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The stars of the cosmos cast their winking light on a very odd thing. The battered metal spacecraft, hurtling between the galaxies, was the object of their interest, for it was having a less-than successful voyage.
Sent on a dangerous mission at the end of the war to recover Cybertronian refugees who had no way of returning to their newly restored planet, the two mechs aboard the ship had been through their share of troubles.
Apart from the fact that they had just ended an eons-long war between their two factions and begun a tentative return to their old friendship, they had (over the past few weeks) weathered intergalactic storms, beaten off bands of ruthless space pirates, and escaped the legions of Unicron by the skin of their transistors, and generally laughed in the face of severely impossible odds for quite a few lightyears.
Despite all of this, the unruly crew of two had managed to pick up their first successful refugee, a former friend of both (and former girlfriend of one), and she had quickly made their duo a trio.
And as per their respective personalities, all three of the voyagers had decided it would be a good idea to jump into the thick of the horde when their enemies had finally caught up to them, and fight for their lives rather than abandon ship.
One, a dork, was fighting nearly half the horde by himself at the top of the quarterdeck near the captain’s chair, which he usually insisted was his to sit in and command from (despite protests from his former nemesis).
The other two, a mech and a femme, were battling back-to-back as valiantly as gladiators, having been joyfully reunited less than an earth week ago. This second mech, also a dork, had become recently and sharply aware of his own mortality, and now that She was here, he had decided it was Time. Because when your ship is being attacked by vampiric zombies, you just have to make the most of your time for as long as you have it.
“Elita?” the mech said, fending off two attackers with his swords. “There is something I must ask you.”
“Um…” she replied, beating back a soldier with her fists. “Is it important, Optimus? I’m not sure we have time for a conversation right now.”
“You need only say one word, Elita,” said he, whirling forward and slamming his opponent into the ground.
“Well then,” she said brightly, whipping out her blaster. “I’m all ears. What do you want to ask me?”
Optimus took a second to look at her. “I want to know—”
Before he could finish, they were interrupted by another wave of soldiers that erupted over the deck, forcing their attention back to the fight.
Undead minions do tend to interrupt at inconvenient times, you know.
As the horde of undead engulfed them, launching barbed attacks on all sides, a switch was flipped. Optimus and Elita's movements became seamless, and they began to fight as one.
They switched places; Optimus ducking and firing while Elita rolled over his back and sank her blades into the next attacker with the precision of a master. Optimus hovered inches from her back as his movements mirrored hers, striking and stabbing in coordination with her body. Soldiers flew left and right, losing limbs and life in the face of the duo-now-uno. Their movements were fluid and graceful as water, perfectly and naturally synced, just like a dance.
As a line of zompires (vambies?) approached from the left, the two of them flung out their arms side-by-side, and fired together, blasting through three minions at once. They dropped like stones, their bodies hitting the deck loudly.
For a brief second, they could breathe.
Then, the dork once again decided it was Time.
He turned to the femme and reached for her hand. “Elita, I—”
But the breather had passed. The horde gave him no chance to finish, as hordes often do. The next wave of soldiers reached them in the time it takes to blink, sweeping her away before he could touch her. There seemed to be no end to their struggle.
It didn’t matter. Optimus fought harder, determined to finish what he had set out to do. This was more important than the battle at hand. He could not wait any longer.
“Elita One!” he shouted between blows, “Will you marry me?”
Her ringing laughter, rising above the clashing of her swords, was the sweetest music to his ears. And it was a … surprise. Why was she laughing?
“I was beginning to think you’d never ask!” she cried merrily, impaling a charging minion on her blades.
“What — what does that mean?” he asked, straining under the weight of the many undead who threw themselves upon him.
“YES, you silly clerk!” Elita shouted back. “Yes, I will!”
Optimus’ Spark leapt in his chest. He felt as though he had the strength of a thousand new-forged Predacons coursing through his veins as he tore through his attackers like paper.
Girls will do that to you.
“I have an idea,” he called to Elita, his voice threatening to falter from the joy bursting in his soul. “Wait here!"
Gradually, he managed to make his way over to Megatron, who was fighting about twenty undead at the top of the captain’s deck.
“Megatron,” Dork #1 grunted, pulling his body up to the deck and blocking a blow from a soldier on his sword.
“What do you want?” Dork #2 demanded, busy with several attackers of his own.
“Elita and I wish to be joined in matrimony,” said Optimus, getting to his feet.
