Fic
Title: Borealis 77/95: New Dawn - Part 2
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: R just in case
Characters/Pairing(s): ensemble, Optimus/Vector, Cyclonus/OC Rutile, Elita/Optimus/Vector, Perceptor/Rutile. The usual, really. Ensemble/ensemble. XD
Warnings: OCs, pnp robot smexings and babymaking, (minor) character death, angst, m/m, f/m.
Summary: Wherein Optimus knows for sure what Shockwave is doing; the Greenhouse is built; robots dance; and the usual after-dance shagging ensues!
Notes: Suggested listening: Anthem of the World by Future World Music for the airing of the Greenhouse! Colors of Love by Thomas Bergersen for the Dance!
An Actual EngineerTM was consulted regarding moving large volumes of air around, and resulting wind speeds thereof, so those numbers were not pulled out of a nether orifice, were indeed calculated with Real Math! Woo!
The “…I am but a quiet, unassuming mechanism.” line is totally tiamatschild’s! <333333
Also! Special thanks to Mllemusketeer for help with Strika and with bioethics! (Any heckups or awkwardnesses are mine.)
~21K words.
Part I
At AO3
BOREALIS: New Dawn - pt ii
2084 - November - black nights
With utmost care, Optimus set down the block of stone he had been carrying. Hom, humans and Val’Na scurried around him.
Runabout and Runamok. The surrounding glyphs and subharmonics were those attending the dead. The cloud mind knew. There had not been mortalities on either side for a while, aside from Sentinel picking off half-deads, and those Prime had stopped announcing. It was too painful to learn that friends had been forcibly plucked from the Allspark into torment.
What happened? asked Ratchet from his new medbay, just off the central plaza. Prowl and Ironhide set down their own blocks and gathered near, Prowl touching Prime’s hand gently.
They are very angry, Prime said. I am attempting to… This at least was easier, this fast slide deep into the Allspark awareness. They weren’t hard to find. Twin loci of rage, bitterness, betrayal, boiling in a curdled nest-nebula of dark/not-dark, the patterns around them keeping their distance, but watchful. At least they had died together, and were staying together within, each reinforcing the other’s pattern. They would be able to maintain personality coherence much easier than most.
May I assist you in any way? Prime asked carefully. A double lance of wrath was directed at him and he dodged, but did not withdraw. Runamok, Runabout… Already, un-bodied, they were cooling. Soothing prominences from the other sparks reached out to them, offering and eliciting shared experience and knowledge. The twins were neither the first nor the last to die furious.
Welcome, Prime said gently.
Welcome! the sparks of those already One said and sang and pulsed and danced. Be with us! Speak with us! Bring us your thoughts and voices, words from the life-other! Tell us what happened!
He took our arms and legs off! Runamok yowled. Shockwave, his attendant glyphs said, embroidered with other glyphs that were not polite.
He kept us apart, shielded, for quartexes and quartexes! Runabout snarled. Then he’d bring us into the same room and cable us together with…with some kinda medical overrides!
Wouldn’t even tell us what he wanted...
Took our chestplates off!
Damaged, tortured, for orns, separately, then shoved us together…
…watching, scanning, hooked things to our spark chambers…
After a voor he asked us to spark-share…
…with him watching! Right there in the room!
If it was anyone else…but…
…after what he’d been doing to us…
And we wouldn’t. He hurt us more and we still wouldn’t, and then he did something weird, more overrides or something, made us want to, just being near each other again made us want to…
…just to have a little peace, just to have a little of each other…
Cables everywhere, all the thoracic ones…
…that’s fun but why? We went for it fast, hoping to get to the good place inside before he changed his mind. Went deep, deep as we could, if we were going to die like that, might as well, right?
And it still wasn’t the thing he wanted. We overloaded…
…tried to make it last but we’d been kept apart so long…
Old Shocks was slagged off! Doesn’t show it, but he forced us apart before we’d cooled off, left us alone, shielded, in the dark. Broke our chronometers.
Then.
Then he explained-
-Finally…
Gave us these…these protocols…slag you all already know about them! The merge thing! Prime’s doing it! Frag! Frag frag frag… But Shockwave said…
…said it was our duty, Galvatron’s orders, to increase Decepticon numbers.
What the slag were we supposed to do? Production line, he said, double every interval, efficient…logarithmic…
…we tried, we did! But something…we just-
-just bounced off…felt like we were gonna die! Explode!
So we veered off! Stupid idea anyway, but…Sh-shockwave…
…Shockwave said something about starting over…
And then he…
he!
he shot us…
He shot us because we couldn’t do what he wanted! Fragging Shockwave! Fragging spark pollution!
Nasty thing, organic thing, unclean…
…our sparks are pure, from the Allspark, as we were from the Beginning…
There was a stirring at this, among the gathered patterns. Sympathy and condolence and comforting - and a bit of giggling, not unkindly, as Runabout and Runamok were brought up to speed on some very ancient history.
Not fair, the twins muttered, curling inward together. Not fair… Knowledge and memory suffused them, offered as a balm. They had vast company in their former ignorance. No one blamed them. None of that mattered now, all are one, all are love. The twins uncurled slightly, offering prominences of their own, tentatively feeling out the first steps in their part of the great dance.
Optimus joined in the pulse of relief that swept through the gathered patterns. If you wish it, he told the twins, I can bring you forth into new bodies.
No! they shouted in unison. Embodied as an Autobot? By the apostate Prime? Or escape, to live as exiles, hunted by their own kind. Or ask Galvatron and take whatever body he saw fit to place them in. No and never. Stay in the Allspark, yes. In peace and at least contentment, learn to find their way to joy; free from constraint, free from time, reunited with old friends. They could shift the foci of their patterns to Galvatron’s moiety, take the statistically small chance of being yanked into half-deads; though Prime could divert that at least, and had. Stay. Stay in the Allspark yes and yes.
Very well. Should you change your minds, you need only ask.
Leaving them in peace, in the capable purview of those gone before, Optimus drew physical awareness forward in his consciousness. Prowl’s mouth was pressed to his left hand, which Optimus liked very much. Prowl’s dentae were unusually sharp, but he used them with uncommon gentleness.
Elita, Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Prowl, he tight-beamed. He would send a précis of this conversation to Ultra Magnus later. He explained what Runabout and Runamok had said.
Sound went right to his brother with the info he pried outta Ranger, Jazz fumed, Ironhide growling in agreement.
But they’re keeping it secret, too, Bee said. Like Galvatron is. At least they weren’t going to be immediately overrun with Deceptibabies.
Stop that, Jazz said, pretending to bat at Bee’s accessory glyphs. Gonna make them sound cute.
What if they are cute? Bee retorted. What will we do when they have…oh…
They have newsparks, Prowl said, nodding. Countermeasure’s “ravine kids”, though they are Allspark-kindled. Shockwave has not yet realized what he will view as the “price” of spark-merge kindling.
I doubt they’ll adopt the practice. Elita hefted her boulder and continued to the growing parapet wall. They will refuse to be constrained in that way, once they realize what it means. But they will assuredly use our merge-bonds against us.
Bee shivered, and dashed off to warn Wheeljack (and cuddle). Prowl looked down, seeming lost in thought, but Jazz was watching him, and so saw the flash of a vicious smile fleet across his face.
Long game, Jazz thought, door-wings twitching. Long game on legs. Prowl had Shockwave in his sights.
\{~~~\(o)/~~~}/
Grapple had fussed so much about not having a proper manufactory and assemblers that the Constructicons and Build Team had collaborated to build him one. A big one; big enough to make the parts needed for a structure 900 meters wide, three kilometers long, and a kilometer tall, a structure strong enough to resist storms and acid rain, flexible enough to stand through the frequent earthquakes as the planet settled into day/night cycles after so long frozen.
Pale blue-tinted panes of diamond and transparent aluminum laminated together were prefabricated; raw materials literally shoveled in one end of the assemblers and components accumulating at the other, to be stacked by size and curvature, then carried the short distance to the site, and fitted to the verdigris-colored alloy frame.
“Legos,” Sam said. “What you’re doing there. Those’re Legos.”
Grapple gave an offended and not-very-well-muffled squawk.
Mikaela snorted. Very fancy Legos, yeah, but… Cybertronians liked modularity, and they could get very, very sophisticated with it. Once the first primitive shelters were built, dug into the hill, facing sunrise as most Cybertronian buildings would for the next dozen vorns, Grapple had unveiled his design for the first human habitat - based on Rutile and Umbel’s old idea. A place where humans could for the first time walk upon the surface of their neighbors’ world without respirators and protective goggles. The Greenhouse, Hound called it, and the name stuck, to Grapple’s exasperation. A greenhouse like the Kew Gardens or Biosphere 2, or the Eden Project, or the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore were greenhouses.
“They’re very beautiful Legos,” Mikaela said. She, Bee, Nate, and Sam had returned to Cybertron early to watch the Greenhouse go up, knowing it would only take a few days. Dani had never left, at home with the robots wherever they were, though Melissa, her husband and her daughter had stayed on Earth.
Elsewhere, Brawn, Huffer, Gears and Windcharger - the Little Bastards, per Maggie - had been drilling and digging in the few veins of appropriate rock to be found. Grinding it down to powder and removing toxic elements, they had then added truckloads of organic material bought and brought from Earth, churned and digested by the farm’s worth of earthworms Hound had been cultivating at the Oregon base for the purpose. Humans needed green, growing, living things, and not just for the oxygen. Perceptor and Botanica would make sure the microorganism balance was correct. The Greenhouse was meant to be a garden, per Rutile and Umbel’s original plan. A bubble of fragile emerald on a cold, metal planet.
Even the microorganisms would die, though, if the air wasn’t right. The Bots traded secret grins and wouldn’t tell her or Sam how they planned to fix that. Mikaela supposed from this behavior that it was something other than just a fancy scrubber in a box, or even a series of such. The interior volume of the structure was non-trivial: some 2.7 billion cubic meters. That was a lot of air to convert to 20.95% oxygen.
