"No sacrifice; no victory."

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Title: Family Motto

Warning: Character death.

Rating: G

Continuity: 2007/09 movieverse

Characters: Autobots, Witwicky family

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Motivation (Prompt): a flashback

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"No sacrifice; no victory," the boy said, and he'd been theirs before the Primes had chosen him. He'd been an Autobot in their minds by that phrase alone. By understanding that victory came at a cost, he already had more wisdom than half of Cybertron; by assuming that the sacrifice was personal, not demanded of others, they'd recognized something special in him long before the Matrix assembled in his hands and proved it.

It took someone incredible to choose to sacrifice himself. Sacrifice for the ultimate victory was a price only a very select few could decide-thoughtlessly, effortlessly, at the moment of truth-to pay. The boy dithered when the question remained theoretical, but when payday arrived, he threw himself before them like a human shield. When Sam went down in the desert, heart stuttering to a stop, Ratchet suffered a horrible flashback to coming over that rise to see Prime's body. Déjà vu only days after the first occurrence, and the past Primes choosing the child as a Bearer, however temporarily, had made perfect sense.

"No sacrifice; no victory." Battered, tired, and smiling, Sam had been theirs.

"Never again," Mikaela had whispered, and Bumblebee had knelt down beside the two humans at the end of the fight, at the end of a scare that stopped all their sparks, and his optics met each of theirs in turn. Never again, they agreed. Twice, this human made a sacrifice only Optimus Prime wouldn't hesitate to offer on a personal altar. The Decepticons had bent them back and scorched the knife down, but eventually there would be a demand made that these two brave sparks couldn't pay. Too much asked, and they couldn't give forever.

Autobots could be defeated. Primes aren't invincible. Optimus Prime understood the escalation in prices during war, but this human…they couldn't stop Optimus. Optimus led because he knew no other way, had no other options left, and that's just how it was. But this child was too young to understand, really comprehend, what made an Autobot. They accepted him because it was how he'd been raised. They made him more than an honorary Autobot because he'd chosen to live by the motto he'd been raised with, mouthing the words and then living up to them. They accepted him, but to him they could offer the protection they couldn't give their leader. It was Optimus' right to protect the Autobots, but they in turn could claim the right to protect this little piece of an innocent world forced into the cult of war.

"No sacrifice; no victory," the boy says in their memories, as bright and triumphant in his loss as his victory. Terrified and helpless, Witwicky looks across the field of war and says, "No sacrifice-"

But the burnt offering goes up in the flames. "No," whispers the girl, a hopeless denial as a remembered promise screams and breaks in their collective thoughts: Never again. Optimus Prime rises again to throw himself into battle, déjà vu in a cyclical war, roaring challenge and despair as the sacrifice is made. What is one human life to a Decepticon?

One loss, one sacrifice more, paid to ultimate cost. Wisdom's price is expensive. One life is too many to an Autobot.

No sacrifice: so he'd been taught, so he'd lived, and given more and more.

No victory.

"Dad…"