Epilogue Five

Ultra Magnus

Magnus was familiar, too much so, with the standard orange that donned Autobot Repair the universe over. The mess that had been traipsed in by various pairs of feet coming and going was a little unsettling, he had to admit. Not great for infection control. It was, however, a soothing touch of the normal. That sensation of waking up from some form of stasis, optics onlining, that orange ceiling mindlessly existing above; he didn't want to count how many times this scenario played out.

And then there was Ratchet's ugly, surly mug in his field of vision, blocking that soothing orange décor.

"You fucking moron".

"Question or statement".

"Really? You want to play games, with moi?"

Ratchet's optics narrowed into portentous slits and his hands braced the edge of the berth as he lent in dangerously close to the Autobot Commander's face plates.

"No sir".

Meek.

"Didn't think so".

The doctor turned back to his petty supplies and grumbled:

"Dolt".

The usually so serious solider managed a smile, though he was the only one to have seen it, quite content with that fact; happily enjoyed it alone.

"So… long and short of it, you're kind of fucked up".

Ratchet said after the seemingly lengthy scanning process.

"Excellent diagnosis, as always".

Magnus put in, though mindful of his tone. Ratchet had been in one of those moods far too long for the blatantly obvious reasons and when in such a state the good doctor was notoriously effective at putting people on berths, not working to get them off.

Dr. Giggles stood there for a moment, crossed his arms over his chest, extended his lips ever so slightly and expressed a rather unimpressed and contemptible smacking noise.

"Look, swearing and threatening aside, I'm not kidding. Your boo-boos aren't going to kill you any time soon, but unless we get your arse to Cybertron, I can't do much more than a patch job. Percy managed to get you through the crisis stage, but without the resources it's just not going to hold beyond a few weeks".

The CMO gave an intentional pause to let the information sink in.

"I understand".

Magnus began to sit up.

Ratchet pushed him down.

"I don't think you do, and if you do, you're just an idiot. You need to take it easy. And I mean really easy. Like delegate everything".

An uncharitable poke to the chest plate enunciating his point.

"You go sit your aft plates somewhere quiet and wait until we get that bird in the air… The shoulder, okay, no biggie: not for you. The midsection hole, yeah, a bit on the worrying side, but again, you're a big boy. It's the gaping hole over your spark chamber that's got my diodes all in an anti. Percy's patch job, my reinforcing, it'll only carry you so far. A good punch in the chest could rupture the bloody thing, and if that happens: goodbye life"

He exhaled.

"But I know you're not going to listen to my paranoid, medically sound rages, so try and keep to paper pushing, calmly ordering people not to be fuck-wits and definitely no pummelling of Decepticons".

Hands were on hips now. Despite the size difference he still appeared a formidable opponent. At least verbally.

"And no more beating on the twins, okay? Sure, the little pillocks deserve every dent, but wait till you're fighting fit please".

Turning back to the table he picked up a small tray of functionally questionable looking tools.

"Now, keep your arse still, I'm going to try and keep you from dropping your guts out the hole Percy sewed".

ooOOoo

He'd never minded walking, when he was aware he just had to transform and drive to his location. When he couldn't transform? That's when walking lost all of its charm. Ratchet had added that last titbit just as he was heading out the door of the repair bay, post apocalypse version.

Magnus had let loose with a torrent of swears once out of audio shot of the good doctor, last thing he needed was having the Hatchet thinking such language was directed at him!

The solider found himself walking, as briskly as he could muster, through the clusters of mechs and femmes just idling. Waiting till someone higher up the food chain of command told them what to do. Told them to get on the Journeymech, get into those traverse stasis pods and have a bloody good recharge.

He actually found it rather irritating; they could very easily find jobs to do. There was stuff to load, to clean, to gather. They could be picking through the ruins of their homes searching for things of benefit; as long as they avoided the more dangerous and insecure regions.

Pit! How about burying some of those poor human corpses outside the city limits? Offering them a bit of dignity, that was a job, a duty perhaps.