\{~~~\(o)/~~~}/
Afternoon faded toward twilight; thin, overlapping layers of clouds promising a sunset to rival Hot Rod’s chameleon mesh. Skyfire - the last living Cybertronian expert on weather and climate - reassured them there would be no rain that night, but the dust stirred by a level-collapse in Vos might seed such a storm by the evening after next. Alpha Centauri A was in the distant half of the binary’s mutual orbit, but both of Cybertron’s moons were near full, shining brightly over the gathering shadows on the eastern horizon.
“It is finished!” Grapple said to the crowd gathered in front of the Greenhouse, rising on his pedes. “The exterior, at any rate. The airlocks and selectively-permeable shields are also operational. Now we need a suitable atmosphere within.”
A lone mech, one of the Waterbabies - Fimbria - scampered to the main entrance. Grand and central since humans liked such things; a lofty arch, 61 meters high and layered like the doors of a cathedral. In this case, though, the insets were for shielding and a backup mechanical airlock. Lifting a delicate hand, Fimbria cycled the locks and stepped inside, the doors sealing behind her. With a frisky little leap, she ran to the center of the space. She was big, definitely a she, but lacked the heaviness of armor that Chromia, Firestar, and Elita bore. Curvy, insect-like; a Rubenesque mantis. One of the unarmed ones, Dani thought, though there were so many now she couldn’t keep track without consulting her implants. That wasn’t safe or helpful information to have, so she avoided acquiring specifics.
Fimbria spread her arms, and pale, billowy cascades of…something…began to unfold from her sides and neck and the center of her back, frilled like the gills of an axolotl, but immense, spreading out across the floor and upward, wafting gently, breezeless. Then she opened her mouth. Wide, wider. The sealed and shielded diamond composite panes transmitted no sound, but her gill-membranes fluffed and fluttered as Fimbria swayed, drawing in huge quantities of air, filtering it, transforming it. Slowly the membranes changed color; pale lavender darkening to violet, shifting to heliotrope, fuchsia into ruby, then garnet. Hound shared an audio feed from Red Alert - who had a hand pressed to the green-copper frame - and Dani gasped, her vision blurring for a moment. Fimbria was singing with the air rushing through her body, singing an atmosphere humans could breathe.
Dani ran calculations, consulting Wheeljack for some of the fluid dynamics. Fimbria was creating something on the order of 800 km per hour winds, blowing the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale clean out of the water. Sub-sonic at this elevation, but Primus! The Greenhouse was definitely a sturdy structure, and Fimbria herself much stronger than she looked. As was whatever her gill-membranes were made of.
Actually she’s been doing this for about a month and a half, Wheeljack tight-beamed. We got the selective-permeables up first, built the hard structure around ‘em. Today’s the last day, just topping it off.
Showoffs, the lot of you, Dani said.
Guilty as charged, Wheeljack replied merrily. We’re checking for leaks, but don’t tell Grapple. He’d be offended.
I’m sure it’ll be fine. You guys build space ships.
Some of us are space ships.
That too.
Song complete, Fimbria gathered her membranes, retracting them into her body. Her chameleon mesh and armor changed colors, rippling like a cuttlefish, as her body reconfigured from the loss of oxygen and the acquisition of various other gases. She made a beckoning, welcoming gesture, and lights shaped like twining vines and leaves glowed around the doorway, turned green, and the physical doors opened.
“Sam, Mikaela?” Prime bowed slightly, extending a hand.
Arm in arm, the first two humans to befriend Prime and his team on Earth strolled through the peculiar shields into the Greenhouse. The robots and their other non-robot friends filed inside after them, marveling at the blue moons-light through the shaped diamond panes, rainbow-struck around the edges; at the vaulted roof far above; at the sweetly scented, moisture-laden air, as the oxygen-breathers doffed masks and helmets and peeled out of protective suits. Smooth, palely glowing paths wound around strangely contoured hollows, branching like art nouveau swirls to a handful of structures-in-progress. Heavy stone rhomboids in rich ochres and siennas and rust browns for the Homomdans. Lacy, transparent composite gazebos with arching, linked lattice pergolas hung with glass wind chimes for the Val’Nainnamoinnen. For Humans they built in stone and wood, familiar materials to remind them of home, but in a rounded, organic, modern style that was a mixture of many cultures and times so that all humans could lay some claim to it. Arched windows and double doors and enough room on the ground floor for the robots to come in without ducking; part palace, part apartment complex, part embassy.
No one wanted to stay in the empty rooms, though, because around the buildings the robots were filling the weird hollows with soil, creating swards and hills as if time compressed, and with their fingers gently planting wild leafy gardens, tucking sculptures here and there, to be discovered over time and sought out. Complex mobiles and splashy fountains for the Val’Na; dark, deep pools bubbling from sources far below for the Hom; playful statuary in marble and bronze for Humans. Some commissioned from each species, some created by Sunstreaker and Oratorio.
“It’s beautiful,” Mikaela murmured, climbing Ratchet for a wider view. “Beautiful…”
Giddy, Fimbria staggered at Kaibab and Avalanche, jumping them around in circles, even the dour Avalanche grinning and laughing. “Oh! Oh, that was fun! Let’s build another one!” Once her head had cleared somewhat, Fimbria veered away, her body flush with new molecules, scampering off to be kissed and caressed by her doting Prime. (Maggie added Fimbria to her private “Gonna Tap That When I’m A Robot” list.)
“Cybertronians,” said a Homomdan named Naha, crinkling the upper fifth of nir edges in a gesture of secondhand embarrassment. Ne was only 400 years old, a relative youngster.
“Gently,” said Ar Me-Ra iNslipear, the new Homomdan Ambassador to Cybertron. Of all the species of machine-life in the Local Group of galaxies, Cybertronians were unarguably the snuggliest. The Hom themselves, despite being organics, did not go in much for physical affection, and so found it doubly strange in robots. Ar Me-Ra, like Ar Be-Ka before nir, not only tolerated it well but actually found it charming.
“But…out in the open? Think of the humans!” Cybertronian influence over such a young, aggressive species couldn’t be an entirely good idea.
“Humans engage in Public Affection Displays as well,” said Elder Galallalanellia. “It is perhaps fortunate that the Allspark fetched up on Earth. The two species have quite a lot in common.”
“Hmmm,” said Optimus.
Mikaela side-eyed him. Hard. His fields had gone all whirly and contemplative. She was going to make him explain that “Hmmm” later.
There were Kuppies in the pools and streams, Libbies and solar spiders in the trees. The Libbies had been upgraded to sing, for humans would miss that, no matter how otherwise beautiful the forest.
Like a bright-eyed sun deity, Fireflight came up from the underhill tunnels, bearing aloft a large, honey-colored, translucent globe. In the center of the Greenhouse he opened it, petals folding back, and out flew thousands of fireflies, winking and flashing as they spread through the gardens.
“You…you’re going to end up with a new species of firefly,” Sam protested. “You guys know that, right?”
“Of course we are,” Perceptor said, pleased. “Imagine! Pyractomena angulata cybertronens!” There were other insects, too, chosen carefully; Worms and Botanica had taken delight in designing the ecosystem, which they would carefully monitor and adjust if necessary, and the Libbies, solar spiders and Kuppies could be programmed to “eat” things whose numbers were threatening to get out of hand.
“But…” Sam began. Dani put a hand on his arm and grinned at him.
“Not gonna win this one, Dad.” She was pretty sure Perceptor and the others knew what they were doing. Humans may have fragged up introducing foreign species every single time they’d done it, but the robots ran sims and thought about things on so many layers at once. They were careful. And this was the ultimate closed system.
“To the plaza!” Optimus called, when the moment was right, transmitting through the cloud mind also. The Greenhouse emptied of robots. Mist screens descended from the ceiling, showing the new city’s central circle, so that the organics could watch without having to brave the outside.
Between the Greenhouse and the plaza, to one side of the expansive road, was the first new basking dish. Cybertron had once been dotted with them; broad parabolic bowls from nine to a hundred meters in diameter. (The Great Dish in Iacon had been a kilometer wide.) This one had gone in early, surfaced in what looked like brushed aluminum, though of some much tougher material, fifty meters in diameter - big enough to accommodate Sky-Lynx. Kup had claimed the sweet spot down at the bottom the moment it had been finished, and spent as much time there as he could get away with, despite Roddy’s jealous protests.
“There’s the geezer roast now,” Hot Rod said as they passed him.
“Old man in a pan!” Cliffjumper said.
Kup-o-noodles! Sam offered from indoors.
I’m glad you’re all having so much fun, Kup muttered, giving Ironhide a warning glare as Ironhide paused at the lip of the dish, considering. Ratchet grabbed Hide’s arm and dragged him along. Kup bestirred himself and scrambled up to join them, though. If there was dancing to be had, he wanted a part in it!
Under their ancient moons and new constellations they gathered, forming concentric circles, engines and voices casting a low, multi-tonal hum into the thin, cold air. Vector knelt alone in the center, a small, begrudged space around him. Firstforged, he danced the beginning.
The Allspark had made them, the first Thirteen, brought them to life, first matter in this universe to think, to wonder about itself; and they had crawled from crackling seams in the ground that the Allspark had also made. They crawled up and it was night, so that the first things they saw, aside from each other and the Allspark behind them on its stalk, were the young stars, only just learning to be a galaxy.
More people rose from the interstices of the world, from the iron-rich, metal-rich ground, pushed upward from below like complex bubbles, light inside each. More rose and rose, and the foci, the lighthouse Primes, were nudged apart. (Optimus moaned, stricken, and those nearest caressed him and warbled softly to soothe him.) Tallest, the Primes gazed at each other in longing, though surrounded by love and devotion.
Hives developed, infolding, growing in social complexity as bodies grew into specializations. Then…some of those specializations could fly. The stars had been their first unrequited love, calling to them with faint but beautiful voices. How could they not learn to rise to seek them? (The six deltas rose on their AG drives, arms stretched upward.) And for long and long the star-voices were the only ones who spoke back to them in the young universe.
