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“Hey, Bill, is that supposed to-?”
There was a groundbridge opening over the plains north of Jasper, Nevada.
The trouble was, that it wasn’t their groundbridge. It was bigger, for one thing, and not the usual friendly green. More of a whitish purple.
And that.. Oh that was bad. Behind her, Dr Anne Greenberg (PHD Astronomy) heard William Fowler swear, and none of that ‘Jimmy-gee-willikers George Washington’s shorts!’ crap that he’d picked up on the job as a high school ROTC outreach guy. There was a distinct ‘motherfucker!’ wafting on the breeze of the dust cloud.
Probably because the groundbridge(?) gave a sinister pulse and a UFO just flew out of it. And this is where Nevada totally failed to come through, because a cute little retro flying saucer would have been just great. The UFO that they got was about the size of a B52 bomber, except thick and menacing. Like a set designer for Star Trek got told: make me a plane out of nothing but sharp edges.
“What the fuck is that?!” she yelled over the sound of big growly sci-fi jet engines approaching “Is that another Cybertronian? Do you know-”
Bill continued swearing, all the while he was rolling up the sleeves of his cheap suit, pulling a gun out of an ankle holster.
“Okay Doc, so that’s Megatron. And he’s an asshole.”
---
Anne Greenberg watched the hostile alien approaching her position and felt like the universe was betraying her.
As of last month, her understanding of said universe had accelerated so quickly it was like that scene in “Spaceballs” where the ship went so fast that everything turned into plaid. Humanity was officially not the only sentient species in the universe. Carbon was not the building block of all life.
(That statement had merited a lot of derisive engine noises from Ratchet and then some kind of very complicated 3D PowerPoint. Apparently other species made do with silicon and magnesium and liked it, thankyouverymuch.)
All of this was a huge fucking deal.
But, at least, unlike the zillions of fear-mongering blockbuster movies from the eighties onward, the universe seemed to have cut humanity a break for once.
Yeah, aliens existed. Which was incredible, indescribable, and frankly pretty scary. But on the whole, even with Arcee’s antisocial wariness and Ratchet’s stunningly cranky personality, they were really, really nice aliens. Really nice people. And they were led by this sweet noseless giant with an ASMR voice and serious single dad vibes.
I mean, you just felt reassured by Optimus. Once you got over his sheer size. (And the embarrassment of having once called him ‘pretty’ in alt-mode.) Anyway, a thirty five foot tall mechanical warrior with four integrated weapon systems and a giant broadsword (that he’d left back at the moonbase, goddammit) should have been scary. But he wasn’t.
He was so careful around the human techs and the smaller bots. And he managed rare moments of expressiveness with just those ancient ever-burning eyes and his little mouth. And he was Good. Good with a capital G, like a frontline chaplain; someone who had seen a lot of ugliness but was still holding onto hope.
And then here, strutting towards him menacingly, was some bastard who looked like he'd come into this world as the love child of a meat grinder and a death metal album font. All topped off with an ugly fucking bucket.
And he was bigger. That’s what really hurt. The bad guy was bigger than the good guy. He was so goddamn huge with his giant spiky shoulders that were right out of “Conan the Barbarian” and his vicious triangle face, covered in scratches and soot.
Oh and also, by the way, he could fly. Optimus couldn’t fly. How goddamn unfair was that?
"Shit." she cursed, feeling her eyes well up. "Peaceful first contact, huh? Well that was nice while it lasted. Fuck this guy. Bill, can we shoot him? Can we do literally anything?"
Bill gave her a look of scrunchy-faced masculine concern with a dash of ‘please don’t cry on me, soldier.’
"Hey, don't worry,” he said, in his camp counselor voice, ”Prime may be a softy, but he's no slouch at this fighting thing. Gotta say though, ol’ Megs coulda waited ‘til next week. My team was thiiiis close to getting access to M.E.C.H’s old orbital laser."
And then she realized that the horrible flying pile of forks was saying something. In growly, rumbling English no less. That, actually, he was gloating.
"Well, Optimus, how fares it? It must be humbling to ask the little organics for aid."
