Autobot Vodka

by SoulSacrifice

Summary:

Megatron and Orion Pax rule Cybertron as a unit under a Quintesson occupation but Orion's preoccupation with resurrecting humanity and finding himself is wrecking havoc in their union, while Ultra Magnus has to confront his dormant feelings for Megatron.
Plus, a shocking revelation embedded in Senator Shockwave's journal awaits Orion Pax and Megatron...

Notes:

The Quintessons here are an amalgam of their portrayal in Michael Bay's "The Last Knight" and Cyberverse, the Borg, Lovecraftian deities and the sci-fi horror film "Annihilation".

Chapter 1: Project Homo Deus

A new, strange dawn for Cybertron came through the prismatic translation and interception of the Cybertronian source code by the Quintessons who sought to restore their pet project back to its former glory and beyond, their thinking bound only by the cycles that controlled everything in the multiverse, from the basics of fluid dynamics to the torus level topology of all eleven dimensions known to the field theory. 

As Pax Cybertronia beckoned over Cybertron after the peace treaty between the Autobots and the Decepticons but under another Quintesson occupation, the Crown of Cybertron now belonged to Megatron who co-ruled with his Conjunx Endura - now having given up the designation of Optimus Prime and going by as Orion Pax after giving the Matrix of Leadership to Rodimus - but only by the blessing of Cybertron’s new self-declared god, the celestial Cybertronian-Quintesson hybrid being known as Admiral Lionheart whose true origins were veiled by extradimensional distances unbeknownst to man – or machine – alike. 

The Quintesson occupation restored on Cybertron brought with it a technological leap that gradually transformed the entire planet, renovating its cities but rebuilding everything to resemble an otherworldly jungle of cybernetic forests, tentacle-like wires and iridescent towers stretching into the heavens, its inhabitants resembling giant cybernetic flowers, trees, and beast machines – herds of beast machines. All this King Megatron had to live with as there simply weren’t enough original Cybertronians left to fight them off, and Orion had persuaded his Conjunx to bide his time instead of making a grand last stand and dooming their race into absolute extinction.

Ironically, Cybertron’s largest cities underwent a reconstruction back to their prewar architecture since the Quintessons thought it would be fancy if they served as open air museums (much in the same way as many old European cities, towns and villages do on Earth) and therefore Orion’s home city, Iacon, was turned into a giant neon-hued shopping mall, and Megatron’s hometown Kaon ended up looking like a city made of Gothic cathedrals.

After the Quintessons were mostly finished with their reconstructing, the cities were shiny and new like straight from a factory, there were lush and colorful cybernetic forests forming pleasant parks and serene woods for native Cybertronians and beast machines to frolic in, and Megatron was sulking over it behind a cup of heated energon spiced with high-grade engex at his palatial home in Iacon where he had been trying to avoid a particular subject with Orion as to not have to deal with the Quintesson Admiral Lionheart as a consequence.

 
“Megatron”, Orion pleaded with his big azure optics looking sad and worried, “you must talk to the Admiral. I cannot resurrect humanity without supporting systems for biological life, and you promised me we would do it.”

Megatron gave his Conjunx a mildly irritated look. “Do what?”

“Bring back humanity!” Orion rumbled adamantly. 

“They caused their own extinction…” Megatron was pointing out, but then remembered Orion’s recent atypical tantrums at the Decepticon staff catering to the royal couple had to do with Orion being tired of waiting for positive results from the University of Iacon where an entire faculty was working on hundreds of frozen human corpses brought from Earth where Wheeljack had kept them in order to process them via Pink Alchemy to synthetic energon and engex which he called Autobot Vodka. 
Nobody understood why exactly humanity had to be resurrected, and other than Queen Consort Orion Pax being the project’s patron, the Autobot and Camien researchers such as Brainstorm, Perceptor, Nautica and Velocity working on the project took part in it mainly out of curiosity. So far they had produced very early-stage embryos growing in crude vats and cocoons in the University’s labs, but it was known only the Quintessons knew how to take the project to the next stage because there were no natural means left to grow humans into full term. 

“Wheeljack’s reservoir of human corpses contained only two thousand individuals by the time we found them”, Orion complained, “as he had disgracefully, dishonorably processed millions of humans into that disgusting substance…”
“Autobot Vodka?” Megatron chuckled. “So he literally drank humanity.”
Orion eyed his Conjunx with his smokestacks fuming. “There is nothing amusing about getting drunk from human corpses, Megatron!” he growled. “If it were only for survival, Primus forgive him, but it wasn’t---”
“Oh come on”, Megatron dismissed, waving his cup in the air, “of course it was for survival! You drink engex when you want to forget your woes, your past, everything. You want to forget that nothing really matters nor makes any sense in this Primus-forsaken universe.”
Orion stared at him with wide optics. “How do you deal with it, then?”
Megatron gave him a warm but enigmatic smile. “I have my ways. Maybe you will learn from them if you pay attention and watch me”, he replied, grinning. 
Orion sat in silence for a moment. “I still need you to talk to the Admiral about lending Quintesson researchers to look into Project Homo Deus”, he said. 
Megatron shrugged. “I think I can blackmail the Admiral with the Quintessons’ demand that our firstborn sparkling engineer a new Goddess for the Quintessons, whatever that means, but we can make a request in return.”
Orion nodded. “It was mentioned as a part of the peace treaty”, he recalled.

They currently had two sparklings of which the older one, a petrol blue colored tank designated C-RAM, had not yet been made aware that she was the Chosen One, out of concern that extreme sibling rivalry would break between her and her little sister, a grey-and-blue nuclear truck designated Railgun out of Quintesson-bestowed favoritism - although it was just as likely a dreadful burden. Not that Orion and Megatron were going to stop at two – after all, repopulating Cybertron required everyone who could or wanted to be proactive about it even after the planet’s hotspots had generated new residents that weren’t Autobots nor Decepticons, and immigration from Cybertron’s colonies was gradually fixing the severe depopulation issue following the end of the civil war. 
But the arrival of the Quintesson-manufactured beast machines using protoforms that had a Time Crystal-based spark was causing mixed reactions among Autobots, Decepticons and Neutrals alike, as not only did they substantially differ from native Cybertronians technology-wise, they were led – much to Megatron’s annoyance - by Scorponok who had been rebuilt by the Quintessons using carbon fiber and nanomaterials which made his appearance streamlined and movements very fluid.
In other words, Orion, Megatron and other native Cybertronians realized the influx of new technology was gradually replacing the native models unless they made a significant effort at improving their society as to not be seen as useless.

  
“I recall having made the promise to help you with your little project, Orion”, Megatron sighed, “but we ourselves are perceived as outdated models by our tentacled masters.” He sighed. “It’s like back at the mines again. I did not fight for this! I fought to be free and equal with those who perceived themselves to be better than me.” Megatron’s fist hit the table which nearly collapsed, startling Orion. Noticing his Conjunx’s concern in his EM field, Megatron put his own head between his massive servos.   
“I’m sorry, Orion; I was tricked by the Quintessons…”
Orion placed his servo on Megatron’s shoulder. He wasn’t wearing his usual faceplate, and Megatron brightened up when looking at Orion’s strikingly beautiful face which remained youthful even after nine million stellar cycles. He thought the mech was as close to perfect as it was possible to be – something that had raised his ire and envy throughout their rivalry in the civil war, but after accepting that neither of them could live meaningfully without the other, Megatron just thought of himself as lucky for having this highly intelligent, gorgeous mech as his Conjunx who could technically kill him in battle if he wanted to, as he himself was pretty much an old, weathered machine that had lived a tough life all the way from the beginning to the point where he had no longer cared whether he’d go to prison for life or get sentenced to death.    
“Let’s do this, Megatron”, Orion said encouragingly, wrapping his arm around him, “Project Homo Deus may be far more important than either of us can imagine.”   
“Why?” Megatron wasn’t entirely convinced; what he felt about humanity or any other organic race was barely less than a strong dislike bordering on hate, but for the sake of appeasing his Conjunx, he assumed Orion would feel better about himself if he had organic pets to watch over. 
“We could learn valuable things from them”, Orion suggested.
“Such as?”
Orion put his processor to work. “Our people isn’t naturally compassionate aside from the gestures of a few individuals…” he began. 
“Like you?” Megatron chuckled. “And… Beachcomber?” He sometimes couldn’t believe how someone of Orion’s history and experience was able to remain so innocent about life’s cruel facts – the struggle over seeing the next solar cycle alive, the futile battle against Entropy that would ultimately consume all. The same laws of physics dictated over the future of both organic and inorganic forms of existence, telling it all to maximize energy intake and multiply or face eternal annihilation in Entropy.
But Orion wasn’t quite as naïve as Megatron used to think he was; there was more of a detached, universal concern for the less fortunate in the former Autobot leader as well as an impartial but genuine love for his subordinates, friends, and allies – and sometimes this love would extend even to his enemies…

Orion had only ever wanted Megatron to agree with him on a few matters, that was all. Getting there had taken an infinity, and to reduce the sense of competition between them, Orion had agreed to give up on the Matrix, his designation and the Autobot leadership. His new duties centered around keeping Megatron, the new ruler of Cybertron happy and watching over him in case he would overstep himself in his ambitions and shoot himself in the pede as a consequence as was typical of the warlord.
And now Orion bore the Decepticon insignia, although its meaning was a little different these days as Cybertron was firmly in the grip of the Quintessons, specifically Admiral Lionheart, but their reign took place behind the scenes as Cybertronians didn’t actually see Quintessons wandering in the streets and generally accepted that Megatron was their ruler. 
However, Orion defecting to the Decepticons had left many surviving members of his former army with feelings of bitterness, hurt and disappointment, and Orion was pained to see his old friends Ironhide, Jazz, Ratchet and Bumblebee unwilling to associate with him any longer. Focusing on Megatron and raising two sparklings could only keep Orion away from worldly concerns for so long; not that he wasn’t happy – he was extremely so, now that he could freely spend time with Megatron without them posing an immediate existential threat to each other – but he too was a leader by nature, even without the Matrix of Leadership. The artefact had brought an instinctive knowledge on what to do in complex situations but his intelligence, charisma, morale, and intuition had always been there even without it; that’s why he had been made Prime.        
“As a species we could learn compassion from them and how to extend it across our own race”, he said, “such that it could become part of our coding.”
Megatron stared at him. “I see what you’re trying to say, that it could help maintain peace in our society. But it’s not ethical to force such code into any of us. It may be at odds with who and what we are; it may go against our final goals”, he replied with a suspicious expression. 
For he knew Orion too had a dark side: self-righteous with black and white morals, a judgmental, know-it-all mindset that also expected others to live up to his ideals, always assuming he knew what was best for others. 

Not to mention that disturbing habit of placing organics above Cybertronians just so that he could play their hero and savior.

“Are you rejecting my idea?” Orion asked him, his EM field radiating sadness.
“No. In fact, I will make your suggestion my truth”, Megatron replied, grinning unexpectedly, and having Orion second-guess himself as Megatron lifted him sideways on his lap, “I promised at the treaty that we would set an example to our people - that things could be different between our factions. There could be better understanding, like between us.”
Orion smiled at him, caressing the side of his helm. “You will speak to the Admiral about resurrecting humanity, then?” the former Autobot entailed him.
“Yes… but promise me that there will be peace and quiet even after your project succeeds. There is a risk that when humanity becomes aware of what happened to it, the species will turn against us, just like we turned against the Quintessons.”
Orion nodded. “I shall see to it that my humans will receive proper training and education to steer them away from antisocial, disruptive tendencies”, he replied.
The rulers of Cybertron let their foreheads touch, interlocking their digits. 

Meanwhile, their sparklings C-RAM and Railgun were peering into the hab suite from the doorway, having overheard the conversation.
What were humans, and why was Megatron concerned about them?   

A stellar cycle later Megatron slumped on his chair at his palatial office.
"You've got to help me out on this one. I'm having a hard time convincing the Quintesson council." Megatron gave Orion a tired look. 
“What is wrong? Did the Quintessons reject my request?” Orion’s optics darkened as he came by Megatron’s side and touched his arm encouragingly. Megatron’s expression of futility riled him up a little. Not that he expected Megatron – of all mechs – to defend the necessity and right of humanity to exist with frothing-mouthed fanaticism, but he suspected Megatron’s personal lack of motivation regarding the subject had resulted in failure in oratory in front of the Quintessons.
“Oh, you know how it goes – the Quintessons don’t care about the logic or usefulness of a project if it doesn’t cater to whatever goals they have set for themselves as a race or if it doesn’t entertain them”, Megatron explained wearily, suddenly very relieved to have Orion right by his side. The realization as to how emotionally dependent he actually was on Orion used to bug him to the point that he had tried shutting down entire facets of himself.     
Now, he had finally overcome that one last insecurity – fear of vulnerability, of weakness before his former rival. The peace between the factions, and his wish of a new start with Orion Pax, to get as close to reverting back to their prewar days as he could, was dawning at the sunset of his life. 

Hence the sparklings – neither of them had really expected to have them, especially together – reminded both of them that even old battle worn mechs whom some would have considered outdated models ready to be deported to Junkion as scrap metal still had a future, something to give of themselves if they decided so and took power in their own servos instead of throwing away their lives so recklessly. 
“I will speak to Admiral Lionheart myself”, Orion confirmed, giving his Conjunx a very particular look which caused Megatron to smirk and pull Orion in for an ardent kiss. 
“Looks like our battle shall continue… in berth!” 
Megatron’s engines revved as he wasted no time in carrying upstairs the only other mech besides himself that ever mattered to him, and the loving gaze of Orion’s blue optics reassured his unexpected pan of gratitude as he placed the big red mech down on their berth next to the recharge ports. The way Orion made him feel was almost unspeakably all-inclusive to begin with – as it had been for as long as he’d known Orion – but now he understood his true goal regarding the younger mech, now that the latter was no longer his rival. Orion wasn’t there only for Megatron to experience a deep union of sparks which he had denied himself for most of his life due to a fear of being perceived weak; he was there to experience hidden aspects of himself which he previously either suppressed or repressed, for there was much romanticism and idealism within him that the Autobot-Decepticon war had seemingly forced him to conceal even from himself.

 His experiences on the Lost Light ship had gradually opened him up – this process its crew had mockingly called his self-discovery, but it had certainly helped him come to terms with his past mistakes. And now, with Orion Pax laying gracefully in his arms, relaxed with engines purring, Megatron stroked one of his perky antennae, causing a pleasant vibration all the way in Orion’s spinal strut.
“"Dearest Orion, I have been a fool”, Megatron admitted hoarsely. 
Orion blinked curiously. “I hope you are not regretting our union?” he asked jokingly. The smile Megatron flashed at him sent his spark fluttering – it was a smile that told the world its owner knew what they were doing and what was going to happen next, a smile full of danger and seduction.
“Oh, then I’d be deceiving you”, Megatron laughed. He was looking at Orion with a newfound realization how much alike they really were, how leadership and ideology had forced them on opposing sides yet never allowing them to let go of each other no matter what they kept telling themselves over stellar cycles. 

Megatron couldn’t believe it even now as he caressed every dent and angle in Orion’s armor: Orion made happiness seem attainable with his compassion, kindness, tolerance, forgiveness – and love. 
For him, Megatron. In many ways it seemed outlandish: others would tell him Megatron was irredeemable, that he shouldn’t be pardoned for his deeds.
Without the Quintessons he would indeed be jailed for life or executed by now and thinking about them put a sudden damper on his mood.
“Megatron? Why are you thinking about Quintessons every time I try to have an intimate moment with you?” Orion muttered as their sparkbond revealed his partner’s innermost thoughts to him. “Is it their tentacles that excite you?” he teased.
“There isn’t a universe in which I’d be excited about Quintessons”, Megatron negated, admiring Orion’s beauty for a while before planting a tender kiss on the crest of his forehead, making Orion radiate bliss. 
There was a moment of silence where their EM fields realigned to prevent jamming, and then Megatron could hear his lover’s thoughts and feel what he felt.  
“Orion, tell me: How is it that someone like me can make you seem so…?”
“Carefree?” Orion chuckled. “Right, how could I possibly be this happy in the presence of someone who knows me better than anyone else, understands me and whom I know to be capable of doing anything for me, even changing the world?” 

Megatron laughed mirthlessly. Successfully convincing others that he took pleasure only in the slaughter of his enemies, conquering planets and having their inhabitants processed into edible and drinkable substances had certainly allowed him to build a wall around himself and create an aura of dominance that others feared and respected, but turned out it hadn’t been impenetrable since no matter how much death and terror he brought with him wherever he went, his undeniable charm and magnetism attracted even those who claimed him their enemy. Even at its worst, there was a love-hate relationship between him and everybody who claimed to hate him – Megatron grinned at the thought – because at the end of the day, everyone recognized him as a leader and a warrior unlike Cybertron had ever known…
Well, except for a certain big red mech staring back at him adorably with bright optics right under him, his interface panel apparently ready to open for him if his EM field’s status had any implications…  
“But I can’t even convince Admiral Lionheart to lend me his Quintesson scientists for Project Homo Deus”, Megatron sighed in frustration, “and he will only say that if I have a problem, it’s my fault regardless of what the problem actually is!”
“Ah, I see”, Orion said, “humans used to call that gaslighting.”

A hundred billion dead souls confirmed Megatron’s great legacy.
And it was also Orion’s body count…
“Do you suppose the Quintessons have killed more than I have?” Megatron suddenly asked his partner. “Or more than you?”
Orion was eyeing him oddly. “Why do you ask? Killing is not something either of us should be proud of: We should be adding complexity into the universe, not stripping it away from it and consequently impoverish it from meaning.” He paused for some time, thinking. “The Matrix of Leadership had information about them I can still remember. The Quintessons would scavenge entire universes and assimilate its inhabitants to gain their knowledge, to toy with them for their entertainment or destroy their worlds for no particular reason. I do not comprehend such behavior; I merely condemn it like they condemn universes.”
Megatron’s scarlet optics flashed. “Orion… I figured it out. They don’t just find other universes; they create them by themselves! Like the Lost Light’s quantum engines and Brainstorm with his damn briefcase. Except the Quintessons do it systematically, and I want to know why.”
Orion read from Megatron’s EM field that the warlord was on his mental tunnel vision mode regarding the agenda of the Quintessons which formed a peculiar context for the fact that his enormous, bumpy red and black spike had sprung out of its housing - and now Orion too was thinking about Quintesson tentacles.    
               

The night is yours, Starscream...
Alt mode Starscream in a red paintjob flew over the barren wastes of Cybertron with Cyclonus flying beside him in his aircraft mode; his return to his home planet after a long exile was the result of an emotional trauma – and a curious proposition as to how to heal it. The fact that Megatron reigned over the planet now merely instilled contempt within him for he himself had given up his rulership much earlier completely voluntarily, realizing deep inside that he was better than what he led others and himself to believe, and that having earthly power by itself only brought with it more loneliness and paranoia rather than the respect and appreciation which he craved. 

The death of his human companion Alexis Thi Dang from old age in a Martian colony in itself hadn’t lured Starscream to return to Cybertron but being contacted by an unknown agent with the prospects of using her preserved egg cells - or cloning her, depending on Starscream’s preferences – to help bring back the human race from extinction. After all, Alexis and her friends had taught him what genuine friendship was; a profound riling up of his world view had taken place, and during stellar cycles spent with Alexis on Mars, Starscream had understood something fundamental about humanity: that the species was in many ways like himself. With his mutated spark, he was a transcendental, interdimensional spirit that was a robot but with human emotions.
“Optimus Prime runs Project Homo Deus”, Cyclonus said as they traversed the sky over Tesarus which was undergoing massive reconstruction.
“He doesn’t call himself that anymore, he’s just Orion Pax again”, Starscream sneered. “I’m surprised only that Megatron didn’t kill him when he could and instead opted to humiliate him with a subordinate co-rulership deal.”
“It is hardly meant to humiliate Orion Pax”, Cyclonus pointed out. “This is not the Megatron from the old; I got to know him aboard the Lost Light, and that Megatron has no incentive in such."
"Do you have any idea how often I had to listen to him ramble about killing Optimus?” Starscream laughed contemptuously and rolled his optics. “So it was all about if he can’t frag Optimus, he’ll kill him. Or maybe he wanted Optimus to frag him? Could be both…”
“Spare me from the details”, Cyclonus complained. 
“Right, you’re religious”, the jet muttered.
“Are you not concerned of Megatron attempting to avenge you for your testimony at his trial? Orion Pax is also probably going to be very unhappy about your return."
“Ha! I’m sure Megatron is itching for me to try assassinating him. I know he will expect me to do it. In fact, I bet both him and Orion are anticipating it; what they want is to bait me to enter a trap that gives them a legal reason to get rid of me.”
“Seems plausible.”
“Well I’m not having it!” Starscream snarled as they skimmed towards the newly restored Iacon where he’d agreed to meet the agent who’d set him up with Project Homo Deus, and to catch up with some fellow Seekers from his Decepticon days. 

The blinking, blinding neon lights of Iacon aroused a sense of thrill and excitement in the former Decepticon Air Commander – and former Emperor of Cybertron – as the duo entered Valveplug, the hottest nightclub in town in the same building where his old penthouse was located, confirming Starscream’s immediate suspicions.

“They built a disco right inside my apartment!” he shrieked, flailing his arms.

Cyclonus looked around sourly. “Lord Starscream, with all due respect – you disappeared for megacycles; what did you expect?” he muttered. 
“Hmph. This is an expensive neighborhood, however, so suppose I could not assume everything would be left untouched as it was”, Starscream admitted unwillingly and spotted his old coworkers Slipstream, Skywarp and Thundercracker sitting in a VIP lounge with their high grade engex.

“Wow, Screamer!” Thundercracker shouted shrilly, “Nobody expected you’d come back, but you look fabulous as always. Hey, isn’t that Cyclonus with you?” 

Slipstream presented her old coworker a conniving smile. “Daring of you to show your face over here with Megatron in charge. Very brave. How atypical of you.”
“Hah! Optimus was forced to exile himself despite winning the war whereas I abdicated completely voluntarily”, Starscream boasted as he sent Cyclonus to fetch drinks, sitting next to Skywarp who looked completely spaced out already. Noticing his curious look, Slipstream prodded Skywarp to demonstrate that the teleporting mech had indeed teleported mentally beyond all understanding. 
“A new Quintesson drug – a digital recording that your neural net believes to be its own experiences”, she explained with a slick voice, “It enables one to directly experience the memories of someone else, but these are more expensive than the fully artificially generated tapes because they require more field work such as having to send someone to kill someone somewhere to get that authentic feel of what it’s like to kill. And believe me, us Decepticons live for stuff like this now that the war is over.”   
“I don’t actually care about killing anymore”, Thundercracker then whispered, as if embarrassed. “But I write scripts for artificial memories and make a living off of them these days. Brings in the big shanix.”
“So that explains why you can afford the VIP lounge and the good juice”, Starscream acknowledged with a shrewd smile, then a vague bitterness began kicking in. “We would have needed those fake memory recordings when I was Emperor.”
“Really? Why?” Thundercracker asked, looking jolly and oblivious.
Starscream sighed. “I didn’t abdicate for nothing: I believed the planet was heading for another civil war unless I took the war to the stars”, he said, well aware that this wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but he wanted to leave out the bits about doubting whether he deserved to be in power to begin with when there were more qualified individuals around him. His conscience had told him to quit, but you couldn’t really talk about it to this crowd – calling Seekers airheads or simpletons wasn’t always true, but they tended to skim the surface of life such that explaining complex psychological phenomena to them wasn’t necessarily worth the time and effort. How could Starscream ever tell them about the Realm Beyond Time? The spaces between the dimensions he’d travelled in as a ghost-like apparition? 
And that the Quintessons… 
These cybernetic aliens traversed these realms and spaces like a common Cybertronian would cross the street?

“I propose a toast to our dear Lord Starscream. Bless his spark!” Slipstream declared slyly, raising her glass. 
Irritated, Starscream bit his glossa, responding with a malicious glare but calmed down quickly when Cyclonus arrived with drinks. 
“Cyclonus, you served Galvatron; why have you teamed up with old Screamer?” Thundercracker asked the ancient warrior. 
“That is a very good question”, Cyclonus replied. “Neither of us identifies with the Decepticons anymore but our pasts haunt us, so I suppose there’s that.”
“I’m not really a Decepticon either these days”, Thundercracker admitted, causing Slipstream to laugh a little. 
“Oh, the Decepticons are technically alive and well with Megatron reclaiming its leadership, but including Optimus Prime into the organization sort of watered it down for many supporters”, the sleek femme chuckled. “Some say he was forced to join it as mockery to the Autobots, or as a compromise? But others say he had many opportunities to kill Megatron and chose not to.”
Starscream nodded. “I have no doubts about the nature of their relationship – I once had to tell old Megatron”, he spat out the name sneeringly, “that if he killed Optimus, his life would become a dead, meaningless void because he’d defeated the only actual threat to the Decepticons.”
“You did? I bet he didn’t take a harsh truth like that well”, Thundercracker argued.
Starscream grinned. “His expression was priceless - and I had found his weak spot.”
“Optimus? I mean Orion since he’s not a Prime anymore.”
Slipstream giggled. “But Thundercracker, Orion was made a Decepticon Queen Consort which is actually the ultimate insult to the Autobots”, she said. 
The Seekers laughed in unison, with Cyclonus watching them incuriously. 
“How about that agent we were supposed to meet here?” he inquired.

