(no subject)
One nice thing about being spectral was that, given proper motivation and an appropriate anchor, one didn't have to worry about actually crossing the intervening distance to get from "point A" to "point B". Especially useful when that intervening distance would have normally taken a decade or so.
The old base looked a little more worn since he'd last walked these corridors. The mechs also. Strikewind was still trying to cheat everyone out of their credits in that pathetic excuse for a card game he dreamed up. Not that anyone was ever dumb enough to fall for it. Scrimmage still ruled his repair bay with an iron fist and a dangerously accurate hurled wrench. Prestige still lorded his constantly gleaming clearcoat over everyone who bothered to saunter too near. Deserter still ignored it all, so long as the Autobots remained holed up in their precious little bases, too scared to venture forth much. Word of the Truce had not reached these outer regions, apparently.
It was all rather petty, really, Blackstar decided. Nothing really ever changed. Stagnated, they hovered out there at the edge of the galaxy and played out their stupid, pointless little dramas with no real resolution or purpose. He sighed and let himself drift through the corridors and rooms unseen. One or two of the mechs tossed uncomfortable looks over their shoulders as he passed, and Scrimmage looked up sharply the last time he flickered restlessly through the repair bay, but otherwise, he was alone and unnoticed. He sighed again and sent himself drifting upwards through the base until he broke into the dark, alien night.
It had never felt so alien here before. He sighed with frustration. He'd never been one much to speculate on the "hereafter", not like some of the more superstitious mechs, but he'd always expected a little more resolution in being dead. As he transformed and slowly lifted off into his normal patrol route, he wondered what was wrong with him. He wasn't any happier here than he'd been in the Allspark, and that wasn't supposed to happen, was it? None of the other sparks had seemed so... discontent. Not in the Allspark, not here at the base, not at that strange place with all the weird and alien creatures.
It was years as the living reckoned it, before he finally gave up flying that patrol route. Years watching for something that never came, if only he knew what it was that he was waiting for! Time meant very little to him in his restless wandering, although, even he eventually grew bored with his own stagnant listlessness, and allowed himself to be drawn back to Cybertron. What he sought, he didn't know, but he did know that it couldn't be found out there in that dark, empty space.
It was with a shock, then, that he found himself wandering the deep corridors of the Crypt. He'd never expected to have cause to come here, killed as he was so far from Cybertron, his trine mates long dead. He had no friends, no companions, not even an officer who thought him especially praise-worthy, despite being one of the more efficient, if not particularly brutal, warriors under the Harantou area command. No one would bother with seeing that he had a marker placed in the desolate halls of the Crypt. Perhaps that was the root of his restlessness - no one truly wishes to be forgotten, unmourned. Not that there was much he could see done about it now.
Ahead, a single mech traversed the corridor, his footsteps slow and measured, tread quiet - but not silent as Blackstar's was. Now and then, the old mech would stop and flick a bit of dust or debris from a marker, adjust a spilled offering here or there, or fix a burned out light. Blackstar followed, stepping up behind him as the old mech paused to tidy the offerings placed before a relatively new marker. Blackstar didn't recognize the name, but given the collection of cubes and small trinkets, he'd obviously been well liked. The old mech jumped as he finally noticed Blackstar out of the corner of his optic.
"Oh my! I didn't hear you sneak in here!" he exclaimed, vocalizer warbling a little with age. Blackstar didn't miss the way the old mech's hand slid down low where one wouldn't see a weapon being pulled from subspace. He may be old and retired to watch over the Crypt, but this Decepticon had fight in him yet.
Blackstar smiled. "I'm light on my feet," he replied smoothly, turning his attention to the marker again. He'd expected to feel a little envy looking upon it, but all he really felt was tired. His long life, his great victories, his honed skills, reduced to... nothing. He sighed.
"An old friend?"
Blackstar peered back down at the caretaker and shook his head. "No. I never even knew him. It just makes one wonder, sometimes, the futility of it all."
"History, boy. Glorious conquest and hallowed eons of history and victory!" the old mech exclaimed, turning to continue down the corridor with an expansive wave of his hand. "Great warriors are lauded here, and you would do well to learn from them! They gave everything to the Decepticon Cause!"
"They're still dead. There's a truce with the Autobots, and all these great warriors are still dead. Most of them don't even have friends among the living any more to visit and tell tales of their greatness," Blackstar pointed out, indicating that most of the markers and statues lay bare and empty. Only a few along this corridor had any offerings, a scattering of energon chips here, a piece of a broken sword there, and a few paces away, one lucky deceased had rated a full cube and a glittering chunk of black crystal. The rest, however, were depressingly empty, forgotten.
The old mech snorted derisively. "Bah. Their stories are remembered. Perhaps their friends and mates are long passed, but I remember, and I have been here long and long. When I pass, there will be others who will remember. Even if it is only the spirits themselves," he growled, pausing at the marker with the glittering crystal. He stared up at the memorial with an annoyed scowl. "Bah. And sometimes their enemies," he continued with sharp irritation.
Blackstar shook his head at the old mech, and paused with him to examine the marker that seemed to inspire such amusing wrath in the old caretaker.
"An Autobot demanded this one be put up, believe it or not. Crazy little wretch, stomping and glaring and raising all sorts of ruckus until it was built and installed. Said he'd died a Warrior's death, even if it was at the far reaches of the Empire. An Autobot!" He grumbled, and flicked away a speck of imaginary dust from the crystalline lump.
Blackstar frowned to himself. It seemed familiar, that crystal; he'd seen something like it once before.
"You say none will tell their tales? This one will, and by an Autobot of all beings. As long as even one of us lives, as long as even one tale is told, the Empire lives, even if it's in the tales of crazy Autobot femmes and their endless, shrill complaining."
Blackstar smirked at the old 'Con and shook his head. He'd known an annoying 'Bot or two in his day. Something flickered restlessly within him, and he sighed, looking down to read the name on the plaque. He blinked, his whole essence flickering for a moment from the physical world to the spectral and back again as surprise lanced through him.
"A red Seeker with blue optics," he murmured, mesmerized.
"What?" the caretaker asked him, glancing up at him, having apparently missed the flicker.
"She was a red Seeker with blue optics, wasn't she?"
It was the caretaker's turn to blink up at the Warrior. "Yes," he replied warily. "How did you guess? Did you know this one?" he asked, waving towards the marker.
Blackstar reached down to trail his fingers along the points and glittering planes of the dark crystal cluster, taken from an asteroid in the Harantou area. "I thought I did. Once. Perhaps not as well as I should have," he replied cryptically. With a sharp snap, one of the glinting points separated from the cluster; beside him, the old mech grabbed for his hand, shouting in surprise and anger.
"What do you think you're doing? You can't just take someone's offering, even if it was left by a slagging Autobot!"
Blackstar smiled wickedly, and suddenly, the old mech was left holding air, his fingers having phased right through the spectral form of the black Seeker.
"Not 'someone's'... Mine."
Blackstar clutched the dark crystal in his hand and faded from view, stepping across the veil into the world where the old mech could not - yet - tread. He knew what he was meant to do now. There, flickering far away, the bright hot red flame of her essence, like a beacon. Somehow he'd missed it before.
Yes, he knew what he was meant to do now.
Back in the crypt, the old mech stared with wide-opticked wonder and surprise at the empty space the Seeker had stood in until a moment ago, a darksome chuckle fading into distant echoes down the long corridor of the Crypt. Slowly, he turned his optics down to the inscription, reading it, remembering it. Adding it to his list of tales to pass on. The Warrior mourned by an Autobot.
/ Blackstar /