Made his tanks churn, to think of bodies being intentionally left to rot. Of course, he knew he considered too much. It'd take a lot of energon to dig those holes. And sometimes, energy was expended on the emotional toll. The burial of beings the vast majority of Autobots found quite pleasant. What would happen to a mech if he were to stumble upon a human friend? Dead? Amongst the corpses like trash?

Well, chances were that situation had already happened, lots of times. Too many to count.

Pausing, he took in his surrounds.

If he was correct identifying his location, it had never been any place exciting or noticeable or even remotely strategically valuable. It was simply a series of storage sheds used for human necessities that were brought into the city. There were four of them. The far left completely collapsed, the next burnt out, the next burnt out and collapsed and the far right, damaged, singed, roof partially slanting. He noticed a few of the minibots picking through the ruins.

"Anything useful?"

He asked, his voice booming out over the eerily quiet landscape.

"A few odds and ends. We found a huge stash of something the humans call "tooth paste" but most of what we pull out is heavily damaged".

The minibot pointed to the pile of "heavily damaged" goods.

"I'm sure the survivors will be happy for the toothpaste".

Magnus stated, trying to laud the two scavengers.

"So, whose idea was this?"

He added.

"Swindle".

The two replied in unison.

"Ahh".

Magnus inwardly debated if he should help them, he could hold that roof up so they could get in really deep without threat of being buried, but the idea that he could be assisting some scheme of the Combaticon made him shudder.

"If I see anyone else with nothing to do, I'll send them your way".

"Oh, we're okay, sir, we're almost finished here anyway".

The little light grey and green Autobot replied, stopping his work momentarily to face the Commander.

"Alright then, I'll leave you two to it".

Magnus wasn't' really sure if they responded, but he already had his back to them, walking towards whatever destination found him.

He supposed that he should head over to the Journeymech, maybe find Kup, or someone in charge. Hot Rot should have picked up the slack. The little plonker. He may no longer have been a Prime, but loosing the Matrix didn't mean he lost all the officer's training and command ability that came with it. He'd learnt so much, matured so much; returning to Hot Rod didn't mean he had to slip back into the ways of a bratty, irresponsible youth.

Magnus plonked his aft down on a pile of concrete slabs that someone had neatly stacked. Running through the names of Autobot lieutenants and their current condition was a rather morbid exercise which concluded with him reaching the realisation they were in serious trouble. He was going to have to reach out to the remaining ranked Decepticons. And that section was a sorry lot also. Perhaps the only one with any real use, (read sanity and openness to Autobot co-operation) was Thundercracker.

He'd have to do. Hopefully the remaining cons would follow him.

What a bloody mess this had turned out to be. Magnus put his head down into his hands and groaned.

After a few moments of running an internal list of the dead and incapacitated, the Autobot Commander stood, accepted this was useless and headed to find Kup.

Noting he was trudging up an incline proved rather irritating for the solider, the pistons his legs didn't seem to want to more than sit, he could hear a pulley from the back of his right hip squeaking, each eliciting a dull stab in the corresponding aft plate. Magnus gave pause to rub the small of his back, his fingers brushing over the singed paint from a previous encounter, injury, whatever…

"Whatever…"

Something caught his optic. Up ahead, propped up on another neatly stacked pile of corrupted masonry.

A steel beam.

Bent, intentionally.

He found curiosity was a good motivator, and speed found him easily enough, or at least an increase from slog to leisurely amble.

Magnus reached the base of the makeshift pyramid and his optics followed the occurring steps upwards towards that beam. Something was welded to it.

No, not something, someone.

His mind drifted back to events that seemed to have transpired so long ago, when in actual fact, it was probably just over a month.

A light brown and dark blue minibot.

His paint job was heavily scuffed, the ash and grit that blew so freely on the breeze had over time either built up on the little Autobot or had simply corroded away at the breaks in his colour scheme.

His face bore the evidence of Magnus' sudden, brutal and most probably uncalled for justice.