The dance grew, as their civilization had, slow and measured, expanding, then contracting when the space between individuals became too great, their numbers now set at the three billion the Allspark would maintain. Waves lapping the limits of the circle.
And then, at one edge, something changed. Cygnet, the smallest of the Waterbabies, stood alone, peering at the rest, both fear and curiosity in her pose. One near her, Bumblebee, reached out a tentative fingertip, touch and recoil and touch again, now with open palm. At last there was other life, singing across the vastness! The ripple of change went through them, movements swinging from one horizon to the other, and the dancers spun off into little clumps, each reacting to this new knowledge in their own ways.
Time passed, the galaxy spun. There was a flash and thunder - sound and light from Jazz - and they did not cower at first, but reached out in welcome, only to fall - so many - until the few left standing were taken and numbered and packaged and sold. The Quintessons had come. Rebellion rose in noise and fury, and Cybertron changed, forever turned now to preparations for war, even in intervals of peace. Primes were paired with Lord Protectors, and the Allspark grew warm with new life, to replace the many who had been lost.
Outward again they turned their faces and their curiosity, stretching to expand their defended borders, to find safety in empire, to settle colonies so that one planet, taken, would never reduce them to the edge of extinction.
And peace they had, age upon age, till few were left whose bodies had been scarred and repaired, though the memories propagated and were tended carefully. Aliens, organic life, were allies, trusted friends, partners in grand endeavors, and Cybertronians changed, adapted, learned each new way of being as their inherent adeptness encouraged them to do. They knew they were giants to most, they knew their metal bodies were strange, they learned the limits of smaller, watery life and were careful. Love between minds crossed lines.
A new species arose in M100. Large for organics, tough, fast, and predator-smart, keenly honing themselves and their biotechnology at a pace rarely seen. They flew living ships into the void and were proud of their accomplishments. They met other spacefarers with great willingness to trade ideas, taking in every new innovation in medicine and genetics, but it was only after hundreds of years that any discovered the Penstirachtatoriafelexian’s great horror. They too had nearly faced extinction; the colonies within their own solar system alone had saved them. But their homeworld was gone, eaten. By a rapacious swarm of tiny machines.
Cybertronians they did not like at all.
Wave after wave the Penstir came, great fleets defeated, peace bargained for, then wave upon wave again. The Penstir reproduced fast. The Cybertronians maintained their set numbers.
At last, Volant Prime and her Lord Protector, Alpha Trion, achieved what they thought was a final triumph. The Penstir were driven far from the reaches of the Cybertronian Empire, their culture driven, so was thought, back into the depths of their own history, never to climb to equal heights.
Sam explained quietly to Ar Be-Ka as they watched, side by side. Each movement and flux of fields and the music of their voices even without glyphs evoked clouds of meaning, but it was clear to non-Cybertronian eyes only if one already understood the story.
“How do you know this?” Be-Ka murmured.
“Optimus told me some of it. Bee. I mean, it was just bits and pieces. Then Rewind came along- came to Earth, and he’s a big history nut. He’s the one who put it into perspective, all in the right order and stuff.”
Be-Ka shifted slightly on nir platform. “Samuel, please understand, Cybertronians have been very secretive about many things, including much of their history - especially their origins, aside from their claim of first life. To have imparted this to you, after so brief an acquaintance…”
“Uh…” Sam thought fast. “Ambassador, they…they thought they were dying. Dying out, right? When they came to my planet.” That was still weird to say. My planet. The implication that there was more than one that a person might belong to. “I think they’ve wanted us to understand how all this happened, especially the war, considering we got caught in the middle of it.”
“Oh indeed, indeed. I am simply astonished. I trust the dance is being recorded…I must ask dear Optimusa’s permission to relay this further information to interested parties amongst the academic community.”
…
Cyclonus flew down from orbit by himself, past the figurative raised eyebrows of the Homomdans and the Val’Nainnamoinnen. The Ishlorsinami were impassive, neutral as always. He disregarded them. They would do nothing. They would only make their impartial reports. Strika and Turmoil were following in Strika’s shuttle.
Seekerbane’s mad scheme had succeeded. Cybertron gleamed in the light of another sun. And in the intervening quartexes - Cyclonus and the others having to take the “long” way - the Autobots had begun constructing a new base. No, a new city. (Starscream had, predictably, ensconced himself in Vos. Cyclonus wondered idly whether the Air Commander had had explicit orders for that, or had interpreted things creatively.) And at the center of the little Autobot city, they were dancing.
Cyclonus felt the pull. He could deny it if he chose. Yet, the brave newspark had shown them the way, as new people often did. New people like the three hundred that had been under the charge of Mez, until the Autobots had taken him in what had been a very strange attack. Dreadwing had them now, Galvatron having denied Cyclonus’ own request.
“You would spend too much time asking them for prophecies and portents,” Galvatron had laughed. “Wisdom from the unkindled! Ha!”
Cyclonus knew it would do no good to explain the misconception. Dreadwing was a good mech, honorable and intelligent. They would do well enough.
Truce, Cyclonus broadcast, knowing Red Alert would be listening.
You are cleared, Red Alert replied, appending cautionary glyphs and making no effort to conceal his unhappiness. Rude, but a swift reply. Prime must have anticipated their arrival. He landed on the indicated platform and transformed.
Strika landed her shuttle in the same place as he vacated it, and she and Turmoil emerged. Turmoil cast an amused glance at the defensive turrets swinging to track them as they walked toward the central plaza. They passed jagged, unfinished spines of newly-begun buildings, surrounded by cleared spaces that would become roads, the structure-shells growing taller and more complete as they approached the city’s center. No one style, historical or modern (pre-war) predominated; the hab towers and communal spaces ranged from elegant simplicity to the wild grandeur of imaginations too long stifled by war and practical constraints. It should have been a clamorous, dissonant mess, yet it was not. The colors and materials blended, the arrangement of each structure in balance with those around it.
To the west, between the plaza and the energy-vane-covered hill, flanked by shield towers, rose a set of immense, glittering, petalled domes, beautiful under starlight and the warm glows from within. A pity it was full of wet, grubby organics pressing their wet, grubby faces against the panes, despite the obvious presence of perfectly visible mist screens. It was in front of the dome assemblage, in a great circular plaza, that the Autobots were dancing.
Optimus was well-submerged in movement and complex emotional weaving, but he angled glyphs of welcome to the three generals, and to Obsidian, alert on Strika’s shoulder. Dance with us, if you wish, he said. But it was the larger mech beside him in the center that drew and held Cyclonus’ attention.
“Firstforged,” Strika said, and that was truth.
“Whatever,” muttered Turmoil. “It’s been seen on Chaar, fighting alongside Autobots.”
“And speaking with Shockwave,” Cyclonus said quietly.
…
The last remnant of the Penstirachtatoriafelexians resurged, bolstered by covert aid, and were defeated again, but Megatron - a ghostly holo projected by Hound - began to change, becoming resentful and angry.
…
“Autobot propaganda,” Turmoil said.
“The truth as they see it,” said Cyclonus. “Which can be instructive.”
…
They danced their civil war: disbelief, ages of faith shaken and destroyed, their population decimated, their sun extinguished, the Allspark deliberately lost. Optimus danced the call of the Allspark, and the long search, ending on a small blue world, now nearby. Jazz obligingly sank to the ground, motionless, optics off. Optimus’ fields flew wild with grief, meshing with Ratchet’s, Ironhide’s and Bumblebee’s, a grief they had not been free to show otherwise at the time. (Ranger and Rain keened, but lowly, knowing their parts were yet to come.) Optimus, quietly desperate, danced the merging of his spark with the shard, and Jazz rose, whole and alive again. The Graveyard Legion hummed.
Borealis, Oratorio and Rutile danced the beginning of the wave of newsparks, though nothing in their movements or fields proclaimed their true origin. Atrandom, Countermeasure, Nightbeat, Blurr, the Protectobots, Blaster, joined by the tide of Waterbabies; every one wanted and welcomed and free to veer in whatever direction their curiosities and desires took them. Hound projected a silhouette of Metroplex around them, and Sky Lynx leapt to fly above, rolling and gyring in a boastful display until Silverbolt reached up to tweak his tail.
The circle of dancers wheeled; a great whorl of the planet-moving, and everyone flashed sunlight-colored chameleon mesh, brightest in the center, rippling outward, bouncing back from the outer ring, until with a final, jubilant shout, they leapt upward, arms outstretched, seeming to hover for a moment before surrendering to the gravity of their homeworld.
An ancient, traditional form then unfolded, shared from Mirage’s and Kup’s memories, following a set pattern of abstract shapes. The music from many speakers grew quieter, giving way to percussive slapping of their own and each other’s armor, and stomping of feet.
Strika dove in with a low cry. She would not be denied, and Obsidian sleeked himself down over her back so as not to hinder her movements. She was soon surrounded by admiring Waterbabies. Cyclonus waded in, watching for a particular place, a particular face to come around, so that he could plot his course toward it.
Turmoil rubbed his mid-helm ridge. Clenched his fists, looked up at the stars. The complex, syncopated beat of the body-drumming seemed to pound through his armor, throbbing in his protoform, altering the spin of his spark. He vented hotly, then stepped into the pattern, compelled at last by naked, native joy and beauty. He aimed himself at Drift, but was intercepted, turned about, distracted by five newsparks.
Afterburner, one of the five tight-beamed. They were a gestalt, said the accessory glyphs, and they wanted to make sure Turmoil knew it. Scattershot. Nosecone. Lightspeed. Strafe. They surrounded him, moving in perfect synchrony with him as though letting him into the periphery of the gestalt link. They had flight-capable alts, engines powerful and fast, roaring in his audials beneath the drumming, rousing him as the end-state of this dance was meant to. Subtle as a kick to the helm. But the hands brushing his waist, his hips, the insides of his arms, felt soothing, curious, welcoming.
