Scene ix

Optimus Prime brought Perceptor and his costly creation before Vector Sigma not three cycles after he'd dropped his Co-Commander into a recharge bunk. He wasn't sure what the supercomputer could do, but he had to ask. In fact, he pleaded. The gentle scientist had sacrificed so much in his attempt to give life to the beautiful shell he had made. It seemed only just that some form of recompense should be possible.

And Optimus was not disappointed. When Double-A introduced herself, she smiled knowingly at her maker. Whole in spark once more, Perceptor rose from the repair berth he had occupied since his disastrous experiment. He bumbled over to her on unsteady legs, and greeted his magnum opus with an unabashed hug.

The two of them were fairly inseparable after that. They seemed to need fewer words to communicate than others did. There were rumors; but Double-A insisted that she didn't need to consummate a bond with the Autobot scientist in order to be fulfilled. And Perceptor seemed perfectly content. Prime would often stop to look in on them, whenever he passed his Chief Science Officer's lab. Watching the wordless dance by the happy teacher and his willing assistant always brought a smile to his lips.

Scrapper at first resented the femme for whose sake he had endured a long and painful derma-restoration. He had begun her construction on a whim, wanting only to try something different from the usual war machines. He'd never given much consideration to the creation of an actual, living femme, and didn't see how she could possibly be worth the pain he had been through. So their very first exchange of words at the base of Vector Sigma had been rancorous.

But Thundervolt grew on him, if only because she commanded his respect. The first time she suggested – in language not calculated to spare his feelings – that one of his new city-plans was flawed, he came close to hitting her. But her observations had been sound. And she had a wicked underhand jab, to boot.

Soon Scrapper, to his own surprise, was grudgingly accepting her into his small, esoteric group of friends. They didn't see each other often; Thundervolt soon gravitated into the surveillance program, and tended to spend a lot of time offworld. She'd shown a knack for repairing the various types of satellite stations. But she and the gruff Constructicon would comm each other off and on throughout the cycles, trading little bits of news and bandying ideas.

And then there was Spangle. She sprang out of the efforts of a clandestine group of hopeful but less skillful engineers, and her genesis was never fully documented. The flashy femme leapt to the forefront of Cybertronian society, and garnered quite a reputation as an entrepreneur of social influence. Maccadam's had been the hub of Iacon for so long that no bot alive could imagine going anywhere else for a cube of high-grade at the end of a long shift. But Spangle went to Kaon, purchased an abandoned bunker on the lower arc, and somehow made it the place to which all of Cybertron flocked the moment they had a day free. Music had almost become a lost art among the warriors during the long course of the War; but it was more than rekindled now that Blaster and his motley crew of Cassettes mixed tunes there in the evenings, and Jazz himself made frequent guest appearances. Transformers of all factions flocked to hear the latest finds.

The next vorn saw the creation of more and more new femmes. The mechs greeted each one with an almost worshipful gratitude; but that wore off all too quickly, to be replaced by unease or even, occasionally, disappointment. It was taking time for everyone to adjust to the re-emergence of the third faction, and each femme felt a pressure to prove herself in some way. The newlings dealt with it as best they could.

Sadly, although Elita's cadre welcomed the recent arrivals into their sisterhood, there was a hint of friction between veterans and the newlings. The young femmes seemed always to be asking questions to which the senior femmes could not give satisfactory answers. The two generations exasperated each other with their stubbornly held assumptions.

But time passed; the introduction of a new femme stopped being a global event; and slowly, very slowly, the inhabitants of Cybertron began to look forward to what could be, rather than backward to what had been.

"This isn't going to work," Megatron proclaimed. "Even the dullest of them will see we're planning a full-scale evacuation." The Co-Commanders had ordered the cancellation of all reconstruction projects, and started instead on a massive ship-building effort. It would not be safe to remain on Cybertron once Unicron came, no matter what the outcome of the battle of the gods might be.

Optimus sighed. Sometimes he wondered why they didn't just replay the recording of last week's argument, and save energy. "We've let the more dependable mechs in on what's really going on. They're all doing their best to help... direct the rumors."

"We could tell them the truth."

Prime stopped where he was, his finger frozen on a single line of the long list he'd been scanning. He stared off into the distance in silence for two kliks. Then with a snap, he pulled himself back into the present, and shook his head. "No," he said sadly. "But you have no idea how much I wish I thought as you do."