Ultra Magnus, solider, hunched over slightly to find an easier climb. Each step became more awkward; each push up ached every portion of his body, his fingers clasped ahead of him on each level, scrapping in that hideously noisy fashion, the dust and soot and debris of human civilization coated him where he made contact.

At the top, he found strength to pull his aching, injured body so he was in a kneeling position before the violent effigy.

Panting, he let his arms hang lifelessly at his sides, his hands buckled at the wrists so fingers pointing backwards, constantly fouled by the deathly snow.

The minibot… what was his name?

Had he ever known?

Magnus tried to recall the small, rather cantankerous mech.

Griptread?

Tread?

Griply?

It was something like that.

It would be an insult to ask.

His left hand found a life of its own, reaching out slowly, almost as if it had no right. His fingers stopped short of making contact with the lifeless form; lingering there in, out between the murderer and his victim.

"Murderer".

The word passed slowly across his lip components.

The sound barely a whisper, hoarse, as if he wasn't even sure himself that it was his CPU controlling his vocaliser.

Part of him entertained the paranoid notion that it wasn't even him that spoke.

That accusation, cold and callous but logical and without bias, it was someone else. Someone without all the facts. Another empty set of optics watching an event unfold without ever realising the truth.

No. That would all be softly spoken lies, intended to soothe his damaged psyche, to reassure him that his actions were just.

Well, it'd be just another lie, wouldn't it? And at least, perhaps, this lie would do some good.

Though he knew that to be lies also.

He pulled his vision from the soulless form in front of him, and turning his head slowly began to take in all the devastation.

For the first time in a long time, he saw it. Really saw it.

It was a strange sensation, really. He'd seen his fair share of bombed out cities. Broken and battered. Stained with blood and energon and smoke and whatever else happened to be to close to an explosion to survive, but not closer enough to be evaporated by the blast of heat.

Optimus had a word for it.

Kup would express it in long winded stories and anecdotes.

Every Autobot, and probably every Decepticon had their own way of viewing it, dealing with it.

Megatron called it change, for example.

Whatever it was, however it was phrased or expressed, it was always meant to calm the individual. To lessen the horror they were taking in by compartmentalising it into something the mind could fathom. Justify.

Sparkplug had once told him you only really remembered that naivety when you saw it expressed on the face of another. Another who was witnessing carnage of such a level for the first time. Witwicky senior had seen his fair share of hell. Battle field horrors and civilian causalities unjustly piled up high and then fobbed off by some bureaucrat in an office somewhere trying to make it sound okay in the face of public scrutiny. Sparkplug had eventually found he could live with it, the blood, the guts, the murder of children, the rape of women, things that he thought he was fighting to prevent, to stop. To make the world a safe place for widows and puppies. Instead, he stood by and without lifting a rifle, let alone a finger, watched his comrades in arms rape and murder. Driven mad by the blood lust. Driven to do the inhumane. He once admitted to Magnus, on a particularly dark day, that he could not say with any real certainly that he hadn't taken part in that event. He couldn't recall his response beyond the initial shock.

Maybe he had just stood there, staring, empty eyed at the sickening events unfolding before him. Or maybe he joined in.

He didn't remember.

Which made him wonder if he had done it, and his memory was protecting him, telling him he was a good and just man, even if just a touch too lazy to step out of his comfort zone.

But Sparkplug had been reminded of the true savagery of war, when caught in amongst a rather particular horrible Decepticon onslaught, glancing across at his son, huddled in a natural trench to check he was safe, instead to see a part of his innocence lost forever.

Spike was never the same after that event.

He became like Sparkplug, he became like Magnus, and both acutely aware, one day Daniel would join them in that unfortunate membership.

So it was, that Magnus looked out with dim optics, upon the carnage that lay in some ghastly panoramic view, and really saw war for all its brutality and stupidity. For the first time in a long time, he found his way back to his innocence.

