[fic][Transformers '09 movie] Chooser and Chosen
Chooser and Chosen
by K. Stonham
released 27th June 2010
Shockwave's arrayed enemy forces seemed endless as they floated on specially altered hulls on the dark acid reservoir. They were just out of range of human firepower as they pushed at the floodgate mechanisms, and heavily armored enough that even Ironhide's firepower only glanced off their thick metal skins. Frustrated, all Major William Lennox could do was glare at the chains, each link as big as a man, that rattled as they spun endlessly down into the depths of the dam, too heavy and moving too fast for even the Autobots to stop.
"Not a goddamn thing we can do," his friend and right hand man Master Sergeant Robert Epps cursed from next to him.
"We are not going to die here," Will swore. "I didn't die in that desert, I am not going to die on another planet."
"Might not have too much of a choice," Special Agent Seymour Simmons commented, his gaze impassive on the armada they could not reach. "Once those gates open, whoosh!"
"You got any ideas?" Will asked his truck/brother-in-arms. Ironhide just shook his head.
"For lateral thinking under pressure, we would need Sam," Ratchet said softly, as defeated and frustrated as the rest of them. Once the subterranean Cybertronian lake began to pour forth, its acid would kill everything in its flood path. They would be only the most immediate of the casualties. Hopefully their backup was still far enough away to evacuate in time.
Optimus put a hand on Ratchet's shoulder. "Sam is with the Matrix now," he reminded the medic in gentle tones. The kid had fallen off a bridge on their way here, pushed by the buffeting winds of the Seekers attacking them at the time. The chasm they'd been crossing was so deep that not even Cybertronian optics and sensors could see the bottom.
Will set his mouth in a line. Sam's loss was bad, and he would mourn him when and if he got the chance. It was a testament to both Mikaela and Bumblebee that they had only allowed themselves a single moment's pure, fierce grief before determinedly pushing on to their destination.
Will couldn't even allow himself that yet. "Goddammit," he swore again, quietly, still trying to find a way out of this.
Mikaela swallowed. "So it was all for nothing," the mechanic said. Kneeling beside her, Bumblebee put a large hand on her shoulder, drawing her close.
"No," someone whispered.
"No," they whispered elsewhere.
"No," the voice bounced again.
And again.
And again.
It kept bouncing, always coming from a different location, growing in strength and recognizability.
"Sa--" Mikaela started, then clapped both hands over her mouth as something started flickering into view like the Autobots' holograms, the image again moving here and there, high and low, near and far, gaining each time in size and solidity until, with one last movement, Sam Witwicky materialized in the middle of the group of soldiers, looking directly up into the optics of Optimus Prime.
"Sam!" Mikaela said, but was held back by Bumblebee.
There was something different about Sam now, and not just the way he'd appeared from nowhere. Glints of light limned him. Something hummed in the air around him. While Will had always counted Optimus as the most there person he'd ever met, Sam suddenly dwarfed the Cybertronian leader in sheer presence.
"There's a line," Sam said, "a boundary between those who tell the truth and those who obscure it." He nodded his head back over his shoulder toward the Decepticon armada, still slowly moving those gates to fully open position. "They've never pretended to be anything but what they are: murderous genocidal tyrants. But you..." he condemned.
Optimus' tone was one of understanding. "You are one with the Matrix."
"Falling into the Heart of Cybertron will do that," Sam agreed, so neutral it was almost painful. "I trusted you," Sam said softly, his carefully controlled voice giving only the faintest hints of anger and hurt.
Optimus shuttered his optics briefly, then knelt. "I would never harm Earth."
"Even if it's the only way?" Sam countered. "You didn't tell Megatron 'no' when he wanted my life. You told him 'You'll never stop at just one'." His brown eyes were hard. "Just one human, just one planet. If it's only one, that'd be all right, wouldn't it? That's all it would take."
Optimus shook his head. "And that is why I will not go down that path." Giant nimble hands tugged his chest plates open, spilling fair blue light over all of them. Ratchet jolted forward and was restrained by Ironhide. "Judge me by my spark. Take it if you need to, Sam. But I will not ever destroy your world." His voice was final. "Cybertron is dead."
Sam didn't even move, looking fast into the Prime's optics, not even glancing at his revealed spark.
"Will you believe me?" Optimus questioned lowly.
A moment longer and Sam's expression shifted. "Yes," he replied.
Behind him, the chains suddenly stopped their wild, rattling plunge downward, massive machinery grinding to a halt.
Turning, Sam looked out on the subterranean acid lake and the Decepticons arrayed on its surface. His expression narrowed and he waved a hand.
The Decepticons vanished.
"Sam--" Ratchet said.
Small ripples lapped the lake's surface. "They're on the other side of the planet," Sam answered the unspoken question. Slowly, untouched by human or robotic hand, the floodgates moved back toward closed position. Slowly, Optimus stood, the coverings to his spark chamber closing.
"Sam, what the hell?" Will choked out.
The young man smirked a little. "'One with the Matrix'," he said, as if that should explain everything. He nodded out at the lake. "Here, now... I can do this."
"And... later? Home?" Mikaela asked, having walked closer, Bumblebee her yellow shadow.
Sam regarded the young woman and the ancient robot almost equally. "I don't know," he replied. "I think the power stays here. It's something that belongs to Cybertron."
"And you?" she asked.
The floodgates closed with a low, reverberating thud. Brief white heat lined their edges, fusing them shut.
And Sam...
Sam stopped glowing. Lost that sense of more-ness. Became more solid and less ethereal and was just, once more, a young man with smudges on his hands and a cheek, a long rip in his sweatshirt, and a tired smile.
"I belong to you," the boy told the girl and the robot. With a choked-off cry, both wrapped their arms around him, holding on tight to what they had thought lost.
"Ah, young love," Agent Simmons quipped wistfully.
*~*~*
A/N: This came from a very vivid dream I had two nights ago and at once both incorporates RotF and goes AU from it in the concept of what the Matrix is. Thanks to my Wonderful Husband and femme4jack for beta'ing this for me.