From the center, Vector and Optimus unleashed fields and seismic rumbles, smoothing the pattern even as the energies were pulled higher, static beginning to arc off fingertips and sharp points of armor. Strika made a channel with her sheer presence, making for the center, opposite Elita and Chromia - near planets but in separate orbits. Three mechs danced around her, veiling her in their fields. Gestalt, she thought. Or something. Obsidian rustled on her shoulder. They were beautiful. Newsparks, Cyclonus would call them; his information tagged them as less than a vorn old. One lean and lithe, fast, blade-edged and bright. One more the typical she build; tall and strong, symmetrical and balanced. The third larger and heavy like herself, built to stand up under great burdens, to bear armor and a weight of knowledge that would buckle a weaker frame.
General, they said, closing in as the pattern dictated, keeping only politeness distance. Strika suppressed a shiver, recognizing something in the harmonics of their voices. They must have been under Elita’s tutelage. They introduced themselves, using ancient formality, including Obsidian in their addressing glyphs. Skuld. Verthandi. Urthr. We are called the Nornir. The Fates.
Human words, Strika said. Human concepts. Predestination was an idea held by a few cults now and then over Cybertron’s long history. Programming as destiny. Form as function. Chaos was a far more popular philosophy. She pulsed her fields, not so reserved as Cyclonus, inviting them closer.
Interesting that you recognize that right away, Skuld said, brushing spaulder to spaulder. Most Decepticons don’t bother learning the languages of a planet they intend to destroy.
Strika laughed inwardly. They were testing her, these young little sparklets. How dare they, part of her thought. It is good, another part disagreed. There were layers to their question. She would not be provoked so easily into revelations the Prime could use. Her loyalties were not theirs to question. Span of human knowledge is not so broad, she said. Not so difficult to encompass.
The big one, Urthr, laughed at that, leaning nearer, sliding an arm along Strika’s, her form in the dancing perfect but the physical invitation plain. The Prime and the Firstforged were nearby, and their movements together were seducing the dance to its customary conclusion, raising the ambient temperature significantly.
…
Ultra Magnus, well entwined with Metroplex's systems, smiled, watching - that interminable four second lag - and Scamper careened into the room to wind around his legs.
“Coming up?” Magnus murmured. His arms were elbow-deep in the city’s jacks. Scamper scrambled up his body, wrapping arms around his neck, clamping legs across his chest. Head tilted for kissing, with Metroplex’s mind shining out of his optics.
…
There was no field to warn Rutile, only the hot slide of a body against his, arms reaching, lifting his arms over his head, clawed hands moving slowly down his sides. He watched Prime there in the center, venting superheated air from his core, head thrown back with Vector's mouth on his neck, and everyone could feel them together, the Primes' fields untamed, flaring nova-bright as they opened their chests and sank into each other.
Cyclonus' lips moved against the back of his helm. "Courageous spark. You are not trembling now."
Rutile felt his fields bloom, but strove to pull them back. Wheeljack had explained about Tetrahexian politeness. It was rude to spray your emotional state all over the magnetosphere. Cyclonus splayed his hands over Rutile’s lower abdomen, moving only his fingertips, exploring between and beneath plates; curious, courteous, withdrawing instantly from an undesired touch. Rutile, arching, felt as though the fuel in his lines had gone cold - an interesting sensation when the rest of his body had grown so hot.
Hey, Ru, said Brawn, on a level of the cloud mind that was open to Autobots but probably still encrypted to the Decepticon generals among them. Y’know what that black sword of his is? It’s a spark extractor! Suck the spark right outta yer chest. Doesn’t even have to pierce the chamber, just a main line. Sshhhloop! Out ya go like a light!
Primus, Brawn, Rutile muttered. Shut up! He doesn’t even have it with him!
Oooh! Borealis said, in a delta’s idea of a whisper. Stormbringer!
He’s not pale enough to be Elric, Rutile huffed. Cyclonus’ armor was near-ultraviolet, and would appear black to unaugmented human eyes. Besides, if it really was such a thing, you’d think it would have worked better on Thunderwing.
Perceptor’s kid, Jazz laughed.
Perceptor’s kid was already ignoring them, trailing fingertips down Cyclonus’ horns (hollow like bones, stronger for the hollowness; weapons, Rutile guessed, not sensory), tipping his head to one side to provide greater access to his neck cables, and the underside of his jaw. Cyclonus fanned hot gusts from his core vents through him, caressing cables and lines and fine-threaded nerve-wire, and the protomatter beneath, digging in his claws as Rutile gyred against him. From where they moved in the dance, Rutile could see Prowl shivering between Thundercracker and Strake, and the flash of sharp dentae. He could see Silverbolt twine with Skyfire, their great chests parting.
Rutile turned in Cyclonus’ arms, engine running high, fields blooming before he remembered to keep them close. He cupped Cyclonus’ helm, crimson eyes gazing down at him under the starry sky. Crimson eyes intent on his. He kissed the planes and hollows of that austere face; small, light kisses like Prowl gave, intending to draw another’s pleasure in slow, measured ways, but inquisitive and eager. Cyclonus was handsome, and interstellar-capable, and had chosen not to when he might have killed easily. Their lips brushed, a gentle tap, mouths opening like Rutile wanted their chests to open, to reveal the light within.
Again he struggled to damp his fields, though the fierce, primordial lovemaking of the Primes encompassed the full diameter of the plaza. Maybe they should move to the field-shadow of one of the deltas, who were on the outside of the circle... Cyclonus laughed softly, a low, purring, thrilling sound that Rutile felt over the whole of his armor, deep into his chest.
Do not diminish yourself on my account, Cyclonus murmured.
But…
You have made an effort to be polite, Cyclonus said, drawing Rutile’s knee up his own thigh, palming the outer boss of the hinge. To someone who by the lights of your elders is an enemy. I have flown long among those not from my city-state, I am not daunted.
Oh… They sank down, Cyclonus pushing between Rutile’s legs to bare the sensitive hip gimbal assemblies, kisses fierce and urgent, their hands strong on each other’s bodies, dentae retracted. Rutile kissed hard up under Cyclonus’ chin, and Cyclonus shivered, vented sharply, claws digging in, and Rutile smiled, nibbling there, a small soft spot amid the jagged armor.
And then Cyclonus unleashed his fields.
Rutile shouted, arching off the pavement, heavy waves of charge pouring through his entire body, dancing under his armor, stroking his protoform and spark chamber with insubstantial tendrils, every part of him lit up like a gas giant’s aurora. Cyclonus’ fields caressed him like hands, drove through him like storms, rain-lashed and singing. Charge slipped their control, linked them, grounded, and they overloaded, Rutile clutching at the threads of consciousness as Red had taught him.
He unshuttered his optics to find Cyclonus offline, that grim, narrow face peaceful. Deadly Decepticon general, proud warrior, recharging with his head on Rutile’s chest. Ru eyed the horns, sharp enough to take optics out.
A faint hum was all the warning given as Cyclonus rebooted, and Rutile felt that only because their bodies were pressed together. Optics lit, ruby and curious; and Rutile thought of Myanmar rubies, born of fire and marble and continents smashing together, not the red optics behind him on Enceladus. Cyclonus tightened his arms around him, rolling them over in a reflexive gesture to spare the smaller partner his weight (though Rutile outmassed the flier, and was, like Beachcomber, much stronger than his frame suggested), huffling a single, low, inquisitive rumble through his vents, nuzzling Rutile’s mouth. Ru grinned, and kissed back. He hoped there would be future opportunities to teach Cyclonus Red’s trick.
Moonslight cast tourmaline rainbows as Vector extended his solar vanes. The watching Autobots braced themselves, securing a few more cables for good measure, preparing for critical mass.
The Primes overloaded together, and beneath them the dance ground was shot through with beam trees. (Later, they would excavate down ten meters to replace the stone with special flooring capable of absorbing both the physical shocks and colossal grounding charges. Later yet, Beachcomber would contrive deep and subtle scans, and find the entire area beneath the new floor permeated with wire-thin fulgurites.) They overloaded together and took everyone on the dance ground with them.
Vector settled onto Optimus with a basso profundo purr, vanes stretching to full extension then furling into his flanks. The embodiment not of time but of smugness.
Borealis? Silverbolt, draped over Skyfire, tight-beamed.
Mmya? She was kind of sprawled, cuddling a lot of people, smooching with Hoist at that moment. Thundercracker had a very distracting hand on her foot.
Are you all right? With the, uh…mass Prime overload, I mean?
…Nng. That was kind of an area effect, she said. (Silverbolt’s wings bobbed in suppressed laughter.) So, not really aimed at me particularly. And it was two-thirds Vector anyway. Mmmm. Vector…
A joule of tension zipped through Cyclonus’ body, and Rutile smiled. Prowl was singing; a lullaby to soothe those who wished or needed to recharge, there in the plaza surrounded and immersed in a few hundred other fields and bodies. Ru lifted his head from Cyclonus’ chest, watching crimson eyes widen, feeling the sharp pin-pricks of Cyclonus’ claws.
When Prowl first came to Earth, Ru explained, transmitting quietly to not obscure the song, when the memories of what he had done during the war became overwhelming, Prowl would go out into the canyons and scream. That was better than damaging himself in other ways, Prime hoped. So Prowl screamed his voice to ruin. But over the years of self-repair, and nearness to the Allspark, and Ratchet’s care, Prowl’s voice changed. He wriggled a little, making Cyclonus hold him tighter. Now when he sings it’s… it’s like this. Clutch and flare, like fireflies winking, as people overloaded here and there across the dance circle.
Do you share first memories, after? Rutile asked, snuggling back down. Cyclonus was warm and the breeze was turning chilly. They were still cabled together, though the links had subsided to a low baseline hum. We do, but it’s okay if you don’t.
We do not share first memories, Cyclonus said, attendant glyphs indicating that was for more developed relationships, not first joinings. But there is a memory I wish to share with you.
Rutile opened another firewall, trusting, his head resting on Cyclonus’ shoulder. Most of this was not Cyclonus’ direct memory. Some was Megatron’s, and that sat oddly in Rutile’s processor. Much of it was from the debriefing of all the generals, later, but it had been pieced together almost as seamlessly as one of Hound’s productions. Rutile slipped into the seeming, fascinated by a Cybertron he had never seen.