"You of all mechs should believe in them."

"You think I don't know that?" returned Prime hotly. The red mech bent his head over his list. Primus, there was so much to be done! "We've just asked them to end a war. We're pushing the limits of their tolerance enough as it is. Announcing to everyone that Unicron is probably on his way here right now would be more than a wrench thrown into the works. It'd be more like an explosive charge."

"Especially if they found out we were the ones who invited him. Yeah, I know. We've been over this," said Megatron sourly. "I just don't like all this subterfuge, that's all." He glanced over at Prime. "And Pit knows you don't either," he added.

"Nevertheless, this is the way it must be," said Prime.

He hoped he was right. This was an awfully big gamble.

Red Alert resisted awkward efforts by his friends to give him comfort. Silent and aloof, he still refused to let them earn his trust. Fleeing the emptiness that Inferno's death had left inside of him, he threw himself into the task of revamping the security of Cybertron. It was as good a distraction as any.

He bullied a cobbled-together team of engineers into building a whole new sensor array, which would complement the global network, but focus on the skies. He wasn't ignoring the surveillance of the planet; on surface and sub-levels his cameras recorded every move of Cybertron's shifting population. The white and red speedster now ran two systems instead of one. And he was grateful for the work. Work dulled the ache in his halved spark.

He kept an always-overflowing docket of data needing his analysis. He referenced and cross-checked till he was within a klik of stasis-lock; and then fell into his berth, grateful for the instant, dreamless shutdown that was brought on by exhaustion. But not even Red Alert was certain what Command had to fear from the lifeless void.

Huffer complained to Optimus Prime about the waste of resources. He'd thought it was an ironclad argument. But the Autobot Commander had been unexpectedly insistent. In fact, to Huffer's horror, he gave endorsement to his Security Officer for even further augmentation of the network.

So Red Alert ordered up his telescopes, his satellites, and his orbital stations, and force-drafted teams to run them. Among lay-mechs this job was thought to be a punishment for unspecified crimes. Even a bot's closest friends might tease him when his turn came for the dreaded "Stare At Nothing For Ten Orns" assignment. But Command was adamant. The lives of all depend on you, they said; and the bots they led repeated it among themselves as a sarcastic catchphrase.

"Any Word?"

Somehow, Optimus could hear the capital letter in Megatron's voice. He shook his head in irritation. "Nothing."

"But you're the one with the sparkly Oracle in your chest-!" The Decepticon's impatience could still overrule his common sense.

Optimus pounded a fist onto his desk and turned to face his bond-brother. "Nothing, Megatron. No 'Word.' No 'Sign.' No 'Portents.' Nothing. He's shut himself into his fortress, and he isn't talking. Don't you think I'd let you know the instant that he did?"

The gray mech chuffed, but made no other reply. Instead, he paced to the end of the room, and turned. "The Predecons – what's left of them – have been getting edgy lately. Dangerously edgy. I've turned a blind eye to their 'acquisitions,' even let them have their own shuttle – it was a small one, but they were more than willing to accept it since it's one of the cargo ships we've stocked up with supplies. I just hope that they don't run off with it all and leave us all behind." He sighed, and rubbed a hand across his face. "But I wouldn't put it past them," he declared.

"If they defect, then others will soon follow them. We'll lose hundreds." Optimus also scrubbed a hand across his face. They'd all been working frantically for nearly two vorns, and the strain was showing. Each nanoklik that passed increased Prime's fear that they'd be too slow. But now the ships were nearly all built, and supplies were mostly allocated and stored within them; and everything was... well, everything was mostly.

He slumped back in his chair. "We're nearly ready, if it comes to the endgame," he said. "I was worried we wouldn't have even this much time. Be grateful for small mercies, I suppose. But we've still got to keep them engaged. The troubles only get out of control when there's not enough to keep everyone busy."

"We could begin by doing what we told them we would do, back when we started this," suggested Megatron with conscious sarcasm.

"Fulfill our campaign promises, you mean?" Optimus replied, as a grin ghosted over his tired face.

Megatron shrugged. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt, eh?"

"You realize it'd be mostly wasted labor," Prime said quietly. "Not much of what we do here can survive if... When he comes."