“We Autobots have always drawn strength from our allies.” Optimus answered, his voice rolling through the distance between them. He was still reassuring in the way he stood steadfast over the plain. Even as the other Cybertronian was stalking closer, he hadn’t so much as shifted a wheel.
Megatron sneered and shuffled closer, his weirdly-cloven foot-assembly-thing leaving furrows in the earth.
“Ha! You mean that you’ve always enjoyed lowering yourself to barely justifiable negotiations with life forms that scarcely live a couple vorn-”
“Megatron,” Optimus asked calmly, “why are you here?”
And then the weirdest thing happened, for a moment, and it was hard to read his expression under the... wrinkles? Ritual scars? Alien robot acne? But the other mech seemed taken aback.
“I swear, only you would dare interrupt me.” The alien warlord grumbled, in a way that seemed, in that moment, shockingly human. Then he rallied, snarling anew, flashing serrated teeth set in grotesquely receding gums. “What purpose can there be when two opposing forces such as ours meet?”
With slow, dignified steps Optimus began to advance.
"But are we, now, opposed? Our planet is healing. There are sufficient resources for both factions. It would seem, in this unique moment, there is no longer a reason for us to fight."
"No, no. I think there is! The pragmatic one, at the very least. Unfortunately there is no one left on Cybertron who is a match for me anymore. I can't very well fight Soundwave! And for all you pretend to be above it all, you can’t deny your nature. You’ve been restless, haven’t you? Warframe coding isn’t something even a mech of your willpower can just deactivate.”
“There are other ways to deal with that coding.”
Megatron growled, a sound punctuated by the jet engines that had folded themselves somewhere inside his burly chassis.
“I warn you, if you implore me to meditate I will give you another set of scars.”
“I heal quickly.” Optimus said. His faceplate was composed as ever but something in his tone nearly suggested a smile. “I may yet risk it.”
“Fine. I know you hold some unseemly affection for this unfortunate ball of mud. Allow me to,” he held up one giant clawed digit in an overdramatic forestalling gesture “momentarily, join you in that sentiment. It has certainly seen some great battles between us."
"Yes. And one where we fought together against a common foe. That is the memory which I will prefer to recall.”
"Careful Optimus, not that much sentiment. But very well-” he rolled his shoulders, interlocking armor plates shifting down the length of his torso as he took a defensive stance “Give me one good fight, and you can have it.”
Optimus’ audial assembly twitched. Where he was standing, he had his back to the humans but whatever Megatron saw on his faceplate caused the Decepticon leader to break out into a manic slasher grin.
“Oh?! Have I conjured a mortal expression at last out of your damnable serenity?
I mean it. Fight me. It’s been far too long since Egypt. Strike one good blow and place is yours. I’ll condescend to recognize Earth as Autobot territory and you and your little faction can make their way here as best as you're able. And then I will fly back to my throne and contemplate your fall! It is far too amusing to think of the Holy Prime forced to disguise himself as an Earthen long distance hauler for the rest of his days."
(OK, if she and Bill weren’t still in danger of being stepped on and/or blown up, she would say that this was all fascinating data. Her mind was racing trying to catalog it all.
Clearly these two individuals had an immense weight of history between them. Every sentence was rich with references and double meanings. And she had so many questions? What even was ‘warframe coding’? Was it linked to the Autobots’ need to still have patrol schedules even though their settlement in the Sea of Tranquility was in an empty crater, far away from anything that could hurt a sturdy mechanical life form?
And the way Megatron talked to Optimus, there was something hatefully… reverent about it.
Actually the anthropologists were still trying to nail down exactly what ‘Prime’ meant in the wider Cybertronian cultural context and they weren’t having any luck. Optimus was in charge, yes. Initially, (and what, in hindsight was an insultingly reductivist idea) Dr. Patel put forward the theory that it was a matter of size.
When gently pried the other Autobots gave worryingly evasive answers (‘I mean he’s the Prime. Dunno how to explain it. Miko tells me youse guys don’t have those’, ‘I’m not here for any of that Covenant of Primus claptrap, he’s just a good CO’ ) that hinted at civic, and more interestingly religious significance as if Optimus was not just the Autobot squadron’s commander but also their parish priest, or something similar.