“Congratulations,” Megatron growled, thrusting his blade through three stacked zombies at once, creating the famed culinary creation known as a Zambwich. “Forgive me if I’m not remotely surprised.”
“You misunderstand,” Optimus said, vaulting over the short railing and standing back-to-back with his old friend. “We want to perform the ceremony immediately.”
Megatron gave a sharp laugh.
“I am serious, old friend,” Optimus said gently.
Megatron scoffed, as if it were obvious. “There’s no one to say the rites.”
“Yes, there is,” Optimus replied pointedly, lopping the heads off of three soldiers.
Megatron paused for a second, holding an impaled minion aloft in the air as he grasped the Prime’s meaning.
“Absolutely not,” he said finally, tearing the zampire in half. “I’m not even ordained.”
Optimus glanced over his shoulder like the mischievous schemer he was. “That can be remedied.”
“What?”
Without responding, Optimus kicked a soldier away, then ratcheted back his weapons and unleashed a barrage of lasers raining around himself and Megatron, clearing the bridge for a precious moment. As more attackers thundered up the steps, Optimus collapsed his weapons, yanked Megatron around to face him, and drew his sword.
Megatron narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“In times of emergency, the captain of the ship is permitted to perform a bonding ceremony,” Optimus said, raising the sword in the air.
“What are you saying?” Megatron asked.
Optimus tapped the flat of his blade on each of Megatron’s shoulders. The warlord’s eyes widened as he suddenly realized what the Prime was about to do.
“Megatron of Tarn, by the authority vested in me from the Matrix of Leadership, I hereby appoint you as co-captain of this vessel,” Optimus said quickly. “And as of this moment, grant you the authority and responsibilities thereof.”
The first of the raging horde reached them as Optimus sheathed his sword and pulled out his blaster.
“You are now ordained, Captain,” he bowed, falling back into the fray.
“What?!” Megatron was already on his feet, reaching out to grab him. "No!"
But Dork #1 was already out of grabbing distance.
“WAIT!” Dork #2 roared, flinging away the minions that had leapt upon him. “You can’t just leave! What in Primus’ name do you expect me to do?!”
“Perform the ceremony!” Optimus cried from the deck below.
“Now?!” Megatron roared, slamming his sword through his opponent. “I am not prepared for this!”
“Think of something!”
“You can’t just ordain me and leave me to — Optimus?”
Optimus had disappeared before he could protest.
“PRIME!” Megatron bellowed. “YOU HALF-WITTED PIECE OF SCRAPLET BAIT!”
The bodies stacked at his feet flew into the air as Megatron let out a savage kick.
“‘Think of something,’” he muttered under his breath. “That scheming little clerk.”
Meanwhile, Optimus was fighting his way through the crowd, searching desperately for the pink glint of Elita’s armor. She was nowhere to be seen.
“Elita?” he shouted, a brief sense of panic flashing through his Spark. The thought that one could lose a woman immediately after one had proposed to her was enough to inspire a little anxiety.
“Here!” her voice rang out behind him. She had stopped a particularly determined soldier from ramming his sword into Optimus’ ribs, and now stood at his back, weapons at the ready.
“So, when exactly were you thinking of marrying me?” she asked, blasting the head off of an opponent. Optimus reached back and swept away a falling axe before it could bury itself in her shoulder.
“I propose we perform the ceremony immediately,” he said, “We do not know how much time we have left to live.”
“Excellent point, my dear,” she replied. “But who will perform the rites?”
“DEARLY BELOVED,” bellowed Megatron from above. “WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY — back, you mindless drones!” He planted his feet atop the chair and swept his blade through the crawling masses, beating them off with mighty strokes.
Elita could not help but laugh. “Megatron? Really?”
“To tell you the truth, Elita,” Optimus replied, crushing the head of a soldier beneath his foot, “I would have preferred Ratchet.”
“No, I think this is perfect,” she said. “After all this time, I think he owes you a favor.”
“Best not remind him of that.”
“WE ARE GATHERED HERE IN THE PRESENCE OF THIS COMPANY — back, you spawn of the Unmaker! — TO JOIN TOGETHER THIS MECH AND THIS FEMME IN SACRED MATRIMONY BEFORE PRIMUS AND THE FALLEN HEROES OF CYBERTRON — augh!” He swung out his blade, sending several heads flying into the air.
As you do.
“How are you managing, old friend?” Optimus called from the lower deck.