"No." Megatron stalked over, and dropped a hand on Prime's shoulder. "Think of it as a dry-run, then, for when we have a new planet to format," he said quietly.

Optimus leaned into the big mech for just a moment, grateful for his solid presence. His bond-family had become his lifeline, as time pressed ever more heavily upon him. "You're a nut-job; you know that, right?" he said affectionately.

"I'm saner than you are," the big mech retorted. He stared down at the mountain of data covering Prime's desk, and gave an internal shudder. With a few brisk snatches, he gathered the mess into a single, squared-off pile. Then he hauled on the Autobot's red arm. "Off you go," he declared. "You're through for the day. And don't try to wriggle out of it. Go for a drive with Elita, or something. She's been making ship assignments all this orn, and could use a rest too."

"But what about-?"

"Go on. You know me, Prime. I live to order bots around. It's better than high-grade."

The cycles passed, and still no terror came hurling down upon them from the sky. Red Alert's array scanned the heavens unceasingly, and saw nothing but nebulae and stars. A supernova in the next galaxy caused some mild excitement, but resulted in nothing more threatening than a brief period of heightened radiation and a few pretty pictures.

The space fleet was completed, even to Optimus's exacting specifications. The bots rebuilt Altihex and Kaon, and moved to modernize the old highway system. Gradually, as the transformers settled into the routines of peacetime and new protocols overwrote the old ones, Cybertron began to thrive. The engineers were in the last phase of completion of a new Crystal City, when Unicron finally came.

Onslaught and Swindle were up in Red Alert's fourth offworld observation satellite, doing their obligatory Ten Orns of Staring At Nothing, when with terrifying suddenness, every single monitor in the station was filled with a massive dull-orange Something. A planetoid the size of their own world had materialized a mere 4,000 astrometers away.

Onslaught avoided Swindle's startled, but still calculating glance, and slammed a fist through the cover of the emergency alarm switch. Across the globe, a hundred thousand klaxons began to scream.

"Get up, my nemesis," Prime called out urgently. "He's here."

The alarm had jerked the Decepticon out of recharge, but he was still woozy from the emergency reboot. Optimus ripped the charge cords free, while his bond-brother swatted dazedly at them and only succeeded in entangling his arms.

"Get to the ship," commanded Prime. "And remember all that Mighty Megatron stuff. Now, more than ever, the two of us have got to show our strength."

Command had drilled them all in this. Drop what you're doing. Run to the nearest ship. Take off and get clear of the planet. Form ranks and wait for further orders. Before, the drills had seemed a puerile waste of time. Now a single glance up at the mottled orange metal filling half the sky was more than enough to hasten every last bot into the waiting shuttles.

Hoping desperately not to draw the great Unmaker's attention, Prime gave the order to blast off. A hundred vessels lifted from the doomed surface of Cybertron.

But Unicron took no notice of the tiny craft. They weren't what he was here for. He was here because his Brother had summoned him. The Creator had offered the Destroyer a surrender; and these tiny buzzing morsels were as nothing when compared with the longed-for feast before him. They would provide a tasty snack, perhaps, after he'd consumed their planet.

Each shuttle was piloted by a hand-picked captain, bots known to Prime and Megatron to be cool-headed in a crisis. But even so, communication channels all were jammed with frantic hails. Ships collided with each other in the chaos, as the bots inside them all but climbed the walls in panic.

Then the loudspeakers in every vessel rang out with a single, pre-recorded message:

Attention, transformers of Cybertron! There is still another player in this game. All is not lost! Form up behind your leaders, and await further instructions.

The careening shuttles slewed around, slowing their heedless flight. Moving to keep their home-world between themselves and the unimaginable menace of the Destroyer, they assembled at the side of their Commanders.

A thousand anxious optics watched in impotent dismay as the gigantic orange planet slowly started to unfold. With ponderous ease, the Enemy transformed.

Unicron was a myth, a legend out of the forgotten past, a shadow-file that was more a byword now than an accepted fact. The Archives held a few outmoded datatracks and scattered bits of texts, but their meanings were wide open to interpretation. More often than not, the bots who studied those diabolic records were only seeking words of prophesy they could take to bolster their own agendas. A few had tried to harness the Unmaker's power for themselves, and made their marks on history – mostly in splashes of their life's last energon across the nearest wall – but the dark sciences were the provenance of kooks and quacks, not real scholars. It was acknowledged, technically, that Unicron existed – somewhere very far away from here, and not, perhaps, in this dimension. A corporeal Destroyer was just not something that the average bot could believe in, day to day.