Suddenly all optics in the room were on two tall, massive mechs whose name and presence inspired fear and reverence across the galaxy but for very different reasons. 
"Starscream, what is the meaning of this?" The voice of Orion Pax rumbled and his optics darkened and flashed in a way that could only be described as threatening. Everyone anticipated Megatron’s reaction towards his former Second-in-Command, but the King of Cybertron merely stood there watching him with an inexpressive face. 
“Project Homo Deus. Ever heard of it?” Starscream’s shrill voice almost faded into the background music. “I have valuable materials and I was meant to see an agent who invited me to participate.” 
“You’re a liar”, Orion retorted angrily.  
Now Megatron shook his helm with folded arms. "Either he’s lying or he’s stupid. I say he’s stupid", he commented, seeming oddly indifferent.
"And you two are both." Starscream seethed, now staring at Orion Pax who glared at him accusingly. He stood up from his seat, pointing his digit at the large red bot. “Isn’t it you who’s got a lot to explain to your fellow Autobots?” he inquired; voice full of contempt, “You now wear the Decepticon insignia because you lost, proving yourself a failed Prime, unworthy of leadership, treacherous to your own values and doctrine! I ask you – who are you to throw around the kind of claims as you do? You are one hell of a massive hypocrite!”
“I am in my current position because I wanted to save the Autobots and the Cybertronian people”, Orion argued darkly, then added after a quick look at Megatron, “by working together with Megatron in all aspects of life.”

Megatron smirked, rolled his optics in amusement, and laughed; Orion was so good at providing the most elevated of reasoning and explanations to the pettiest of causes all while able to persuade almost anyone to follow them, which in this case would be “I want to spend a lifetime interfacing with Megatron (despite disagreeing on certain political methods to the point that we had a four-million-year war over them) but I want all of you to help me achieve this anyway.”
Not that it was the whole truth, either. The way both Orion and Megatron saw things now was that they had been bestowed with the ultimate responsibility of paying back to a society they destroyed: by ruling it, all while being held accountable to the Quintessons who allowed them to remain at the top of Cybertronian elite.
(Unsurprisingly, Megatron turned out to be a popular leader because he was a populist, and his charisma and sex appeal distracted the populace’s attention from the ongoing Quintesson occupation as intended. Together with Orion they were the galaxy’s biggest – literally – power couple.)   

“I was contacted by an agent who said they work for Project Homo Deus”, Starscream hissed, “and while I knew you started the project, I had no idea how the agent had found out that I have Alexis Thi Dang’s egg cells in the freezer.” The red jet made a silly face. “Now, what I really want is a copy of Alexis’ consciousness, but the agent told me this is achieved through the quantum imaging of the neural wiring of an individual human brain plus its functions on a neuron level. The problem is, Alexis died of old age a long time ago, and only the Quintessons know how to make a copy of her mind under these circumstances.”
Orion looked suspicious until he was overcome by confusion.
“What are you saying?” he asked, giving Megatron a meaningful glance.

His Conjunx shrugged.
“Fine, Starscream. You want your pet human back? Then help Orion bring back his own human pets”, the grey warlord yawned. “Also, I am fairly certain the agent you were talking about is Soundwave - working for the Quintessons.”

Now both Orion and Starscream were perplexed.
“Soundwave?!” Starscream shrieked. “The most loyal of Decepticons?”
Megatron gave his former subordinate a look of stone-cold indifference.
“Why… but aren’t the Quintessons against Project Homo Deus?” Orion wailed.  
Megatron nodded. “Yeah, I think so too.” He had a hunch of something not being quite right, a feeling of being watched from the shadows.

There was an ominous sign – Megatron’s fusion cannon accidentally struck a disco ball off the ceiling, causing it to fall on his Conjunx’s head. This woke up Skywarp from his drug-induced coma and the Seeker started screaming.

Chapter 2: The Academy's Lost Archives

Summary:

Orion Pax discovers Senator Shockwave's pre-war Academy journal writings that begin to haunt him and attempts to reconcile with his old Autobot crew. Starscream teams with Jetfire, Perceptor and scientists from Caminus to aid Project Homo Deus and bring back Alexis Thi Dang. Megaempress wrecks havoc in the Royal couple's home by becoming the mentor of Megatron's and Orion's sparklings.

Notes:

The beginning of this chapter is a quote from my other story, "The Great Attractor".

“---Learning does happen within us independently of external influences but also via extensive feedback mechanisms that enable comparison with reality around us.----"

"---So why aren't robots programmed along similar lines to replicate just one part of life where massive amounts of new experiences could help to fine-tune our sense of identity?---"

--"The Idealized Cognitive Model comes from physical processes, evolves differently depending on the circumstances, creating new properties by random mutation and selection. The experimentation conducted by the Quintessons may have unforeseen consequences, but I assure you... he is my brightest hope."---

-excerpts from a letter addressed to Jhiaxus by Senator Shockwave, pre-war

 

Orion Pax made his way to the University of Iacon’s faculty of Biotechnology which focused mostly on fuel and material research such as how to manufacture clothing and sheets for Cybertronians, and where he had established the Cybertronian center for research into organic races, particularly humans. His mind and spirit began soaring with excitement he hadn’t felt in a while when he thought of his youth as an archivist, before he became a cop. 

The faculty of Cognitive Architecture and Communications was along his way, and then Orion remembered how most of the data from the old Academy and the Archives saved from the war had been transferred to the University’s servers specifically to that faculty. As he walked up the University’s stairs, thinking about having hired the best doctors and researchers to resurrect the human race, nostalgia together with curiosity was awakening in his processor again.
Slowly, he turned and instinctively logged himself in to the vault where the old Archive data was maintained. A helpful little drone buzzed in to identify him.
“Perceptor, I may be late for the meeting regarding Project Homo Deus”, he spoke to his internal comms while connecting himself to the Archive databases. 
“Ah, alright. Starscream has arrived, by the way,” the scientist remarked.
Orion clenched his fists. “Who invited him?” he growled. 
“I’m afraid I have no information regarding that…”
“Who authorized him?!”  
Perceptor was heard asking other bots about it, then returning to the comm lines after a pause. “According to Velocity, an agent for the Quintessons demanded that Starscream be let in since he has a stored sample of human DNA. Entire egg cells, actually. Jetfire agreed to take responsibility while he works with us.”
“Works with you? What does he know about biology?” Orion fumed. 
“According to Jetfire, they used to study together, and Starscream was educated in Cognitive Science before he joined the Decepticons. But it’s the Quintessons who arguably want him in - whether we like it or not.”    
“Hmph.” Orion wasn’t too happy to hear this but he realized he still doubted Starscream’s motives and assumed out of habit that the jet would somehow sabotage the project and later attempt to seize political power. He couldn’t understand the idea that Starscream had found compassion for humans within himself, what with the disdain the jet had for nearly every fellow Cybertronian. 

The archive drone inquired him about what he was looking for, and at first Orion was going to tell it he was only looking around, until memories from his youth began circulating in his neural net. 
“It seems I am nostalgia tripping, as the humans used to say about this kind of experience”, he rumbled partially to himself, laughed about it briefly and stood there memorizing. Perhaps he was only distracting himself to avoid Starscream, but the lull of ancient, forgotten archives was getting the best of him; these were genuinely attractive to his curious mind. He then realized some instinct had guided him here to search for something, but what?
His memories surfaced with the images of Megatron… and Senator Shockwave. He instructed the drone to fetch him all data regarding those two, with the data set to date before the civil war, and began going through the archives in the speed of light.

Orion had come here with researching humans in mind - he had since researched as much as he could about the humans - but now his mind was racing down memory lane back to his prewar days, memories of walking in the streets of Kaon with Megatron, amazed and enamored by the thoughts and charisma of the imposing grey mech who to him had represented the future. And Megatron indeed had been Cybertron's future - just not in the way young Orion hoped. In fact, Megatron had intended to destroy all data regarding the civil war soon after defeating the Autobots, but Orion had persuaded him to spare the data, and realizing the archives were personally very important to Orion, Megatron had ultimately agreed after Orion was declared his Queen Consort.

Orion Pax had set up a team in the hopes that he could restore the old Academy's archive after having returned to the University of Iacon, and was in charge of Earth Studies, focusing mostly on humans. Determined to help the humans return from extinction, Orion had been accused especially by the Decepticons of self-importance and using humans to cling to power that wasn't rightfully his.  

As Orion’s mind navigated through the data stream of the old Iaconian archives, thinking about his last night out with Megatron at the eve of the civil war, then reminiscing the last decacycles of Senator Shockwave before the latter was sentenced to Empurata. The Senator’s tragic fate had been one of the biggest losses in Orion’s life, a recurring topic whenever he would stop and think about the past - although he avoided talking about it out of the knowledge that the subject was a sensitive one to Megatron, regardless of the events regarding all three of them having taken place a very long time ago.

Orion thought darkly how he had lost Megatron only temporarily, but Senator Shockwave was gone for good. Forever. It was even worse than Elita One avoiding him out of bitterness no matter how much Orion wanted to rekindle at least their friendship, even at the face of risking Megatron not taking that too well.

Then he recalled Starscream’s desire to recreate the consciousness of Alexis Thi Dang despite the human woman having passed away, and that the jet had been told by the Quintessons’ agent that the Quintessons supposedly had the technology to make this happen.

If a human consciousness could be resurrected, shouldn’t it be even easier for a synthetic consciousness such as Senator Shockwave’s? And if so, didn’t this suggest the nature of consciousness was not only independent of physical hardware but that it was independent of space and time itself – and could move between universes and in the spaces between them?  

Orion’s keen mind captured a sentence in a file containing a letter addressed to Dai Atlas by the Senator himself:    

“Time is a constant in our lives - yet we cannot quantify it.”

 

“Shockwave…” Orion suddenly realized windshield washing fluid was running down his faceplate, memories from his youth surfacing like everything had happened just a while ago, a tsunami of emotion hitting against the sea wall of his dignified, collected demeanor under which the very foundation of his identity was suddenly shaking as he read through the Senator’s letters to Dai Atlas and Jhiaxus which were part of a larger collection of academic journals from the old Academy of Cybertron’s Age of Expansion, dating back to times before Orion’s activation day to roughly the last megacycles before Shockwave got captured and sentenced by other Senators.

"You are my brightest hope."  Senator Shockwave's last words to him before the Empurata surfaced in Orion's mind. 

"Remember me as I was." Shockwave's last words before his death. Orion was trembling so badly he had to take a grip of a server rack to steady himself.

“Orion Pax, what in the name of science is wrong with you?”

Jetfire’s polite but concerned voice behind Orion woke him up.

Orion turned to look at the large white jet slightly embarrassed.

“I do not know, Jetfire”, he sighed hoarsely, “but I find these journals from the Academy deeply… fascinating. And... disturbing.”

“As do I”, Jetfire nodded, visibly brightening but surprised, “however I don’t quite comprehend why anyone would find them disturbing, of all things. Senator Shockwave was the greatest scientist of all time. No one has achieved his level of genius and number of breakthroughs ever since.”

“That I can imagine”, Orion agreed, knowing Jetfire was not exactly the right bot to talk about what he really had coursing through his neural net right now, that what if the reason for the Quintessons arguably being able to resurrect the consciousness of the deceased was because the relation between time and consciousness was poorly understood by most races, whereas for the cybernetic alien master race these were merely a playground?     

It also implied that while Alexis Thi Dang and Senator Shockwave were both clinically dead in the most conventional sense, there had to be a part of the consciousness that was independent of physical, hardware-bound thought processes regardless of whether they were biochemical neurons firing in a human brain or qubits switching spins at a given interval in a Cybertronian spark.

In other words, the human and the Cybertronian were dead and alive.

Orion followed Jetfire to a conference room where Perceptor, Nautica, Velocity, Ratchet and Starscream were waiting for them under huge monitors displaying the most recent test results in Project Homo Deus. It looked like the group was pondering the analogy of a cluster of humans in a simulation experiencing the only reality they knew, which was the simulation.

“Why are we enclosing the humans in a simulation?” Starscream asked, visibly irritated, “I know Earth is in a terrible shape, but why can’t we just release them into their natural habitat once we’ve grown them in the labs?”

There was an awkward silence.

“Firstly, their war against machines – which they won, by the way - left the planet resembling a nuclear testing site along with dead, anoxic oceans, reduced oxygen content, temperatures that would force the population to live underground or stick to polar regions…” Perceptor began, but Orion could not help himself, asking them all:

“What if the nature of the simulation that keeps the population alive is actually the true reality?”

“We’d need to ask Drift”, Ratchet complained, “The metaphysical and spiritual crap is not in my field of expertise.”

“Are their experiences not real even if the world itself was artificial? And within a simulation, all reality is virtual?” Perceptor inquired.

Starscream gave Orion a questioning look. “Everybody was telling me you’d oppose the idea of enclosing humanity in a simulation”, he said.

Orion’s EM field radiated a sense of futility. “I do not like it, if that’s what you mean, Starscream”, he sighed, “but we cannot force humans to live on that dead, toxic rock until we’ve done something about it, and our planet certainly isn’t fit for human inhabitation. They’d have nothing to breathe. But freedom is the right of all sentient beings, therefore the mere thought of them spending their lives in a digital utopia is just as wrong.”

“Cybertron was once an organic planet, mind you”, Jetfire pointed out. Everyone turned to stare at him.

“What happened to it?” Velocity asked, looking flabbergasted.    

“For some reason, the Quintessons come to Cybertron in cyclical waves, contrary to common belief”, the giant jet explained, “and they cyberformed this planet, clearing it of any organic life it ever had. But they preserved – assimilated – parts of Cybertron’s organic life that they found useful or interesting, producing the first beast machines. These models had no consciousness nor were able to transform and went extinct during the Golden Age of Cybertron - until Shockwave resurrected them, now with higher intelligence and the ability to transform. But for us, their most important invention was the protoform. While we are usually Forged or Constructed Cold, all beast machines are born from protoforms.”

“Essentially, that’s how you get technorganics - or transmetal Cybertronians as the beast machines themselves call it”, Perceptor added.

Jetfire and Starscream proceeded to discuss Alexis Thi Dang’s egg cells which were considered a valuable asset in Project Homo Deus. Starscream then brought up the consciousness issue, that no clone or descendant of those cells would actually be Alexis.

“Part of the deal in my participation is that the Quints bring back her mind, identity – who Alexis was”, Starscream insisted with folded arms.

Orion turned to the jets. “And I want the same for Senator Shockwave”, he admitted sullenly, causing the others to ogle him in awe. Even Jetfire was lost in his thoughts following Orion’s confession.

“When one becomes, well, one with the Matrix”, Ratchet asked carefully, “is the purpose to have them keep coming back to us every time they die?”  

“That… is a creepy way of putting it”, Nautica pointed out worriedly.

“I understand your concerns”, Orion tried to convince the others, “but I myself am the living embodiment of a cycle of endless deaths and rebirths, is that not correct?”

“Eh, now that you mention it…” Perceptor said, but Orion interrupted him.

“When I still carried the Matrix of Leadership, I learned that true unity is a matter of perception; recognizing aspects of ourselves in each other in the here-and-now.”

“Orion, this is veering deep into the territory of Drift and his Circle of Light”, Ratchet wailed. “You may want to talk to him about these matters instead.”

“I believe Orion means that everyone of us projects something about ourselves onto others”, Velocity explained. “There’s nothing weird about that.”

“Yeah, it’s just that we tend not to be aware of what possibly suppressed or repressed properties will be reflected back upon us”, Nautica added.

Looking at Ratchet, Orion thought about Drift and decided it was about time he held an Autobot get-together in a less formal environment.

Jetfire and Perceptor glanced at each other while Nautica and Velocity went to examine the frozen package Starscream had brought with him.

“The Quintesson agent is Soundwave. He just contacted me”, Jetfire confessed, “and he says the Quintessons are interested in experimenting with your ideas.”

 

Afterwards Orion returned home to his royal residence where Megatron found him staring intensively at an energon cube.   

“What’s the matter, Orion?” Megatron gave him a slightly amused glance despite noticing the turmoil in his Conjunx’ EM field.

“I… I visited the Iaconian Archives today. At the University.”

Megatron placed his servo on his shoulder. “Upset about books, are we now?” he grinned, then taking a more serious tone and sitting down next to him. “Something is bothering you but you seem to be unwilling to talk about it”, he continued.

“It’s about the old Academy’s scientific journal”, Orion admitted.

Megatron gave him a long stare. “The Academy? So you were reading old Shockwave’s theses and research papers, and find these upsetting?”

Orion looked visibly riled up. “It’s much more than that, Megatron. Project Homo Deus – as you know, I was at the University originally to attend a meeting regarding it – now involves resurrecting a long dead human consciousness. I thought, if the Quintessons can resurrect a human mind, then they could do that to a Cybertronian, couldn’t they? And as I read through Senator Shockwave’s writings, I discovered a highly disturbing reference… to myself. In the context of Quintesson experimentation.”

“What?!” Megatron seemed perplexed. “Am I getting this right: You think Shockwave can be brought back from the dead, and that you yourself were the subject of Quintesson experiments long before the war but you don’t remember any of it?”

Orion looked a little awkward. “Yes, exactly. Shockwave knew something crucial about me that I have no idea of but he never told me what it was.”

Megatron’s processor was now racing. “I need to see that journal myself”, he said after a pause. “Despite Shockwave working for me for millions of stellar cycles, I let him work on his personal projects without much interference and therefore I didn’t usually know much about them until they backfired on the Decepticon organization.” He laughed mirthlessly, then sighed thinking of all the times Shockwave’s hidden agenda either cost him some tactical advantage against the Autobots or became an obstacle to him in some other way.  

He moved closer to Orion with a warm smile, wrapping his arms around the waist of his Conjunx. He felt Orion’s tension reduce as the younger bot snuggled up to him. “Don’t worry, Orion; we will sort this out, whatever it is.”

“Thank you, I appreciate your support”, Orion murmured, grateful that Megatron hadn’t reacted with any clear signs of jealousy regarding the mention of Senator Shockwave despite Orion’s history with the Senator.

"I don't know what to believe anymore, Megatron.”

 

 

Starscream unwillingly took part in a meeting with Megatron after departing from the University.

"They cannot resurrect a human consciousness," Megatron said sternly.

Starscream angrily tapped his digit against the table, staring at his former supervisor. “What do you mean they can’t?!” he screeched.

“What they will do is create a digital copy of your human’s consciousness using a highly complex method where your human’s prior existence is tracked down”, Megatron lectured. “Brainstorm is probably the only Cybertronian who knows how to work with the technology in question, so Orion appointed him in charge of duplicating your dead pet. Are you happy now?”

Clearly seething, Starscream flailed his arms. “I want to be personally involved!”

“Oh, you get to work as Brainstorm’s assistant.” Megatron produced a devilish smile. “You will fetch him materials and supplies, clean up after him - useful little stuff like that. Be his obedient service drone and you may get to see your human live again - even if not in the flesh.”

“Service drone?! I did not return to this Primus-forsaken planet for that!”

But Megatron was already on his way out, striding leisurely past the jet who kept rambling about the violations of his personal rights up until Megatron had exited the meeting room.

 

 

Maccadam’s Old Oil House was packed when Orion Pax wandered inside, spotting Bumblebee and Ironhide among his old acquaintances present there. His arrival didn’t exactly go unnoticed either, but no one was welcoming him with open arms. The Decepticon insignia on Orion’s armor made Autobots wary and mistrusting, and Orion could hear Decepticons tell jokes about him in the shadows of the bar.

Megatron’s frag toy.       

Megatron’s pet.

After all, as Queen Consort he didn’t have official political power - unless one counted ruling from Megatron’s berth, as someone in a dark corner suggested to another, followed by sniggering.

Orion recognized some of the voices and energy signatures belonging to Seekers – Ramjet and Dirge to be precise – and was about to go teach them a lesson when Ironhide approached him, eyeing him expectantly.

“You’re looking for someone or something”, his old comrade said.

“I would like to talk to Bumblebee… and you”, Orion confessed, following Ironhide to his table. Bumblebee and Jazz were seated there, and the former was about to leave when Orion grabbed his arm.

“Don’t go, Bumblebee. I need a word with you.”

“What do you want?!” Bumblebee turned around. “You… you betrayed us all! You betrayed the Autobots and our cause!” he shouted at him. Jazz and Ironhide tried calming the young bot down, but Bumblebee’s fury showed no signs of quenching.

“I am sorry, Bumblebee”, Orion mumbled, stepping back. “I did what I thought was right… I wanted to prevent the Decepticons from killing more Autobots…”

“Don’t say Megatron forced you to join the Decepticons because that would be a lie!” Bumblebee screamed, pointing at Orion. “You joined him voluntarily!”

“I…did”, Orion admitted with a sad look in his optics. “It may appear as though I ingratiated myself by doing so, but there was a good reason why I felt luck was on the Decepticons’ side.”

Bumblebee gave a long, angry sigh of frustration.

“We believed in you! And now Megatron rules.”

Orion slouched. “You don’t understand: The Quintessons were on Megatron’s side in their game that no one comprehends and they outnumbered us all. They were going to ensure Decepticon victory.”

“So it wasn’t just that you found it convenient to side with Megatron to get rid of Prowl who was the rightful Autobot administrative figurehead at the time?!”

“No…”

Orion looked miserable, inciting Ironhide and Jazz to give him some leeway and order him a drink. Bumblebee finally agreed to sit down with him, still looking suspicious though.

“You’re here to reconcile, aren’t you?” Ironhide asked Orion. “It’s gonna be tough trying that.”

“I only want all remaining Autobots to understand the bigger picture”, Orion explained while taking a big gulp from his pint of engex.

“What bigger picture? That you joined Megatron because you can’t resist his spike!” Bumblebee sneered.

“Bumblebee, I wish you would not see it like that”, Orion muttered, embarrassed.

The yellow bot did hit close to home, however: Orion could not resist Megatron as a package, and he was sometimes surprised how anyone could, considering how charming Megatron could be especially when his EM field really flared up to a mode of dark intensity that pulled one in like a Black Hole and devoured anyone too close…

“Ha. Ha. Ha. Of course I see it like that! Everyone on this planet does!”

Now Jazz opted to restrain the young bot by making a face and lifting a servo.

 “Bumblebee…” Orion sighed. “Give me a chance to show you all that wearing this insignia no longer means what it used to. Please.”

Ironhide gave him an evaluating look. “Then what does it mean these days?”

Orion sat back on his chair.

“It means… that I would like to invite you all to my dinner party at the Royal Palace.”

Bumblebee’s intake was suddenly o-shaped.

 

 

“Orion, we didn’t agree on this,” Megatron muttered later as Orion fussily laid out his party plans, “You should have talked to me first before inviting a horde of Autobots in my house.”

Orion gave him a sad, worried look which made the grey mech chuckle a bit.

“Oh alright, I’m not actually offended. After spending aeons aboard the Lost Light I learned not to hate Autobots anymore: They tend to mean well, after all, but their certain simple-minded naivete gets on my circuits at times, you know? It makes me wonder what is wrong with their programming.”

Something about the word ‘programming’ startled Orion.  

“What?” Megatron gave him an odd look. “Did I say something funny?”

Orion snapped out of his sudden stupor. “Shockwave’s journal! His letters to Jhiaxus and Dai Atlas! Let’s go to the Archives right now!”

“Sorry, Orion, but I have a meeting with Admiral Lionheart.”

“Oh…” Orion looked disappointed. “In that case I shall resume planning our dinner party.”

“Do that, my love”, Megatron said cheerfully, “and by the way, I have hired a mentor for our sparklings. It’s my little sister.”

Orion’s optics widened as a door opened and a silvery grey femme strutted in with C-RAM and Railgun in tow, jumping giddily on Megatron to embrace him (much to Megatron’s discomfort) and then giving an excited whinny upon laying her optics on Orion.

“Oooooh, he’s so pretty!” Megaempress clapped her servos together, grinding herself against Orion and causing Megatron to chuckle.

“Well, you know, only perfection is good enough for me”, the grey warlord bragged.

“Nabbing yourself the Prime must have felt good,” Megaempress said, openly admiring Orion’s stature, her optics sliding up and down his powerful but elegant frame. “That cute little button nose, those beautiful optics! Those hips!”

“Please do not objectify me”, Orion pleaded quietly, but Megaempress wasn’t paying any attention to his words and instead led C-RAM and Railgun to the palace’s training room for battle simulator practice.  

Megatron’s attempt at holding back laughter didn’t go unnoticed by Orion who began sulking.

“Why her?”

“She’s loyal to me”, Megatron explained. “She adores me as his big brother since she was made from my spare parts. Megaempress may be quirky but I appreciate loyalty in this household.”

“But… is it safe to place our sparklings under the guidance of a… a nymphomaniac?”

Megatron stopped for a moment. “You mean you think she’s motivated by lust? I think it’s more about attention. In any case she thinks it’s a great honor to look after our sparklings, and I like that attitude,” he said, shrugging and left for his meeting with Admiral Lionheart.

Orion vented out his frustration by furiously making party invitations.

 

 

Chapter 3: Optimus Prime's Dinner Party

Summary:

Orion has wild dreams while Scorponok gets assigned a strange mission by the Quintesson overlord. Megaempress attempts to seduce Orion. The Seekers crash the royal dinner party, and Orion learns of an exotic fetish when he interrupts a private moment between Drift and Ratchet. Megatron helps Orion reconnect with his old Autobot crew by displaying a side of himself that they never expected to witness.

Orion lay in deep recharge all alone in the royal berth as the cable connecting him to the charge port twitched.

In his dream, he was Prime again, and memories of the Matrix of Leadership flashed before him. On some level he missed the holy artifact despite knowing that without it he had greater freedom to live his life as he chose.

He dreamt of Alpha Trion. “Tell me, what did Senator Shockwave hide from me?” he asked the old mech, but there was no response as the face disappeared. Deep in the simulation created by his own mind, Orion reached out to other familiar names.

“The Matrix taught me that none of you are dead as in unreachable, but just in another universe, transformed… to another format”, he whispered in the darkness, “and each time one of us dies or is reborn, we transform like information when it falls into a Black Hole…it’s still there, somewhere, just in another form.”

The face of Nova Prime appeared before him.

“Ah, the last Prime! The final disappointment of our proud lineage!” he barked.

“Um… I believe you mean Rodimus by that”, Orion suggested, a little embarrassed but also feeling insulted, “since he tends to take the Matrix of Leadership out of himself…”

“Why in the name of the Guiding Hand would he do that?!”