Ratchet had glared at all of them and said that he didn’t have to explain it. Still the consensus was that Optimus was Very Important, though equally humble about it. And if you were some kind of interstellar bishop or king-in-exile or something, having to turn into a Peterbilt just to go outside might be a bit of a step down.
But Megatron had said ‘Holy.’
Spat it, like the word was cutting into his gums, like a truth that couldn’t be denied, and the implications were breaking her brain a little.
Of course it could always be a translation error.)
"I find no shame in my alt mode."
Megatron’s great big claws flexed in agitation. Clearly, he had come here to provoke a specific response and just as clearly, he wasn’t getting it.
“Well, it’s certainly cost you mass!” he growled, a little lamely. “You were already shorter than me and now you’re downright delicate. ”
“I seem to manage.” Optimus countered. “After all, we have most of us been diminished by the war.“
Ohhhh that was definitely multi-layered. Like this was the closest a stand-up guy like Optimus would ever get to throwing shade.
And on second glance Megatron looked, impressive but umm.. scuffed, to put it mildly. Covered in scratches and dents and old scars. There was a sickly, oily sheen to his plating and compared to those of Autobots his faceplate looked awful: scarred, corroded, almost like it was splitting down the middle. Even the way he moved had a slight jerkiness to it, like something wasn’t quite tuned or aligned. Like a heavyweight boxer with a hangover.
“Not me! I have gained power beyond what-”
“Are you telling the truth, in what you propose?“ Though he had the smaller frame Optimus’ voice seemed to find more space to echo, cutting through what was clearly an oncoming shitty-bad-guy rant.
“Have I lied to you before?”
“Many times. Through cunning and omission. But not outright, no.” He was circling Megatron now, with heavy measured steps. (Also putting himself more solidly between the warlord and the two humans who were taking cover behind Bill’s old Toyota. He stopped a handspan away from his old enemy, definitely within range of those claws. Talk about nerves of steel.) “You would give me your unbroken word?”
(And oh, that tone was so significant. It was maybe the most serious she’d heard any Cybertronian sound. Was it a ritual phrase? A specific touchpoint between these two individuals? Megatron was ruthless and terrifying by reputation but did he still adhere to some kind of basic honor code?)
“I would. One good fight for one planet. A bargain, really.” Megatron grinned. “See? I can be generous in my victories.”
Optimus went still. Maybe a second was all it took for him to calculate all the probable outcomes because after it passed he nodded solemnly.
“Very well. But do not expect one today!”
And then, out of nowhere, was a sound.
A crackling series of pops that sounded like localized thunder and just as she realized that these were pistons firing, with his wheels spinning, armor pauldrons flaring up and into position, Optimus pulled back his arm and punched Megatron directly in the center of his face.
The blow seemed to wave a cheerful two finger salute to the law of conservation of mass because it sent the significantly heavier flightframe flying backward until he hit the side of the nearest mesa, shattering sheets of stone, left thrashing and embedded in it like some kind of ugly silver beetle on a windshield.
But Megatron was laughing maniacally, almost happily even as rocks were raining down.
“Yessss, that’s more like it!” he crowed.
And then he did some kind of snazzy half-transformation sequence where his jet engines surfaced on his back and sent him shrieking out of his crater like a bat out of hell. One of his arms turned into a one long stabbing surface which Optimus parried with his own armblade in a shower of sparks and by that point the blowback hit the car and rocked it hard enough to almost flip it over and she missed the first couple of seconds of the fight because she was screaming.
What followed was one of the most frightening, fascinating, and oddly beautiful things she had ever seen. It was like watching a car crash (which, technically, it was), like seeing a river try and carve chunks out of a mountain.
They were so fast. So fast, the motions nearly as choreographed as a martial arts movie but of course they weren’t limited by a human range of motion, or for that matter a human’s inability to have your arm turn into a blaster or a giant knife at a moment’s command.
When her brain started working again she had a horrible thought that Optimus was such an intensely self-controlled individual - unlike the others no one had observed him playing or indulging in hobbies, or even bending his large frame into anything other than stately dignity, but here he seemed alive.