But by virtue of his office, Optimus had had direct dealings with his Creator. And one could not know Primus without also coming to know his Opposite, if only in terms of a photo-negative. Prime believed. From his days down in the Archives, he had believed.

And Megatron, who'd felt the dark's destructive power working within himself, had acknowledged its reality long before he'd bonded with the Prime. The Commanders understood what was at stake.

But now, they watched in fear, every bit as anxious as their followers were. Everything they hoped for depended now on whether Primus had the courage to make the ultimate sacrifice.

The great Destroyer opened his eternally-hungry maw, and spoke.

"We meet again, Brother." The deep, dark voice ground out across the emptiness of space; and every inhabitant of Cybertron shuddered as they heard. For it was not bounded by the physics of sound, but spoke instead within the unlocked sanctuary of their own minds. "At last you've found the courage to face your doom," it said. "Now come on out and fight."

Slowly, with a splintering of carefully-constructed precincts, Cybertron revealed its hidden life. Broken bits of roadway and of skyscraper spun lazily away from him into space; and bots who'd used the name of Primus primarily as a swear-word watched the Creator-God unfold to face his mirror-self.

Some scattered cheers went up within the watching ships. Sure, this great horror out of myth could crush the mightiest among them between his fingers. But Primus would protect them; would not allow this fiend to devour his children. Primus would fight for them, they consoled themselves; and then that orange Evil had just better watch its backside, that was all. They stared, fists clenched in feverish anticipation, and waited for the starting blow to fall.

"I will not fight you." The Voice was as familiar to its children as the surging of their own pumps. "I summoned you here to accept my unconditional surrender."

Now there was pandemonium in the ships. For even as the traitorous words of their Creator echoed in their disbelieving audials, the mid-rank mechs and femmes of Cybertron were discovering that their vessels had not been equipped with weapons arrays. This probably saved the Commanders, for there were more than a few bots who would have willingly blown their deluded leaders out of the sky just then. "They've sold us out!" they shrieked, as the lieutenants on each shuttle pleaded for calm.

The thunderous voice of the Destroyer brought a sudden end to mutinous cries. "You will fight," he growled at the still white form before him. "You will struggle, you will beg, and you will be consumed. Everything must be devoured before the end," the Unmaker said coldly. "Even you, my Brother."

And with that, he spread great skeletal wings of flickering fire, and lunged at the Creator.

No bot there ever forgot that sight. Nor did they forget the dreadful lurch within their very sparks, as the Force who'd given them their being was grasped in that first terrible embrace. The light-filled Friend on whom, unwittingly, they'd made their lives floated rigidly before them. The great lord Primus did not yield; yet he refused to defend himself against the evil onslaught that was tearing into him.

The Dark One's howl of rage and triumph tore across the sky.

And a tiny, fearful Voice spoke within the sparks of Optimus, Elita, and Megatron. "I don't know if I can do this," it quavered. "What if- How can I-"

Optimus glanced across at Megatron, and took the gray mech's hand in a crushing, unbreakable grip.

"I don't know if I have the strength," the small Voice whispered. "It-" There was a scream that tore the spark of every mech alive, as a hideous clawed hand ripped into the Creator's colossal chest. "It hurts!" the Voice cried silently.

"Optimus." Elita had stood by him through all of this, silent with determination; but her optics were wide with reflected pain.

His arm tightened swiftly around her shoulders. "What can we do to help him, dearest?" he asked.

"In the past, you've opened the Matrix so that its influence could cleanse our people from darkness," she hissed quickly. "What if it could work the other way around?"

"Of course! We have to try!"

Prime pressed Elita to him in a hasty, tense embrace. Then he scrambled for the exit, and leaped out into black space. His two bondmates followed him, only a nanoklik behind. The Autobot Commander lifted out the Matrix of Leadership from its place within his chest, threaded his fingers through its sides, and pulled. From its depths, the wavering light of a God in agony fell across his face. Optimus raised it up before him, and called out in a loud voice that was transmitted to every ship of Cybertron. He hoped they would understand.