And staring down upon him, watching him, was the soulless, empty shell in front of him. Faceless, but no less judgemental. That gaping black hole in his head really did reach some form of morbid that Magnus just decided he didn't want to deal with anymore.

The Autobot found the strength to stand, and he gathered up the minibot in his arms, taking him down from that cruel advertisement demanding obedience. Ultra Magnus staggered down that makeshift pyramid and began the search for an appropriate grave.

ooOOoo

"Magnus?"

Arcee's voice was soft, with just a tiny murmur of sullenness.

"Ultra Magnus? What are you doing?"

She wasn't accusing him, wasn't demanding an explanation for some unjust crime she had caught him in the act of.

The femme, her paint cracked and marred like everyone else's, rested her hand on the much larger mech's shoulder, gently pulling backwards to indicate she wanted him to turn and face her. He did, but only with a turn of his head.

"I…"

His voice cracked slightly and he turned back to his task. The femme walked slowly around him, where he knelt uncomfortably on the soot covered ground. There was a deep hole in the unrelenting earth, and lining that hole was the ever growing mesh of carefully and almost lovingly woven metal strips.

"What is this?"

Arcee asked.

She saw the body next.

"Oh… oh Magnus".

"It wasn't right. What I did. He deserved better".

"What do you mean?"

She asked.

"I killed him. I murdered an Autobot in cold energon and had him propped up like some macabre warning sign. He deserved better".

His voice was even, frightfully so. He continued his work. Arcee watched unsure what to make of it, unsure what to say. So she sat and watched, an intuition that this was something he needed to do, alone.

When he had completed his task, and the hole had been beautifully lined with the mesh, he laid the body within, laying over the top of him another carefully crafted plate. Then using slabs of concrete crafted a sort of mausoleum to enclose the mound of earth that now gave this Autobot rest.

"I'm sure he'd prefer to go back to Cybertron, but we can't take bodies yet, Arcee. Only the living. We can come back for them. For Optimus".

Ashamed that he could still not recall the Autobot's name, he simply carved, in their native script, "Hero, Autobot" into the top slab.

Magnus stood and turned to face the femme, but he didn't catch her optics.

"I hope this is over".

She said, unsure if the simple phrase conveyed her meaning, that it was the civil war she wanted finished. Magnus didn't offer any acknowledgement of understanding, he merely stepped passed her and started walking towards the hulking mass of shuttle that sat off on the horizon.

There was a pause. She watched him. There was a sob. Clearly from the mech. From the commander. Another. And then he had dropped to his knees where his hands fell out in front of him and clasped that useless soiled earth.

His tears poured from flickering optics, his face scrunched into an expression of unbearable emotional agony. The sobs changed, they merged, they became lingering drawn out weeping.

"So many…"

He tried to force words out. To express the pain he felt. The guilt. The sheer and unimagined burden of lives now in his hands. A responsibility he never wanted, not because he was incompetent, or afraid or even hardened to their plight; but because he knew he could never shoulder that burden of death.

It was too powerful.

Too menacing.

Too much of a violation that would corrupt all memory and follow him into his own inky black of death.

Arcee was at his side now, kneeling in that horrible filth, her hands reaching for him. Reaching out in some attempt to soothe his suffering, to lessen it somehow. She could never take it from him, she knew that much, perhaps all she could do was let him give her this tiny and intimate expression of self-loathing and spark cracking despair.

"I will stay with you, Magnus".

She whispered, leaning her slight body over his, so her arms reached around in front, hands linking in front of his spark, her head resting on the back of his neck, a gentle kiss to his posterior cranial case. He twisted awkwardly in the muck and reached out to her with just his optics, watching her, looking for any indication that she judged him feeble, pathetic, or worse… guilty.

He found none.

So reached up with a dirty hand and touched her face, a gentle tracing of her cheek and a thumb below her lower lip. Experienced as she was, she did not anticipate his kiss, nor did she reject it.