(Oh, okay. So this is what a warfame is. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Optimus. I wish there was a way to turn it off.)
Alive but remote, even more so with the battlemask hiding most of his face. Alive and suddenly shockingly fragile.
Two titans ripped up the plain like a high-budget VFX demo reel but plating crumpled, fairings bent, cut wires fritzed and sparked. A failed grappling attempt bent two of Optimus’ flat digits and three of the serrated claws out of their sockets in a way that made her remember a childhood broken arm so vividly she made an audible sound of pain.
It lasted maybe twenty minutes, maybe half an hour but two minutes in and she was just white-knuckling it, clutching the car door for support, eyes blown wide, flinching with the sound of every connecting hit.
Eventually both were down on one knee, Megatron’s sinister size advantage even more obvious like this. But at least he was the one bleeding more.
“Will that satisfy?” Optimus asked, rhetorically. He sounded tired. Tired all the way down to his tangible soul.
Megatron shook his head. The pupil of one of his optics had drifted out of alignment into a grotesque goldfish stare but it didn’t seem to bother him. He looked pleased, almost to a sick degree. Like he’d finally gotten what he came for.
"You of all beings... ironic that you’ve never disappointed me.” He wiped a trail of energon off his intake and then licked it off the back of his servo with a blackened-silver tongue. (There was dirt and shards of rock stuck to the expelled fuel but that didn’t seem to bother him either. Ughh) “But pleasant as this was, I have other things to do. Our old homeworld to rule, for one.”
With an unhappy printer-grinding sound he forced himself upward, gave Optimus a jaunty wave with his more mangled claw and began unceremoniously clomping away.
"I would assume you left it all on Soundwave’s shoulders.” Optimus called out. “Be careful. They are not as sturdy as they once were.”
Megatron stopped, turned around and made a distinctly displeased series of vocalizations. Half of it was a throaty growl and half of it was air hissing through the vents in his frame. ( Again, this would have all been absolutely terrific to get on video for the anthropology team if she wasn’t pretty traumatized at this point and also choking on dust.)
"Don't make me come back there, Prime." he snarled.
“Are you too damaged to fly? We do have a medic."
“Oh Ratchet would be all too delighted to finish me off! Though the look on his face when I walk into his medbay might be worth it."
(Oh hell no. Absolutely fucking not! The moon was henceforth a Zero Megatron Tolerance zone. Actually it would be great if the whole Milky Way galaxy could get a chain link fence up and a bunch of ‘no flying-shark-robots allowed` signs. Also, as much as she'd love to see Ratchet take a house-sized circular saw to this asshole the poor old guy probably wouldn’t stand a chance.)
"Don't get too soft now, playing diplomat with the little organics. I’ll be back!"
"Megatron.” For the first time since she met him Optimus sounded exasperated, his regal voice very much in the register of ‘what the hell do I do with you?’ “You must know I would rather speak with you than cross blades. I have not properly had the chance since my time aboard the Nemesis-"
And something about those words seemed to rattle Megatron worse than any punch. He flinched away, snarling, almost stumbling.
"What you want is of little interest to me, oh General-Commander of five! But what the Lord of Cybertron requires is a halfway-decent sparring partner. Be here, in two weeks time.”
“You…” Optimus’ frame sagged ever-so-slightly. “You wish to do this pointless thing again?”
“Oh? Did you really think you’d be rid of me so easily?” Megatron ranted as he advanced. “Never, Optimus Prime!”
With a shocking strength he grabbed Optimus by the forearm, claws digging in as he literally lifted him to his feet. When he was sure that his enemy had gotten his pedes under him he yanked him closer until their faceplates were just a handful of feet apart. “When your stubborn spark goes to the Well at last, I will be the last thing you see. I promise you! Nothing in the universe, not even our quaint little ceasefire will change that!!”
Megatron’s left optic drifted back into focus. As if realizing what he’d done he let go of Optimus as if he’d been burned, and then wheezing, cackling, and leaking (Blood? Fuel? How did they count these things? The context seemed to change with deliberate vs. non-deliberate injuries) the eldritch horror folded himself back into his spiky jet altmode and flew back into his wormhole with a gratifying wobble.