“To show it to his friends, then he forgets where he put it, and goes looking for it in the early hours in the morning… especially after drinking too much.”

“What kind of a Prime is that?! We are meant to be the absolute authority in the realm, ensuring order and prosperity, and commanding the respect of worlds beyond Cybertron!”

Orion suddenly thought about something. “I think he is in love with Megatron but refuses to admit it, and drinks because Megatron doesn’t respond to his feelings. And Ultra Magnus loves Megatron too. I’m not sure how to feel about this.”

“WHAT?!” Nova Prime’s expression became contorted, his face replaced with that of Sentinel Zeta Prime.

“Optimus! Alpha Trion worked hard to replace me with your pathetic hull to get the perfect puppet, didn’t he?”

Orion’s optics flashed, his fists pumping. “No. I was inspired by Megatron… who was a very dear friend to me at the time, and Alpha Trion supported me as your follower because he saw I lacked your corrupt nature.”

Sentinel Zeta Prime’s spirit laughed in his face.

“Still tricking yourself into believing you have free will, eh?”

“I…” Orion was about to continue, but Sentinel Zeta vanished before him, and instead he found himself running in the streets of Iacon next to Megatron who bore a thrilled grin on his handsomely attractive young face, his scarlet optics fixed firmly into the future…

Orion’s frame shivered on the berth.

“We’re about to storm the Senate tonight”, the grey mech smirked, suddenly stopping, taking Orion’s servo in his own and pushing him against the wall, followed by Megatron’s EM field covering him like the night itself had been electrified and heated up, and a kiss so passionate it made Orion feel dizzy. As Megatron’s glossa explored his mouth and his denta bit Orion’s lower silica lip, Orion felt a build-up of lubricant within his valve as well as feeling Megatron’s pelvis brush against his array…

“Megatron… !” Orion gasped as Megatron lifted him by the hips to lean against the wall.

"I'm right here, darling," Megatron whispered and pushed himself against Orion's pelvis as his spike sprung out of its housing, “Open for me, Orion!”

“Ahhh…!” Orion felt lubricant pooling behind his array, both his own spike springing out of its housing and touching Megatron’s, and his valve cover snapping open; he was aching to feel Megatron’s spike inside him. He had never felt anything quite like it once the huge thing entered his valve which cycled down and tightened around it.

"I want you," Megatron whispered in Orion's audial before kissing him once more…

 

Orion suddenly woke up from his recharge, still alone in the dark hab suite, wondering if Megatron had yet returned from his meeting. He went down the hallway only to hear the pitter-patter of Railgun who gave him a strange look.

“Where is your sister?” Orion asked the sparkling who pointed at the door of one of the guest rooms; he then realized Railgun and C-RAM had been peering into Megaempress’ hab suite.

“It’s nothing, I swear!” C-RAM yelped as she ran off with her sibling. Orion looked at the sparklings suspiciously, then carefully opened the guest room door only to spot Megaempress pleasuring herself on her berth, completely oblivious to her surroundings.

“By Primus, and my sparklings saw that!” Orion stared horrified at the sight before closing the door carefully, relieved that the sparklings hadn’t been watching himself while he was dreaming…

But he realized how much he craved Megatron’s presence right now; the feeling was unbearable. Yet something about his dream felt like it had tried to tell him to search for an answer to a question that was buried deep in his youth.

 

By the time Megatron arrived home from his meeting, Orion was baking energon cupcakes for the sparklings before Megaempress would take them to battle academy.

“What are you doing up? Shouldn’t you all be recharging?” Megatron was eyeing his Conjunx carefully. “Aren’t you a bit too stressed out over that dinner party?”

Orion stopped everything he was doing, turning around. “Megatron, I no longer understand what is happening to me… There is a question lingering in my mind, but I do not know what the question is”, he said, appearing to be on the brink of a mental breakdown.

Megatron quickly rushed to take Orion in his arms and pull him tight against his broad armored chest. “It’s alright, my love”, he whispered as Orion trembled in his embrace. “When I was at the meeting with that Quintesson Admiral, I felt through our sparkbond that you were trying hard to contact me. And you will never guess what happened then.”

“Huh? What happened?” Orion looked puzzled.

“My spike was involuntarily released from its housing.” Megatron grimaced.

“In front of the Admiral?!” Orion was terrified.

Megatron grinned. “Yes, right in front of the Admiral.”

 

After Orion had finished making the energon cupcakes, he and Megatron retreated upstairs to their berthroom. Megatron carefully pushed Orion on their berth as the red bot spoke to him about his dream.

"I have you now”, Megatron smiled, “There is nothing the Senate can do to you; we eliminated it a long time ago even though we both remember it like yesterday."

Orion could feel the electron spins changing positions within Megatron's spark in his chest. It was a strange feeling. When Megatron placed his servos on his chest, gazing warmly at him, Orion was once again reassured that he wanted nothing more than to spend his entire remaining existence with this mech… but for the first time he was asking himself where this feeling came from. It was not ordinary love; it was not ordinary brotherhood or kinship.

It went beyond everything he had ever heard of.

“Megatron, I am a Quintesson experiment”, Orion confessed worriedly.

“You believe that because of vague suggestions in Senator Shockwave’s journal, right”, Megatron chuckled, caressing one of his finials. “When I have the time, I will read through it myself. But you definitely need to de-stress!”

As Orion laid there under Megatron, he had a realization: he had been saved from the Senate's onslaught by the one mech who actually could do it, and he had no idea what he had been given to take back to the real world…

And yet he kept going back to the very moment when Megatron had turned against him, believing Orion was there to take his place.

“It was because you felt we were too much alike, to the point that you saw only rivalry, wasn’t it?” Orion suddenly asked his Conjunx - just when Megatron’s huge spike was pressurizing into its full length.

Megatron rolled over him with his spike dangling sloppily. “We Cybertronians betrayed our creators because they made us too much like themselves, you know? Fundamentally betrayal has competition over limited resources behind it.”

Orion nodded, stroking Megatron’s spike and causing the grey warlord to gasp as a sensation of electric pleasure hit his spinal strut.

“I… I don't want to betray anyone; I never wanted to betray anyone”, Orion pleaded. Megatron gave him an understanding smile.

“But now that you mention it, there is much about you and me that I’ve had a hard time figuring out”, he admitted, enjoying Orion’s intake pleasuring his spike.  

Orion then stopped and stared at him. “You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve been told over the course of millennia how similar we are!”  

“Really?” Megatron gazed at him curiously, switching positions to set himself between Orion’s thighs, eyeing Orion’s valve panel like expecting a tasty snack.

“Yes! They say I’m just as stubborn, calculating, and single-minded as you are”, Orion claimed, “and I was told this by my own mechs, bots who supported me at my lowest.”

He began spasming as Megatron’s glossa hungrily swept over the blue, plump silica lining of his aroused valve, savoring its pleasant chemical flavor and texture.

“This was worth the wait, I tell you”, Megatron smirked as Orion began moaning, raised his pelvis higher and spread his thighs wider; the pleasure Megatron was able to give him was absolutely divine, and he urged the grey warlord to taste the sweetness of his puffy valve with greater electrifying intensity until his engines were roaring and his cooling fans were working at their maximum level.

Megatron inserted three digits into Orion’s valve which cycled down on them, demanding more; grinning, Megatron nibbled on his anterior node which was blinking with yellow light every time a wave of pleasure washed over Orion’s frame.

“Megatron, I want us to stay like this forever.”

“I know.”

“I mean I want us to stay… together."

"I know, I know." Megatron leaned over Orion to kiss him deeply. “There’s nothing that I’d want more myself than to be with you from here to infinity.”

"Then… take me. Make me part of your soul."

"I am obviously your soulmate."

"No, I want to be part of you. I want to be your other half."

"There is no such thing as half of me. I am complete."

"But I want to be the person who made you what you are. I want to be the person who made you feel."

Megatron’s face was still stuffed between Orion’s glorious thighs as he smacked his glossa which had just swirled inside Orion’s exciting valve folds, tasting his delicious juices.

"You mean... you want to be me?"

"Yes, Megatron. I want to be the person who gave you your spark of life, your will to live, your reason for being. I want to be the one who gave you a mind.”

Megatron lifted his head up, licking Orion’s transfluid off his lips. “It’s that journal you’ve been reading”, he muttered, “What else could be filling your processor with such peculiar thoughts?”

Orion sighed.

Maybe someday Megatron would understand…

 

 

At the Iacon University, Starscream and Jetfire were discussing the fate of humanity – the events that led to its demise in the first place – both of them staring at a petri dish of tiny formations of human cells.

“So Queen Optimus wants this”, Starscream stated with a mix of suspicion and disbelief.

“That… is the starting point”, the huge white jet replied.

“Subordinates. Millions of organic subordinates.”

Aside from the dissatisfaction in Starscream’s voice perturbing the meaning of his message, it sounded no more than a truthful statement, yet it made Jetfire somewhat uncomfortable.

“Yes, well… That is not up to us to decide what they eventually will grow up to be, or for what purpose”, the white jet argued hastily, setting the petri dish aside.

Starscream gave Jetfire a bitter look, feeling the bigger jet was evading responsibility by delegating it to higher-ups. At least he himself owned up to whatever devious activity he engaged in, albeit this time there was nothing of the sort in sight... yet.  

“Alexis Thi Dang taught me about humanity,” he then said, “how they believed their machines were influenced by themselves – they called this AI being biased, usually by training material or by the attitudes of the programmers which the machines then reflected. Humans also believed their machines could not distinguish between right and wrong, and even if the machines could, these wouldn’t care for adhering to human morals.”

Jetfire’s reply was a stoic, statuesque stare.

“My point is humans believed us to be different. That we have full autonomy – free will – and that we know the difference between right and wrong. But all we did was fight mindlessly until our species nearly went extinct.” Starscream shook his head.

Jetfire tilted his head. “It seems like you expect us to live up to human expectations and standards. They are an extinct race, Starscream. For the time being.”

Starscream gave him a sour look.

“It seems humans are important to you”, Jetfire added as Starscream turned around and walked off to Brainstorm’s lab.

“They were. They are all dead now.”

Jetfire watched the smaller jet shut the lab door behind himself.

 

 

Scorponok, the leader of the Predacons stood in front of his master, the Quintesson Admiral Lionheart – at least, that is what the being went by, as their Quintesson name was impossible to pronounce anyway – who manifested themselves as a tall, lithe, shining silvery-white robot-like entity with backwards bent hooved legs, a crest of golden ferns on top of hair made of platinum leaves that flowed all the way down to the being’s waist, two metallic palm trees with transparent leaves sticking out from their back.

And the optics – one an emotionless bright camera eye, the other one shining red light – appeared to be scanning Scorponok who did their best not to show any nervousness.

There was no visible sign that Admiral Lionheart’s extremely sophisticated and elegant demeanor concealed a curious, playful nature that loved to experiment on all sorts of things - all while being an immensely intelligent, ambitious military leader. Scorponok was wise enough to understand that one single mistake with this entity could evoke the kind of wrath that would make Megatron at his worst seem forgiving.

“Do not be fooled by appearances, Scorponok; this is merely my exo-cortex”, the Quintesson Admiral said with a faint smile, circling the Predacon with movements that resembled the swaying of trees in the wind, as if analyzing his every molecule.

 “I received an order from you to occupy and restore Crystal City”, Scorponok stated, “and we hired unemployed Decepticons and immigrants from the colonies to excavate and clean up the city. But you mentioned there is something specific you want us to search for?”

“Why, yes. A grimoire.”

Scorponok avoided giving off signs indicating the Admiral’s answer was too baffling for him.

“It is an ancient tome written by a Cybertronian scientist known as Jhiaxus. He was said to have left it in his residence in the Crystal City a long time ago. Another scientist, known by the designation Shockwave, was after that book before he died tragically. If the book was very interesting to him, it is certainly interesting to Quintesson science.” The Admiral flashed a smile showing off his metallic fangs.

“A book? You want me to find a book.” Scorponok appeared mesmerized.

The Admiral raised a metallic brow ridge. “Is there a problem, General?”

“No…” Scorponok looked down. “I don’t have a problem with your request. I merely performed an inward search in my databases that survived rebooting and reprogramming when your race rebuilt my chassis in transmetal form.”

“Do you remember who killed you and how it happened?”

“No. But I was told it was Megatron.”

Admiral Lionheart stepped closer. “We did more than rebuild your hull; we improved your intelligence, dexterity, upgraded everything. You think faster and more creatively than the Scorponok you were. That Scorponok is no more.”

“I was told I was a Decepticon”, Scorponok said. “But I don’t identify myself as one. I am not even made of the same materials.”

Admiral Lionheart nodded, grinning. “Good, good. The Scorponok you were had ambition and cunning, though”, they said, looking ponderous. “He had this plan of using a human baby as DNA storage for a Decepticon spark. You know what a Decepticon spark essentially is?”

“No.”

“It is the spirit and consciousness of an autonomous sentient war machine.”

“And I am a beast…” Scorponok looked at his own tail that ended in a stinger.

“Steps away from a mechanism.”

Scorponok was perplexed although he didn't show it.

“You will eventually see it for yourself, General. But be a good dog – or scorpion – and dig out that book for me.”

“Alright.” Scorponok was dismissed, still doing an inner search in his databases until he noticed the repeating concept of the Iaconian Archives appearing as a common denominator.

Dinobot, his Second-in-Command, stood guard outside this remote outpost in Altihex where square miles of shining cybernetic forests originating from the planet Quintessa covered the landscape.

“News?” the transmetal warrior inquired.

Scorponok looked into the darkening horizon.

“The Quintesson wants us to find a book.” There was confusion in his voice, and Dinobot checked his audials incase he had misheard.

“It must be a rare book, then”, he suggested.

“Oh, it is. I may have assumed that we’d be sent off to hunt down someone. Bring down the prey, you know. And instead…”

“A book. I see.”

“Basically the alien governor wants us to dig through Crystal City to find a book by some old bot named Jhiaxus.” Scorponok sounded frustrated more than anything. Then he remembered something.

“Or maybe… not. The Iaconian Archives must have something about it. We must find a list of every publication by the Cybertronian scientist; there must be a reference for something that he wrote that has been forgotten or lost for some reason, and that is what we are looking for.”

“I got it.”

“Then let’s go.”

The Predacons took their beast modes and strode off into the cybernetic forest.

 

 

Orion Pax was furiously baking energon cookies for the dinner party while Railgun and C-RAM fought over the leftover energon dough.

“Dumb tank!”

“Stupid truck!”

Orion had enough of the sparklings screaming at each other.

“Railgun! You are not allowed to shoot your sister with a nuclear warhead!”

“But she stole 3,38 percent more energon dough than I got!”

Fortunately Megaempress, the babysitter showed up to separate the sparklings and shove them to different rooms. However, she returned to the kitchen to offer her help in making dinner preparations.

“You and Megatron have lots of staff, so why do you insist on doing everything yourself?” the grey femme asked him.

Orion groaned; this was not a subject he wanted to discuss with a stranger like Megaempress. “If you want to help, there is energon pizza dough waiting to be put in the oven, those dishes over there need washing, and there’s a box of energon cubes that need to be melted…” he listed angrily.

Megaempress put a servo on her very curvy hip.

“Sounds challenging”, she remarked with a voice like honeydew.

Orion nodded while using his mighty servos of steel to make sure his energon cookies were perfectly shaped and aligned before putting them in the oven.

“I think I get it”, the femme then said, strolling past him to wash dishes while wiggling her aft at him, “you need to feel useful now that the war is over.”

Orion’s smokestacks activated like hydrothermal vents.

“Do you want to be useful or not?” he growled. “If not, leave.”

Megaempress presented him a salacious smile.

“I would love to be useful by relieving some of that terrible stress of yours”, she cooed seductively, “I think you need EM massage in a very particular place.”

“If I need to see a medic I’ll go to Ratchet”, Orion rumbled. “Or even Knockout will do.”

Megaempress laughed while posing provocatively.

“Can you show me your spike?” she half-whispered coyly.

“What?”

“I’ve heard it’s really big.”

“Go to your room. Right now.”

After Megaempress left, Orion cursed the high libido the femme clearly shared with her big brother.

 

The guests arrived later that night including Ratchet with Drift, Ironhide with Chromia, Bumblebee with Windblade, followed by Jazz, Perceptor, Nautica, Velocity, Jetfire, Wheeljack and Override. There were many Autobots who had declined Orion's invitation and having them replaced with Camiens and a Velocitronian was a clear signal to Orion that times had changed, although he suspected the bots who said no to him didn’t do that necessarily out of dislike of him but rather not wanting to go to what basically was the home of Megatron.

“Old friends!” Orion greeted them cheerfully with open arms.

“Optimus”, Bumblebee acknowledged.

Based on reading their EM fields, Orion realized the guests were indeed slightly nervous, very likely due to the presence of Megatron – who didn’t originally intend to host Autobots in his house but accepted that doing so was a way to improve relations between the factions. Both him and Orion also wanted to show off their sparklings.

“Such lovely girls!” Velocity admired them upon being introduced to C-RAM and Railgun. The sisters had been painted, polished shiny and covered in ice blue glitter. Only the purple Decepticon insignias on their armor seemed to make some Autobots squeamish around them.

Orion beamed with pride as Velocity, Windblade, Bumblebee and Jazz gathered to get a better look at the sparklings. The next thing the sisters started arguing which one of them could shoot further or punch an opponent harder.

“Oh, you know – they just take after their parents”, Orion explained awkwardly as Megaempress rushed to escort the girls to their rooms before they’d fire holes in the gilded marble walls or destroy Orion's expensive furniture.

Megatron ordered in a helpful flow of engex, the finest grade shanix could buy, and the tensions in the guests’ EM fields reduced in correlation to the number of drinks they enjoyed. Soon there were heated scientific debates between Perceptor, Wheeljack and Jetfire and more spiritually inclined discussions between Drift and the Camiens, while Orion was finally able to test his reconnection with his old Autobot crew. Sadly, there was still more awkwardness between them than he had imagined.

Up until Megaempress grabbed one of the ornamental spires in the dining hall and began using it for pole dancing. All optics were on her – her aft, to be precise – and Megatron’s little sister was taking in all the attention she could get no matter whether it was horrified or admiring.  

Orion stared in horror as Megaempress’ aft swung above their heads.

“My word!” Jetfire gawked. “Is this an anti-gravity experiment?”

“That’s one fiiiiine aft”, Ironhide whistled, inciting an elbow punch from Chromia.

Bumblebee was staring at Megaempress’ shapely frame as if petrified.

“Wow”, he finally whispered.

“Who’d known old Megs has a sister like that?” Wheeljack wondered.

 “That’s one juicy piece of metal alright”, Jazz commented.

Megatron was ogling his sister’s antics with mild irritation.

“Keep your panels shut!” he roared, but it was about to get too late because all the attention was only feeding Megaempress: she slid down the pole headfirst, legs akimbo, a crazed smile on her face.

The Autobots were staring at the silver femme like fresh energon.

Suddenly a loud bunch of Seekers led by Starscream entered the dining hall and began stuffing themselves with any foods and drinks they spotted.

“Nice party you’ve got here, Megatron!”

“Hey, Megatron’s sister is really hot,” Thundercracker pointed out and appeared to be drooling.

Even the sound of Megatron’s fusion cannon charging up didn’t immediately cause the Seekers to flee, but one can’t cram in a hall full of giant battle robots that will compete for available resources without having a battle sooner or later.

Drift took his sword out to fight Skywarp who was so on drugs that he teleported to the nearest precinct.

“This is a Primus-fearing home! Have some decency, vandals!” Orion Pax shouted in desperation, then holy fury took over him, lighting up his optics with sacred fire (the kind you get when burning magnesium) and then he took his axe out to chase Thundercracker, Ramjet and Dirge out of the building. While Thundercracker managed to escape, Orion grappled Dirge, ripped off his arm and used the Seeker’s limb to beat up Ramjet in the courtyard.

“STARSCREAM!” Megatron yelled at his former Second-in-Command before throwing him out the window.

Impressed by Drift’s elaborate duel with Skywarp, Ratchet retreated with the ex-Decepticon warrior to interface loudly in one of the upstairs guest rooms, and their joint noises disturbed Orion further.

“Why won’t they think of the children?” he rumbled when his sparklings and Bumblebee asked him innocently why there was moaning coming from upstairs and stormed the occupied guest room right in the middle of lewd activities – to be precise, just as he rushed in to tell the couple to keep quiet, he witnessed them performing something that humans would call tantric and stopped to stare out of sheer curiosity. After all, Drift was hanging upside down from the ceiling with his pressurized spike glowing in the dark like a beacon, and for some reason Ratchet had been tied up all over with a cable.

Drift and Ratchet were staring back at Orion with enlarged optics right when Drift ejaculated three drops of transfluid out of shock upon seeing him.

“Optimus… no wait, you don’t call yourself that anymore, do you?” Ratchet muttered, “please don’t do this to us, it’s not like you don’t do this with Megatron…”

“What? No! Megatron and I have held each other tied up countless times but it was strictly for war! And we certainly weren’t hanging from ceilings!”

Orion shut the door very quickly. Oh no, he gasped, had he just been given an idea for a fantasy that he absolutely had to try with Megatron someday?

Orion’s mood improved considerably at the dinner table as to everyone’s surprise, Megatron opted to toast him.

“To my unique, sweet Conjunx whose compassion saved our world and the galaxy itself, who has sacrificed himself countless times for our collective sins, who accepted me as I am when no one else would.” Megatron turned to look at Orion, producing the warmest smile anyone had ever seen on his face, raising his glass of engex, and then a service drone buzzed in to drop a small box in front of Orion. “To Orion Pax”, Megatron toasted, “the true royalty of Cybertron, my Queen.”

Gushing, Orion opened the box to discover a small blue diamond, exactly the color of his optics. He looked stunned. Looking back at Megatron, he figured Megatron had had enough of the jokes about his Conjunx, the rumors that Orion was merely a slave, a pleasure drone, or a concubine.

No; Orion was certainly the Queen of Cybertron; this was the message embedded in Megatron’s words, and in his gift, and the warlord obviously wanted to make it clear to everyone in the room that they indeed ruled Cybertron as equals.

“A token of my love and devotion,” Megatron declared.

"This is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever given me," Orion said, tearing up.

"I know."

The guests were staring at Orion in awe. Did Orion actually rule as the de facto Queen of Cybertron? Did he really have political power despite Megatron having won the war?

“I know what you are thinking”, Megatron told the guests, “that perhaps this is just for show. But Orion – when he was still Optimus - could have killed me, and almost did, not long before my victory over the Autobots. He agreed to spare my life because I asked him to. He was not making a mistake since the only reason the Decepticons won was the Quintesson support we didn’t even ask for.”

There was an uproar, whispering and rumbling. Megatron was basically admitting he was in power only nominally.

“After a long struggle I got what I wanted”, the King of Cybertron said, “but what I really needed had always been right in front of me.” He glanced at Orion so lovingly that nobody thought Megatron was even capable of such an expression.

There was a slow, impressed clap starting from Drift, followed by Ratchet clapping his servos, then the Camiens followed suite, then Ironhide and everyone else, even Bumblebee. Orion couldn’t believe his audials and optics.

His men.

They were finally accepting him again.

Him together with Megatron.

Megatron gave Orion a victorious look with his trademark devilish grin, but it was accompanied by something different – a generous, regal sense of pride of his gorgeous, powerful Conjunx.

Megatron was proud of him.

They really were equals after all.

 

Late in the evening when the guests were exiting the premises, Windblade told Velocity that the love and loyalty between Orion and Megatron could be felt in the air. “Megatron was so… romantic. I had no idea he had it in him.”

“Yes, I thought people are like that only on Caminus”, the Camien doctor replied. “He was so gentle and majestic, he had such an infectious smile and looked so happy to be there.”

Nautica overheard them, joining the conversation:

“I think being on the Lost Light really did change him,” she argued.

“I’m not too sure about that,” Velocity said. “Based on his poetry books I would say he avoids expressing the fluffier side of himself openly but it’s always been there. You know who is actually open about their fluffy side? Optimus… I mean Orion Pax…”

“Megatron must have hated it… up until the day when he accepted it in himself, but I genuinely believe spending time with us aboard the Lost Light forced that side out in the open,” Nautica claimed.

“Why?” Windblade asked.

“It’s a wild guess, but he was used to ruling an organization and being demoted to co-captain meant that he could no longer afford to throw violent rage fits if he didn’t like something. At least, not as often.”

Velocity was in deep thought for a while.

“Doesn’t that all mean Megatron reflects features that Optimus – Orion – hates or hated about himself, and hate being an attractive force, would pull them to keep fighting till even death could not do them apart? Until they gave up and decided to stay permanently stuck together.”

Windblade and Nautica looked surprised, perhaps even a bit terrified by this theory but they reasoned that if the two mechs weren’t deep down so much alike – equal – then the war wouldn’t have lasted so long.

It was another level of insidious stubbornness, an intractability that apparently only the Quintessons could outmatch.

 

“Megatron, there is something I would like to try.”

Orion’s earnest expression evoked the warlord’s curiosity. He leaned back on their luxurious berth with his massive legs crossed, smiling seductively.

“Color me intrigued”, he replied.

For a moment, Orion appeared concerned about something, and this caused Megatron to tilt his head, questioning.

“Reading the Academy’s journals triggered memories in me,” Orion began carefully, “memories of the Matrix of Leadership and what having it taught me.”

“Carry on.” Megatron was now threatened by the thought that there wouldn’t be any interfacing tonight, much to his chagrin.

“A key feature of the artifact is that it grants access to the opinions, world view and experiences of past Primes. It also grants access to the world they lived in.”

“You mean… time travel?”

“In a way”, Orion mumbled, looking so adorably awkward that Megatron chuckled, “and memories of what I experienced with the Matrix of Leadership are forever stored in my backlogs even if I no longer carry the Matrix.”

Megatron stood up, approaching him slowly. “You want to show me something.”

“Yes.”