“Shut up, Prime!” Megatron roared. “PRIMUS, WE PRAY YOUR BLESSING ON THE TWO WHO STAND BEFORE YOU IN LOVE, THAT THEY WOULD JOURNEY THROUGH THIS LIFE TOGETHER IN UNITY UNDER YOUR LIGHT!”
He kicked away a clutching, grasping zombie before it could crawl up his leg. “IF ANY HAVE REASON TO PROTEST THIS UNION, LET THEM SPEAK NOW, OR FOREVER HOLD THEIR PEACE!”
A zombie screeched in the warlord’s face. In reply, Megatron grabbed it by the head and sent it eighty yards into the air.
“SO LET IT BE!”
“I think he’s doing rather well,” said Elita. She herself was taking the whole situation rather well, all things considered. But considering her taste in men, you understand this was a rather typical Tuesday for her.
Thrusting away the remaining attackers around him, Megatron leapt from the captain’s chair to the lower deck, rising before Optimus and Elita with violet blood dripping from his chassis.
“Do you have any vows?” Megatron demanded.
Optimus looked at Elita, and she gave him a nod.
“Then say them,” ordered the warlord, sheathing his sword and lifting his fusion cannon at their heads. Optimus pulled Elita out of the way as the warlord let a shot burn into the soldier behind her.
Keeping a tight hold on his hand, Elita began her vow.
“Optimus,” she cried, firing out at the crowd, “ever since we were young, I understood what it meant to give your heart to another. I’ve waited many, many years for this day, and I didn’t expect it to be quite like this. But, for all the time that we were apart, I never once stopped loving you, and as long as I live, I never will.”
She tugged him closer, bestowing a radiant smile upon him as she held back a writhing zombie. “I vow to be yours, forever and always, until the end of all time."
A little dazed, Optimus pulled her close to him as an explosion rang out from the other side of the deck.
Megatron actively laid waste to the enemy horde without mercy. The gladiator was in his element, now. He could happily keep this up for hours.
And yet, they did not have a second to spare.
(Weddings, when performed on a ship that is hurtling for the nearest planet and at which the guests are mostly vambies, can be a rather hasty business.)
“My turn?” the Prime asked, looking down at her.
She nodded with a smile and reached around his arm to blast the head off a minion. Taking her hand gently, Optimus pulled her away from the clutches of a nearby zombie and drew her close, staring into her eyes.
“Elita, I love you,” he said, almost certain he wasn't saying enough. “I love you more fiercely with every second that slips away from us — agh!” He released her and kicked at an attacker. “I have loved you since the day I —”
“This isn’t the time for one of your lengthy speeches, Prime!” Megatron yelled from somewhere under a mound of soon-to-be-corpses.
“My greatest joy — augh! — was knowing you were by my side,” Optimus continued, fighting back-to-back with her. “But my greatest regret was losing you. It haunted me every single day. I should never have left our planet, and I should never have left you. I do not understand why you chose to wait for me, or why you fought for me when no one else would. You know all my faults. I am stubborn and difficult and unworthy of your faith in me, and I —”
“Pardon the interruption,” Megatron said, slamming a soldier away to speak to Optimus directly. “But I told you to skip the oration. You can tell her all this later!”
“But—”
Megatron grabbed his shoulder and yanked him close.
“Stop telling her why you don’t deserve her!” he hissed. “Tell her why you’re marrying her!”
Dork #1 nodded like a bobblehead.
Dork #2 pushed him away just in time to let a zombie fly between them, decapitating it with a sweep of his arm.
“And be quick about it,” Megatron added, springing away again.
Optimus turned to Elita, grasping her hand. “Elita, my love, my dear friend, I have wasted so much time. But I want you to know that the last pieces of my Spark belong to you. I have always been yours, and I vow to be yours for the rest of eternity. So, for whatever time remains, will you still have me?”
Elita ducked beneath his arms for protection as a soldier leapt from above, and as Optimus blocked its arm on his blade, she drew him down to meet her face.
“I wouldn’t have you any other way,” she said, smiling.
This, of course, flustered Optimus greatly even though these two idiots have been together for over sixty thousand years.
“NOW THEN,” Megatron bellowed from the other side of the ship. “DO YOU, OPTIMUS PRIME, TAKE THIS FEMME TO BE YOUR LAWFULLY BONDED CONJUNX ENDURA? TO HAVE AND TO HOLD HER FOR ALL YOUR DAYS, AS LONG AS YOU BOTH SHALL LIVE?”
Optimus smiled beneath his mask. “I do.”