"Our Creator has done all within his power to protect us from the Destroyer," he cried. "Now, my friends, it is our turn. If we wish him to save us, we must first save him. He needs our strength, our belief, our love, in order to resist the temptation to give in."

As Optimus Prime held the shining Matrix high, he felt a soft, light touch upon his right hand. Elita was there, her hand on his. And on his left, Megatron also placed his dark fingers around Prime's. Together, they held the quivering crystal aloft. Together, they bared their own sparks to the darkness, and strove with all their might to shore up the fading glory of their Creator with their own light.

One by one, the transformers of Cybertron followed suit. They left the safety of their ships, unlatched the armor of their sparks, and opened their souls to fight against the Darkness. Prime wasn't sure how it was working. But he could see a hundred lines of luminescence streaming into the shuddering Matrix all around him, with more joining them each moment. And best of all, he saw the face of his Creator harden with renewed determination.

With the seeming slowness of immensity, the being they had known as Primus turned his great head from his enemy, to look into the optics of all his arrayed children. "I thank you for your faith in me," he told them. "Perhaps, this was the task for which you were created so long ago."

Light sang. It arced and danced in shining lines of hope that wove across the sky. The crystal heart within the Matrix caught and focused every beam, until the artifact blazed white.

Its surface burned his fingers, and it shook so hard that Prime could barely hold it. Then with a blast that blinded bots who saw it, the Matrix of the Primes exploded in a flash of light. As Optimus stared in shock down at his empty hands, Primus locked his arms behind his Brother's back, and wrapped himself around his doom.

Unicron screamed. He strained against the grip of Primus as if the other's closeness burned him. There were gasps from half-blind watchers as the Destroyer tore at tender linkages and giant joints popped loose. But the Creator's grip was deathless. He did not move; not even as the great Destroyer's teeth bit into him, as gray claws ripped into his back, or as the dark voice raged. Black smoke began to pour out of the Unmaker's howling mouth. Green fire burned between the plates of his vast armor. But he could not escape; and in united agony, the two Great Beings began to melt together.

It seemed an age and then an age before the two gods ceased their struggle. But the Children of Primus stayed with their Maker to the last. In the end, all that remained of the two deities was a charred and mottled globe formed from their lifeless, mangled bodies.

It was a long and weary time before anyone could bear to touch down upon the surface of the blackened thing below. It was well that Prime and Megatron had insisted on provisioning the vessels so thoroughly. At last, with heavy heart, Jetfire agreed to lead the first expedition to the place, to seek in hope and trepidation for any spark of life.

Memories played across his processor, of half-comprehended encounters with something his determinedly un-mystical programming had always refused to accept or comprehend. It had been there always, beneath his feet; and he had never tried to uncover its mysteries. And now he never would. Both Powers now were nothing but a massive lump of metal.

Or so he had assumed.

But as Jetfire made his way through twisting, mapless passageways down to the planet's heart, he found it was a thriving, pulsing core of living fire. Beside the new world's soul, powered in fact by that glowing Source, was what looked an awful lot like a chamber of creation. The tall white mech gaped up in awe, and swore beneath his mask.

The exploration team stayed ground-bound for a quartex or two, taking readings, testing systems, experimenting. When he was as satisfied as he could ever be, Jetfire traveled back to the command ship, and made his report to his leaders.

There was a habitable world down there, he told them, twice as big now as the Cybertron they'd known. It was in great need of repair, and would not support them in much comfort for many vorns yet. But it was rich with energy. Lines throughout the whole place flowed with a clear energon, the like of which he'd never seen before. This fuel was both more potent and ran cleaner than the old energon had ever done.

"I know it looks a mess," he said. Jetfire shrugged helplessly as he tried to put his unfamiliar feelings into words. "But it's waiting for us, Sir. It wants us to come home."

Epilogue

In the silence of deep space, the Crypt of Honor floated as it always had. Not every bot whose spark extinguished desired to be placed here. Often, they left requests that their shells be used in the building-up of favorite cities, or, lately, the creation of new life. But Megatron had asked that his first and second lieutenants be placed here. He hadn't yet been willing to let them go.

His feet clumped heavily along the empty corridors, following a too-familiar trail. He'd come here many times over the last few vorns, returning in penance, in regret for what could not now be, and in vague hope that the two mechs whose memorials he came to see might hear him in some way.