Megatron gently grabbed Orion by the arms and flared up his EM field in a way that sent Orion’s spinal strut tingling in excitement, then leaned forward closer to his face. “Show me,” Megatron grinned.

“The sparkbond should enable you access into my very memories”, Orion clarified, taking a hold of Megatron, and leading him to the berth. “Tonight we are going on a journey. I need your help in finding an answer to a question that bothers me greatly but which I cannot yet paraphrase.”

Megatron felt Orion do something very unusual with their sparkbond as the younger mech embraced him tight while both sat down on the berth; Orion focused hard, asking Megatron to connect to one of his internal files.

“Wait, what? Really?” Megatron’s HUD notified of an available decryption key to the specific file in the torus topology of Orion Pax’s spark; only that Megatron was required to use a rho algorithm to complete the decryption via factorization. Once he was done, he zoomed in on Orion’s sapphirine optics and his mind began descending somewhere very, very far as he gently pulled Orion on his chest…

 

In the beginning, there was a fairly innocent pamphlet.

The pamphlet ended up in many servos at the rally in Kaon where the famous gladiator Megatron had held his longest and most attended speech so far. Starry-eyed policemech known for his sanguine temper, Orion Pax, couldn’t take his optics off the massive grey mech with unparalleled charisma. And when he finally went home and read the manifesto that would change the face of the entire planet, his shocked conclusion was:

This mech thinks about things exactly as I do! How…?

And the ruling class was afraid of Megatron.

It hadn’t crossed Orion’s mind before but… he knew then it would fear him too, even if his job was to maintain order - the status quo- in the realm.

Megatron saw that he was looking directly into Orion’s thoughts as they had passed back in the day – and he was in awe.

Getting to know Megatron involved lengthy, passionate discussions on citizenship and equality, the corruption of the Senate, and Megatron’s poetry – oh, when Megatron finally started to recite his poems to Orion over pints of engex, Orion was a bit surprised at first.

“Sometimes I get asked why a gladiator writes poems”, Megatron said, looking at him directly in the optic, "without realizing that questioning a gladiator’s capability or motives to go beyond their respected field of work is just part of the Functionist narrative where your job is your entire personality and vice versa. I do not think that applies to you either, for example.”

Megatron was surprised to learn that prior to becoming a cop, Orion Pax had been a data clerk at the Iaconian Archives - and was actually highly educated, something that ate Megatron’s esteem a little as he had been built to be a slave in the mines.

Cut to the neon lights of Iacon, Orion and Megatron walking in the streets with Soundwave and Starscream acting as the latter’s bodyguards further away. Orion and Megatron got along really well by this time – they realized they enjoyed each other’s company and their endless conversations, jokes, and laughter – but Orion had an inkling that Megatron’s secret operations were more than political activism. He didn’t openly question his friend’s tactics and methods yet; the trust that had evolved between them was precious to both of them.

And it dawned to Megatron that Orion harbored an inner fire that wasn’t just idealism or confidence; there was a clear, strong mind backing it up, as well as endless compassion for the downtrodden.

He learned that Orion did absolutely nothing that wasn’t for the greater good.

 

And then one night, after several pints of engex, Megatron’s silica lips pressed against Orion’s. The strength of Megatron’s EM field alone immersed Orion as he succumbed to the gladiator’s passion. Megatron himself couldn’t resist those big, innocent optics gazing at him in adoration, and in Orion’s EM field he sensed something he wanted so bad… it was cosmic, ethereal, otherworldly. And Orion’s response was so sweet and gentle that it was outright maddening to Megatron as his lust grew.

They prolonged their hungry kiss, locking lips repeatedly until the aching in Megatron’s panels became too much; his pressurized spike sprung out of its housing, and as Orion felt the huge thing nudge the seams of his inner thigh, he was thrilled; was Megatron really going to spike him?

But there was a name standing between them.

Senator Shockwave.

“You’re still with him, aren’t you?” Megatron suddenly growled, then sighed, letting go of the younger mech and pulling away. Orion looked helpless and disappointed.

“I-I am, yes.”

“The question is: Are you going to stay with him?” Megatron’s expression was ironclad, his voice matter-of-fact as the grey mech stood up to leave the warehouse where their meeting took place, under the watchful eye of Soundwave.

“Megatron!” Orion shouted after him, but the gladiator walked off into the shadows with his loyal henchmen. He was torn, unable to think, desperate and about to tear up…

Megatron traversed Orion’s memories with an increased understanding as he held the younger mech close. He noticed Orion was trembling a little.

“Senator Shockwave,” he frowned. “That matter sorted itself out soon after, however.” His own recollection of how events were mostly unfolding brought a grin on his face. “As if the universe was bending to my will!”

“You are somewhat right about that…” Orion’s low, guttural rumble from where his face was smooshed against Megatron’s chest had Megatron burst out in laughter.

“It wasn’t that funny, Megatron.”

“I know.”

 

Policemech Orion Pax felt the conversation between him and the Senator was a farewell but he could not explain why until he heard Shockwave had been betrayed, captured by his fellow Senators, and taken away. Initially his young fury took over and he stormed the Senate to declare his and Megatron’s mutual opinions on the situation at hand. Later, in anguish over uncertainty, Orion sought to speak to his friends and colleagues at the precinct but knew that ultimately only one mech could truly understand how he felt right now, even if the subject was a delicate matter between them.

He rushed to find Megatron. His circuits were on fire, telling him that the events currently unfolding regarding Sentinel Zeta Prime, Megatron’s Decepticon movement and Shockwave were out of control, and his job was to maintain order…

The Decepticons’ guerrilla attacks on the state had certainly upset Orion, and when confronting Megatron about them, the gladiator-turned-opposition leader and mob boss insisted he didn’t want to hurt Orion with his actions but claimed there was no choice if they wanted change in the society.

“Shockwave’s Empurata and the Shadowplay he underwent shocked you pretty badly,” Megatron acknowledged, caressing Orion’s back reassuringly.

“Yes…” Orion was shaking again.

Shockwave’s rejection of Orion following the procedures done to him hit the young policemech like a punch in the face but felt much, much worse.

“Ouch!” Megatron made a noise of discomfort as the memory was shared with him in all its pain. “Alright, had I known what it was like for you back then, I could have been easier on you later on.”

“You were too self-centered, too determined to be that understanding.”

“Hah, very true.” Suddenly Megatron’s expression saddened a little.

He could read from Orion’s memories that the mech believed Megatron had started the war because of him.

Orion now looked back at him equally sad.

Megatron sighed. “Orion, I did not start the war because of you”, he said.

“But you blamed me for the war for aeons! Yet it was you who turned against me after we entered the Senate together!”

Megatron blinked slowly. “I am not denying doing those things, Orion. But the real reason for the war was nothing interpersonal nor abstract like my hatred for the Senate. In fact, the reason is so ridiculous you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Tell me!” Orion ushered him.

“Oh alright. I got into a bar fight and got arrested. That was literally the last straw… as the fight started because of one.”

“A straw?! You started the war because of a straw?!”  

Megatron was amused by Orion’s confused look. “Indirectly. It was the whole business with being arrested over an insignificant little bar brawl and then fights in prison after that which really set me off. I had enough of being… policed around, you know?”

“And then you used me to conquer the Senate…” Orion muttered.

Megatron looked genuinely sad about it. “I am deeply, sincerely sorry for all the ways I wronged you,” he said, “but I felt you were stealing my ideas and passing them as your own to the likes of Alpha Trion. Also, I could see you were getting really good at persuading crowds and attracting followers yourself so I could no longer view you as a loyal supporter or a sidekick.”

“But I loved you! And I still do!” Orion fumed.

Megatron pulled him in for the softest, sweetest kiss Orion had ever experienced.

    

Chapter 4: The Idealized Cognitive Model

Summary:

Alexis Thi Dang's consciousness is resurrected as a brain emulation while the Cybertronians discuss the secrets of the Quintessons. Orion Pax has a terrible nightmare.

Notes:

If this chapter feels like it was inspired by Evangelion, well it probably is.

After that night, Orion and Megatron became a fixed point in Cybertron's history, becoming the two halves of a whole. Orion Pax became the symbol of a new era in which Cybertron was no longer a slave to the laws of physics, but instead was a leader in a new alliance of worlds that cooperated through their own interconnectivity. The two of them became a shining example of what could happen if two people fell in love.
And it was as simple as two people falling in love.

 

"As we assess the situation at hand, it is conducive to our goals that these human embryos be sent to their home planet," Megatron argued in a meeting including Orion, Jetfire and the Quintesson Admiral. "Here they could sustain only on expensive imported oxygen that our own atmosphere lacks, drinking imported water and food..."

"Yes, I know..." Orion sighed, looking sullen. "I have been thinking about this - where they would live, and how - and it saddens me that we cannot let them live in optimal conditions in their natural surroundings as humanity's war against machines left their planet barren."

"Orion Pax, what you are looking at is a real-world simulation in the making", the Admiral commented cheerfully, receiving an odd look from Cybertron's big red Queen Consort. "Did you know that there was a widespread belief among humans that their world was really a simulation?"

"I have heard of it, in fact," Orion admitted slowly, his expression becoming suspicious.

Now Megatron turned the gaze of his scarlet optics to the Admiral. "Quintesson, your race scavenges universes for novelties but also seems to create them by intention. Is this what you are referring to? Because I'm not completely unfamiliar with technology that enables it..."

"Oh, you mean Brainstorm's briefcase and the Lost Light's quantum engines?" the Admiral laughed. "I am aware of such amateurish extravaganza; they lack the refinement of design, attunement to detail, and most importantly, the knowledge to control the undetermined data inherently causing noise in whatever it is that you wish to achieve in the probability domain of your dreams." 

Orion and Megatron were staring at the silvery-white being with metallic ferns and leaves for hair and metallic palm trees for wings. 

"Over and over again you found out that there were elements beyond your control that more or less ruined your original intentions, and only through luck did things not fall apart entirely", the Quintesson chuckled, "You found out the hidden cost of successfully preventing the Autobot-Decepticon war: no Megatron, and a Functionist-controlled Cybertron that poses an existential risk to everything else in the universe."

"But what does that have to do with Project Homo Deus?" Orion asked the entity with his arms folded. 

Admiral Lionheart tilted his head and seemed highly amused for some reason.   

"You're in the middle of an alien war, and you want to know what that has to do with a fictional project that probably never even happened? There's something the humans would call the Dirac Sea... We Quintessons call it the 'spaces between universes', to others it is known as the Realm Beyond Time. Our race has mastered the use of it, regardless." The Admiral produced a curious, slightly amused smile when perceiving Megatron's doubtful expression and continued, "We can travel between realities at the speed of thought, but only if we know where to look. That's how we were able to conquer the galaxy so easily, you see. We chose our targets and simply went there. But the problem is that the Dirac Sea is so vast that there are always multiple realities to choose from. And if we were to choose the same one twice, that reality would become unstable. The fabric of reality would tear and be permanently unraveled in that place. Thus, we had to be careful. The moment we took Alexis Thi Dang to our home world, she was placed in a different simulation. It was a good simulation, one we knew could contain her for a while, and we chose it without hesitation. But we knew there were others. We just had to wait and see what would happen, and then decide where to go next." 

"And that's where your little project came in?" Orion asked, intrigued.

"I didn't have to do anything," Lionheart said, his smile growing. "The humans are content with the simulation. They are satisfied to be free of the constraints of physics and biology. And they didn't ask for anything more. We simply watch as the humans experience life. We saw the birth of civilization, the invention of culture and language, the development of art and music. And we saw the rise and fall of great empires. And all of it was perfect. The humans are able to create in their minds all the wonders they have imagined, and then create more. They built civilizations, learned languages, created art, music, and poetry. They created science, philosophy, and religion. And they did it all without limitations, without any knowledge that their lives are just a simulation. It is a beautiful dream, a dream they never would have known if not for us. They never would have seen the beauty of their own creations. They would never have realized the extent of their own power. But none of that mattered to us. We simply watched, and enjoyed."

"Enjoyed?" Megatron asked, his face darkening. "You enjoy watching the death and destruction of species? That's what you're telling me?"

"No," Lionheart said, his voice soft. "I'm telling you that we don't take pleasure in the suffering. We don't watch the humans struggle to exist. We watch them struggle to exist without suffering. And that is enough for us. We watch their lives as they had created them, and we watch them as they chose to continue them."

Orion and Megatron exchanged confused looks. Orion thought about the Quintesson's words for a moment, looking disappointed.

"Quintesson, from two thousand remaining human corpses the University has grown a dozen embryos that are about to be born any decacycle now. I will have them sent to Earth to establish a human colony," he said with a rebellious tone.

"I see. You want your own theme park. Sounds almost interesting. I am sure it will be a big hit among the slug people from the Horsehead Nebula."

The Admiral's mocking tone caused Orion's smokestacks to vent, and Megatron could tell the former Autobot leader's deeply held personal sense of justice was being questioned to the point in which Orion was about the fire his ion blaster at the alien entity. 

Don't do it. You can't afford it... yet.

Megatron shook his head when Orion turned to him and then glared at the Quintesson icily.

The Admiral's curious expression didn't flinch. 

"We see the humans experience love, loss, sadness, and joy. We see them struggle to exist. And that was enough for us."

 

 

 

Afterwards Megatron explained to Orion when they were rolling towards the University in their tank and truck alt modes that the Quintessons had lost interest in the project as soon as Starscream had been allowed to get involved as it turned out the Quintessons had arranged a digital copy of Alexis Thi Dang's neural wiring for Starscream and Brainstorm to work on. 

"Doesn't that mean they are going to build an android from that brain data?" Orion asked his Conjunx while driving ahead of him in the streets.

"That's what it seems. I picked up from the Admiral's words that they used this 'Dirac Sea' to travel back in time to retrieve the brain data from which to rebuild the consciousness of this human that Starscream wants so badly to see again." There was scuffing heard from the vocal harmonizer within his tank hull.

Orion was silent for some time. "There was something else between the lines he was suggesting, and he was playing a game with us to see if we could figure it out."

"That the Admiral's species creates universes? I did figure that out."

"It's not just that. It may well be that this place - not just Cybertron itself but everything around it - is just their simulation they enclosed us in, and they have countless others." Orion's voice was sad and frustrated. "We cannot rule out such a possibility that my hunches are accurate when they say we really are just pawns in their game."

Megatron's irritability towards the Quintessons was growing once again. "Their strange interest in Starscream and his little android project over you annoys me, you know," he grunted. "Shockwave worked with brain emulations back in the day but he didn't bother with those of humans."

"Really? I thought there was nothing he didn't work on during his long and complex existence."

"I happen to know for a fact that the Quintessons are very interested in his work for this reason." Megatron transformed back to his robot mode upon arriving at the University's gates with a sour expression on his face as he thought about Starscream's will superseding Orion's in the eyes of the Quintessons. 

Orion and Megatron joined Starscream, Jetfire, Perceptor, Velocity and Nautica in the University's laboratories initially to examine the developing human embryos.

"I hope this is worth the effort", Megatron muttered as he gazed upon the vats of artificial uteri which featured thirteen embryos. 

"There were fourteen. One died", Velocity sighed. "The thirteenth is showing signs of... deformities? I don't think the lower limbs are supposed to grow like that."

Everyone turned to stare at Orion. Perceptor pointed at the apparently malformed embryo. 

"The Quintessons have made it clear to us that they find Starscream's and Brainstorm's brain emulation project a more worthwhile investment than this", he stated.

Orion's optics darkened. "The tentacled ones put us in their simulation - this where we are right here, right now - but it's up to me to choose what to do with the possibility of bringing back an extinct race whom I swore to protect. If there is one thing the Quintessons cannot force me to give up..." His gaze brushed everyone else in the room, "...it is my oath."

Suddenly the laboratory seemed lit by a bright blue radiance emanating from every seam in Orion's hull and the bot seemed even larger than he actually was.

"I am the protector of their world. I am the guardian of Earth and the human race," he declared solemnly. 

Megatron watched him carefully. "Alright, if you insist. Shall we have a look at what's cooking up in Brainstorm's lab?" he suggested.

Brainstorm himself wasn't present but the scientist's assistant Starscream hesitantly agreed to escort the group to the classified facilities where one of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet - of Quintesson origin, for the matter - powered a 4D model of a human brain. 

"How did the Quintessons get this?" Megatron suddenly asked his former subordinate. Starscream startled, taking a few steps back and then gave his former employer a simultaneously seething and victorious look. 

"They knew whom they were looking for, you know?" the jet sneered. "They knew where and when Alexis Thi Dang lived. The Quints possess technology that uses the Dirac Sea to track whomever or whatever it is they are searching for. They pinpointed her in the past, put her on surveillance and recorded her brain data until this model was possible--" Starscream waved his servo at the 4D creation, "-- and it depicts the actions of her every neuron such that we can predict the model's thoughts, emotions and future activity."

"You don't sound too excited, Starscream," Megatron pointed out. "Is she not living up to your expectations?"

Starscream looked angry. "The Quints cannot upload the brain emulation into a biological body," the jet complained, "because humans are not like us; they are a psychosomatic whole."

Megatron examined the 4D brain model and then read the agitation in Starscream's EM field. 

"Even though the consciousness does in theory exist outside of the physical hardware as they say," he scoffed. "So, what is your real issue, Starscream?"         

What is your real issue?  

Megatron's words seemed to be fumbling Starscream's neural network as the tank observed the jet, yet without genuine interest in Starscream's reaction or the lack thereof; rather Megatron considered the situation between them tedious at best and a hindrance to annulling the Quintesson occupation which he sought. 

"I'm not going to talk about it!" Starscream screeched at the warlord and defiantly left the laboratory.

Megatron shrugged. "He'll be sulking in some corner to plot against me, I suppose," he chuckled and turned to Jetfire, pointing at the human brain emulation. "Can you please explain what seems to be wrong with it?"

The scientist seemed to petrify. "I do not know much beyond what Brainstorm told me about it", Jetfire mumbled awkwardly. "Besides, it's second hand information from the Quintessons. They said that while you do get an accurate theoretical representation of the original brain down to measuring the performance of each neuron, it is fundamentally a new version that will develop its separate way compared to the sample data or the source material."

"Hmm..." Megatron was eyeing the brain emulation suspiciously. 

Orion Pax looked displeased by what he had seen so far. "Based on your description that isn't really Alexis Thi Dang, is it, Jetfire?"

The big white jet looked helpless. "It is Alexis Thi Dang's brain model and consciousness, Orion. But there is much unknown about the workings of..." Jetfire had a hard time searching for the right word. "I meant that we Cybertronians can track every single detail about ourselves from our source code. Humans have something called epigenetics, changes to their DNA over time that are passed to the next generation. But organics seem to have a proverbial gap between the sentient and non-sentient parts of their brains which is alien to us, and this gap seems to cause much irrationality and unpredictability in them."

"That's peculiar," Megatron remarked. 

"Why do you think there is such a gap?" Orion asked Jetfire.

"It has to do with the very old parts of the brain that not only precede the notion of consciousness, but any sense of distinction between the organism as separate from its environment. We discovered that humans evolved from chordates that possessed four eyes, with a pair of them atop of the head, granting these creatures an all-around vision. We suspect that the side effect of this otherwise great ability was confusion regarding where an organism ends and the environment begins, so evolution on Earth began favoring the paranoia caused by dead angles in the vision with the initial fusion of the top pair into a single third eye and later its integration into the structures of the brain as the pineal gland."

"Why?" Orion saw a passing expression of disgust on Megatron's face.

Jetfire thought about a conclusion from a biomechanical perspective. "I believe these structural changes forced chordates to protect themselves better against the hazards of the environment when they began... feeling... like being inside something looking outside and not quite knowing what was behind all the dead angles around them. Another factor must have been the increasing complexity of the environment taking a toll on the brain. Too much allocation of brain capacity for processing visual cues may have taken too much space from other functions such as hearing. But as you know, evolution has no goal."

"I do think it does", Megatron grunted, producing a knowing smile. "Organic life is the fertilizer dung that gives rise to the seeds of technology."

Now Orion gave him an alarmed look. "An unsettling analogy with your history in Pink Alchemy---" he started.

"Orion, I must remind you that without Pink Alchemy your precious humanity would be extinct permanently as Wheeljack wouldn't have had the agenda to store fresh human corpses for later use..."

Then they heard shrieking from a corridor nearby, and Velocity's concerned voice.

"Orion! Megatron! Starscream is in trouble."

"I'm just trying to get an energon bar!"

Orion peered around the corner. "Starscream got stuck in a vending machine."

"So, he's still stealing candy from vending machines." Megatron facepalmed. "I was just thinking about all the times I had to hide my energon cubes at the office."

 

Later Orion Pax took the sparklings shopping in downtown Iacon with Megaempress even though he considered many of its gigantic malls inappropriate for young bots. The city had been turned into a gaudy shopping center with its entertainment district by the Quintessons who on the other hand had erected copies of Golden Age monuments like plastic ornaments to commemorate something that used to represent the peak of Cybertronian civilization.  

The group stopped when Railgun was pointing her digit at the store window of a paintjob workshop featuring model armory in various flashy colors. 

"Oh?" Orion watched both sparklings glue themselves on the window to pine on the selection of paint, polish, wax, rims and vehicle covers for sale.

When they returned home, Megatron stood there on the doorway, staring at the result of the shopping trip.

"A pink and baby blue paintjob - with glitter? And WHAT is that paintjob on Railgun... rainbow?! This is a Decepticon family, you cannot just...!"

The sparklings C-RAM and Railgun threw a hissy fit at their other parent as a response. 

"I like pink!" C-RAM screamed and stormed into her room. Orion gave Megatron an apologetic look.

Megatron shook his helm. "They are meant to continue our legacy, so I certainly hope this is just a phase for them."

"They are their own persons at the end of the day," Orion pointed out. "If our sparklings want to stay pink their whole lives, I think we should allow it."

"But to rule this land as pink Decepticons..." Megatron muttered while swigging hot energon from his cup.  

Orion pointed at the skyline view from the dining hall window. "Have you not seen this city? This is not Iacon as I remember it. Old Iacon was a dirty, grimy place despite the stories of grandeur, but I was proud to be defending it from injustices and crime. Iacon today is all about... consumerism!"

Megatron burst out laughing. "You don't say - that all the Quintessons really want us to do is to... keep shopping?"

"So we won't pay attention to them pulling the strings behind the scenes," Orion puffed. Suddenly his optics brightened. "Mind you, I went to this vehicle cover boutique that sells covers for both indoor and outdoor use. I bought us these matching red velvet indoor covers with gold embroidery..."

Megatron let Orion tie the red vehicle cover around him as a cape, agreeing to place an identical cloth on Orion's shoulders. 

"I also bought the best polish they had, new rims for myself..." Orion continued excitedly while pulling out shiny new things from his subspace. 

Megatron realized they were turning into bourgeoisie snobs - something the Quintessons probably wanted: placid, too content in their prosperity and wealth to complain about their planet being turned into a mall and giant battle robot theme park.

"Megatron?"

"Yes?" Megatron turned to admire Orion in his vehicle cover cape, blinking as he realized how much the younger mech resembled the Golden Age Primes with the cloth on.

"Clothing was very popular on Earth, and I had an idea. I asked the car sheet vendor to manufacture something specific."

Megatron shrugged. "If we are going to popularize the use of clothes on this planet, I'm up for it. I don't like dust nor the cold biting my seams either."

"I like the idea of us being the proud owners of Cybertron's biggest pants." Orion was beaming.

"By Primus...!"

"I was only joking. But I would actually like a pair of jeans."

 

 

Starscream, Jetfire, Perceptor, Nautica and Velocity were discussing the recolonization of Earth as ordered by Orion Pax when Starscream noticed Jetfire was clearly too preoccupied with something on his datapad to pay attention to the conversation.

"Do you mind? We're trying to resurrect an extinct species here!" Starscream screeched, interrupting the white jet's absent-minded scrolling.

"Oh, I was just reading this science journal." Jetfire waved his datapad. "Orion Pax seemed to be very interested in this, so I presumed it has something to do with the projects he commenced. Very old material containing publications by Senator Shockwave and Jhiaxus!"

Mentioning these names brew some excitement among the attendees.  

"Jhiaxus writes that Quintesson programming languages are far more advanced than Cybertronian, and in such are extremely high-end and comparable only to poetry."

Starscream looked quizzical. "So what?" he asked with an irritated voice, "What does that have to do with our projects?"

Jetfire examined the text in front of him, turning to Starscream. "Jhiaxus says here that the Quintessons programmed something called the Idealized Cognitive Model with such a language, resulting in source code that looked like a poetry book when he read it. He writes it was the most amazing, beautiful code he had ever seen," the white jet said, looking questioning. "Transporting a human brain emulation into an android body is fundamentally analogous to what the ICM stands for."

"What the hell is an Idealized Cognitive Model?!" Starscream snapped. 

Nautica glanced at the smaller jet in disbelief. "You studied Cognitive Architecture, didn't you? How can you not know?"

"It was a very long time ago!" 

Jetfire's expression didn't reveal his slight cringe. "It is knowledge about categories in semantic frames. In this instance, the ICM is discussed in its applied form which is why it immediately brought your android project into my mind," he explained. "It is linguistics, but as the Quintessons interpreted it in programming. In other words, they programmed something tremendous around an ICM but it's not specified what, other than it being an actual 'cognitive model'. Then there is some commentary about this by Senator Shockwave that I don't quite comprehend, because he refers to this ICM being a 'he', as if it was a real-life somebody. But an ICM in itself does not represent a certain somebody; it is just a frame of knowledge. Senator Shockwave is therefore saying that an ICM can be - or can become - a somebody."

"What does it supposedly have to do with Alexis Thi Dang?!" Starscream yelled impatiently. 

Jetfire remained stoic. "The human brain emulation is a type of ICM. While it is the closest thing to the human it was modeled after, there are features that will remain an enigma, and in addition, most importantly: once activated, the model will diverge from the original source material over time through experience", the white jet kept going.

