Silence

It was a time of excess and lavish overindulgence. It was a time of the Towers…a breed of mech all alone in the lofty, dizzying heights of the Crystal City. Borne of Iacon and yet above it, the Towers mechs believed themselves to be the epitome of society, the properly bred and built, the privileged. They believed that Primus himself had anointed them the keeper of his people. There, in their Towers high above all other Iaconians, closest to the heavens to which many gods resided, closer still to their own guiding power, is where these mechs remained when the ground below them erupted into chaos. It is also where they fell.

There had been no evacuation, no sense of urgency. Just a calm acceptance. Oh, there had been terror but one so short lived it could be debated that it existed at all. Reliance on Primus, assurance that nothing could defile these majestic structures, false pride and hope all merged together to create the false sense of –right- just before the projectile impacted the substructure and brought it down. The crystals cracked and groaned, the mechs still remaining inside imagining that the Towers were singing as wind passed through the sculpted halls. Each explosion rendering a bass hit in the symphony and was not, in fact, signaling the collapse of another support column. Running peds and shrill screams were simply a backdrop for the wind-borne orchestra, playing the songs of those who willed it into being. The shudders that racked the floors and walls, shaking pictures and statues to the point of falling and releasing debris from the ceilings was not the build up to the symphonic crescendo but the death throes of a civilization brought down by its own kind.

The scene could be called picturesque. The crystals, once so stable and strong, now prey to the gravity that pulled at them since their conception. Like rain they fell, glistening with the fire light as they plummeted…the flames of the destruction below gladly welcoming them into their midst. A cloud of crystalline dust billowed as the great chunks of the Towers met the solid surface of the Cybertronian landscape and settled, the final remnants of the high society erased from the skyline. There could be no encore, no final bow. There was nothing left of the bright, shining heirs to Primus, keeper of his people, elite among elites. Even as mechs stumbled and tripped, pulling themselves and others from the from the rubble that remained, they were cut down by those whom they had overlooked for eons. Eventually, every shrill and screaming voice was silenced followed shortly after by a victory howl that celebrated the chaos wrought in this place.

Even in the distance, across Iacon's crumbling façade, the shouts and screams of those dying and deranged echoed across the now mostly barren landscape. As the attackers (avengers, in their own minds) left, departing minus the fierce swiftness in which they had arrived, current mission accomplished. They left behind a field of debris where a once great city had once stood. The bodies had been piled haphazardly high, each mangled and decrepit, as the ones who had invaded searched the rubble for anything value for surely, those who had kept themselves nearest the stars had treasures untold awaiting to be found again. The flames licked at bodies, drawing ever closer. The light danced, oblivious that its song was tapering off into the night. The multifaceted jewels, once so high and mighty, now nothing more than dust and ash, sang with the fire's heat a song of sorrow. But the song was short-lived as the flames warped the instruments leaving the only the hollow echoes and ghostly whispers left to remind anyone who passed the depth of their demise.