Second bit
Third bit
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: R just in case
Characters/Pairing(s): ensemble, Optimus/Vector, Cyclonus/OC Rutile, Elita/Optimus/Vector, Perceptor/Rutile. The usual, really. Ensemble/ensemble. XD
Warnings: OCs, pnp robot smexings and babymaking, (minor) character death, angst, m/m, f/m.
Summary: Wherein Optimus knows for sure what Shockwave is doing; the Greenhouse is built; robots dance; and the usual after-dance shagging ensues!
Notes: Suggested listening: Anthem of the World by Future World Music for the airing of the Greenhouse! Colors of Love by Thomas Bergersen for the Dance!
An Actual EngineerTM was consulted regarding moving large volumes of air around, and resulting wind speeds thereof, so those numbers were not pulled out of a nether orifice, were indeed calculated with Real Math! Woo!
The “…I am but a quiet, unassuming mechanism.” line is totally tiamatschild’s! <333333
Also! Special thanks to Mllemusketeer for help with Strika and with bioethics! (Any heckups or awkwardnesses are mine.)
~21K words.
Part I
At AO3
BOREALIS: New Dawn - pt ii
2084 - November - black nights
With utmost care, Optimus set down the block of stone he had been carrying. Hom, humans and Val’Na scurried around him.
Runabout and Runamok. The surrounding glyphs and subharmonics were those attending the dead. The cloud mind knew. There had not been mortalities on either side for a while, aside from Sentinel picking off half-deads, and those Prime had stopped announcing. It was too painful to learn that friends had been forcibly plucked from the Allspark into torment.
What happened? asked Ratchet from his new medbay, just off the central plaza. Prowl and Ironhide set down their own blocks and gathered near, Prowl touching Prime’s hand gently.
They are very angry, Prime said. I am attempting to… This at least was easier, this fast slide deep into the Allspark awareness. They weren’t hard to find. Twin loci of rage, bitterness, betrayal, boiling in a curdled nest-nebula of dark/not-dark, the patterns around them keeping their distance, but watchful. At least they had died together, and were staying together within, each reinforcing the other’s pattern. They would be able to maintain personality coherence much easier than most.
May I assist you in any way? Prime asked carefully. A double lance of wrath was directed at him and he dodged, but did not withdraw. Runamok, Runabout… Already, un-bodied, they were cooling. Soothing prominences from the other sparks reached out to them, offering and eliciting shared experience and knowledge. The twins were neither the first nor the last to die furious.
Welcome, Prime said gently.
Welcome! the sparks of those already One said and sang and pulsed and danced. Be with us! Speak with us! Bring us your thoughts and voices, words from the life-other! Tell us what happened!
He took our arms and legs off! Runamok yowled. Shockwave, his attendant glyphs said, embroidered with other glyphs that were not polite.
He kept us apart, shielded, for quartexes and quartexes! Runabout snarled. Then he’d bring us into the same room and cable us together with…with some kinda medical overrides!
Wouldn’t even tell us what he wanted...
Took our chestplates off!
Damaged, tortured, for orns, separately, then shoved us together…
…watching, scanning, hooked things to our spark chambers…
After a voor he asked us to spark-share…
…with him watching! Right there in the room!
If it was anyone else…but…
…after what he’d been doing to us…
And we wouldn’t. He hurt us more and we still wouldn’t, and then he did something weird, more overrides or something, made us want to, just being near each other again made us want to…
…just to have a little peace, just to have a little of each other…
Cables everywhere, all the thoracic ones…
…that’s fun but why? We went for it fast, hoping to get to the good place inside before he changed his mind. Went deep, deep as we could, if we were going to die like that, might as well, right?
And it still wasn’t the thing he wanted. We overloaded…
…tried to make it last but we’d been kept apart so long…
Old Shocks was slagged off! Doesn’t show it, but he forced us apart before we’d cooled off, left us alone, shielded, in the dark. Broke our chronometers.
Then.
Then he explained-
-Finally…
Gave us these…these protocols…slag you all already know about them! The merge thing! Prime’s doing it! Frag! Frag frag frag… But Shockwave said…
…said it was our duty, Galvatron’s orders, to increase Decepticon numbers.
What the slag were we supposed to do? Production line, he said, double every interval, efficient…logarithmic…
…we tried, we did! But something…we just-
-just bounced off…felt like we were gonna die! Explode!
So we veered off! Stupid idea anyway, but…Sh-shockwave…
…Shockwave said something about starting over…
And then he…
he!
he shot us…
He shot us because we couldn’t do what he wanted! Fragging Shockwave! Fragging spark pollution!
Nasty thing, organic thing, unclean…
…our sparks are pure, from the Allspark, as we were from the Beginning…
There was a stirring at this, among the gathered patterns. Sympathy and condolence and comforting - and a bit of giggling, not unkindly, as Runabout and Runamok were brought up to speed on some very ancient history.
Not fair, the twins muttered, curling inward together. Not fair… Knowledge and memory suffused them, offered as a balm. They had vast company in their former ignorance. No one blamed them. None of that mattered now, all are one, all are love. The twins uncurled slightly, offering prominences of their own, tentatively feeling out the first steps in their part of the great dance.
Optimus joined in the pulse of relief that swept through the gathered patterns. If you wish it, he told the twins, I can bring you forth into new bodies.
No! they shouted in unison. Embodied as an Autobot? By the apostate Prime? Or escape, to live as exiles, hunted by their own kind. Or ask Galvatron and take whatever body he saw fit to place them in. No and never. Stay in the Allspark, yes. In peace and at least contentment, learn to find their way to joy; free from constraint, free from time, reunited with old friends. They could shift the foci of their patterns to Galvatron’s moiety, take the statistically small chance of being yanked into half-deads; though Prime could divert that at least, and had. Stay. Stay in the Allspark yes and yes.
Very well. Should you change your minds, you need only ask.
Leaving them in peace, in the capable purview of those gone before, Optimus drew physical awareness forward in his consciousness. Prowl’s mouth was pressed to his left hand, which Optimus liked very much. Prowl’s dentae were unusually sharp, but he used them with uncommon gentleness.
Elita, Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Prowl, he tight-beamed. He would send a précis of this conversation to Ultra Magnus later. He explained what Runabout and Runamok had said.
Sound went right to his brother with the info he pried outta Ranger, Jazz fumed, Ironhide growling in agreement.
But they’re keeping it secret, too, Bee said. Like Galvatron is. At least they weren’t going to be immediately overrun with Deceptibabies.
Stop that, Jazz said, pretending to bat at Bee’s accessory glyphs. Gonna make them sound cute.
What if they are cute? Bee retorted. What will we do when they have…oh…
They have newsparks, Prowl said, nodding. Countermeasure’s “ravine kids”, though they are Allspark-kindled. Shockwave has not yet realized what he will view as the “price” of spark-merge kindling.
I doubt they’ll adopt the practice. Elita hefted her boulder and continued to the growing parapet wall. They will refuse to be constrained in that way, once they realize what it means. But they will assuredly use our merge-bonds against us.
Bee shivered, and dashed off to warn Wheeljack (and cuddle). Prowl looked down, seeming lost in thought, but Jazz was watching him, and so saw the flash of a vicious smile fleet across his face.
Long game, Jazz thought, door-wings twitching. Long game on legs. Prowl had Shockwave in his sights.
\{~~~\(o)/~~~}/
Grapple had fussed so much about not having a proper manufactory and assemblers that the Constructicons and Build Team had collaborated to build him one. A big one; big enough to make the parts needed for a structure 900 meters wide, three kilometers long, and a kilometer tall, a structure strong enough to resist storms and acid rain, flexible enough to stand through the frequent earthquakes as the planet settled into day/night cycles after so long frozen.
Pale blue-tinted panes of diamond and transparent aluminum laminated together were prefabricated; raw materials literally shoveled in one end of the assemblers and components accumulating at the other, to be stacked by size and curvature, then carried the short distance to the site, and fitted to the verdigris-colored alloy frame.
“Legos,” Sam said. “What you’re doing there. Those’re Legos.”
Grapple gave an offended and not-very-well-muffled squawk.
Mikaela snorted. Very fancy Legos, yeah, but… Cybertronians liked modularity, and they could get very, very sophisticated with it. Once the first primitive shelters were built, dug into the hill, facing sunrise as most Cybertronian buildings would for the next dozen vorns, Grapple had unveiled his design for the first human habitat - based on Rutile and Umbel’s old idea. A place where humans could for the first time walk upon the surface of their neighbors’ world without respirators and protective goggles. The Greenhouse, Hound called it, and the name stuck, to Grapple’s exasperation. A greenhouse like the Kew Gardens or Biosphere 2, or the Eden Project, or the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore were greenhouses.
“They’re very beautiful Legos,” Mikaela said. She, Bee, Nate, and Sam had returned to Cybertron early to watch the Greenhouse go up, knowing it would only take a few days. Dani had never left, at home with the robots wherever they were, though Melissa, her husband and her daughter had stayed on Earth.
Elsewhere, Brawn, Huffer, Gears and Windcharger - the Little Bastards, per Maggie - had been drilling and digging in the few veins of appropriate rock to be found. Grinding it down to powder and removing toxic elements, they had then added truckloads of organic material bought and brought from Earth, churned and digested by the farm’s worth of earthworms Hound had been cultivating at the Oregon base for the purpose. Humans needed green, growing, living things, and not just for the oxygen. Perceptor and Botanica would make sure the microorganism balance was correct. The Greenhouse was meant to be a garden, per Rutile and Umbel’s original plan. A bubble of fragile emerald on a cold, metal planet.
Even the microorganisms would die, though, if the air wasn’t right. The Bots traded secret grins and wouldn’t tell her or Sam how they planned to fix that. Mikaela supposed from this behavior that it was something other than just a fancy scrubber in a box, or even a series of such. The interior volume of the structure was non-trivial: some 2.7 billion cubic meters. That was a lot of air to convert to 20.95% oxygen.