And amongst the horror of war, the power of death and the guilt that they both in some way carried, they opened themselves to the union of sparks. Under the shadow of the grave, marred by murder and oppressive fear, over looked only by the emptiness of dead buildings and a sky reflecting only demise, the two found peace.

If only for a few moments.

But moments full of all the physical pleasure two of their species could experience.

ooOOoo

Laying there, with her, suddenly things didn't seem so grim.

For the moments with her, he was free of all responsibility – except to her. He was free of the burdens of leadership, and the weight of so many lives bearing down upon his soul. He was now empty of guilt and remorse and self-loathing. There was no longer any need to concern himself with any of the many, many irritating and equally horrific variables that had lead to this situation, and continued to frustrate his resolve.

All of that was washed away, even if he knew it was just for a few moments.

Next to him, on that bed of ashen debris, he held his hand, her fingers intertwining his; mindless yet with only a mind for him.

"This can't last".

He said.

The reality sneaking back in.

"Say's who?"

He half snorted, half laughed in reply.

"I mean it, Magnus, why can't we keep it, all this horror, all this pit spawned trauma, why should it dictate our moment, here, now?"

She had rolled onto her elbows, careful where she placed them on his massive torso.

"For one, there is the issue of Springer…"

Arcee sighed, frustrated, annoyed. The bastard… he'd ruined it.

"Please, Magnus, for once turn off your brain and let us just enjoy this".

"I did enjoy it… I am…"

"Good. Then stop being ungrateful and keep enjoying it".

She growled, with no real malice behind her words, no anger, certainly no resentment.

Magnus wanted to ask questions, too many.

Arcee seemed unsettled, and after a three minutes and twenty six seconds she got up, didn't bother brushing any of Western Civilisation off herself, reclasped her armour. She gave a smile to the Autobot Commander and turned, walking off.

"Well, that doesn't' at all complicate things".

Magnus grumbled to himself as he made himself presentable.

He spent another two hours there, by himself, with just the memory of Arcee to fight off the other dark dogs that howled their threats to him.

Eventually he realised he needed to get going, and so with Arcee's form still in his visual recall he found that motivation and headed towards the Journeymech.

Being so used to people suddenly demanding his attention if he'd been indisposed, he was quite unsure how to respond when he found himself able to walk through the various clusters of individuals, some loitering, others actually making themselves useful.

Bumblebee was the first to approach him, looking as if perhaps he thought Magnus had been busy all afternoon with important-busy-Autobot-Commander-work.

"Bumblebee?"

The commander acknowledged him, the spy inwardly comparing the greeting, the tone of voice, the inflection with how Optimus used to acknowledge him.

"I was wondering, sir…"

"Yes?"

"About the humans. I heard a rumour that you were going to take as many humans as possible on the Journeymech".

"That's no rumour, Bumblebee, so if you know of any human camps, feel free to provide co-ordinates".

An unsure smile spread across his apparently youthful features.

The minibot took a slight nod from Magnus as a cue that he was dismissed, turned and began heading off.

"Actually, Bumblebee?"

The spy turned immediately back.

"Yeah?"

"I have a job for you, if you want one".

ooOOOooo

As a solider he had the unique ability to ignore what he considered asinine functionality of paper pushing.

The meetings, the back room get togethers, the reports, the endless prattling of advisors and anyone else who wanted their fifteen minutes of nuisance.

He was able to push them to the back of his CPU and focus on more important jobs.

Like the Journeymech.

From the time the last hypno chip lost its signal to the launch, Magnus only considered a few things worthy of memory; granted, they'd slot themselves into his CPU whether he wanted it or not.

The most important, in his opinion, the time he'd spent with Arcee, a smile spread across his usually staunch features, albeit always careful to keep that stupid grin to himself. Likewise, he tried to avoid focussing on the future. Arcee would likely find herself back in the arms of Springer. It was how it was with those two. She'd bounce between mechs like a human on a trampoline. It was something he'd needed, the intimacy, the kindness, the non-judgemental attention.