Beside her, Bill put his gun back in the holster.
I mean, this was probably the standard ex-military badass procedure, but the gesture almost made her giggle. What the hell had he been planning on doing with it? Getting it stuck in the evil giant robot’s teeth?
"Ah…Agent Fowler, Doctor Greenberg. I am... sorry you had to witness that." Optimus had turned towards them and laboriously leaned down.
All the interstellar dignity in the world couldn’t disguise the fact that he was hurt. One of his hydraulics wheezed. Energon and a shimmery liquid that might be brake fluid flowed down out of his collar assembly over one badly cracked windshield. He had a fresh scar across his forearm that went deep - through a layer of red armor plate, past chrome and steel and into something soft and dark.
(Protoform? Was that the protoform tissue Ratchet had talked about? She wanted to throw up.)
“I will, of course, make no formal claims of stewardship towards this planet or her people.” he continued. “However, it may be… advantageous to let Megatron believe that you are henceforth under my protection.“
“Is that what it was like, the whole time?” she blurted out “Just that thing, trying to rip you to pieces?”
“You misunderstand. What you saw today was less a true battle and more in the way of a... rather unfriendly spar."
Oh so it got worse. When two Cybertronians fought each other. Thank God they’d missed the war.
"So? What the heck did Lord Buckethead actually want?” Bill chimed in, steady at her shoulder “Besides his monthly scheduled ass-whooping."
"I do not believe he knows himself. Perhaps Megatron will find his alleged 'victory' has a hollow core to it. History will attest that it is less difficult to conquer, than to rule."
"So what, he was just bored? Lonely?"
Optimus’ faceplate stayed still. His optics underwent one of those zoom-cycle calibrations that seemed to be how he preferred to express secondary and tertiary emotions. Her team hadn’t been able to map any of them decisively and, at this early stage of first contact it seemed too soon and too invasive to ask.
"I should, perhaps, submit myself to Ratchet for some small repairs." he said after a pause.
It was only later that she realized he never answered the question.
But at the time she was scared and shaking, bowled over with empathetic backlash.
He was hurt. He was her absolute favorite alien car person and he was hurt, and she didn’t have so much as an arc welder. Bill probably didn’t even have a box of band aids in the glove compartment. Duct tape? Could you duct tape a Cybertronian together until their self-repair system kicked in?
Standard energon cubes were at a minimum two feet in diameter and weighed over 150 lbs. She couldn’t even carry snacks for him in her purse.
Bill, who looked a lot less shook up considering he was probably used to seeing actual bot/con battles before the ceasefire (and used to have a job getting shot at), walked up and gave the farthest side of Optimus’ pede a comforting pat - the Human-to-Cybertroninan equivalent of an awkward one armed hug.
“Yeah, go on Prime, get fixed up. And tell that cranky old ambulance to give you a lollipop or something. You did good, I’ll handle cleanup.”
Optimus’ miraculously undamaged finials swept back and up in a fractional arc, comm-ing the base. Soon after the familiar green groundbridge swirled into life behind him.
It was open just long enough for the humans to hear Ratchet swearing loudly from the other side. She tried not to look too closely at the dark stains inside Optimus’ crescent-shaped footprints as he went through it.
And then the plain was empty.
Without the evidence of the earth, the whole thing could have been a dream or a bad trip. Her and Bill - busy professionals on the way to some Vegas conference, who stopped and ate some bad gas station burritos and hallucinated the whole thing.
But the air had a different quality now: petrichor without a storm, bringing a vague metallic taste in the back of her tongue. The ground was criss-crossed with gouges, tire tracks and scars like a violent crop circle.
Bill sighed and then viciously kicked at a rock that he was surely imagining was a shrunk-down flying psycho warlord. Then he got on the phone. Probably trying to manage said psycho warlord’s jaunty incoming flyover in broad daylight.
Anne sagged heavily against the side of the car (which had been a great comfort psychologically but would have done fuck-all as cover against any stray blaster shots), pulled out her emergency pack of Newports, and lit up. The lighter almost jumped out of her hands, they were shaking so badly.
Alas, poor Nicorette, I knew her well.