\{~~~\(o)/~~~}/
Afternoon faded toward twilight; thin, overlapping layers of clouds promising a sunset to rival Hot Rod’s chameleon mesh. Skyfire - the last living Cybertronian expert on weather and climate - reassured them there would be no rain that night, but the dust stirred by a level-collapse in Vos might seed such a storm by the evening after next. Alpha Centauri A was in the distant half of the binary’s mutual orbit, but both of Cybertron’s moons were near full, shining brightly over the gathering shadows on the eastern horizon.
“It is finished!” Grapple said to the crowd gathered in front of the Greenhouse, rising on his pedes. “The exterior, at any rate. The airlocks and selectively-permeable shields are also operational. Now we need a suitable atmosphere within.”
A lone mech, one of the Waterbabies - Fimbria - scampered to the main entrance. Grand and central since humans liked such things; a lofty arch, 61 meters high and layered like the doors of a cathedral. In this case, though, the insets were for shielding and a backup mechanical airlock. Lifting a delicate hand, Fimbria cycled the locks and stepped inside, the doors sealing behind her. With a frisky little leap, she ran to the center of the space. She was big, definitely a she, but lacked the heaviness of armor that Chromia, Firestar, and Elita bore. Curvy, insect-like; a Rubenesque mantis. One of the unarmed ones, Dani thought, though there were so many now she couldn’t keep track without consulting her implants. That wasn’t safe or helpful information to have, so she avoided acquiring specifics.
Fimbria spread her arms, and pale, billowy cascades of…something…began to unfold from her sides and neck and the center of her back, frilled like the gills of an axolotl, but immense, spreading out across the floor and upward, wafting gently, breezeless. Then she opened her mouth. Wide, wider. The sealed and shielded diamond composite panes transmitted no sound, but her gill-membranes fluffed and fluttered as Fimbria swayed, drawing in huge quantities of air, filtering it, transforming it. Slowly the membranes changed color; pale lavender darkening to violet, shifting to heliotrope, fuchsia into ruby, then garnet. Hound shared an audio feed from Red Alert - who had a hand pressed to the green-copper frame - and Dani gasped, her vision blurring for a moment. Fimbria was singing with the air rushing through her body, singing an atmosphere humans could breathe.
Dani ran calculations, consulting Wheeljack for some of the fluid dynamics. Fimbria was creating something on the order of 800 km per hour winds, blowing the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale clean out of the water. Sub-sonic at this elevation, but Primus! The Greenhouse was definitely a sturdy structure, and Fimbria herself much stronger than she looked. As was whatever her gill-membranes were made of.
Actually she’s been doing this for about a month and a half, Wheeljack tight-beamed. We got the selective-permeables up first, built the hard structure around ‘em. Today’s the last day, just topping it off.
Showoffs, the lot of you, Dani said.
Guilty as charged, Wheeljack replied merrily. We’re checking for leaks, but don’t tell Grapple. He’d be offended.
I’m sure it’ll be fine. You guys build space ships.
Some of us are space ships.
That too.
Song complete, Fimbria gathered her membranes, retracting them into her body. Her chameleon mesh and armor changed colors, rippling like a cuttlefish, as her body reconfigured from the loss of oxygen and the acquisition of various other gases. She made a beckoning, welcoming gesture, and lights shaped like twining vines and leaves glowed around the doorway, turned green, and the physical doors opened.
“Sam, Mikaela?” Prime bowed slightly, extending a hand.
Arm in arm, the first two humans to befriend Prime and his team on Earth strolled through the peculiar shields into the Greenhouse. The robots and their other non-robot friends filed inside after them, marveling at the blue moons-light through the shaped diamond panes, rainbow-struck around the edges; at the vaulted roof far above; at the sweetly scented, moisture-laden air, as the oxygen-breathers doffed masks and helmets and peeled out of protective suits. Smooth, palely glowing paths wound around strangely contoured hollows, branching like art nouveau swirls to a handful of structures-in-progress. Heavy stone rhomboids in rich ochres and siennas and rust browns for the Homomdans. Lacy, transparent composite gazebos with arching, linked lattice pergolas hung with glass wind chimes for the Val’Nainnamoinnen. For Humans they built in stone and wood, familiar materials to remind them of home, but in a rounded, organic, modern style that was a mixture of many cultures and times so that all humans could lay some claim to it. Arched windows and double doors and enough room on the ground floor for the robots to come in without ducking; part palace, part apartment complex, part embassy.
No one wanted to stay in the empty rooms, though, because around the buildings the robots were filling the weird hollows with soil, creating swards and hills as if time compressed, and with their fingers gently planting wild leafy gardens, tucking sculptures here and there, to be discovered over time and sought out. Complex mobiles and splashy fountains for the Val’Na; dark, deep pools bubbling from sources far below for the Hom; playful statuary in marble and bronze for Humans. Some commissioned from each species, some created by Sunstreaker and Oratorio.
“It’s beautiful,” Mikaela murmured, climbing Ratchet for a wider view. “Beautiful…”
Giddy, Fimbria staggered at Kaibab and Avalanche, jumping them around in circles, even the dour Avalanche grinning and laughing. “Oh! Oh, that was fun! Let’s build another one!” Once her head had cleared somewhat, Fimbria veered away, her body flush with new molecules, scampering off to be kissed and caressed by her doting Prime. (Maggie added Fimbria to her private “Gonna Tap That When I’m A Robot” list.)
“Cybertronians,” said a Homomdan named Naha, crinkling the upper fifth of nir edges in a gesture of secondhand embarrassment. Ne was only 400 years old, a relative youngster.
“Gently,” said Ar Me-Ra iNslipear, the new Homomdan Ambassador to Cybertron. Of all the species of machine-life in the Local Group of galaxies, Cybertronians were unarguably the snuggliest. The Hom themselves, despite being organics, did not go in much for physical affection, and so found it doubly strange in robots. Ar Me-Ra, like Ar Be-Ka before nir, not only tolerated it well but actually found it charming.
“But…out in the open? Think of the humans!” Cybertronian influence over such a young, aggressive species couldn’t be an entirely good idea.
“Humans engage in Public Affection Displays as well,” said Elder Galallalanellia. “It is perhaps fortunate that the Allspark fetched up on Earth. The two species have quite a lot in common.”
“Hmmm,” said Optimus.
Mikaela side-eyed him. Hard. His fields had gone all whirly and contemplative. She was going to make him explain that “Hmmm” later.
There were Kuppies in the pools and streams, Libbies and solar spiders in the trees. The Libbies had been upgraded to sing, for humans would miss that, no matter how otherwise beautiful the forest.
Like a bright-eyed sun deity, Fireflight came up from the underhill tunnels, bearing aloft a large, honey-colored, translucent globe. In the center of the Greenhouse he opened it, petals folding back, and out flew thousands of fireflies, winking and flashing as they spread through the gardens.
“You…you’re going to end up with a new species of firefly,” Sam protested. “You guys know that, right?”
“Of course we are,” Perceptor said, pleased. “Imagine! Pyractomena angulata cybertronens!” There were other insects, too, chosen carefully; Worms and Botanica had taken delight in designing the ecosystem, which they would carefully monitor and adjust if necessary, and the Libbies, solar spiders and Kuppies could be programmed to “eat” things whose numbers were threatening to get out of hand.
“But…” Sam began. Dani put a hand on his arm and grinned at him.
“Not gonna win this one, Dad.” She was pretty sure Perceptor and the others knew what they were doing. Humans may have fragged up introducing foreign species every single time they’d done it, but the robots ran sims and thought about things on so many layers at once. They were careful. And this was the ultimate closed system.
“To the plaza!” Optimus called, when the moment was right, transmitting through the cloud mind also. The Greenhouse emptied of robots. Mist screens descended from the ceiling, showing the new city’s central circle, so that the organics could watch without having to brave the outside.
Between the Greenhouse and the plaza, to one side of the expansive road, was the first new basking dish. Cybertron had once been dotted with them; broad parabolic bowls from nine to a hundred meters in diameter. (The Great Dish in Iacon had been a kilometer wide.) This one had gone in early, surfaced in what looked like brushed aluminum, though of some much tougher material, fifty meters in diameter - big enough to accommodate Sky-Lynx. Kup had claimed the sweet spot down at the bottom the moment it had been finished, and spent as much time there as he could get away with, despite Roddy’s jealous protests.
“There’s the geezer roast now,” Hot Rod said as they passed him.
“Old man in a pan!” Cliffjumper said.
Kup-o-noodles! Sam offered from indoors.
I’m glad you’re all having so much fun, Kup muttered, giving Ironhide a warning glare as Ironhide paused at the lip of the dish, considering. Ratchet grabbed Hide’s arm and dragged him along. Kup bestirred himself and scrambled up to join them, though. If there was dancing to be had, he wanted a part in it!
Under their ancient moons and new constellations they gathered, forming concentric circles, engines and voices casting a low, multi-tonal hum into the thin, cold air. Vector knelt alone in the center, a small, begrudged space around him. Firstforged, he danced the beginning.
The Allspark had made them, the first Thirteen, brought them to life, first matter in this universe to think, to wonder about itself; and they had crawled from crackling seams in the ground that the Allspark had also made. They crawled up and it was night, so that the first things they saw, aside from each other and the Allspark behind them on its stalk, were the young stars, only just learning to be a galaxy.
More people rose from the interstices of the world, from the iron-rich, metal-rich ground, pushed upward from below like complex bubbles, light inside each. More rose and rose, and the foci, the lighthouse Primes, were nudged apart. (Optimus moaned, stricken, and those nearest caressed him and warbled softly to soothe him.) Tallest, the Primes gazed at each other in longing, though surrounded by love and devotion.
Hives developed, infolding, growing in social complexity as bodies grew into specializations. Then…some of those specializations could fly. The stars had been their first unrequited love, calling to them with faint but beautiful voices. How could they not learn to rise to seek them? (The six deltas rose on their AG drives, arms stretched upward.) And for long and long the star-voices were the only ones who spoke back to them in the young universe.
The dance grew, as their civilization had, slow and measured, expanding, then contracting when the space between individuals became too great, their numbers now set at the three billion the Allspark would maintain. Waves lapping the limits of the circle.
