in the first place?"

"She was blind," Optimus replied. "Because Prima was different, the only mech not to bear the title of Prime. They were terrified when her predictions kept coming true, and when she went wrong they became more fearful."

I lowered my helm.

"She loved the Fallen, you know," Optimus added. "Even after all was said and done, Ms Su... Prima loved all her brothers, but worried over Megatronus the most. Not because he would become the Fallen, but simply because he was alone in a sea of brothers."

He tapped the Matrix of Leadership, staring out at the window. "I can't contact them. They lie away from the Well of All Sparks, perhaps sleeping, perhaps... maybe, they are together at last to see the sun."

Outside, the warm disk of Cybertron's new sun glimmered.

"What about you, Optimus?" I asked. "Have you considered family therapy? It's all the rage back on Earth..."

Prowl and I were off shift after my conversation with Prime. We weren't due to get back to Earth yet. The situation was a bit complicated, including that we were outed. Other Seekers scattered on the globe were still present, hiding in plain sight. Some of them had went native, really. It was endearing, in a weird, parasitic sense. Now, though, I saw Ironhide standing outside, maybe sunbathing, reflecting. He was not alone, if the entire Decepticon contingent nearby had anything to say.

The sun flickered between acid clouds, dusk befalling the repairing city of Iacon. Cybertron having a sun, having a rotation again... it was about as weird as the concept of a Cybertronian night-life. Or love. Love that was the pinnacle of emotion, and yet so destructive...

"What do you think?" I asked Prowl. "If the Primes are really, really screwed up."

"Love is illogical," Prowl mentioned at last. "But it is what it is. To equate the actions of Cybertron's ruling dynasty with love alone is not possible, since they had different motivations each, granted with their free will."

"A concept you don't want to explore?" I asked. "Really?"

"It is what it is, Jazz," Prowl mentioned, joining me to lie on the roof of the temporarily rebuilt Iacon Supreme Court. "What about Dahlia's skeleton? Will we... bring it back to Earth?"

"The new Allspark everyone decided would be placed in Simfur," I mentioned. "With a full service. Twenty-one fusion cannon salute. The Decepticons were sure that Prima would claw her way out of the Matrix, but so far it seemed that Dahlia Su... there are no more miracles from her."

"She should rest," Prowl murmured. "Cybertron has a sun, at least for the next twelve million vorns. It has a chance now, a chance that it has not held for millennia. We have a chance, Jazz."

Cybertron had a chance. We had a chance, a new start. The possibility was ever so small, but it was not zero. Finally... Cybertron was saved. Was it worth it?

I miss Dahlia.

Maybe, I must have been lost in my processor. To hear footsteps echo behind me must be a sign of madness.

I turned around to regard the ruins, and the solar cells of Metrotitan guardian far as the optic could perceive, soaking up energy in its arms. No footsteps...

You can be sure, I'll be back again...

For however long that this sun would remain... Cybertron would be blessed, to rise after death. The cost of it was its first Prime. Her wisdom would leave on in the scars of Simfur, where its Metrotitan slumbered still, gathering energy. In the Matrix, where her wisdom was now stored, the sum total of Cybertron's ancient knowledge combined with a spark capable of predicting the future. In me, who was taught the subtleties of strength and weakness, and that weakness was nothing to laugh at, since weakness meant that we must acknowledge the strength of others to help.

Yes... Dahlia was still here, in the memory carved into my spark.

A flicker appeared as dusk approached, and I sat up straighter. I thought that, perhaps...

"Did you miss me?"

I barely turned around to acknowledge the question. "Of course. But you'll come back."

Nothing stays dead on this planet, after all.

Fini.

The song is Keep on keeping on, composed by Hiroyuki Sawano for the animé Aldnoah Zero.

I'm fairly sure I'm not supposed to be deconstructing my own fic, but I had my own thoughts on a few subjects:

Sparks: logically, a Transformer's spark is like a small sun. Circuit-Su is an art to channel the sun. So, given the attachment of Transformers to stars – 'go to the stars' 'pick a star, that is my soul' etc – why can't a Transformer use his spark to power the Allspark? Scale.

So that means that, for a spark to catch fire and turn into a star, possibly a lot of willpower and fuel would be needed. Transformium – the metal used to form Transformers in Age of Extinction – is a programmable matter that can freely change its size, form and composition. It is highly improbable, but logically possible to convert Transformium into hydrogen fuel to become a stable star.

What I depicted here would not have been possible until a few million years later, since stars actually take a few million years to become the stable stars – like our Sun. But hey, if planet-sized Transformers are possible, I can write a star-Transformer.

Good, Evil and Love: From a certain point of view, Megatron and Sentinel aren't strictly speaking, evil. They're ultra-nationalistic, and maybe xenophobic, and they're planning to enslave humanity and Earth for Cybertron. History has cases of nations invading other nations for resources – resource wars pretty much dominated the colonial era – and no one can really argue that the Western powers are 'evil'. It becomes very easy to prioritise your own people over other, alien species that die faster than a few seconds of your own lifespan. In that sense, the whole point of Transformers is no longer about good or evil, but of love. Megatron and Sentinel in love with the idea of Cybertron as a great intergalactic power, and Optimus loved the ideals of the Dynasty. It's complicated, because I find Optimus an honourable and wonderful character as a Big Good, but from a political perspective it's a bit iffy. Call it a comparison of the Grail Dialogue in Fate/Zero: Optimus champions Saber's view that the leader must give all to his people and save them, but we never see him leading them. Megatron champions Rider's view that a leader must be a tyrant.

I also tried to show the perspective of love influencing both sides: Prima betrayed by her brothers, the Fallen ruining his credibility by following her advice and then killing his brothers, Vector Prime intervening to save the timeline (maybe?), Prowl surviving an asteroid belt by the power of love, etc. Which leads us to...

Civilisation: human civilisation was built by the needs and wants to produce more food, create a sedentary population, etc. How do Cybertronians develop their civilisations and, with it, their moral code? Why produce so many servitors that Cybertron faced a Malthusian trap and energy shortages? Considering that a Transformer could live possibly forever, individually or together the Thirteen cannot have built a civilisation from scratch without making a shit-ton of mistakes. And that makes the Fallen's in-canon destruction of a planet an honest mistake rather than a deliberate shot against others; he prioritised the gathering of energon over the lives of a species of sentients. The moral arguments of not killing goes over his head. If we consider it like that, then the Thirteen become something like overpowered children playing at gods and not understanding that their actions have consequences – so Prima is the prophetess here, because she has adult experience in responsibility and so on.

Transformation: the marker of a Transformer is that they must be able to transform. But transformation can be physical or mental. Dahlia, and by extension Prima, is thus a special case because where every other Transformer changes physically, mentally they retain the same beliefs and moral standards. Prima transforms mentally, by combining both beliefs. She imposes her own moral code on the situation, but accepts that others have a point. The fic, I think, is about the nature of transformation as well; both physical and mental, from handicapped to able, from human to mech, and vice versa.

Thank you all for your support! Please review!