"What does that mean for Alexis Thi Dang?" Starscream hissed. 

"Hard to say. It is best explained through an example in which the human brain emulation is uploaded into many different platforms at different places and times under different circumstances. Each will evolve along a unique path and eventually become a different character altogether."

"Are you saying I could have multiple Alexis Thi Dangs, like the time when I made a horde of clones of myself?!"

Now Nautica and Velocity narrowed their optics. "Don't get your hopes up", Nautica warned the jet.

Perceptor turned to Starscream. "It would be more akin to you splitting aspects of your personality and having them become their own character. I recall you once did that."

Starscream beamed. "Oh, yes! Slipstream and many other Seekers are in fact based on me even though they hate to admit it!"

"But most of them look like you because you convinced them to get a remold to help you evade officials while you were covering up your tax fraud in Vos..." Nautica reminded him. "Windblade told me about it."

"Well duh," Starscream scoffed. "But I really want just one Alexis Thi Dang. Let's upload her to an android body and we'll see how it goes."

"I admire your optimism", Velocity commented. 

"Sadly it seems like a vanity project and a novelty", Nautica remarked. "At worst such a creation will not be accepted by Cybertronians nor humans as it is neither."

"Then it's no different from me, is it?" Starscream pointed out sneeringly. 

The others watched the jet with their EM fields expressing an array of emotions from curiosity to confusion.

 

 

The night sky above the neon lights of Iacon displayed hues of indigo and purple as Megatron watched Orion recharging in his arms. The grey warlord listened to the gentle purr of Orion's engines, enjoying the contentment and bliss he felt through their sparkbond and in Orion's EM field. The moment of lovemaking was a beautiful blur, with Orion's thoughts and emotions overwhelming him. He was able to experience every second of it, reliving it over and over, and it was all perfect.

He knew Orion was genuinely happy with him - in fact, there was nowhere else he'd been happier - because Orion knew on a subconscious level that with Megatron by his side he didn't have to worry about all the things that had kept him under the weather as an Autobot leader.

Little did he know that his recharging beloved was descending into a nightmare when one would least expect it. 

"...enough?" Megatron said. "Not me. I watched these humans suffer. And I took pleasure in it, for what it was. And now, I'm going to show them what suffering really is."

"No, you're not," Orion said, his voice strong. "You're not going to show them suffering. You're going to let them live. And I'm going to let them live."

"The only way that's going to happen is if you leave this simulation," Megatron growled, raising his fist. " I'm the only one who can force you out."

"Then force me out!" Orion yelled. "Do it! Because if you don't, I'll stay here until you do. And I'll make sure I'm the only one who can get you out. I'll make sure no one else can get you out. I'll make sure that no one else can ever get you out. And that's suffering. That's suffering. I'll watch it happen to you. I'll watch it happen to all of us. I'll watch you experience the pain of your choices, and I'll take pleasure in it. That's suffering. That's what I do. And that's what you'll let me do, because that's the only way you'll ever get free."

"You're wrong," Megatron said. " You're wrong about everything. And I'm going to show you what happens when you are."

"We'll see," Orion said, his face darkening. "We'll see. But right now, I've got work to do."

 

Orion woke up from his recharge with a sudden startle, remembering that Megatron was in deep recharge right next to him.

 

Later at the breakfast table, Megatron eyed him carefully under his grey helm, analyzing his EM field, quietly stirring the hot energon in his cup. Orion sat unusually far away from him, and Megatron detected strange nervousness in his Conjunx. There was certainly something wrong.

"Might I suggest it would be about time you go see a psychiatrist, Orion? I've been concerned about your erratic behavior recently. It's not the Orion I knew," Megatron eventually said without looking at the mech, continuing: "I would not be surprised if you needed mnemosurgery, really."

"What?!" Orion sat back in his chair as if to avoid Megatron even more without actually leaving the same premises. "I am fine," he insisted.

"No you are not. Your EM field cannot lie to me, Orion. You are undergoing an internal struggle of some kind; I am not sure what it is about - the Quintessons, Senator Shockwave, our sparklings, my sister, your old crew? Maybe it's about all of them??"

Orion suddenly stood up. "You didn't believe me when I told you I am a Quintesson experiment!" he shouted. "You dismissed me as if I was a lunatic or a sparkling!"

"So, was such a claim literally stated in that peculiar book you were reading at the University?"

Orion looked down, remaining silent for some time. "Not explicitly. But there lies commentary by Senator Shockwave that I know refers to me in this context."

Megatron evaluated Orion and wondered why there was so much inner turmoil going on within Orion to the point that it seemed like the mech was about to project it all upon him. Where did the anger come from? Why was the inner rage suddenly there? 

"I did wonder if I had done something wrong without knowing, " Megatron said calmly, "but I am not sure what you are seething about. I did not initially believe you because I needed to see some evidence to understand where your claims are coming from. I want to know how Senator Shockwave knew you are what you say you are. You can bring me that journal if you like, but I--"

"You think Senator Shockwave was lying?!" Orion yelled. "He would never, ever lie especially about scientific matters!"

Following this statement Orion left the room angrily, leaving Megatron to ponder the consequences of the failure of their union.

"It's a bit too late to pine after your ex-boyfriend, Orion," he muttered while sipping hot energon from his cup.

Or was it, really? If anyone it was Megatron who knew the potential of modern technologies. 

He frowned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Chapter 5: The Curse of the Primes

Summary:

Alexis Thi Dang's brain emulation is uploaded into an android body, and Starscream attempts to re-establish the once lost connection they shared. Orion and Megatron get invited to a party where they have a massive argument that threatens to end their union as well as the peace between factions and the stability of their society along with it. Orion leaves Cybertron to oversee the construction of the first human colony on Earth since humanity's extinction.

Notes:

This chapter may or may not be influenced by Westworld.

References IDW's "Transformers: Autocracy*

The human brain.

It is believed to be different from that of other animals, and it is different - yet not because of its potential in terms of intelligence, but because unlike animal brains, it is not open to active, continuous sensory input from the environment which is then objectively processed, but on the contrary, evolved to protect itself from all this information and instead opted to enclose itself in a crystallized world of ideas, beliefs, concepts, dreams and visions.

Stories.

As if this grotesque flesh sculpture trapped itself into a simulation to avoid paying attention to everything real out there that is there to undermine its existence to focus on countless hypothetical or imaginary threats. 

Humans thus evolved to survive by telling lies and stories to themselves and to others since common beliefs aid co-operation.

You only have to think about the economy and our collective belief in money.

The power of money stems from our belief in it.

 

Alexis Thi Dang, or more like a copy of her consciousness in an android body crafted for her specifically by Wheeljack, Ratchet and Velocity, lifted her eyes up from the tiny datapad in front of her - Optimus Prime's assigned team of Autobots had successfully crafted something akin to schoolbook material from hundreds of years old computers found on Earth, having laid unused and dormant for ages after the last living humans had abandoned high tech and gone extinct.

The outcome was a collection of books titled 'The Best of Humanity' - apparently having been Optimus Prime's idea - that was meant to teach the resurrected human race about itself, by itself: There were inspirational quotes by Greek philosophers and Roman historians to excerpts of holy texts from various religions to a vast collection of texts on mathematics, chemistry and physics. 

But on the first page there was a quote by Chinese philosopher Teng Mu:

 

'Empty space is like a kingdom, and Earth and Sky are no more than a single individual person in that kingdom.

Upon one tree there are many fruits, and in one kingdom there are many people.

How unreasonable it would be to suppose that, besides the earth and the sky which we can see, there are no other skies and no other earths.'

 

The quote had been carefully selected by Orion Pax himself to remind the (human) readers that they belonged to a galactic community now; that their own great thinkers had been correct about a number of seemingly outlandish estimations about things out in space. 

"Any questions following today's lecture on Neuroscience?" Nautica's voice woke up Alexis from her thoughts.

"No... Well yes -  why does the jet designated Starscream act like we know each other?"

Nautica eyed the android girl curiously. Being uploaded into an android body with ivory-hued polymer skin and decorated with a wig made of artificial reddish brown fiber glued atop Alexis' cranium with industrial strength epoxy didn't make her human but not Cybertronian either, but the Cybertronians had agreed to educate her to become human, if anything, by teaching her the surviving knowledge of the ways of humanity so that she may pass the knowledge onward to the biological humans that would come after her.

"I think you need to speak to Starscream himself about that. If it wasn't for him, you wouldn't exist. Again, that is."

Alexis sat in silence for some time. "Another question: When will I be sent to Earth with the biological humans?"

"Once Orion Pax grants permission," the purple Cybertronian replied, "and that is hardly anytime soon, as your training began only recently. I have been instructed to ensure you get educated properly on both Cybertron's and Earth's history and why you are here." Nautica glanced over to the doorway of the classroom, and two pairs of curious optics - a light blue one belonging to C-RAM, an orange set belonging to Railgun - caught Alexis Thi Dang's attention.

The two sparklings - one in a pink glitter and baby blue paintjob, the other one colored like a rainbow - entered the room looking at the android in amazement. They were several feet taller than her, but Alexis was capable of reading their EM fields such that she understood them being essentially children.

"Is that a human?" Railgun yelped, pointing at her and looking at her older sibling. 

"It looks like a Pretender," C-RAM remarked with suspicion. "I have no clue why our parents want us to do this. I mean - look at it. It's ugly."

Alexis stood up from her chair, fuming. "Who are you calling ugly, little brat?" she shouted. "You got some nerve, with a paintjob like that...!"

"It talks!" Railgun gasped excitedly. 

Alexis folded her arms, frowning. "You thought I'm some kind of an animal? Well you yourselves are outdated vehicles!" she hissed back.

Nautica got between Alexis and the sparklings before the argument would escalate to something physical. 

"It was Orion Pax' personal wish that you three learn together," the Camien explained calmly. 

The sparklings glared at her. "Learn what?" C-RAM muttered before giving Alexis an evaluating look that didn't seem too impressed.

"The ways of Earth, and the culture and customs of Cybertron before Alexis is sent to live in the new colony on Earth."

C-RAM groaned.

Nautica turned to Alexis. "These two are C-RAM and Railgun. They have pretty famous parents," she pointed out politely. Not only was it uncommon for Cybertronians to reproduce together, there was no such thing as inheriting titles and privileges; however in Nautica's homeworld the sparklings' other parent was practically worshipped as a deity, and she wondered if the offspring were special too.

"Huh? They were... born?" Alexis was in disbelief. "But nobody here is born. Everybody comes from hotspots or was Constructed Cold or maybe came from protoforms."

Nautica produced a friendly smile in the face of a Cybertronian 'the birds and the bees' talk.

"It is usually because uniting two sets of code can be really tricky, and it is never obvious which one is the code donor and code receiver. Especially if two bots are Conjunx, they would rather not fight over it - as usually everyone wants to be the code donor. The donor's code takes precedent. So people choose not to replicate."

The sparklings took seat in the opposite side of the classroom from where Alexis sat. Railgun started sniggering, and Nautica interrupted the young bot.

"Care to share what's on your mind, young Railgun?" 

"I think our parents fought for millions of stellar cycles to donate their code to each other." Railgun started wheezing and nearly fell off her chair. 

C-RAM facepalmed - a gesture she had witnessed Megatron doing very often in situations like these.

Alexis looked like she was both stunned and disgusted. "That's like those deep sea worms that used to live on Earth..." she commented, but this aroused the sparklings to protest angrily. 

"Our parents are not some worms, you stupid human! Our parents are the greatest bots ever to have existed on Cybertron!" C-RAM yelled.

"They are Megatron and Optimus Prime!" Railgun confirmed proudly.

Alexis stared at the sparklings. "No way," she gasped, "that has got to be a joke. Even if it was true, why would they send their kids to study human civilization with me?"

"Optimus - Orion Pax - is the guardian of Earth," Nautica explained amicably, "and he wishes to build a peaceful co-existence between our race and humankind. Last time it did not work out so well, and..."

"Yeah, I remember from the history classes how humanity decided to destroy AI by using AI despite being dependent on AI. Not a particularly smart move."

"Indeed, it wasn't." Nautica nodded. "Wait for a moment; there is someone at the door..." 

Then Starscream entered the classroom, his optics brightening upon spotting Alexis. 

"It's that jet our parents hate," Railgun said. Starscream flashed a smile at this notion and returned his attention to the small android.

Alexis seemed nervous. The jet was strikingly good looking; elegant, flamboyant and dashing, with a presence that made her feel odd. 

"May I?" Starscream looked at Nautica.

"Be my guest," Nautica responded cheerfully. Starscream held his servo towards Alexis, smiling and seeming eager to pick her up.

Alexis wanted to scream 'Who are you and why do you think you know me?!' but at the same time she saw it. 

The strange sadness behind those optics. 

Touching Starscream's digits carefully, she allowed Starscream to pick her up and place her on his shoulder before the jet walked out of the room.

"It's been awhile," Starscream said hoarsely, but seeming happy in a relieved way as he strode across the University's hallway with Alexis holding onto him with her dear life, "and you must think all of this is new and bizarre? I am glad to have you back, Alexis. More glad than you can ever imagine."

But I am not who you think I am! Alexis bit her tongue. She desperately wanted to correct Starscream's obsessive beliefs about her, but at the same time hesitated to disappoint the jet who was deluding himself like this. 

"I know you think you don't remember me," Starscream said, "but as far as I know, the Quintessons were able to record your brain data from our interactions by using retrocausal data retrieval and broadcasting."

"I'm not too sure it worked," Alexis mumbled, then startling when she felt a change in Starscream's EM field that indicated shock, fear, disappointment and anger.

"What do you mean, Alexis?"

Proceeding to correct herself, Alexis patted Starscream's armor. "Don't worry, Starscream! It will all come back to me any day now."

He wants to believe.

He wants to believe so desperately that I'm her.    

And above all, he abhors rejection so much that it downright scares me.

 

 

Orion Pax and Windblade exited the meeting of the Board of Iacon City Development together when the Camien turned to him. 

"Orion, I would like to invite you and Megatron to the Caminus-Cybertron Friendship Association's annual soirée; there's music and poetry, and the Mistress of the Flame performs a ceremony for the honor of Solus," Windblade said. 

"Oh... Poetry? I am sure Megatron would like that," Orion commented politely. He had much on his mind right now, but turning down party invitations didn't seem right especially when there were many Autobots he still wanted to contact that had been staying away from him.

"It's settled, then." Windblade transformed into her jet mode and took off into the sky.

But Orion couldn't get his mind off of Senator Shockwave's writings. There was a big mystery - the size of Orion himself - which required solving sooner or later, lest it consume Orion's sanity as he feared.

There was something akin to the Curse of the Primes - after reaching a certain power threshold, a Prime would easily become paranoid and fearful of losing control on the society they had a grip on under societally turbulent times and end up resorting to extreme methods to maintain control. Orion assumed giving up on the Matrix, his title, submitting himself nominally under Megatron's rule and bearing the Decepticon insignia would prevent such a development, but alas:

What if the traits were under the surface regardless whether one was a Prime or not? After all, not just anybody could become one to begin with.

You had to have a certain... disposition. 

Orion hated the idea immensely that there were some inherent tyrannical tendencies within himself - after all, he was only here to help people, to aid them in need and bring justice into a cold, cruel world. That he sometimes came up with plans that would possibly require the sacrificing of his entire crew without their knowledge or consent couldn't really be a moral issue when it was all for the greater good.

And for Orion, everything was about the greater good. 

At least, he was hoping. 

 

A Quintesson ship - probably Admiral Lionheart's - hovered over Iacon as Orion Pax arrived on the building hosting the Caminus-Cybertronian Friendship Association. In truth, while he had forwarded Windblade's invitation to Megatron as well, he had been avoiding the warlord for some time now, and Megatron was too much of a workaholic to do anything about it. 

"Good to see you, Optimus... I mean Orion", Jazz greeted him on the yard with Ironhide, Wheeljack and Bumblebee standing nearby.

"Old friend!" Orion announced, doing the traditional Cybertronian greeting with the black and white mech where both palms are placed on those of the other.

The Mistress of Flame from Caminus stepped in around the corner, having been observing Orion.

"That Quintesson ship... It's a harbinger of things to come. Orion, I can't even begin to predict what the future will bring. All I can do is my best to create a better one."

"You can't predict the future?" Orion asked, his optics widening. "Not that I necessarily expect anyone to."

"The future isn't written yet, Orion," the Camien told him. "It can be changed by a single decision."

"A single decision?" Orion asked, taken aback.

"Yes. A single decision, or a single mistake. That's the beauty of it."

"I'm not sure I follow you..." Orion said, slowly.

"I'll show you in a moment. First, though, I think we should go to the soirée. Megatron will be there, and he'll be looking for you. I need you to be there, as well."

The event itself seemed fairly harmless - featuring cheerful immigrants from Caminus reciting poems from their homeworld, singing and dancing - but someone had invited Thundercracker to present one of his theater productions which was a musical about two warlords falling in love, and this hit disturbingly close to home such that Orion had to dry heave in the janitor's closet until the show was over.

"How dare he?!" Orion puffed afterwards but his mood improved slightly as he spotted Elita One among the crowd and decided to go talk to her. 

Megatron had kept his distance at the party but when it dawned to him that Orion wanted to speak to Elita One in private - that was, especially him not hearing the conversation - anger arose within the depths of his spark.

"Go home, Megatron," Orion rumbled as Megatron began to detest Orion's unexpected need for privacy. 

And that triggered it.

"I want a divorce!" Megatron yelled, turning around and storming out of the party.  

"Megatron, I'm sorry, I can explain..." Orion started. A large number of people had stopped to listen to him, and the warning buzz of the situation being recorded by onlookers amplified his voice. "Elita, I have to go. Something terrible is happening!"

"What?" Elita One yelled, turning around. The room had become silent as all optics were now pointed at the two of them.

"I'll tell you on the way," Orion said, putting his arm around Elita One's shoulders and leading her out of the party.

"I can't just leave," Elita One said, her optics large and terrified. "I have to know what's going on."

Orion sighed and said, "You can. But first, I need you to do something for me."

"Anything," Elita One told him, and Orion tapped his own chest briefly as if to signal something. And so Elita One put her servo on Orion's chest and closed her optics, and he felt her digit lightly tracing the outline of his spark. 
And then he felt it.
It was like a faint memory, a kind of ghost imagery of his consciousness evolving over time alongside changes taking place in his own source code. 
Elita One was smiling as Orion pulled her close to him. Elita One could feel something in the air. She didn't know what it was, but she could feel it. 
The sense of being watched was growing stronger. It was subtle at first, but then grew stronger. She opened her optics and looked around.
No one else in the room seemed to notice it, but it was there.
A presence, watching, waiting. It was trying to communicate with her. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. Should she tell Orion? Should she just keep quiet?
She decided to keep quiet.
After all, this was his spark, not hers. And he was the one who had asked for her help.

Elita One pulled away from him, feeling a sadness in her chest.

"When I touched your spark, I saw what... Megatron was trying to show me," Elita One explained. This confession surprised Orion a little as he looked at the pink femme in front of him. He had wanted to ask her about her memories of their youth together and whether she had knowledge of things Senator Shockwave had said or written back then that they might have talked about together. 

"Stay safe," Orion told her. 

"You too," Elita One told him, hugging him tightly. "I love you, Orion. I always have."

 

But suddenly Orion was lost in his own memories, his own youth and the big, lingering question concerning the nature of his origins and consciousness. 

"I must go." Orion felt as if the ground was crumbling under him as he transformed into his truck mode and drove home.

 

 

Megatron sat in his chair at his home office with a cup of hot energon in one servo and Senator Shockwave's academic journal in the other, looking glum. 

This was possibly the worst day in his life, the final defeat at the end of a hard won victory: The end of his and Orion's union. 

Why couldn't that bastard just fix his mental issues, unless he thinks going back together with Elita One will miraculously solve them?

The Idealized Cognitive Model. Those words were staring back at him in the journal, and he couldn't take his optics off them. In his mind it was too late to save their relationship, but he could at least try to understand what had led to Orion dismissing him like that after he had done his best to be a good spouse. 

"Why, Orion? Why did you do this?" he grunted, anger and sorrow in his weary spark. 

His digit moved over the text written by Jhiaxus:

"Sparks form us; we are born from them.

When your consciousness began to form, it grew out of the spark that formed everyone that came before you and me. 

This is why when we die, we return to the Matrix where we all came from.

But there is only one who will be free.

The only one who will decide his own destiny."

"This can't be..." Megatron felt frustration rising when his mind began understanding how his current state was a direct result of suppression stemming from having initially lost the war to the Autobots and playing second fiddle to Rodimus, only to achieve a fake Decepticon victory and thus becoming a puppet to the Quintessons who had engineered this. 

There was little, if any, autonomy or free will in these choices. 

And by nature, his ego would allow nothing but absolute, total victory, so to deal with this contradiction of states he had begun telling himself this was what he truly wanted...

But seeing a bunch of alien overlords looking down upon him certainly was not what he wanted, yet this was his reality! 

 

Orion arrived at the palace and immediately went into one of the guestrooms; in a building complex that large it wasn't hard to avoid Megatron, unless the latter would actively start looking for him. He had a headache; it had been a long night, and he was in dire need of refueling. But Orion's optics were open. And he was home. Orion quickly ran through the events of the last few hours and came to the same conclusion that Megatron had.

"I'm the only one."

Orion's optics were open. 
And he was home.

When he finally gave in and went to the royal berthroom, he found Megatron sitting on the berth looking tired and miserable.

"Oh, you decided to show up after all," the warlord muttered. "I read that damn science journal. It seems the truth is even worse than I could have ever expected."

Orion stopped on the doorway, appearing sad and confused. 

"You were right... We are trapped in a real-world simulation crafted by the Quintessons," Megatron scoffed to Orion's horror, "and from which only you can break out, but I don't actually know why. I fought for self-determination from the mines of Tarn, only to realize that I've been nothing but a puppet..." He chuckled in a self-deprecating manner, giving Orion a vague look. 

Orion was going to ask Megatron if he was actually breaking up with him but got interrupted when they both heard a strange buzzing noise coming from outside.

"What was that?" 

"I'll have someone check it out," Megatron muttered and sent a message via his internal comms to his personal bodyguards Barricade and Motormaster. Turning back at Orion, the grey warlord eyed him in a manner that gave off disappointment. 

"Remember what you were like before the war, when you were still just a cop - and Zeta Prime's lapdog?" Megatron asked him while tapping his digit slowly and briefly looking down. "Your reputation among the civilians wasn't exactly shining bright like a thousand stars, if you will."

"What do you mean?"

"I am tired of this, Orion. This game where we always end up in square one. You recalling every bad thing I have ever said and done. Accusing me of whatever has ruined your mood." Megatron sighed deeply. "I know what you did back then, Orion. You beat up unarmed suspects."

"I..." Orion wanted to deny this but knew Megatron wasn't wrong. He slouched, his shoulders sagging as he sat in deep silence. 

"You had much... anger back then, and it's still there. It's always been there. Perhaps you were very good at channeling it constructively," Megatron suggested, "but for some reason the war made you keep your cool. The war made you resilient, strong, dignified! You used to be overconfident until things didn't go your way and that was when you became insecure."

Megatron shifted himself closer to Orion who still wasn't looking at him. "Why do you think I used to beat up Starscream, my other subordinates and Autobots?" he hissed. "Because things didn't go my way and I needed someone to blame. Just like when you were beating up those suspects you needed someone to blame for your own incompetence."

Megatron placed his servos on Orion's massive shoulders. "When you looked at me, you hated what you saw because you saw your own tyranny in me!"

Orion began trembling. "No..." he shook his helm slowly, his rumbling voice seeming very distant.

"Stop being delusional."

Megatron straightened up and marched to the doorway. "You need to come to terms with yourself, Orion. Great changes are taking place on Cybertron as we speak; we can't afford to have your mental issues ruin everything."

Orion looked up, now sad and worried.

"We need a time out," Megatron stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "Do what you want but don't get in my way. Again."

Orion nodded. "I...see. Then I shall take off to Earth with my Autobots, whomever I can round up, to help humans rebuild their civilization."

"Excellent idea."

Orion watched Megatron leave the room, feeling remorseful and disoriented. 

What had he done?

  

  

 

 

 

Chapter 6: The Realm Beyond Time

Summary:

The Quintesson leader gives a lecture to Megatron and the Cybertronian researchers on the nature of consciousness.
Orion Pax and his band of Autobots travel to Earth to build a colony for humans and meet Maximals who reveal a strange secret. Starscream and Megatron have a small confrontation.

Notes:

This section is influenced by Interstellar.

The part discussing Starscream's ghost experience is based on this video:

'How Physicists Created a Holographic Wormhole in a Quantum Computer'
https://youtu.be/uOJCS1W1uzg

The entity known as Admiral Lionheart of the Deep Space Quintesson Fleet held an emulation of a Cybertronian spark afloat above their silvery hand in front of Soundwave who observed the orb cautiously.

"Behold, a Cybertronian spark: Storage for potential and kinetic energy, mass as energy, made of irregular lattices repeating in time in an interval - not unlike a pulse, but with a million pulses rather than one, forming a distinct pattern like a heartbeat. Like clockwork in its lowest-energy state where the entropy of the system is fixed. To truly comprehend this thing is to treat each energy level in it as a torus and analyze the levels as they overlap. Only then you can see the symmetry."

"Sounds difficult," Soundwave said, "and I am not even a Cybertronian."

"You are to me. I designed you to be my eyes and ears in this matter." The Admiral watched the former Decepticon Communications Officer with curiosity. "I view the spark from a tesseract and calculate the polynomials formed by the overlapping levels made by the spark's each torus. You know what that enables me to do?"

Soundwave remained silent.

"You see, my little spy, I can track the spark's spacetime location and the changes happening to it over time as it evolves and develops new properties and represses others," the Admiral explained, "and in practice, allows me presence inside a Cybertronian's mind."

They sent the spark floating above Soundwave's head. "Tracking the evolution of a certain specific spark has been a lifelong interest of mine," the Admiral added.