There was the job he gave to Bumblebee, the discussion with Smokescreen and the boring, but somewhat important lecture he got from Perceptor.

Everything seemed to move at a pace that was acceptable to him; there were just enough requests from the right people to keep him focussed on something that he didn't become impatient. The Decepticons kept themselves in line. Ratchet only glared at him twice, wagged a finger once, flipped him off three times; a record for the surly bastard. Arcee would shoot him alluring glares and no one else noticed.

Enough to keep him busy, not enough to overpower him.

The Journeymech launched.

Numerous reasons existed in his life why he had left planets. IN his long career it had generally been mission accomplished. He inwardly monologued that perhaps he could say the mission was complete here. The Autobots and Decepticons had reached an unstable peace – if only for their mutual benefit. They had built the Journeymech, it was functional, it wasn't breaking into pieces in the befouled Earthen atmosphere. Shockwave was dead. The hypno chips discovered and rendered useless. The reason behind the worst event in human history explained.

Of course, all things considered, it was still a horrible situation; even if he was leaving it all behind. That's where that nagging feeling had been birthed. In the pit of realisation that there was never going to be a satisfying conclusion to this.

The shuttle rattled and then jolted rather abruptly as it had reached orbit.

"Five minutes until our first human location, Magnus".

Hubcap stated.

"Power?"

"86% We're lucky we're at that".

Blaster chimed.

"Okay, gather them up".

Somewhere amongst his schedule, Perceptor had found the time to morbidly plot a course across the planet that would determine the most viable humans to collect. There were regions that the exposure rates would have been too high, the injury threshold to excessive. Magnus wanted every last human, but even he had to admit that it'd be best to start rescue attempts with the individuals most likely to survive.

The Autobot Commander gave control of the bridge to Blaster, and then retired to his quarters, just off the bridge, for what no one would deny him, a good rest.

Magnus lay on the berth, staring mindlessly up at the skylight above him. The window giving him the view of the stars, of the Earth's moon. His view of the sky now was pleasant, free of the muck he'd become so accustomed too. Deep into his thoughts he retreated. Free of burden, concern and despair, he found the place he'd often gone to in times of stress, times when it was just on the verge of becoming normal again.

A small structure, one bedroom, the required refuelling room, lounge and bathing facilities. Located on the shores of the sea of rust. It was the wars that had ruined it. Filling its liquid metal with corrosive toxins and then cosmic rust took hold. Perhaps an accident, an experimental weapon having misfired, or some mean spirited war lord. Maybe an Autobot commander unsure what to do with such a thing concluding that dumping it in that vast ocean would spare so many.

The ocean had originally been something else, something similar to what the humans called mercury. It wasn't something one could swim in, but float upon in a leisure craft or simply, as he did, enjoy its nature.

That's where Magnus spent the collection period. In his quarters, on his berth, his officers on the bridge managing the whole thing, he away in that place.

No one bothered him, he deserved it, most would say. Others that he of all people needed abit of time out, for the good of all.

The last human they could find on board, he was called to the bridge, and he gave the order to head to Cybertron.

Home.

ooOOoo

FIN.

ooOOoo

Author's NB: Holy crap. Its finished.

I'm acutely aware of the need for an edit, while writing the final chapters I had to re-read through some of the really early portions of the story and holy crap on a stick I was embarrassed. Granted, I'm not too happy with the flow of these final moments, but I do intentionally write to make it sorta jump about and confusing cos it does have an overall point.

There will be a sequel, that's why some of the stories and sub-plots seem unfinished; they were left that way to build foundation for the plots of the sequel, which I have in my brain.

Of course, the big question, is when am I going to get off my arse and write it down? Dunno. It took me three bloody years to finish this.

I'm very embarrassed. Heh.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who read this, followed it, and commented, I appreciate especially critique and mistake point outs. I write these because mostly I love Transformers and want to offer an alternative to the absolute porn and poorly written shit out there, but it is my attempt to improve my spelling, grammar, and thought processes.

Dyslexia can suck arse sometimes.