And then, at one edge, something changed. Cygnet, the smallest of the Waterbabies, stood alone, peering at the rest, both fear and curiosity in her pose. One near her, Bumblebee, reached out a tentative fingertip, touch and recoil and touch again, now with open palm. At last there was other life, singing across the vastness! The ripple of change went through them, movements swinging from one horizon to the other, and the dancers spun off into little clumps, each reacting to this new knowledge in their own ways.
Time passed, the galaxy spun. There was a flash and thunder - sound and light from Jazz - and they did not cower at first, but reached out in welcome, only to fall - so many - until the few left standing were taken and numbered and packaged and sold. The Quintessons had come. Rebellion rose in noise and fury, and Cybertron changed, forever turned now to preparations for war, even in intervals of peace. Primes were paired with Lord Protectors, and the Allspark grew warm with new life, to replace the many who had been lost.
Outward again they turned their faces and their curiosity, stretching to expand their defended borders, to find safety in empire, to settle colonies so that one planet, taken, would never reduce them to the edge of extinction.
And peace they had, age upon age, till few were left whose bodies had been scarred and repaired, though the memories propagated and were tended carefully. Aliens, organic life, were allies, trusted friends, partners in grand endeavors, and Cybertronians changed, adapted, learned each new way of being as their inherent adeptness encouraged them to do. They knew they were giants to most, they knew their metal bodies were strange, they learned the limits of smaller, watery life and were careful. Love between minds crossed lines.
A new species arose in M100. Large for organics, tough, fast, and predator-smart, keenly honing themselves and their biotechnology at a pace rarely seen. They flew living ships into the void and were proud of their accomplishments. They met other spacefarers with great willingness to trade ideas, taking in every new innovation in medicine and genetics, but it was only after hundreds of years that any discovered the Penstirachtatoriafelexian’s great horror. They too had nearly faced extinction; the colonies within their own solar system alone had saved them. But their homeworld was gone, eaten. By a rapacious swarm of tiny machines.
Cybertronians they did not like at all.
Wave after wave the Penstir came, great fleets defeated, peace bargained for, then wave upon wave again. The Penstir reproduced fast. The Cybertronians maintained their set numbers.
At last, Volant Prime and her Lord Protector, Alpha Trion, achieved what they thought was a final triumph. The Penstir were driven far from the reaches of the Cybertronian Empire, their culture driven, so was thought, back into the depths of their own history, never to climb to equal heights.
Sam explained quietly to Ar Be-Ka as they watched, side by side. Each movement and flux of fields and the music of their voices even without glyphs evoked clouds of meaning, but it was clear to non-Cybertronian eyes only if one already understood the story.
“How do you know this?” Be-Ka murmured.
“Optimus told me some of it. Bee. I mean, it was just bits and pieces. Then Rewind came along- came to Earth, and he’s a big history nut. He’s the one who put it into perspective, all in the right order and stuff.”
Be-Ka shifted slightly on nir platform. “Samuel, please understand, Cybertronians have been very secretive about many things, including much of their history - especially their origins, aside from their claim of first life. To have imparted this to you, after so brief an acquaintance…”
“Uh…” Sam thought fast. “Ambassador, they…they thought they were dying. Dying out, right? When they came to my planet.” That was still weird to say. My planet. The implication that there was more than one that a person might belong to. “I think they’ve wanted us to understand how all this happened, especially the war, considering we got caught in the middle of it.”
“Oh indeed, indeed. I am simply astonished. I trust the dance is being recorded…I must ask dear Optimusa’s permission to relay this further information to interested parties amongst the academic community.”
…
Cyclonus flew down from orbit by himself, past the figurative raised eyebrows of the Homomdans and the Val’Nainnamoinnen. The Ishlorsinami were impassive, neutral as always. He disregarded them. They would do nothing. They would only make their impartial reports. Strika and Turmoil were following in Strika’s shuttle.
Seekerbane’s mad scheme had succeeded. Cybertron gleamed in the light of another sun. And in the intervening quartexes - Cyclonus and the others having to take the “long” way - the Autobots had begun constructing a new base. No, a new city. (Starscream had, predictably, ensconced himself in Vos. Cyclonus wondered idly whether the Air Commander had had explicit orders for that, or had interpreted things creatively.) And at the center of the little Autobot city, they were dancing.
Cyclonus felt the pull. He could deny it if he chose. Yet, the brave newspark had shown them the way, as new people often did. New people like the three hundred that had been under the charge of Mez, until the Autobots had taken him in what had been a very strange attack. Dreadwing had them now, Galvatron having denied Cyclonus’ own request.
“You would spend too much time asking them for prophecies and portents,” Galvatron had laughed. “Wisdom from the unkindled! Ha!”
Cyclonus knew it would do no good to explain the misconception. Dreadwing was a good mech, honorable and intelligent. They would do well enough.
Truce, Cyclonus broadcast, knowing Red Alert would be listening.
You are cleared, Red Alert replied, appending cautionary glyphs and making no effort to conceal his unhappiness. Rude, but a swift reply. Prime must have anticipated their arrival. He landed on the indicated platform and transformed.
Strika landed her shuttle in the same place as he vacated it, and she and Turmoil emerged. Turmoil cast an amused glance at the defensive turrets swinging to track them as they walked toward the central plaza. They passed jagged, unfinished spines of newly-begun buildings, surrounded by cleared spaces that would become roads, the structure-shells growing taller and more complete as they approached the city’s center. No one style, historical or modern (pre-war) predominated; the hab towers and communal spaces ranged from elegant simplicity to the wild grandeur of imaginations too long stifled by war and practical constraints. It should have been a clamorous, dissonant mess, yet it was not. The colors and materials blended, the arrangement of each structure in balance with those around it.
To the west, between the plaza and the energy-vane-covered hill, flanked by shield towers, rose a set of immense, glittering, petalled domes, beautiful under starlight and the warm glows from within. A pity it was full of wet, grubby organics pressing their wet, grubby faces against the panes, despite the obvious presence of perfectly visible mist screens. It was in front of the dome assemblage, in a great circular plaza, that the Autobots were dancing.
Optimus was well-submerged in movement and complex emotional weaving, but he angled glyphs of welcome to the three generals, and to Obsidian, alert on Strika’s shoulder. Dance with us, if you wish, he said. But it was the larger mech beside him in the center that drew and held Cyclonus’ attention.
“Firstforged,” Strika said, and that was truth.
“Whatever,” muttered Turmoil. “It’s been seen on Chaar, fighting alongside Autobots.”
“And speaking with Shockwave,” Cyclonus said quietly.
…
The last remnant of the Penstirachtatoriafelexians resurged, bolstered by covert aid, and were defeated again, but Megatron - a ghostly holo projected by Hound - began to change, becoming resentful and angry.
…
“Autobot propaganda,” Turmoil said.
“The truth as they see it,” said Cyclonus. “Which can be instructive.”
…
They danced their civil war: disbelief, ages of faith shaken and destroyed, their population decimated, their sun extinguished, the Allspark deliberately lost. Optimus danced the call of the Allspark, and the long search, ending on a small blue world, now nearby. Jazz obligingly sank to the ground, motionless, optics off. Optimus’ fields flew wild with grief, meshing with Ratchet’s, Ironhide’s and Bumblebee’s, a grief they had not been free to show otherwise at the time. (Ranger and Rain keened, but lowly, knowing their parts were yet to come.) Optimus, quietly desperate, danced the merging of his spark with the shard, and Jazz rose, whole and alive again. The Graveyard Legion hummed.
Borealis, Oratorio and Rutile danced the beginning of the wave of newsparks, though nothing in their movements or fields proclaimed their true origin. Atrandom, Countermeasure, Nightbeat, Blurr, the Protectobots, Blaster, joined by the tide of Waterbabies; every one wanted and welcomed and free to veer in whatever direction their curiosities and desires took them. Hound projected a silhouette of Metroplex around them, and Sky Lynx leapt to fly above, rolling and gyring in a boastful display until Silverbolt reached up to tweak his tail.
The circle of dancers wheeled; a great whorl of the planet-moving, and everyone flashed sunlight-colored chameleon mesh, brightest in the center, rippling outward, bouncing back from the outer ring, until with a final, jubilant shout, they leapt upward, arms outstretched, seeming to hover for a moment before surrendering to the gravity of their homeworld.
An ancient, traditional form then unfolded, shared from Mirage’s and Kup’s memories, following a set pattern of abstract shapes. The music from many speakers grew quieter, giving way to percussive slapping of their own and each other’s armor, and stomping of feet.
Strika dove in with a low cry. She would not be denied, and Obsidian sleeked himself down over her back so as not to hinder her movements. She was soon surrounded by admiring Waterbabies. Cyclonus waded in, watching for a particular place, a particular face to come around, so that he could plot his course toward it.
Turmoil rubbed his mid-helm ridge. Clenched his fists, looked up at the stars. The complex, syncopated beat of the body-drumming seemed to pound through his armor, throbbing in his protoform, altering the spin of his spark. He vented hotly, then stepped into the pattern, compelled at last by naked, native joy and beauty. He aimed himself at Drift, but was intercepted, turned about, distracted by five newsparks.
Afterburner, one of the five tight-beamed. They were a gestalt, said the accessory glyphs, and they wanted to make sure Turmoil knew it. Scattershot. Nosecone. Lightspeed. Strafe. They surrounded him, moving in perfect synchrony with him as though letting him into the periphery of the gestalt link. They had flight-capable alts, engines powerful and fast, roaring in his audials beneath the drumming, rousing him as the end-state of this dance was meant to. Subtle as a kick to the helm. But the hands brushing his waist, his hips, the insides of his arms, felt soothing, curious, welcoming.