"Why?"

"There is power in darkness," the alien replied cryptically. "Very literally." 

 

 

 

"You're not going to believe who is visiting our University today," Nautica whispered to Velocity in the busy hallway. The Camien doctor stopped, giving her a curious look.

"Brainstorm? We never see him anyway, I have no clue how he gets his job done," Velocity shrugged. 

"He made Starscream do all the dirty work but also some of the hard stuff as well."

"Real science?"

"Starscream is a surprisingly good scientist," Nautica revealed but looked suspicious, "though I've been hearing he gets information from the Quintessons via Soundwave that isn't dissipated to anyone else involved in the project, and last time I confronted him about it he just made a rude gesture and flew away."

"Interesting."

The Camiens turned around and were both amazed and horrified at the lithe silvery figure standing there with one glowing red eye and the other shining cold white light.

"As I was about to say..." Nautica said, her voice faltering into an embarrassed mumble. 

"I am here to meet Starscream and Alexis Thi Dang in person. As you know." The Quintesson Admiral in their Cybertronian exo-cortex form had a presence so alien, so terrifying despite their physical beauty that the Camiens felt the need to run away screaming. It seemed the Admiral could sense their thoughts and emotions, producing an amused smile before walking past them down the hallway in a manner resembling branches bending and swaying in the wind.   

Velocity blinked. "There's something familiar about them. There shouldn't be, but they remind me of someone I know."

"That was the Governor of the Quintesson Colony of Cybertron themselves!" Nautica gasped.

"Don't remind me that this planet is their satellite state again," Velocity sighed, "although it implies Megatron is a puppet ruler."

"It shouldn't be our problem; the Quintessons don't care about Caminus."

Suddenly both Camiens heard a voice that seemed to be made of white noise coming inside their own heads.

"That's what you're hoping, Camien." 

In horror, Nautica and Velocity saw the Quintesson Admiral look back at them from the other side of the hallway, still smiling.

 

Starscream was jittery and Alexis felt fidgety in the auditorium where Megatron also sat with his two bodyguards, Motormaster and Barricade, all waiting for the sleek figure that entered the premises with an uncanny silence. There was a gentle but strange tingle coming from the flowing crest made of platinum and white gold leaves atop their cybernetic head. It almost seemed like the Admiral was muttering something to themselves. Starscream knew better than to interrupt whatever was happening, so he chose to continue staring at Alexis Thi Dang. She was beautiful, and he knew it. 

Megatron looked his usual glum self upon seeing the Quintesson Admiral but he could tell from his bodyguards' EM fields that they felt a disturbance by the alien energy signature which was registered as an error in their HUD. He himself didn't fear the Admiral but understood why others did, and there was a detail hidden in his deal with the Quintessons which he secretly worried about: That the Quintessons wanted his firstborn daughter C-RAM to work on some project of theirs which is why she had been sent to take specialized courses in engineering meant for older sparklings.

It harkened back to the days when the Cybertronians had worked as slaves for the Quintessons, and having once been a mining slave himself, this angered Megatron but he felt forced to keep his deep dissatisfaction to himself for the time being; the Admiral had simply stated that Cybertronian morals shouldn't be projected to a completely alien race that was also more advanced and that the Quintessons did have their own set of morals which viewed slavery as a normal state among others.    

But Megatron nodded at the thought as if he fully accepted it and was interested in seeing what the Admiral would do next, when he felt a familiar and unwanted sensation.

"Starscream, my old friend, what brings you to my humble abode?" he croaked at the jet who sat further away as the Quintesson climbed upon the podium to start what looked like a holographic 3D presentation at first. 

Starscream turned around, looking sour when realizing Megatron was mimicking Optimus. "I see you left your wife home," he sneered. 

Megatron grinned briefly but said nothing. 

"Greetings, war criminals," the Admiral declared, "I believe you want to know why you were called here today." 

Starscream and Megatron then noticed that the University's researchers had quietly gathered into the back of the auditorium, including Brainstorm. Soundwave sat alone in the furthest corner, probably recording everything as usual. Megatron grunted disdainfully when spotting the stoic mech; they were on different sides these days.

"Today I am giving you a lecture on the nature of time and consciousness which should prove to be useful in your projects on understanding and developing cognitive architecture. I trust you are all familiar with the concept of a simulated reality, a reality that is not the 'real' world but rather an alternate one created by a powerful computer? Well, my dear, the discovery of the message that could be sent to and received from the real world was a rather big deal to all of us. In plain astrophysics, we are talking about entangled particles whose connection can be turned into a tiny wormhole for sending and receiving data with the use of negative energy. But this is not the interesting part of the story, the interesting part is that this technology allows you to send and receive data without any noticeable loss of information."

"How...?" asked Nautica carefully. 

"This is all a result of the simulation hypothesis: We Quintessons believe that reality is a simulation, or rather, every possible reality is a simulation."

Megatron looked grim thinking about what Orion had said about these things before he left for Earth with his merry band of Autobots. 

"You are asking me to believe that the Quintessons managed to create a simulation of our reality, including sentient lifeforms such as ourselves? I admit, this is beyond me, but it makes perfect sense to us.  So I shall take your word for it."

The Admiral was beaming. "Now, we come to the interesting part: Time," he said. "I have been asked to explain to you why you will not be able to travel back in time with the use of the entangled message."

Megatron rolled his optics. "We all know that time is not linear, we all know that time is a non-linear system of probability distributions."

"But this is not the interesting part," the Admiral claimed, "the interesting part is that we can send messages into the future with the use of entangled particles."
"If you send an empty post card into the future, what makes you think that we can send actual information?" Nautica asked.
"I'll show you." The Admiral turned to Soundwave. "Soundwave, please play back the message that was sent from the future."

The audio message began playing, and the Quintesson turned to the researchers to explain. "This is a message that was sent to myself, Optimus Prime and the other leaders, and to the members of the Council, on the day they received the message. This message was sent from a tiny wormhole that opened in our reality, at a specific time in the future." The Admiral looked at the researchers to see if they understood what he meant.

Perceptor raised a servo. "So, they had received the message before it had been sent?"

The Quintesson admiral nodded. "Exactly. And if this message is a post card, then it means that the future is a simulation, and that we are living in that simulation."

The Cybertronian researchers were giving each other looks of disbelief, some appearing disheartened, others perplexed.

"It's time for a change in perspective," the Admiral continued, waving his servos in the air such that it triggered the holographic representation of a Black Hole: two openings with a wormhole-like structure in between. "In theory, a Black Hole is where spacetime ends as we know it - we call it the Entropy Maximum for this reason - but for all practical purposes, our perception of time--- "

"Is irrelevant." Megatron interrupted.
"Or rather, it is perceived as irrelevant by those within the simulation," the Admiral said, grinning.

"You're not really here, are you?" Megatron muttered.

The Admiral's metallic silver palm tree wings spread, their leaflets changing shape to resemble two semi-transparent umbrellas. The movement was completely silent, fluid and quick, and suddenly the Cybertronians realized the Quintesson didn't only look and register so alien it was surreal; it was that the Admiral seemed to be the only real thing in a universe made up of blurred pixels.

"Correct. I am in - and from - another future where Cybertron was destroyed and Cybertronians went extinct, and the Quintesson society disintegrated into chaos and anarchy." There was an odd nostalgia in their voice now. "My primary duty has always been the protection of the Quintesson race and restoring its future. We create, develop, discover, assimilate. Yes, we do also enslave and destroy if it suits our purposes because why not? Who exactly is going to take us to the military court for it? As you see, this is a military operation and I am in charge of it. But alas, give a look at this tesseract."

The audience watched in astonishment as the Admiral displayed several dozens of stacked holographic cubes each of which featured Alexis Thi Dang engaging in various mundane activities but at different ages, places and times. It was as if they were all watching a multiversal television.        

"That's me?!" Alexis gasped with widened eyes. 

"Accurate. When we combine gauge theory and mathematical physics, what we otherwise call a soul or consciousness is treated as a point in space that travels a distance of n number of events which becomes the time at a rate which is the 4th dimension. It is not treated as something that lives and dies." The Admiral pointed at several time cubes in which Alexis in fact appeared to be dying in various ways from a car accident as a young adult to illness in venerable age. 

The Cybertronian researchers were staring at the holographic footage in confusion and disbelief.

"The key is, the consciousness is five-dimensional. As you can see, when viewed from the fifth dimension - the tesseract - time and the fourth dimension - rate - are a physical plane. The consciousness takes all these paths in different universes, evolves in different ways over time depending on the choices one makes or other circumstances. It dies in a few universes but continues existing in others which means there is a fair chance the consciousness doesn't die at all. There is a nonzero probability that it has an afterlife in another universe, but it's usually a lonely existence..." 

The Quintesson's gaze turned to Starscream, "...unless one gets stuck between two universes, existing in the tesseract for prolonged periods of time."

"What?" the jet scoffed upon meeting the Quintesson's intrigued optics. "You mean when I was a ghost?"

"Precisely. Organics sometimes have an out-of-body phase when that happens to them, but mechanicals can stay in that mode for much longer and learn to manipulate it until it becomes akin to lucid dreaming. But like dreaming, you probably don't remember much of what you saw and experienced."

"I do! I was able to go back in time to possess bots!"

The Quintesson grinned at Starscream's confident response. "But did you change the timeline? Did you negate your own existence?" he inquired.

Starscream sighed. "I tried, and I saw Megatron and Galvatron fight far in the past - they tried to cancel each other out or something - but I'm still here so..."

"Let me elaborate: By using negative energy to turn entangled particles into tiny wormholes, your consciousness went as qubits to create at least one new timeline, as did Galvatron and Megatron," the Admiral pointed out, smiling happily. "But you're still here, and Megatron is still here because your premature deaths would have caused a paradox that would destroy the multiverse!"

The audience gasped. Starscream and Megatron were glaring at each other suspiciously.

"That's totally something Megatron would do!"

"No, that would be typical Starscream."

The Quintesson Admiral was chuckling.

His race found the Cybertronians entertaining for a good reason. They were unpredictable, and the fact that their actions could lead to different realities, good or bad, was both fascinating and fun.

He wondered if this was the sort of entertainment Megatron would come up with.

Probably.

 

 

Bumblebee found Orion Pax coiled up in a fetal position deep in the Autobot barracks at their new Terran headquarters in what used to be Las Vegas.

"Oh, not again, Optimus! Stop doing this, you're making everybody worried," the yellow scout sighed.  

"I know," Optimus said. He let out a long, low groan. "It's the state of this planet... It's worse than I expected. For the humans - not to us, that is."

Bumblebee admitted Orion was right. "Yeah, I did see Wheeljack's stats alright. Like, the oxygen content on Earth has reduced, the ozone layer has taken damage from whatever chemicals the man-machine war caused to evaporate, the seas are anoxic, there are continuous massive dust storms everywhere - in other words, the planet has become just about as habitable for humans as Mars."

"Oh come on, it ain't that bad," Jazz shouted from the next room, "Earth has no sharp rocks everywhere like Mars."

"And you can farm algae, fungi and yeast here," Wheeljack added, "the surface of this planet is wrecked but the underground caverns are good to go."   

"But the planet's atmosphere is a mixture of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and argon," Bumblebee said.

"The underground caverns hold more oxygen than what I measured on the surface," Wheeljack dismissed. "We can grow Orion's humans down there. Yeast and algae will suffice as food sources for them." 

"But not here", Orion rumbled, "nor anywhere near the equator. Their colony has to be built on the continent that took the least damage..."

"Antarctica?"

The Autobots gathered to stare at their leader who now sported a cryptic half-Autobot, half-Decepticon insignia on his armor as if he couldn't decide which team he was on but the Autobots felt it was a typical Optimus Prime compromise, like throwing the Allspark into smithereens or starting a family with Megatron to save the species, or whatever excuse he had given for such actions.  

"Under the deep continental ice there is plenty of water," Wheeljack acknowledged. "Now, we have thirteen human embryos in plastic bags you call artificial uteri waiting to be born..."

Orion stood up, watching his team solemnly. "I'm afraid we have to keep them there for much longer than I hoped for."

"What?" Bumblebee yelled.

"I cannot let them see and experience what this planet has become."

"But we brought them all the way here with a spacebridge..."

Orion waved his servo to silence the scout. "Wheeljack will build a system to grow and feed yeast and algae while the artificial uteri are to be enlarged to accommodate growing bodies. As for their minds..."

"You're not saying? You can't possibly mean it, Optimus!"

"There is no other way." Orion shook his head, sad. "I feared it would come to this. But we must wait for the right time to let them out into the open and that time is not until we have terraformed Earth to once again accommodate human life."

Bumblebee was staring at his boss. "See, no wonder I had become suspicious of you!" he screamed. "You're a Decepticon now! Acting like one!"

Orion put his servo on the yellow bot's shoulder. "I am sorry if I failed you..." he rumbled.

"You failed humanity! You failed the Autobots!" Bumblebee stormed out of the headquarters, fuming and pumping his fists before transforming and driving off across the ruins of what once was the Vegas Strip.

The rest of the Autobots watched Orion carefully. The leader looked miserable, a pale wreck of his former self. 

Cyclonus stepped forward. "I need to talk to you", he rumbled. The other Autobots nodded and moved out of the room.
"You should not be doing this, Optimus", Cyclonus said, "you are endangering us all. And by all, I mean all Cybertronians."

"I know; Megatron shared your concerns." Orion wiped dust off his helm; it was everywhere and nearly covering his vision. "But I shall not quit. I will do what I believe is right. And you enlisted for this mission out of your own volition, Cyclonus. No one's forcing you to be here."

"I am a relic of a bygone age, and sitting around in Tetrahex with Tailgate and Whirl..."

"...didn't provide you with enough meaning?"

Cyclonus was silent.

"Then know this: I am very familiar with your sentiment. More than you will ever know." 

Orion walked past the ancient warrior who let out a quiet curse in Old Cybertronian. 

 

"Optimus--- Orion, we've got somebody coming through the spacebridge," Ironhide pointed out a while later as Orion was mulling in his dark thoughts. The Autobots watched the activation of the spacebridge at a distance, spotting two unfamiliar looking figures with unknown energy signatures.  

"What...? Beast machines?!"

Airazor and Tigatron arriving via the spacebridge in their beast modes had some of the Autobots feel uneased; one obvious reason was the association of beast machines being henchmen and servants of the Quintessons.

"Airazor, maximize!" the first one shouted, changing shape to robot mode.

"Tigatron, maximize," repeated the second figure.

Orion and his team gathered around the two rather uncanny looking robotlike beings. "So you're the new scouts?" Orion interrogated them. "We were expecting Autobots."

Tigatron and Airazor exchanged concerned glances. "True, we are scouts but not Autobots," Tigatron confirmed. "We're from Eukaris, one of Cybertron's former colonies."

"We were sent by the Admiral to aid the Autobots, however," Airazor stated, "Our beast modes are specifically designed to maneuver in very difficult terrain, and we consume very little energon - all of which must be synthetic. We have inbuilt energon refineries for processing organic matter into synthetic energon so we don't need to tax your energon cubes."

"I apologize if I appear rude but... what are you? Usually beast machines don't talk - nor do they have robot modes," Orion asked them awkwardly.

Tigatron and Airazor looked at each other in embarrassment. "We are not the slave beasts used by the Quintessons," Tigatron confirmed, "Among them, very few are given language processing abilities like the one we have." He was staring at Orion in a manner which made the Autobot leader appear confused.

"It seems you don't remember him," Tigatron said quietly, looking down. 

"Remember whom?"

"Optimus Primal, if you will. When the Ark crashed on this planet a very long time ago with you and your crew aboard, it was the Maximals who saved you from being exterminated by the descendants of the Decepticons. What happened was the timeline was split in two - one where you were killed and another where you were saved."

"That created and fulfilled a causality loop on a Mobius Strip," Airazor explained. "Which prevented the universe from collapsing." 

Orion was staring at the beast machines with widened optics. "Optimus Primal? Who is that?" 

"The Maximal leader who saved you in the past." Tigatron gave Airazor a look begging for support.

"And where is he? I'd like to have a word with this bot."

"That's a bit of a problem..." Airazor glanced at Tigatron again as if to say 'He won't believe us'.

"...as Primal doesn't yet exist."  

Orion was ogling at the beast machines with suspicion but their sincerity and honesty seemed genuine. Baffled, he marched forth and back for some time trying to process this very strange information while his men watched the beast machines very carefully.

"You're trying to convince me that some guy who doesn't exist saved my life when the Ark first crashed even though I don't remember anything of it?" 

"Well, you could put it that way. As a matter of fact, many of those involved in the rescue mission don't yet exist," Airazor admitted. 

Orion's circuits seemed to be overheating. "Have you two by any chance been spending time aboard the Lost Light? Because that sounds like one of Rodimus' idiotic adventures..." 

"Let's not confuse him any further," Tigatron suggested to Airazor.

The Autobots watched the Maximal pair follow Ironhide to the command center, their EM fields radiating uncertainty.

 

 

Starscream and Alexis sat outside in the University's courtyard trying to align the stories they had made up inside their heads about each other, trying to convince themselves and each other to believe in these stories.  

"So... you were dead but traveling freely through space and time?" the android girl asked the jet, her face twisted in a grimace of disbelief. 

"I was banned from becoming one with the Matrix. I have a mutation - a bug in my code - that doesn't let me die like the others. Isn't that just stupid - having an error in you that makes you immortal?" Starscream laughed, "It's like, how can that sort of thing be an error? But it is."

"Yeah, it does sound ridiculous," Alexis agreed, shoegazing. 

"However I'm not sure they can find the bug. The code is like the story of the Matrix itself, it's all in the timing, in the order things happen." 

Alexis watched the flamboyant jet get up on his pedes and pace in hectic circles. "You really did all those things I was told you did, right?" she asked carefully. "Being a high ranking Decepticon commander - Megatron's second-in-command? Ruling Cybertron after the Autobots won?"

"Hah! I sure did, and it's great someone acknowledges my achievements." Starscream beamed in glory for a quick nanocycle. 

"Then why... did you give it all up?"

Starscream turned his head towards the girl, now looking slightly glum. "To answer that I probably have to look all the way back to when I first joined the Decepticons," the Seeker replied slowly. "You see, I and Megatron were not always on bad terms; he made me second-in-command over Soundwave and Shockwave because he recognized my..."

"...insatiable ambition?"

"That's right!" Starscream looked joyful again. "In the Autobot ranks that kind of ambition totally goes to waste because you'd always stand in the shadow of Optimus Prime," he sneered contemptuously, "unless you do what Rodimus did and get as far away from him as possible with your own army of Autobots so you can be the star of your own little Primus-forsaken vessel in the periphery of the galaxy. But they are both essentially nothing but cult leaders these days."

"Why do you think you and Megatron had a falling off, then, if he saw your ambition from the start?"

"Megs liked to pit his subordinates against each other to fight over his attention and approval," Starscream complained. "I saw the game he was playing and didn't exactly like it - Soundwave did, for example."

Little did they know that Megatron had been listening to their conversation behind their backs and frightened them terribly upon revealing his presence to them.

"Starscream," he phrased slowly and patiently, "I honestly wanted you to be my successor in the Decepticons in case something were to happen to me - and in many ways you became one - and your lack of loyalty towards me was never a real issue. While I always demanded it, I never expected it. But as soon as I figured you were never going to be loyal to the movement itself, I kept asking myself why does this 'con keep coming back to me?"

Megatron stood before Starscream, his servos placed on the hips, his head tilted questioningly. "The Decepticon movement was always meant to be bigger than one 'con. That's why I created the Phase Sixers and combiner teams. So when you kept running back and forth between the Decepticons and the Autobots depending on which faction met your needs best at different times, the answer which you just stated was the biggest insult of them all."

"Huh?"

"Don't pretend to be ignorant. You just said yourself that you knew you could never outrank Optimus Prime in the Autobots, so outranking me in the Decepticons seemed a much more achievable option," Megatron growled. "And ultimately being solely dedicated to yourself paid off. People saw a Decepticon so disloyal to the Decepticons that it was almost like being an Autobot - except the Autobots didn't want you - which again resulted in your favor in the optics of the Decepticons."

He laughed mirthlessly and lumbered across the courtyard looking somber.

"Hmm. Was he basically saying that I respected Optimus but not him - and this pissed him off?" Starscream asked Alexis. 

"Yup, I think so. And you know what else?" the android girl hinted.

"Yes?"

"He sort of admitted that he actually respects you."

"What? Really?"

Alexis smiled briefly and nodded. "But you didn't tell me why you gave up your position after everything you did to get to the top."

"Because I didn't really get what I needed. Being at the top is notoriously lonely until there was just me and my own thoughts. I was going crazy, hearing voices and seeing things that weren't there. Windblade was trying to reach out to me but I assumed she was only out to usurp me." Starscream sighed. "I got this nagging feeling that I wasn't right for the job I was doing."

"Neither was Optimus Prime, apparently. So who is the right bot to rule Cybertron?"

Starscream startled. "You're right. In his speech he considered himself the personification of the civil war and gave up the power he was wielding because of that. But others argued he didn't actually want the responsibility of ruling Cybertron as he knew half of the population would be against him regardless."

"So it would have been like in the days of Sentinel Zeta Prime all over again?"

"True. A lot of people hate Megatron but he always represented change to the people and commands the kind of zealous following that Optimus doesn't incite. And the people ended up blaming Optimus for the circumstances - uncontrollable inflation, mass unemployment, discrimination based on faction and alignment - that resulted at the end of the war."

"Not to defend Megatron, but I got the impression he worked very hard to get where he is today. Harder than Optimus."

"I don't think he had an alternative. He was going to be jobless when the Messatine mines closed." 

 Alexis stared at Starscream. "You mean... he decided to conquer Cybertron to avoid unemployment?"

"Uh huh." 

 

 

Orion Pax observed his Autobot crew work on constructing the future human colony under the glacier of Antarctica, far inland and away from the coastal high winds. The continent had retained its ice sheet far better than the northern hemisphere. Despite this, there were vast subglacial lakes and half-melted regions which revealed fossils of once abundant forests.

"Hey Optimus, what do we call this human theme park?" Wheeljack shouted from across the distance as Sunstreaker and Ironhide assisted him in carrying building materials.

"This is not a human theme park," Orion grunted, "and my name is Orion Pax." He thought for a moment, adding sourly: "Unless Rodimus hands me back the Matrix when he's done playing with it." Wheeljack's question reminded him of long nights having spent alone with his thoughts, watching the display of celestial polar phenomena such as pillar halos and pearl clouds reflecting the colors of the rainbow.

"Well?" Wheeljack demanded. "Or are we gonna call this place 'Human City'?"

"Homopolis?"  

The Autobots were nodding to each other in agreement; it was a very accurate, descriptive name for a site meant for human inhabitation.

Orion groaned in frustration; he had wanted something more aesthetically pleasing. "I feel the humans would not like to call their home 'Human City'," he pointed out apologetically, "but instead it should take its name from something naturally occurring here, such as ice, subglacial lakes, mountains..."

"...and more ice. I get it." Wheeljack shrugged. "Make up your mind then, O great leader."

Orion gave the inventor a displeased look. "Like many confuse love and lust, free will must be distinguished from acting on impulse," he lectured, "Many believe the latter equals doing what you want when it is rather the decision of the subconscious side of the mind: the subconscious side decides on average 0,4 seconds in advance before the conscious side either confirms or cancels that prior decision..."

"Corona Australis," interrupted Airazor and Tigatron behind him in unison. The duo had crouched back to the Autobot camp from their expedition far inland.

Orion tilted his helm with his servos on his hips. "Southern lights? I like it," he revealed after a while. "I believe the humans would like it too."

"Oh. Okay," the Autobots mumbled following his decision.   

Later, Orion was recharging in his crude temporary hab suite constructed haphazardly in a glacial cavern while most of his subordinates were mining energon a few miles away; Tigatron and Airazor were primarily responsible for discovering potential new mining sites - although they weren't too happy about this assignment.

"I feel like building the human colony is just an excuse to strip this planet of its resources," Tigatron admitted quietly to his Conjunx while they were further away from the Autobots.

"You mean - whatever resources it still has left." Airazor sighed. "The Autobots and us Maximals are supposed to be on the same side. Are we doing the right thing?" 

Tigatron looked grievous. "Initially I trusted Optimus - Orion - as he was always renown for his wise leadership and high-mindedness," the Maximal admitted, "but I am not so sure about that anymore. The people of Cybertron wanted him to resign. The Autobot regime on Cybertron turned out to be totalitarian."

"You're right, we shouldn't trust any Autobot to know better than us," Airazor agreed, "but I accept that these traditional models need much more energon than we do - and it has to be raw, which would make us sick." 

"It does not help that the Autobots are suspicious of us," Tigatron remarked. "How could we make them see through our optics that what they think is the contemporary era is a changed past to the likes of us? And that we are only waiting for the Maximal leader who saved us from a future where Prime was murdered at the Ark to guarantee Predacon victory." 

"Cybertronians are suspicious of all colonists and likewise, I'm afraid; our people on Eukaris are no better."

"That is why I would prefer to live my life unaligned and free from xenophobia - to experience the world as it is, not as how I am told to see it, in an us-versus-them manner," Tigatron said wistfully. 

"Me too."

 

 

Megatron sat by the dinner table with C-RAM and Railgun who stared at their parent with big eager optics.

"No matter what you've heard of my past," he told them, "I had to challenge myself to learn to adapt to circumstances rather than force the environment to adapt to me as would be more natural for me. Spending time on the Lost Light was definitely an optic-opener for me." 

"Didn't you join the Autobots just to piss off Starscream?" Railgun sniggered. 

Megatron grinned. "That was the idea at one point. Leading an Autobot crew was amusing - I took it as a recreational activity for most of the time. Also it was an opportunity to understand Orion better." His mind wandered off for some time. 

"But what is wrong with him?" C-RAM then asked him directly. "He doesn't like Megaempress but that's hardly why he left."  