“PUT SOME HEART INTO IT, YOU RETICENT LIBRARIAN!”
“I do!” Optimus repeated loudly, taking Elita’s hands in his own.
“AND DO YOU, ELITA ONE, TAKE THIS MECH TO BE THE SAME? TO HAVE AND TO HOLD AND YOU KNOW THE REST?”
Elita smiled shyly, her cheeks dusted with a blush. “I do.”
“THEN, BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME BY THAT LUDICROUSLY FORTUNATE ARCHIVIST OVER THERE, I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU MECH AND FEMME,” Megatron yelled. “YOU MAY SEAL YOUR UNION WITH A KISS.”
Optimus leaned closer to the femme, knowing what was coming, but another demon slammed its fists through the deck and burst out of the ground at their feet, forcing them apart.
“YOU FOOL!” Megatron slashed out at the advancing horde. “KISS HER ALREADY!”
“I need more time!” Optimus yelled back.
He sliced a gash across the bodies of minions trying to swarm him and kicked out at his attackers, moving back toward Elita. She was fighting beside him, her back to his, with angered zambinis (zompires?) all around.
Of course, they were both giddy with delight, which made everything a bit more difficult.
“You’ll have to face me to kiss me, dear,” said Optimus.
“And you’ll have to take off that mask for once, love,” she reminded him, thrusting her blade through her foe. “Shall we try higher ground?”
Optimus wound an arm about her waist and pulled her close, charging forward through the crowd until they broke free of the horde and stood alone on the bridge. With a sweep of his arm, he tossed Elita lightly up to the captain’s deck and climbed up after her. She quite liked this.
Hastily, he removed his mask, as he felt Elita’s hand behind his neck, pulling him inexorably closer.
“This isn’t exactly how I pictured this moment,” Dork #3 giggled.
Optimus gave her a reproachful look. “You are enjoying this.”
“Of course, I am!”
“HURRY UP!” Megatron roared, buried under a mountain of zombies.
As the battle raged below them, the archivist drew near to his femme. And, with a smile in his eyes and a fire in his Spark, he pulled her in for a breathless, heartfelt kiss, for the first time in millennia.
Once he pulled away, there was a wry smile playing on Elita’s face.
“Too short,” she complained teasingly. “Another.”
“There will be many more to come, Elita,” he said, replacing his mask. “I promise.”
The top of Megatron’s head popped over the edge of the landing, nothing visible except for his beady red eyes. He looked rather goofy, but neither Optimus or Elita told him that.
“If you two are quite finished,” he said. “There is a slight infestation we still have to deal with.”
His finger stuck out over the ledge, pointing directly at Optimus. “And by the way, you owe me a drink for all of that.”
“I owe you no such thing. You were trying to kill me less than a month ago.”
“And you stole the Matrix from me five eons ago, even though everyone on the Council knew it was rightfully mine.”
“That is completely false. You know you're not in a position to make demands.”
“I want Soundwave out of the Shadowzone,” Megatron listed, counting on his fingers. “I want three metric tons of high-grade, I want a full apology and reparations from Starscream, I want Kaon’s gladiator pits rebuilt, and I want the captain’s chair.”
“If you’re lucky, I will allow you to sit in the chair tonight while Elita and I--”
“Boys,” Elita interrupted loudly. “We have bigger problems to solve.”
Megatron and Optimus exchanged a glare, but it was short-lived -- partly due to the urgency of the situation, and partly because Dork #1 was blissed out of his mind, and therefore couldn't be mad at anyone for long.
Getting married sometimes does that to you.
_______________
Once they had finished their work, and every last zompire lay dead on the floor, each of them breathed a heavy sigh and wondered how they were going to clean up the mess. They wondered, that is, until Megatron discovered the airlock button beside the captain’s chair. It was quite helpful in clearing lots of unwelcome debris out of the ship in very little time.
When the zombies had finally been cleared and the ship’s auto-repairs had sufficiently taken over, everyone staggered off toward their respective quarters, but not before Elita drew Optimus into an adjoining hall, safely out of Megatron’s earshot.
“Now,” she said, turning to him. “I believe you promised me a better kiss?”
“I will fulfill that promise a thousand times over,” said Optimus. “If you wish.”
“I do wish,” she replied, pulling him down.
His smile made him look so much like the wide-eyed archivist she fell in love with all those years ago. It had been many, many years since she had seen that boyish grin light up his face.
But, to her credit, she still managed to wipe it off as easily as ever.