He stopped first at Soundwave's unadorned vault, and scanned the plaque as he had a hundred times before. It was blank, because no one yet had been able to compose a fitting epitaph for the enigmatic spy. In life, the dark blue Decepticon had amassed a hoard of secrets that would have bowed the world with its weight. But he had taken every one of those secrets with him into the All-Spark. Megatron wondered, as he always did, what quiet mayhem Soundwave and his dead Cassettes were causing over there.

He'd never managed to compute the concept of a universal All-Spark, a place where all indeed were one, and singular identity was an illusion. Prime had told him it was something like that; and smelt him, the big red lug would know. But Megatron liked nonetheless to imagine his lieutenants making a holy slagheap of the place.

"I wish that you could be here now," he whispered. No one would over hear him doing anything so silly as speaking to the dead. But still, he whispered, as he hunkered uneasily over the vault. "I wish you could see it." He owed his sanity, his family, and the Ceasefire all to Soundwave, he knew well. And yet somehow he'd never found the words to say just what he felt. So, as always, he settled for a simple, "I'm sorry that it had to be this way. But thank you."

The Decepticon Commander touched the glassed-in case that held the shell of the stolid mech whom he had known and trusted better than anyone before Prime; the mech who had also known him, in a way few others ever had. He hoped, as he always did, that Soundwave was being given a glimpse of what his death had wrought. He wasn't certain the blue mech would approve. But he liked to think that Soundwave could have found a niche in peacetime – probably, he smirked, as a black-market profiteer. He gave the vault a farewell pat, and left to make his second stop.

Unlike the quiet telepath, Starscream had left detailed instructions regarding the design and placement of his crypt. He had commissioned a resting place next to an outer wall, and had demanded that a window be installed so that, even in death, he might gaze out into the firmament. And he had chosen an ancient vault design of sumptuous, extravagant complexity.

The plaque, however, was by law left to the living to compose. Megatron had stewed for orns about what to write on it, and had carved the letters himself. Now, beneath the Air Commander's empty shell, the black slab read simply,

Seeker of power,
Seeker of knowledge,
Seeker of renown,

May the winds of eternity
bear up your wings,

Until you at last find peace.

Megatron still wasn't certain it was right. But he'd done the best he could. There were no words that could convey his complicated feelings toward his most dedicated, yet most traitorous Seeker. No words he was willing to put up on a plaque, at any rate.

"I hope you're doing ok," he said numbly. "We're all fine here, I guess. Elita, Prime, and I are working on a new mech shell. Prime said he thought there were enough femmes to keep us all hopping for a little while, and he wanted to see what the next generation of mechs would be like before he conks out. I don't think it'll be any time soon for any of us... But we know it'll come, sooner or later." He sighed. "Then I suppose you can scream at me again, and tell me I did it all wrong. But Starscream, I really don't think we could have asked for a better outcome than this."

Megatron allowed his gaze to wander to the window, and he stared out silently at the passing stars for several moments. "There's a newling femme who seems to think there might be something in me worth pursuing. I personally think she's probably got a virus in her CPU. But Elita likes her. And Optimus keeps throwing us together." He shrugged his shoulders. "We'll see."

The gray mech pressed a hand to the glass that covered the still, dark figure within. He'd repaired the hole his cannon had left through the middle of his second-in-command. But the welds were still visible, and always would be. He'd never be able to make amends for all he'd done to Starscream. But the lifeless face within the crypt now held a preternatural peace, a calm it had never shown in life. And this small sign was one which Megatron secretly treasured.

He leaned down over the dark vault, and whispered a few inaudible words to his fallen Seeker, words he gladly would have died rather than reveal to another living soul. Then he straightened, squared his shoulders, and headed back to the new Cybertron. Back to his world.

His, at least, for a little while.

"Ops?" he called into his comm-link. "Brother, I'm coming home."

A/N: To all my readers: Thank you, thank you, thank you! This has been my labor of great love, but it's so much better when it's shared. I value the time you've taken to read it all.

And yes; I'm here to ask if you'd read just a bit more... Please don't forget to check out "Entr'acte." It is vital to the understanding and completion of this world.

Again, thank you so very much for reading.

-Prime out.