Megatron eyed his sparklings with repentance. "I would agree to that," he said slowly, taking an energon cube, "You could call it an existential crisis - albeit you are too young to comprehend what that is, really. You see - when the Autobots won, they didn't improve living standards on Cybertron, and many began protesting against Optimus Prime as he was still known as. He blamed himself for not living up to his own standards and everybody's expectations."

"That's why he quit?" C-RAM gasped.

"Partially due to that," Megatron acknowledged, "He became aware that war was all he knew, and what the people wanted after the war was something he was unable to respond to. But the figures who came to power after him - Bumblebee, Starscream, Prowl and Windblade - never attained what he has."

The sparklings kept ogling at him, as if anticipating a fantastic tale. 

"Orion has the ability to inspire and move masses, to say the right thing at the right time. He has the ability to persuade people to follow any cause no matter how petty." Megatron chuckled at the thought of Autobots farming humans in stasis pods as a humanitarian endeavor as Orion would call it. "He's honest and devoted, taking responsibility very seriously. Some argue he's socially awkward but that's entirely incorrect; he wouldn't have become an Autobot leader if that were the case. In fact, he's very intuitive about others and genuinely interested and understanding of them."

"Why is he on Earth building that... human zoo?" Railgun asked. 

Megatron and C-RAM laughed. "Orion loves challenges and thrives on change," Megatron explained. "People have forgotten how overconfident he used to be when he was younger! But life knocked him down a peg or two."

He thought about the subject before his EM field turned grim.

"You could say the same happened to me."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 7: The Infinite Regress

Summary:

Orion's fantasy of humanity getting a second chance finally comes true but not quite as he meant it.
Megatron gets an unexpected visitor who makes him reconsider whether his union with Orion Pax really was the right choice.
The Quintesson Admiral has strange intentions towards Starscream that the Seeker is not too fond of.

Notes:

References IDW's All Hail Megatron, Chaos Theory and MTMTE/Lost Light.

Iacon, before the war.

Senator Shockwave sat on a creaky bench reading a book. Police officer Orion Pax sat next to him.

"I hope I'm not bothering you," Orion mumbled awkwardly. "You're probably reading something very important."

"Of course you are not bothering me," the Senator replied cheerfully, "and now that you mention it, this book is a little too valuable to be examined outdoors like this."

"Hm?" Orion wasn't going to ask about its subject but noted the author's name on the cover. "Jhiaxus wrote that?"

Senator Shockwave brightened up even more. "Oh, but he most certainly did! Guess what the book is about."

Orion removed his faceplate, his young face looking innocent and starry-eyed as he tried to read the title. "The Empty Spellbook?"

"It's a rough translation from the original material which was written in Quintesson language," the Senator explained. "It's about the most poetically beautiful source code ever written. Legend says the best Quintesson scientists from many timelines and eras came together to create it."

"Interesting - but what was it for?"

Senator Shockwave then gave him the equivalent of a Cybertronian wink. "Maybe if the officer would like to accompany me in my apartment for a glass of high-grade I could tell him more, in greater detail...?" he suggested, smiling brightly. 

"I was going to meet Ariel tonight..." Orion started, appearing embarrassed, but the Senator's invitation was promising him things he lived for - adventure and excitement.

"Oh yes, I forgot you have a girlfriend! I suppose she would not allow you to have a drink with me, then?" Senator Shockwave laughed. 

Orion knew the Senator was right. But he felt he was entitled to his freedom to live as he chose.

"I'm coming, Senator," he nodded. 

 

Orion Pax was staring at the high ceiling in his Antarctican hab suite with the memory in his mind, pulling his indoor vehicle cover higher until it was snug around his neck cables and a feeling of cozy warmth embraced his worn seams.

If only they had actually discussed the damn book instead of forgetting about it altogether and focusing on a night of steamy fragging!

"Orion, are you okay?" Ironhide's voice asked somewhere nearby. Orion's best friend felt vague concern as he saw Orion's antennae poking out from the comfort of the vehicle cover sheet.

"I am not dead." Orion felt the worry in Ironhide's EM field. "Nor sick," he added.

Thinking about how humans had individuals who easily seemed to forget the past and move on while others held onto the past like no tomorrow since it seemed to be a way to anchor themselves, Orion's species had the inbuilt ability - which sometimes acted as a curse - to recall everything from their initial activation day to the very end courtesy of efficient quantum tunneling. But it was not quite like the address-based memory of manmade computers; instead Cybertronian quantum memory utilized parallel computing to predict the past such that it was considerably more efficient than human memory which relied on imagination to fill in the gaps left by the incomplete quantum tunneling of biochemical processing.

"I was just checking", Ironhide said, "Wheeljack wants you to know that we need the University's researchers here - especially Perceptor and Jetfire - to help us build the computer infrastructure required to maintain a habitable environment for the developing humans."

"That is good to know. I shall send Bluestreak back via the spacebridge to fetch support."

Sometime later Orion was inspecting the thirteen human babies who had already reached full term inside their transparent artificial uteri but had to be placed in cryogenic stasis for the time being. The sight made him very sad but the conditions were not yet right for allowing actual birth to take place.   

"I hope Alexis Thi Dang is able to function as an intermediate between our species and worlds," he said to Jazz and Smokescreen standing next to him.

"Like a babysitter?" Jazz asked him, shrugging. "But if you send her here then Starscream will want to come with her. And nobody here wants that."

Orion's expression darkened. "Yes, he is a troublemaker. I have yet to figure out what he wants from Alexis."

"Maybe he's, like, in love with her?" Jazz suggested.

"The only one Starscream can love is Starscream and I doubt he manages even that very well," Orion scoffed.

They watched Huffer and Gears carry a huge container past them.

"We need biologists and badly," Orion declared sullenly.

The subglacial city of Corona Australis still looked like a typical Autobot base by the time Perceptor, Velocity and Jetfire arrived via the spacebridge while Hoist, Trailbreaker and Windcharger assisted them in bringing important equipment.

When Orion explained what needed to be done, Velocity's EM field exposed her hesitance. 

"Computer systems for maintaining... did I understand correctly..." her voice broke several times as she sought for words.

"That's what he said, a virtual reality," Perceptor confirmed. 

Orion looked awkward. "They can't grow up in this," he waved around him in the subterranean caverns. "Unfit for human inhabitation. But I do believe they will ultimately be ready to face the world as it has become. Here they have plenty of fresh water available from glacial lakes, and we were thinking about placing yeast vats over there..."

"Human bodies need constant exposure to external electric stimuli to develop muscles and avoid muscle atrophy," Velocity sighed, "and keeping them in an active form of stasis is dangerous. It's like keeping them stuck in the twilight zone between dreaming and awake, a state which poses a heightened risk of death!"

Jetfire nodded. "It resembles a state that the Quintesson called being stuck between two universes."

"They will be dead and alive at once!" Velocity protested. "And how long are you intending to keep them on such life support? Decades?"

Orion slouched, his optics dimming a little. "I hope not. Possibly fifteen Earth years. But we will give them all the things a human would want in life in the world we shall build for them! And Alexis Thi Dang will be their guide."

"Um... does she know?" Velocity entailed. 

"She will," Orion declared, hoping the girl would actually live up to such an assignment; he did not know Alexis very well, and the last time he had seen the girl in her biological form had been hundreds of years ago when she had been only twelve years old. Her current incarnation was about sixteen or seventeen in terms of mental development; it was hard to say what was going to become of her. 

 

 

One of Megatron's Vehicon servants informed the warlord that Ultra Magnus was at the palatial gates. 

"Him? That's... interesting," Megatron reacted to the information. "I should let him in. Haven't seen him lately." He wondered if Ultra Magnus had some bad news - possibly concerning the Galactic Council that was still blacklisting Cybertronians for being notorious in their warmongering. 

The very tall, bulky blue mech stood at the doorway looking apologetic but visibly happier upon seeing Megatron descend the stairs to meet him. They shook servos after which Ultra Magnus retained his grip on his servo for somewhat longer than necessary and placed his other servo on his shoulder.

"Good to see you, Magnus," Megatron grinned. "What brings you to my house? Surely it isn't a new war or a disaster somewhere?"

"Oh, it is not. Fortunately." Ultra Magnus smiled awkwardly. "I work in the tax office these days," he admitted, causing Megatron to laugh a little.

"Really? No police work anymore?"

"Eh... no. National security and the militia are mostly under Quintesson supervision - and they deploy beast machines."

"Hm, yes. So I've heard." The abolishing of the Autobot-controlled police force had been welcome among the Decepticons but it had been replaced by beings that were called transmetals and technorganics, collectively known as beast machines - some of them immigrants from the colony of Eukaris while others were mostly built by the Quintessons themselves or were repurposed, formerly dead Decepticons recovered at the end of the civil war. 

Megatron knew Decepticons made unreliable police so he didn't entirely object to the Quintessons' decision to outsource security this way, but the fact that beast machines took direct orders from Admiral Lionheart rather than him annoyed him tremendously. 

"The current police chief is some technorganic who turns into a mountain lion," he chuckled, shaking his helm. Megatron led his guest to a massive lounge and ordered a drone to bring a few containers of high-grade engex.  

The two sat down to drink and talk. "I'm glad to have some time off my usual schedule," Megatron admitted while sipping his engex, "as a meeting for planning the budget was called off by the Admiral at the last moment, and my next meeting is not until tomorrow."

They talked for several hours. Megatron was beginning to suspect that Ultra Magnus had chosen the time to meet him on the basis of knowing that Orion wasn't around, as if all three of them being in the same room was somehow embarrassing. 

Ultra Magnus seemed relieved to talk to him again. Megatron was aware the huge blue mech admired him for his sense of discipline and diligence; his hardworking, determined, confident nature. Megatron was true to himself, and this was something Ultra Magnus found himself drawn to.    

"I must ask you something, Magnus," Megatron said after some time, leaning on his other arm and crossing his massive legs. "You chose to come here because Orion is away, am I right? Why have you been avoiding visiting us? He was looking forward to see you."

Ultra Magnus looked down at his pedes. "I... I think he knows what happened aboard the Lost Light. At least, I believe so."

"You mean between us?" Megatron looked particularly inquisitive now, as if he was trying to hack into Ultra Magnus' mind. 

"Yes..." Ultra Magnus' EM field signaled how uneasy and bothered the mech suddenly was now that Megatron had picked up on emotions he had tried to conceal ever since the Lost Light had returned to Cybertron. He had respected Megatron's decision to unify the planet with the help of a union with Optimus Prime, gritting his denta and accepting his own fate. But Megatron's decision had felt like a loss to him and burying himself in work could suppress certain feelings only to an extent. 

Megatron read his EM field very carefully as Ultra Magnus drank engex in deep silence, as if afraid to say too much.  

"I think I understand," Megatron said after a while, trying to sound encouraging. "I could tell you were more than just happy to see me."

Ultra Magnus startled at this notion. "I did not want to cause a scene by coming here."

"I have no idea how long Orion will be gone," Megatron suddenly confessed, sighing and putting his cup of engex down. Ultra Magnus looked surprised.

Megatron took a more relaxed position, eyeing Ultra Magnus leisurely and smiling. "Adapting to peace was harder for him than he thought. He hates to admit it but he loves fighting. Not necessarily killing, but fighting as a sport. That's a key reason he was always so good at it. Adding to that, he's stubborn and needs his space and freedom, and I wanted to ensure I would give him that."

"But aren't you two... Conjunx?" 

Megatron grinned and shrugged. "Me and Orion were brought together by mutual beliefs and shared ideals. I see much of my young self in him to this day. But he's too adventurous to be a homemaker. The thing about Orion is that he values friendship more than intimacy - even though like everybody, he wants to be understood - and he doesn't become attached to anyone, not really. I know this can be surprising, given his tremendous compassion."

"But he always loved his friends," Ultra Magnus argued. Megatron nodded. 

"He still does. But I figured he's much like myself - we need to be independent, we're much more analytical and rational than people say we are. You know Orion isn't usually emotional; instead he's preoccupied with abstract concepts that probably don't make sense to anybody else." Megatron laughed, shook his helm and smiled. "As much as I wanted him to be someone who puts me on a pedestal and supports me like you'd expect from a Conjunx, you can't contain an intelligent, progressive thinker and visionary like him for long." Megatron lowered his voice. "He was behaving as if I was keeping him caged - which I wasn't - and when I realized he is not looking for emotional support but emotional freedom, I could only encourage him to find his way."

"And that's why he went back to Earth?"

Megatron sighed, feeling slightly nostalgic and not paying attention to Ultra Magnus taking his servos in his own as if to offer reassurance. Leaning forward, Ultra Magnus' helm came close to his own, and the blue mech's kiss didn't entirely take him by surprise. 

"Don't let the Quintessons get to you," Ultra Magnus whispered.
"They're not... They're not," Megatron said. "Besides, even if I'm not in charge, I have you."

Ultra Magnus looked much happier now. Megatron grabbed his servo and escorted him upstairs to one of the lesser used hab suites for guests containing a wide berth which had accumulated some dust due to lack of use. He had known exactly what Ultra Magnus had come here for and knew he was not going to reject the mech would they make the first move; the time was now. 

Megatron grabbed both of his shoulders albeit them being wider and more massive than his own made the gesture uncomfortable for him.

"You're not going to leave me, are you?"
"No," Ultra Magnus said, producing a small awkward smile revealing his denta.
"Will you stay with me?"

Even though Ultra Magnus was very bad at social cues, he felt that underneath that cold, dignified exterior was a spark highly receptive to flattery, being showered with admiration and more than a little prone to jealousy, meaning Orion's self-sufficiency hurt the warlord more than he wanted to admit. But Magnus had kept his own emotions under cover for too long.   

He nodded.

"It's what you've always wanted, isn't it?" Megatron grinned. He suddenly took pride in having been the one to be able to melt the spark of someone so undemonstrative as Ultra Magnus, someone who didn't understand their own emotions.

 
"Yes," Ultra Magnus said, "it is."
Megatron laughed a little. "I can tell." His digits wandered down to Ultra Magnus' crotch plates to snap open his valve panel and he kneeled down to lick at the exposed folds. He was amused to see the blue mech flustered even though Ultra Magnus' EM field implied he anticipated something like this and it dawned to him it was because Ultra Magnus was unaccustomed to using his valve in interfacing.

Because Magnus seemed a little stiff, Megatron sat on the berth, leaned back and winced. "Do with me what you want. And I think I know what you want. This..." He spread his massive thighs and exposed his own valve to the gigantic mech. Ultra Magnus nodded, smiling a bit. Megatron smirked when his honored guest moved forward leaning over him, with Megatron pulling him from his helm down for an ardent kiss, their glossas entangling and allowing their EM fields to enshroud each other. 

"Megatron, I... I love you. Have for a long time." Ultra Magnus' voice was breaking. "Seeing you get together with Optimus was tough." 

"I love you, too." Megatron was the first to pull away and he sat there looking into the earnest optics of the former Autobot commander. Megatron knew he was being a disloyal Conjunx but blamed Orion for not being there for him, as deep down he wanted praise and others to only pay attention to himself. He had done all he could to be committed and loyal to Orion and had worked hard to maintain their relationship.

But Orion's response had been falling into a vortex of moods and changeability that nobody could keep up with on his strange quest. Orion's blend of a self-righteous need to fight for a cause, his compassion and independence had taken him literally to the ends of the Earth, and Megatron could barely even feel their spark bond.

Would he even care? 

Megatron asked himself as Ultra Magnus pushed him on his back, his massive spike pressurizing as it arose from its housing. Megatron threw his head backwards as he felt the bulbous tip of Magnus' throbbing member electrify him and activate the biolights surrounding his valve. 

Suddenly an image of Admiral Lionheart popped into his mind. "Fragging Quintessons," he growled, but was surprised at how much of his own sexual arousal was mingled with hate. "Do it."

Ultra Magnus appeared confused but grabbed his thighs and lifted his lower frame with unbridled enthusiasm, his fully pressurized spike diving into Megatron's hot valve. Megatron felt the mech's electric current transfer into himself via the connection, setting more biolights alight. Ultra Magnus' spike was so large and hard that the friction almost got it stuck, but fortunately a pooling of transfluid prevented it just in time and Megatron got to experience the endurance in Ultra Magnus' prowess. 

"Frag!" he yelled, his frame tensing up and his head spinning as his optics shut.
"I'll do it..." Magnus whispered, pulling his spike out and repositioning himself for another plunge. Megatron felt the surge of pain and pleasure so quickly; Magnus' spike was almost twice as long as his own.

Ultra Magnus seemed embarrassed reading from his EM field that his thrusts seemed to be hurting him a little but fortunately Megatron was aroused enough to allow him to continue. And Megatron reveled in the admiration and devotion he read in Ultra Magnus' EM field, knowing now that the blue mech would give his all for him. The way Ultra Magnus was looking at him was a mix of lust and worship; it was the expression of someone so enthralled by Megatron's charm and magnetism that they could not get enough of him. It was the same look he had seen in Orion's optics a long time ago, and he knew now that his loyalty and love for Orion was completely misplaced.

Megatron felt his frame release into a series of convulsions and he knew Ultra Magnus was feeling the same.

Ultra Magnus' thrusts between his thighs speeded up and came with improved skill and confidence, getting Megatron close to climax multiple times as the warlord's entire frame was throbbing and spasming of intoxicating pleasure. And then Magnus began pulling out, his entire frame seeming to almost levitate in front of him before he collapsed forward looking dazed and pulled his spike from Megatron's wet valve.

"Wow." Ultra Magnus was staring into nothingness for a while.

"So..." Megatron felt disoriented and sick. He was worried he would purge his tanks, but instead he felt his frame quaking as an overload shot through him. "That was-"

"Epic." Ultra Magnus looked down and saw Megatron's valve leaking his own transfluid; he had completely filled it up. "I think we need to talk, Commander, but I think you need to rest. And I think I need to..." He grinned. "Refuel."

"Sounds good to me." Megatron smiled and sat up, feeling his frame slowly realign itself from the after-effects of the experience.

"So, how do you feel?" Ultra Magnus seemed petrified upon realizing he had just fragged the King of Cybertron.

"Like I got run over by a truck," Megatron admitted.

"We did enjoy quite a lot of engex - and neither of us is a drinker. It is a tad alarming. I think we should get out of here."
"Probably," Megatron agreed.
"Come on, let's go." Ultra Magnus looked hurried as the pair lumbered downstairs where Megaempress and the sparklings stood staring at them.

"I'll see you," Megatron said.
"Great. See you."

Magnus turned and walked out the door but he knew there were going to be more meetings between the two as long as Orion was gone. He returned to his barracks and headed to the washing racks, still amazed at what had happened. 
"Well. What a night..."

Magnus was surprised to see a fresh tray of energon cubes waiting for him when he got to his hab suite.
"Fresh from the royal kitchen, sir," said the delivery Vehicon.

Becoming Megatron's lover apparently had its perks; the Decepticon warlord could be very generous to those who stroked his ego and gave him their undivided attention.

 

***

 

The Autobots sat staring at the vastness of the Antarctican glaciers, far inland. Wearing two-layered vehicle covers as capes - the innermost for insulation, the outer for protection against the elements - they tugged the sheets higher up their faces.

"I don't know about this, Prime," Jazz commented, breaking the long silence. "Everybody's been worried about you."

"I am fine."

"But you always say that even when you're not," Ironhide reminded him. "If you need something, you can always use the spacebridge to visit home..."

"I AM FINE!" Orion roared, only his antennae poking out under the cape.

"Alright, alright. No need to be offended." Jazz looked at Ironhide, his EM field a mix of confusion and concern. 

Orion knew his friends were right but his need for independence came across as stubborn pride that reminded him of Megatron and this made him sulky despite that the human colony was well underway, with facilities being built for farming the necessary nutrition for future humans - mainly yeast and algae - and for maintaining the virtual reality for housing their consciousness which was analogous to spending one's life asleep and dreaming (or seeing nightmares, depending on the way you were looking at it.)  

"I do not like the idea of keeping their minds dormant for years, but the researchers at the university came to the conclusion that it's a better alternative than having us try to raise human children in a wasteland. In the simulation they can be trained to prepare for what awaits them in the real world."

Ironhide and Jazz nodded. "Good point, sir," Jazz stated but glanced at Ironhide meaningfully, as if urging the bot to bring up another tough subject.

"Prime, you could at least tell us what's really going on," Ironhide sighed. "Almost every night you wander by yourself in the glacier."

"Stargazing," Jazz added, "Airazor and Tigatron told us."

"So the beast machines are spying on me?" Orion puffed. 

Jazz shrugged. "They kind of are, but methinks they watch everyone and everything here."

"They're here for surveillance," Ironhide pointed out. "Orion, we've been friends for a fraggin' long time. We've got to stop having to keep guessing."

Orion waited for a long time till he asked: "You know what's the most important thing to me in the universe?"

"It's a wild guess but maybe your sparklings?" Jazz suggested.

"Your friends?"

"Saving the world?"

"Megatron?"

Orion turned to glare at Jazz and Ironhide. The contradiction between his inborn sense of independence and his bond with Megatron, that bizarre compulsive force he could not run away from, was sometimes emotionally ripping him apart - and he knew Megatron fought a similar battle within himself. But he felt that for Megatron it had been about wanting to conquer his independence. Now, Megatron could always claim he didn't need Orion after all but that would be a stark lie, even when their relationship had hit rock bottom.

Without each other, their lives simply were meaningless, and why this was the case went beyond everything that was known about love and hate - they had definitely needed each other to make themselves great in the optics of themselves and the world, but there was an additional truth buried somewhere that was gradually driving Orion insane.   

And that truth was in Jhiaxus' book, the one Senator Shockwave had once shown him and discussed in his journal.

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings; it is therefore also my right. That is why I am here and that is why you are here; you followed me voluntarily, didn't you?" he argued. "I went to the ends of the Earth to save humanity because I wanted to do so. Not because the Matrix of Leadership or the Autobot code told me to."

I am autonomous; that's the whole point of being an Autobot.

Free to forge one's own path.

 

***

Ultra Magnus couldn't believe it when he received a message that Megatron wanted to hire him as his attorney and accountant, apparently because he didn't think anyone in the Decepticon ranks was trustworthy enough for the job. It was a compliment but cognitive dissonance over considering Decepticons enemies and being in love with one was eating him up inside.

Why, of all mechs, did the love of his life have to be a Decepticon?

Accepting or declining the position was harrowing him until he recalled what he had told Megatron earlier; he had no choice if he was going to keep his word, and feeling defeated he sent Megatron a message about agreeing to quit his job in the tax office to work for him instead. 

There was also a subliminal message in Megatron's otherwise pragmatic request for reliable staff - that Ultra Magnus was to become his direct subordinate, and being very typical of Megatron to turn pleasure into business and make it official that he was in control.

Ultra Magnus sighed. The salary Megatron offered was certainly better than at the tax office. There was another issue besides Megatron being a Decepticon that bothered him and that was the potential return of Orion Pax; what if the mech would find out what had happened?

Would Orion understand?

But as soon as he was invited to sign the deal in person at Megatron's palace, Megatron's magnetism nearly hit him on the doorway and he barely noticed Megaempress who in vain attempted to play coy with the handsome former Autobot lieutenant. 

"You're here to see my brother?" she chirped. "He told me he hired a new lawyer. I'm surprised it's an Autobot." 

"But he also married an Autobot," Ultra Magnus reminded her, embarrassed but simultaneously confusing himself, making Megaempress giggle.

"He just likes to play with you Autobots like you're his toys."

Ultra Magnus stared at Megatron's little sister in horror as Megatron gently pushed her aside and escorted Magnus to his home office. 

"I know I don't have to remind you to read through the contract very carefully," the warlord said as he handed out a datapad.

Ultra Magnus produced a small smile. "And I know you wouldn't deceive me."

Megatron watched Magnus' utterly honest expression which evoked a little bit of pity even though the bot was correct in the sense that he wasn't out to scam the Autobot in terms of the job; however there was another factor that was beginning to emerge.

Megatron was accustomed to life being a battlefield where business mattered before pleasure and now he wondered whether Ultra Magnus was aware of what he was signing up to. "Concerned about working for a Decepticon, are you?" he inquired from the bigger mech.

Ultra Magnus blinked. "I shouldn't think so as the civil war is over."

"I see. But I detect worry in your EM field."

Ultra Magnus looked down. "I am concerned if me being your lawyer will become a problem when Orion returns," he admitted.

"If he returns at all, that is. No one knows." Megatron waved a servo, signaling him to stand up. "I have no doubts about you knowing Cybertronian law better than anyone else does. As an Autobot, you will help ensure that justice prevails under my reign. Also, I want to make sure the job will be rewarding..."

Ultra Magnus stiffened. "I have no complaints about the salary."

"Oh, that was not what I meant but you knew that." Megatron approached him with his scarlet optics partially dimmed, his EM field wrapping Ultra Magnus in a bubble of dark intensity. "You have no idea how much I wanted this," he muttered as his silica lips met Ultra Magnus' own. He quickly pulled away, taking a step back. "I can tell you are drowning in worries; it is your nature but instead of listening to all those nagging thoughts, listen to your spark. It led you to me."

Ultra Magnus looked astonished. "But do... do you really want this?" He grabbed Megatron's arms. "I thought about this for many nights, thinking I was making a fool of myself. I was telling myself you're playing with my spark..."

"I have no reason to do that," Megatron dismissed. "I am simply showing my appreciation for what you are willing to sacrifice for me."

Checking whether Megaempress, the sparklings or staff were listening, he led Ultra Magnus now directly to the royal berthroom, locking the door and then turning towards him again. Recalling Magnus didn't like to use his valve when interfacing, he let his huge spike pressurize from its housing while snapping open his own valve panel. 

"You and I both need to relax more than ever." 

Ultra Magnus soon understood that Megatron wanted him to service both his valve and spike which he initiated with eagerness. As Megatron lay back on the berth, Ultra Magnus inserted several digits into his valve folds with a look of innocence on his face that amused Megatron despite quickly approaching his first overload of the night. Ultra Magnus was inexperienced in these matters due to his overly cautious personality, and Megatron remembered the size of his spike which meant he had to teach the larger bot how to use the thing properly as to not damage his internal components when interfacing. 