From the center, Vector and Optimus unleashed fields and seismic rumbles, smoothing the pattern even as the energies were pulled higher, static beginning to arc off fingertips and sharp points of armor. Strika made a channel with her sheer presence, making for the center, opposite Elita and Chromia - near planets but in separate orbits. Three mechs danced around her, veiling her in their fields. Gestalt, she thought. Or something. Obsidian rustled on her shoulder. They were beautiful. Newsparks, Cyclonus would call them; his information tagged them as less than a vorn old. One lean and lithe, fast, blade-edged and bright. One more the typical she build; tall and strong, symmetrical and balanced. The third larger and heavy like herself, built to stand up under great burdens, to bear armor and a weight of knowledge that would buckle a weaker frame.
General, they said, closing in as the pattern dictated, keeping only politeness distance. Strika suppressed a shiver, recognizing something in the harmonics of their voices. They must have been under Elita’s tutelage. They introduced themselves, using ancient formality, including Obsidian in their addressing glyphs. Skuld. Verthandi. Urthr. We are called the Nornir. The Fates.
Human words, Strika said. Human concepts. Predestination was an idea held by a few cults now and then over Cybertron’s long history. Programming as destiny. Form as function. Chaos was a far more popular philosophy. She pulsed her fields, not so reserved as Cyclonus, inviting them closer.
Interesting that you recognize that right away, Skuld said, brushing spaulder to spaulder. Most Decepticons don’t bother learning the languages of a planet they intend to destroy.
Strika laughed inwardly. They were testing her, these young little sparklets. How dare they, part of her thought. It is good, another part disagreed. There were layers to their question. She would not be provoked so easily into revelations the Prime could use. Her loyalties were not theirs to question. Span of human knowledge is not so broad, she said. Not so difficult to encompass.
The big one, Urthr, laughed at that, leaning nearer, sliding an arm along Strika’s, her form in the dancing perfect but the physical invitation plain. The Prime and the Firstforged were nearby, and their movements together were seducing the dance to its customary conclusion, raising the ambient temperature significantly.
…
Ultra Magnus, well entwined with Metroplex's systems, smiled, watching - that interminable four second lag - and Scamper careened into the room to wind around his legs.
“Coming up?” Magnus murmured. His arms were elbow-deep in the city’s jacks. Scamper scrambled up his body, wrapping arms around his neck, clamping legs across his chest. Head tilted for kissing, with Metroplex’s mind shining out of his optics.
…
There was no field to warn Rutile, only the hot slide of a body against his, arms reaching, lifting his arms over his head, clawed hands moving slowly down his sides. He watched Prime there in the center, venting superheated air from his core, head thrown back with Vector's mouth on his neck, and everyone could feel them together, the Primes' fields untamed, flaring nova-bright as they opened their chests and sank into each other.
Cyclonus' lips moved against the back of his helm. "Courageous spark. You are not trembling now."
Rutile felt his fields bloom, but strove to pull them back. Wheeljack had explained about Tetrahexian politeness. It was rude to spray your emotional state all over the magnetosphere. Cyclonus splayed his hands over Rutile’s lower abdomen, moving only his fingertips, exploring between and beneath plates; curious, courteous, withdrawing instantly from an undesired touch. Rutile, arching, felt as though the fuel in his lines had gone cold - an interesting sensation when the rest of his body had grown so hot.
Hey, Ru, said Brawn, on a level of the cloud mind that was open to Autobots but probably still encrypted to the Decepticon generals among them. Y’know what that black sword of his is? It’s a spark extractor! Suck the spark right outta yer chest. Doesn’t even have to pierce the chamber, just a main line. Sshhhloop! Out ya go like a light!
Primus, Brawn, Rutile muttered. Shut up! He doesn’t even have it with him!
Oooh! Borealis said, in a delta’s idea of a whisper. Stormbringer!
He’s not pale enough to be Elric, Rutile huffed. Cyclonus’ armor was near-ultraviolet, and would appear black to unaugmented human eyes. Besides, if it really was such a thing, you’d think it would have worked better on Thunderwing.
Perceptor’s kid, Jazz laughed.
Perceptor’s kid was already ignoring them, trailing fingertips down Cyclonus’ horns (hollow like bones, stronger for the hollowness; weapons, Rutile guessed, not sensory), tipping his head to one side to provide greater access to his neck cables, and the underside of his jaw. Cyclonus fanned hot gusts from his core vents through him, caressing cables and lines and fine-threaded nerve-wire, and the protomatter beneath, digging in his claws as Rutile gyred against him. From where they moved in the dance, Rutile could see Prowl shivering between Thundercracker and Strake, and the flash of sharp dentae. He could see Silverbolt twine with Skyfire, their great chests parting.
Rutile turned in Cyclonus’ arms, engine running high, fields blooming before he remembered to keep them close. He cupped Cyclonus’ helm, crimson eyes gazing down at him under the starry sky. Crimson eyes intent on his. He kissed the planes and hollows of that austere face; small, light kisses like Prowl gave, intending to draw another’s pleasure in slow, measured ways, but inquisitive and eager. Cyclonus was handsome, and interstellar-capable, and had chosen not to when he might have killed easily. Their lips brushed, a gentle tap, mouths opening like Rutile wanted their chests to open, to reveal the light within.
Again he struggled to damp his fields, though the fierce, primordial lovemaking of the Primes encompassed the full diameter of the plaza. Maybe they should move to the field-shadow of one of the deltas, who were on the outside of the circle... Cyclonus laughed softly, a low, purring, thrilling sound that Rutile felt over the whole of his armor, deep into his chest.
Do not diminish yourself on my account, Cyclonus murmured.
But…
You have made an effort to be polite, Cyclonus said, drawing Rutile’s knee up his own thigh, palming the outer boss of the hinge. To someone who by the lights of your elders is an enemy. I have flown long among those not from my city-state, I am not daunted.
Oh… They sank down, Cyclonus pushing between Rutile’s legs to bare the sensitive hip gimbal assemblies, kisses fierce and urgent, their hands strong on each other’s bodies, dentae retracted. Rutile kissed hard up under Cyclonus’ chin, and Cyclonus shivered, vented sharply, claws digging in, and Rutile smiled, nibbling there, a small soft spot amid the jagged armor.
And then Cyclonus unleashed his fields.
Rutile shouted, arching off the pavement, heavy waves of charge pouring through his entire body, dancing under his armor, stroking his protoform and spark chamber with insubstantial tendrils, every part of him lit up like a gas giant’s aurora. Cyclonus’ fields caressed him like hands, drove through him like storms, rain-lashed and singing. Charge slipped their control, linked them, grounded, and they overloaded, Rutile clutching at the threads of consciousness as Red had taught him.
He unshuttered his optics to find Cyclonus offline, that grim, narrow face peaceful. Deadly Decepticon general, proud warrior, recharging with his head on Rutile’s chest. Ru eyed the horns, sharp enough to take optics out.
A faint hum was all the warning given as Cyclonus rebooted, and Rutile felt that only because their bodies were pressed together. Optics lit, ruby and curious; and Rutile thought of Myanmar rubies, born of fire and marble and continents smashing together, not the red optics behind him on Enceladus. Cyclonus tightened his arms around him, rolling them over in a reflexive gesture to spare the smaller partner his weight (though Rutile outmassed the flier, and was, like Beachcomber, much stronger than his frame suggested), huffling a single, low, inquisitive rumble through his vents, nuzzling Rutile’s mouth. Ru grinned, and kissed back. He hoped there would be future opportunities to teach Cyclonus Red’s trick.
Moonslight cast tourmaline rainbows as Vector extended his solar vanes. The watching Autobots braced themselves, securing a few more cables for good measure, preparing for critical mass.
The Primes overloaded together, and beneath them the dance ground was shot through with beam trees. (Later, they would excavate down ten meters to replace the stone with special flooring capable of absorbing both the physical shocks and colossal grounding charges. Later yet, Beachcomber would contrive deep and subtle scans, and find the entire area beneath the new floor permeated with wire-thin fulgurites.) They overloaded together and took everyone on the dance ground with them.
Vector settled onto Optimus with a basso profundo purr, vanes stretching to full extension then furling into his flanks. The embodiment not of time but of smugness.
Borealis? Silverbolt, draped over Skyfire, tight-beamed.
Mmya? She was kind of sprawled, cuddling a lot of people, smooching with Hoist at that moment. Thundercracker had a very distracting hand on her foot.
Are you all right? With the, uh…mass Prime overload, I mean?
…Nng. That was kind of an area effect, she said. (Silverbolt’s wings bobbed in suppressed laughter.) So, not really aimed at me particularly. And it was two-thirds Vector anyway. Mmmm. Vector…
A joule of tension zipped through Cyclonus’ body, and Rutile smiled. Prowl was singing; a lullaby to soothe those who wished or needed to recharge, there in the plaza surrounded and immersed in a few hundred other fields and bodies. Ru lifted his head from Cyclonus’ chest, watching crimson eyes widen, feeling the sharp pin-pricks of Cyclonus’ claws.
When Prowl first came to Earth, Ru explained, transmitting quietly to not obscure the song, when the memories of what he had done during the war became overwhelming, Prowl would go out into the canyons and scream. That was better than damaging himself in other ways, Prime hoped. So Prowl screamed his voice to ruin. But over the years of self-repair, and nearness to the Allspark, and Ratchet’s care, Prowl’s voice changed. He wriggled a little, making Cyclonus hold him tighter. Now when he sings it’s… it’s like this. Clutch and flare, like fireflies winking, as people overloaded here and there across the dance circle.
Do you share first memories, after? Rutile asked, snuggling back down. Cyclonus was warm and the breeze was turning chilly. They were still cabled together, though the links had subsided to a low baseline hum. We do, but it’s okay if you don’t.
We do not share first memories, Cyclonus said, attendant glyphs indicating that was for more developed relationships, not first joinings. But there is a memory I wish to share with you.
Rutile opened another firewall, trusting, his head resting on Cyclonus’ shoulder. Most of this was not Cyclonus’ direct memory. Some was Megatron’s, and that sat oddly in Rutile’s processor. Much of it was from the debriefing of all the generals, later, but it had been pieced together almost as seamlessly as one of Hound’s productions. Rutile slipped into the seeming, fascinated by a Cybertron he had never seen.
Second bit
Third bit