Quitting was gonna have to wait for a time when she didn’t have to watch two giant aliens duking it out in the desert for the fate of her planet.
"You ok doc?” Bill asked. His cell phone spat cheery elevator muzak. Whatever covert agency had clearly put him on hold ”I mean, the good news is that’s the limit - big M’s the worst one of the bunch. All the other ‘cons are a lot smaller and frankly, way less competent. Well okay, I lied. But it’s a tossup between him and that skinny tentacle fucker."
Tentacles? Oh. Okay. New data point: some of the hostile Cybertronians had tentacles. That might as well happen. She was going to have to pick up a second pack. Who was she kidding, they were going to have to make a pit stop at the liquor store if she had to put Bill in a headlock.
"Don’t worry Bill. I won’t let the ugly flying shark man scare me."
She felt punch-drunk, which was probably phase 2 of the incipient stress-related breakdown. I mean the whole time the concept of a second alien faction and Decepticons (that had to be a translation error. Who the hell called themselves ‘Decepticons?’ Was ‘Evil Robot Goon Squad’ taken?!) had been very removed and theoretical. And as of right now it was up close and… not.
"You’re right though, about the asshole thing. What kind of person wastes fuel on an entire intergalactic space bridge just so that they can gloat. What a dick!”
Bill seemed to waver. Wordlessly, she let him bum a smoke.
“Tell me about it.” he sighed, “At least he didn’t bring any mooks along. Vehicons a lot smaller but they’re nasty.”
“And like, the sheer fucking gall? Swaggering in here just when something’s finally going right for the Autobots. You know I had an ex like that. I was up for an award and he followed me all the way to a conference in Alaska just to pick a fight about one of my papers."
"That's-" Bill made a hell of a face. “No offense to your background doc, but that's not applicable here. Thank George Washington, and also Jesus Christ."
“Okay, how’s this. You stay on the phone, I’ll drive us to the liquor store. It’s my first evil alien warlord and I need a goddamn drink.”
“Deal.”
---
Back in her motel room, Netflix blaring some lowkey, comfortingly lit cooking show, she was still shaking with residual adrenaline. But her brain had helpfully de-calcified for a moment and was now running full bore at the problem.
How do I fix this? How do I get Bill more funding for his orbital laser? How do we protect our resident refugees? How do we take that fucker out?
In hindsight, once you got past the terror and fascination he inspired, the leader of the Decepticons gave her the same kind of feeling as when you found a two-inch hornet next to a baby’s crib.
Just: kill it. Kill it with fire.
But now it was time to rifle inside her toolbox of coping mechanisms from the ‘aliens are real’ to ‘aliens are real, and some of them are garbage.’
On the nightstand the freshly-acquired bottle of bourbon was a temptation. But she and Bill had already killed most of a six pack in the parking lot.
Instead she opened a new notepad file and started an informal specimen diary.
Listen buster, you think you can just waltz in here and try to start shit?
The crazy thing was that the Decepticons didn’t even want to subjugate the human race, they considered them so far beneath their notice. Megatron with a Cybertronian’s available sensors had to know that they were there but hadn’t so much as acknowledged their presence.
But he’d tried to bully Optimus. He’d tried to stab Optimus and, unfortunately, succeeded. And not only had Optimus been hurt towards the end, he’d been kind of wistfully sad.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard.
‘Subject: hostile Cybertronian M.
Observation one: total fucking asshole.
Observation two: demonstrates persistent obsession with non-hostile Cybertronian O.P. ‘
I’m going to try and get them anything they need. More solar panels, more generators, more fuel additives. Ratchet had given the Luna team a very weird wishlist that contained, among a slew of bizarre things, 300 barrels of oil for his homemade emulsion chamber project. They’d de-prioritized that one compared to the other things.
It didn’t seem so frivolous now. If Optimus was going to be stuck ‘sparring’ with Fuckface McBucket now and again, the least they could do was give him every possible nutritional supplement and a hot bath to sink into at the end of the day.
And in the meantime, she thought, looking down at the one picture she’d had the presence of mind to snap on her phone (it was blurry, there were lots of teeth) I’m going to write a goddamn study about you, you flying piece of shit.
~