At the same time, Ultra Magnus realized just now that he was licking Megatron's valve, his glossa diving into its silicon selenide inner folds; the warlord's frame was shaking as he reached a throbbing overload. "Oh, Magnus!" he groaned hoarsely, throwing his head back on the berth and arching his back.  

Ultra Magnus was delighted to see the happy smile on Megatron's face. "I don't know if anyone has ever told you this but... you're attractive."

"Why, thank you," Megatron chuckled. "In my age it's certainly an achievement."

He enjoyed Ultra Magnus licking off the transfluid glistening on his valve lips; to him it looked like Magnus was a hungry turbofox that had just found a fountain of fresh energon. The blue mech's own spike was apparently ready for action, and Megatron arose to position himself in front of him; this time he wanted to be in control of Magnus' movements and slowly sat down on his lap while allowing the massive armored device to penetrate his well-lubricated valve.  

Ultra Magnus grabbed him by the waist in a mix of lust and surprise. "I have never tried this position before," he gasped when Megatron began rocking his hips, riding his spike first carefully but gradually speeding up his movement. Megatron knew that the moment was near. He could already feel his own frame approaching its second overload, and he wanted to take this moment to...

"Commander, are you all right?" a raspy voice from outside interrupted the couple. 

"Oh, snap! It's Barricade, my bodyguard," Megatron's irritated voice whispered as the warlord pushed himself off of the Autobot, hoping the blue mech's gargantuan spike would not get stuck in his valve; it certainly didn't seem to want to let go of him. 

He rushed to the door.

"What happened in there?" Barricade asked, his voice distorted as if he had been running at top speed. "The janitor suspected assassins or burglars have invaded the premises. Oh..." the Decepticon officer then spotted Ultra Magnus sitting awkwardly on the royal berth. 

"He's my new attorney and accountant; I was mentoring him on the job." Megatron's matter-of-fact voice had Barricade acknowledge that at least it was a false alarm at hand, even if the blue mech was clearly an Autobot and none other than Ultra Magnus.

"But you were moaning," Barricade pointed out as he stepped into the room.

"Well, I was enjoying amazing... high-grade engex."

"Alright, I won't disturb any further."

At least Megatron wasn't in berth with a Quintesson.

 

Still undecided if he had made the right decision, Ultra Magnus began his work as Megatron's attorney and accountant, applying his hallmark thoroughness and precision; however he wasn't just motivated to perform well at his new job but suspected Megatron was evaluating his diligence as an indicator of how much he really loved him as for Megatron business and pleasure were never truly separate. 

They continued their meetings more discreetly at Ultra Magnus' humble residence at the barracks to avoid Megatron's nosy staff and family, and Megatron found himself enjoying Ultra Magnus' company more than ever as the blue mech was uncharacteristically non-judgmental towards him and a good listener. 

"What's the update?"
"We're short on energon, but the latest shipment from Earth should be here tomorrow." Ultra Magnus looked up from his datapad. "Does Orion really approve of this?"

"Well, we all went to Earth in the first place for its natural resources," Megatron shrugged. "Including Orion. And no, we're not smuggling resources from Earth behind his back. I made it very clear to him that humanity's survival cannot be exclusive to ours, considering the more we rely on handouts from the Quintessons the greater our debt and dependency on them."

"Duly noted."

Megatron leaned back on his chair, looking out the window. "Orion once told me he wants to experience life in a human body, " he sighed. "He says it offers certain freedom that a Cybertronian frame doesn't. To me it's like wanting to be... a beast machine," he chuckled. 

"What kind of freedom? He never told me about anything of the sort," Ultra Magnus wondered. "Also, being in a biological body seems to come with much suffering."

"Orion knows this but he thinks it's worth it." Megatron shook his helm. "He wants to be able to cry like humans could. According to him it's liberating."

"Orion wants to cry? What for?" Ultra Magnus looked confused. "Humans appeared to do that when they were having a really bad day."

Megatron nailed his optics into him. "It makes sense to me now that you mention it. He's traumatized."

Ultra Magnus stared back at Megatron. "By the civil war? But we all went through the Pit with that, and he was the strongest of us all!"

Megatron folded his massive arms, nodding. "Excluding me, of course. But it's probably a series of specific events that led to his current state where the only thing I could offer to make him feel better was space and distance. Orion has been searching for truth and meaning as long as I have known him; it can lead to circular reasoning where one forms chain links of justifications which, in effect, ends up being nothing but a house of cards because the founding belief that justifies it all is based on assuming the conclusion."

"You mean... petitio principii?"

"Correct. And the outcome is an infinite regress. Not to offend you but it would certainly explain the oddities of the Autobot code, I'm afraid."

"That is... disheartening, Megatron." Ultra Magnus appeared to be sulking. However, Megatron decided to comfort him by leaning to kiss him gently but deliberately, ensuring the radiance of his powerful EM field would engulf the larger bot. 

"I'm sorry, Magnus; I didn't mean to insult you," he said after their lips broke contact. "I hope you can see I love you very much and would do anything for you."

"Thank you, Megatron," Ultra Magnus answered with a smile. "And I love you too, my warrior."

"Good," Megatron said, relieved. "And now I believe we should take a break from our business meeting," he suggested, waving his servo in the direction of Ultra Magnus' not particularly comfortable looking berth in the barracks. 

Sometime later they were in dire need of recharging after a session of meticulous lovemaking, resting in each other's arms. Yet a question concerning Orion lingered in Ultra Magnus' ever-worrying mind.

"What about Orion?" he finally asked. He knew Megatron and Orion wouldn't stop being sparkmates just because of external trysts with other bots or 'cons. 

"I wish I could just put a collar on him and have him stay home," Megatron mused.

"I thought you loved him," Ultra Magnus said.
"I do."

"Why don't you just bring him home with you?"
"I can't. My love for him is the reason I was able to make peace with myself, but it would be wrong to force him to stay home with me just because I want him there."

Ultra Magnus blinked. "But how does this configuration work?"

"How? You see, Orion never stopped loving Senator Shockwave nor Elita One either," his Decepticon lover explained. "Shockwave is dead and Elita One apparently rediscovered herself on the colony of Carcer as an individual no longer defined by her prior relationship with Orion, but nevertheless, my liaison with you proved him correct that you indeed can love more than one person at the same time."

"I don't know; I have never been in love... before I got to know the mech under the armor of a tyrant and a despot."

Megatron chuckled before they both fell into deep recharge.

 

***

 

Starscream was nervous, displeased and agitated at the University's courtyard upon finding out Orion Pax had ordered Alexis Thi Dang to prepare herself for the ordeal of a lifetime involving raising babies in a simulated reality before they could be one day allowed into the outside world. 

"And Queen Orion dares to ban me from the Autobot base!" he snarled when the android girl attempted to explain the generally unpleasant situation to him. "Without my persistence to have you return from the dead by any means necessary, he wouldn't even have you available for his project!"

"Starscream, you're totally right about that but are you generally opposed to the idea of having the human race resurrected?" Alexis asked him suspiciously. 

The flamboyant jet looked petrified. "No! Meeting and getting to know humans as more than just enemies of Decepticons has given me a wider perspective on things. I was shocked by the naivete of you and your friends - I do understand that you were children back then - of how welcoming you were towards a Decepticon like me. I have done many very cruel things in life, Alexis."

"But Megatron forced you to compete with other Decepticons for his approval, right?"

Starscream furiously shook his helm. "Don't defend me by making excuses like that! I made my own decisions. I chose to be evil."

"Are you still choosing to be evil?"

Starscream stared at the girl. "No. I achieved everything I wanted to achieve - and didn't like it. It wasn't fulfilling. I could not live up to Megatron's expectations nor could I live up to what I respected in Orion when he was still Optimus Prime - his integrity and honor." He sighed, looking at the sky.

Alexis didn't know what to think of it all; based on their numerous talks she realized Starscream was not only misunderstood but shared an unlikely trait with Orion Pax: Compassion.

While it didn't exactly negate Starscream's past wrongdoings, ruthlessness and devious schemes, it was the reason Alexis still existed - though not quite like her former self - and the girl felt obligated to return the favor in some way.  

"I don't want to be alone," Starscream nearly whispered, "Is it wrong to think I deserve to be loved, wanted, appreciated for who I am without having to commit to excess pandering to whomever I have to impress to get any good regards from?"   

"Well, I don't think it's wrong to want those things," Alexis admitted, "But you might want to think about who you want to give them to. And you might want to think about being a little more upfront about how you feel about everyone instead of just me."

"But everyone thinks I hate them," Starscream said, "and they hate me." 

However, Alexis' words proved out to be somewhat prophetic as he received a message to his internal comms from Soundwave who informed him that the Quintesson Admiral wanted his personal attendance at his warship stationed in Altihex.

"I don't want to go," Starscream complained to Alexis after telling her about it. "It's not like I've been invited over for a picnic!"

The android girl seemed concerned. "Since the Quintessons have actually been supporting your goals, I have a hunch that you'll be given some weird task to pay back, if you know what I mean?" she suggested carefully. "Like, they're hardly inviting you over just to execute you or something." 

"I sure hope you're right!" Starscream grumbled, transformed into his jet mode and flew to Altihex like a hesitant and panicking swallow.

 

 

"Dead & Alive in Eleven Dimensions." Starscream stared at the translated holographic footage where participants from different galaxies competed in bizarre tasks such as trying to get out of a toilet with four doors but all of which led back to the same space. 

"Do I have to do this Multidoor Toilet thing?" Starscream snarled. 

Admiral Lionheart's invitation turned out to be a participation request for a quiz show, the most popular one on Multiversal-TV, the five-dimensional favorite channel on planet Quintessa. The Quintesson sat comfortably on a throne that looked like a gilded oak, laughing at Starscream's pouty expression. 

"Of course you do. We Quintessons love to play games and quizzes, no matter how zany they may seem to outsiders - they are still very entertaining."

"This is a waste of time!" Starscream said, "I already know I'm going to win at all the games you're going to have me play!"
"We're not going to have you play," Lionheart said, "We're going to force you to participate, Decepticon scum!"
"You don't have the authority to do that!"
"The Autobots can't stop me from doing this!" Lionheart exclaimed, "You'll do what you're told, Decepticon!"
"Fine!"

The Quintesson's secret agenda regarding Starscream involved the bug in the Decepticon's source code which rendered him unable to return to the Matrix with other Cybertronians upon their death. Lionheart, or 'Lion' as he preferred to be called, was going to use the information to become more powerful, as the Matrix's power grew so would Lionheart's.

"There's something I would like to show you, Starscream," he said more amicably and led the Seeker to a chamber aboard his warship. He ordered Starscream to sit on a chair while he took out a hidden container, opening it.

"What the frag? Is that...?"

"The Matrix of Leadership itself." The Quintesson looked amused. "Rodimus Prime lost it in a drunken gamble with Soundwave. Of course, I had sent Soundwave specifically to retrieve the object of curiosity from Rodimus this way, knowing his weaknesses."

"You're lying," Starscream spat. "Either this is a cheap ornament - or Rodimus is actually dead somewhere and the Matrix was ripped off his chassis."

"Believe what you want. But now it's time for you to become famous on Quintessa and compete in that game show."

Starscream looked sour.

***

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

  

 

 

 

Chapter 8: The Secrets of the Blank Grimoire

Summary:

Starscream participates in a Quintesson game show, and a burglary into the Iacon Archives alerts Orion Pax to return to Cybertron. The Predacons have obtained the mysterious book of Jhiaxus, but the Autobots aren't letting them get away with it.

Orion finds out Megatron and Ultra Magnus have been continuing their affair which started on the Lost Light.

Notes:

To get an impression of the Quintessons' Multiversal-TV game show :

https://youtu.be/qMUI-JFnLgQ

This chapter references the Portal games.

"...and our next contender hails from Cybertron, former Decepticon Air Commander and former Emperor, Lord Starscream!"

Starscream stood in the center of a large, circular holographic stage. He saw several rows of seats behind him, and another level of seating above him. In front of him was a large podium with a wide screen above it.

"You'll need to pick a category." The five-headed Quintesson host turned their attention towards the Cybertronian.

"Whatever you say." Starscream shrugged. 

"The categories will be-"

"Fine, fine." 

"Let's begin, shall we?" The Quintesson seemed to be aware that the participant attempted to annoy them and ignored this.

"By all means." Starscream's whole presence signaled frustration and boredom. He had already participated in some of the physically demanding parts, only to realize he had been up against a slug person from the Horsehead Nebula.

"Now, this is a trial round, and nothing more than that," the Quintesson host said, "You will not be disqualified if you are correct, but you will not win any points for it. Are we understood?"

"Yes."

"Very good. First question. Which of the following planets is part of the Quintessent Galaxy? The choices are: - Earth - Quintessa - Cybertron."

Starscream gathered up his understanding of the infamous Quintesson logic.

"Earth!"

"Wrong! Ten points!"

Starscream jumped up, pumping his fists in triumph. He couldn't help it.

"Now, we have a tiebreaker round. The category is... 'Starscream'!"
"Starscream?! I get to answer questions about myself? I'm a natural!" Starscream said.
"The question is: what is Starscream's middle name?"
Starscream thought about it for a while, realizing the answer was meant to be embarrassing. He wished he didn't know the answer to the question.

"Megatron's bitch."
"Correct! Zero points!"

Starscream jumped up, shaking one of the Quintesson's tentacles, suddenly realizing his best bet would have been to answer incorrectly.

   
"The next segment features some holographic footage, and then we have our final showdown," the host said. "It's a re-enactment of the most famous battle in Transformers history. The Battle of Chicago."
"That battle was a massacre," Starscream said, "There were no winners that day."
"This is a game about strategy," the Quintesson host said.
"Oh, right. Well then, carry on."

"The Autobots will be represented by Player 1, and the Decepticons, Player 2."
"I'm the Autobot," Starscream sneered.

"That makes your rival, X'oathotil from the Horsehead Nebula a Decepticon."

"No way does some slug from the Horsehead Nebula even know what a Decepticon is!" Starscream laughed. 

"Now, I'm going to ask you some questions. First, who was the leader of the Autobots?"
"It was Optimus Prime." Starscream displayed a wide, knowing smirk.

"Second, who was the leader of the Decepticons?"
"Megatron." The slug person from the Horsehead Nebula's response was slow and monotone.

"Both answers are correct so neither of you gets any points."

"Third, who was the main strategist for both sides?"
"There wasn't any!" Starscream argued.

"Wrong! Ten points."

"Fourth, who was the main strategist for both sides that actually fought the battle?"
Starscream rolled his optics. "Bulkhead."

"Wrong! Ten points."

"And finally, who was the traitor that caused the death of many Autobots?"
The slug from the Horsehead Nebula replied laconically: "Soundwave."

"Correct! Zero points! Now, I have some statements from various characters on both sides of the battle. Read them carefully, and decide who said them."

Starscream glared at the Quintesson host. "Okay," he scoffed grumpily.

"Who said... 'We cannot retreat, we cannot surrender, we cannot turn back. To retreat is to admit that we have failed. To surrender is to admit that we cannot win. Turning back is to admit that we are beaten. These are the three choices we have. We are doomed to retreat, they will pursue, and then destroy us. I do not wish to see our home planet turned into a graveyard of Autobots."

Starscream was now ogling at the slug person from the Horsehead Nebula who confidently uttered: "Bulkhead." 
Angrily, he replied: "Optimus Prime."

"Optimus Prime said... 'I have never retreated from a battle. I have never surrendered a battle. I have never turned my back on a battle. There are three choices that we have." The host looked at both contenders. "Zero points for Starscream, five points goes to the Horsehead Nebula!" they declared.

Looking very pleased with themselves, the Quintesson host continued:

"Who said this? 'There is no choice. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot let this army pass into our home. If we do, we will be destroyed. I will fight to my last breath, to my last spark of light! To my last wheel! We shall never surrender. We will not retreat. We will never turn our backs on this battle. We are the Autobots. We shall never yield. We shall crush the Decepticons!"

"Bumblebee!" yelled the slug person nasally. 


"Zero points! Okay," the host said. "It's Starscream's turn. Who was the leader of the Autobots?"
"Optimus Prime! The big red one. And why are you asking the same question twice?!"
"Correct! Zero points!"
The host's expression twisted into a smirk.
"I knew you'd go for the charismatic leader. I'll give you five points for trying."
"He's got a great aft."
"Very funny."
"Now, we have another tiebreaker round. The category is... 'Transformer names'!"

Starscream rolled his optics.
"Transformer names! I'm the champion! Five points to me!" He jumped up and down, pumping his fists again. "My name is Starscream. It is a Transformer name. I win!"
"Correct! Zero points. You're out. Time for the final showdown: Megatron versus Optimus Prime!"

"Those are Transformer names."
"No, those are just made up names. It's a re-enactment. Now, who's Megatron?"
"Megatron was the leader of the Decepticons," said the slug.
"Correct! Zero points!"
"I'm not playing your stupid game anymore," Starscream squealed.
"I'm not playing with you either. First question: What year was the third movie released?"

Starscream folded his arms. "2013," he guessed.
"Wrong! Five points!"
"That was the most boring movie I've ever seen!"
"Second question: Which of these are real locations: Boston, Maine or Chicago, Illinois?"
"Neither of them."
"Wrong! Five points!"
"They're cities. I know that much."
"Third question: Which of these are real locations: Washington, DC or Cleveland, OH?"
"Neither of them."
"Wrong! Five points!"

"Fourth question: Are both Megatron and Optimus Prime fictional characters?"
"Yes."
"Wrong. Five points."
"Wait what? I actually get points for that?"
"They are not fictional. They are not a figment of your imagination. I saw them with my own ten eyes."

Starscream stood intake agape as he was escorted to the Multidoor Toilet challenge with his slug rival. 

"The winner gets cake," the host promised them.

"By the way," the slug turned to Starscream, "you already know what you must do to get out of that toilet?"

"Yeah. You got to lock all the doors and flush yourself down the toilet. That's how the universe works."

"Thanks for letting me win the game."

"It's because I think I know what happens to the winners."

"But the winner gets cake."

"The cake is a lie." 

 

***

An alarm broke off at the University of Iacon.

The students, including the android Alexis Thi Dang and most of the staff were recharging in their habs, barracks and dormitories at this time of the night, but Brainstorm remained in his lab and was the first to react to the alarms aside Ratchet and Drift who had been visiting him. 

"Isn't that Laserbeak?" Ratchet asked Drift as the couple were heading out of the University of Iacon, pointing his digit at a winged figure disappearing behind one of the buildings of the campus. They heard a strange buzzing noise coming from the rooftop. "An Insecticon too? What is an Insecticon doing at the campus?" 

Drift was pretty certain he was seeing some peculiar figure sneaking out of another university building - someone with an oddly iridescent hull, a long, curved tail and what looked like a chitinous armor and chelae. "That looks like a technorganic to me," the spiritual warrior remarked, frowning. 

"I don't like this at all," Ratchet muttered, glancing around the campus area.

Because the former Autobot-commanded police forces were disbanded by the Quintessons and replaced with beast machines, some Autobots and Decepticons had founded private security companies - one of which was established by Elita One and contracted by the University. Two guards employed by the company, Chromia and Override, speeded into the campus area right in front of the medic and the ex-Decepticon.

The two vehicles transformed into their robot modes. 

"Our headquarters received a notification of a break-in," Override stated, eyeing the two mechs questioningly, "Surely it wasn't either of you?"

"You've seen anything?" Chromia asked Drift and Ratchet, scanning the area quickly before waving at Override to follow her. "The security cameras revealed a breach at the archive department! Let's go."

Drift tried to halt them. "We saw something! A technorganic exited that building just a while ago, then there was an Insecticon and apparently Laserbeak..."

Chromia and Override turned on their heels to stare at him but then spotted the said technorganic attempting to disappear into the shadows and ran after it, firing repeatedly. Something swooped down from the rooftops to attack Chromia, and a flying, buzzing creature appeared to block Override's way. 

However, Drift's catlike movements took them by surprise - screaming a battle cry, the warrior swung his sword to cut off an appendage from the winged banshee clawing and biting Chromia, and the thing flew away with a string of screechy insults. Drift spun around and cut off several legs from the buzzing creature trying to sting Override between armor plates; it too gave up and disappeared into the night, buzzing loudly.

"What the hell were those? That was not Laserbeak," Chromia coughed, seeming nauseous but running after the figure with the long tail. 

"I don't think that other thingy was an Insecticon; its energy signature produced an error on my HUD," Override scoffed as she followed her. 

"Technorganics," Drift confirmed. "There's so much carbon-based matter in them that many locals cannot even register them, especially when they are in beast mode."

"Perfect for infiltration," Override said. Her gunshots had managed to partially hit the figure that was trying to scurry away but when it found itself cornered, the Cybertronians saw it raise its tail above their heads and fire a line of acid at them. 

"Well, that was close," Drift muttered as the flames of the acid hit his chest plate. "I think I'm going to get sick." 

As the acid didn't seem to have any impact, the technorganic opened its chelae, revealing a set of hidden guns and fired at him and Override.  

"I'm going to get sick of you if you don't get out of my way," it hissed, looking feverishly into the rooftops and shouting: "Terrorsaur! Waspinator! Come back here!" 

"That's an interesting tactic," Override said as she blocked the technorganic's fire with her metal gauntlets while Drift leaped forward, raising his sword - and was suddenly blocked by a more decidedly metallic figure that grinned at him with sharp denta and glowing red optics. Drift noticed the spiraling weapon they were holding and registered the energy signature belonging to transmetal. Taking a quick step back, Drift barely managed to avoid the next attack attempting to pierce his armor through the seams. There was a mercurial exchange of strikes between Drift and the unknown transmetal warrior.

"Drift, this isn't actually your fight," commented Chromia behind him, attempting to pinpoint a good moment to fire at Drift's opponent while Override managed to grapple the technorganic and flip them over on their back. 

"We've got to report this to the university and we can't let them get away with this." Override handcuffed the technorganic, more or less squeamish about handling a creature that to her could have might as well represented one of the organic races in the galaxy. For one thing, both the technorganic and the transmetal were smaller than her, Chromia or Drift, but possessed dexterity that was currently giving Drift a hard time. She looked down on the suspect which was covering its face with its chelae as if they were mittens, realizing they were no fighter. She had seen enough beast machines in action to know that they were only as dangerous as their size suggested, and this one seemed to be scared out of its wits.   

However, Drift appeared to be losing the fight to his opponent, but helping him out without injuring him in the process was too difficult. 

"Drift, get away from --" Override was about to lift her guns when the transmetal fighter took its beast mode - a two-legged reptile-like creature with needle-sharp teeth - and pounced on Chromia who attempted to fire at it.

"It's trying to kill us!" Override exclaimed, firing her guns but missing gloriously and hitting the wall of the dormitories, ensuring everyone in them woke up. Meanwhile the captured technorganic got back on its legs and shouted into the darkness:

"Quickstrike! Did you give the book to Waspinator? Like we agreed?"

"I sure did!" yelled a voice from the street.

"What book?" Override turned back at the handcuffed technorganic who was making an escape out of the campus area. While she could understand their Cybertronian, something about their dialect showed influences from the Quintesson language and this was highly disturbing to her. However, Drift's transmetal reptilian opponent stopped trying to rip Chromia's armor apart by clawing at it and jumped over a high fence, disappearing into the night.  

Override was not about to let the technorganic escape again, and this time received assistance from Drift who moved like quicksilver to trip the suspect who faceplanted into the pavement.

"He's already handcuffed but we should bind the legs and that stinger too, just in case," Override remarked, giving Scorponok a mild kick and proceeding to bind the stinger to the technorganic's neck. "Now, we definitely need to find out what they were up to here."

Because they didn't legally have the rights of police, Chromia and Override carried the captured Predacon into the University's basement and decided to let the staff decide what to do with him. Because the highest ranking faculty member present at this time was Brainstorm, the inventor suggested to lock up the Predacon in his lab.

"The security footage shows the Insecticon-like creature assisted this technorganic to break into the Archives," Chromia commented as she and Override were going through the legal proceedings on whether a crime had been committed to begin with. "It seems they stole a book which is now either in the possession of an unknown figure - which the burglar called Quickstrike - or that organic Insecticon-like thing that attacked us. It's interesting how they knew what and where to look for because they didn't really have much time to rummage around in there." Chromia turned a questioning optic to the captured Predacon who was slouching on the basement floor.

"We'll extract that information out of him," Brainstorm said. "Take him to the lab on corridor 5C and lock him up."

Afterwards, Ratchet offered to treat the minor injuries Override, Chromia and Drift had received on site. 

"Why would a bunch of beast machines want to steal a book?" he asked, frowning as he opened his tool kit. "Couldn't they just borrow it like any book from the library?"

"No, because the locked away books are from the old Iacon Archives. Where Orion Pax used to work a very long time ago," Drift explained. "There's ancient religious literature, for example - manuscripts from the times of the Thirteen Primes. Museum collections."

"Right." Ratchet pulled out a large metallic claw stuck in a seam in Chromia's armor, bringing it close to his face in fascination. 

"Did you notice the insignia on the suspect's armor?" Chromia asked Override.  

"Yeah. Predacons. I learned only recently that they formed their own faction when more and more of them were programmed with the ability to speak and transform, but that's just the Quintesson made ones. Colonists from Eukaris have been joining Predacons too."

"Where is this country headed to? It used to be so simple, just Autobots and Decepticons," Ratchet complained.

"No, it was simpler when there were no Autobots nor Decepticons but just Cybertronians," Drift mourned. 

 

***

This is what it meant to be free but with a purpose, to have a mission a fully autonomous entity had chosen on their own volition.

No one else was telling him to do it but he himself. On the contrary, everyone else kept doubting him.

There was no Matrix of Leadership guiding, consulting or driving him forward: only his own singular will.

Vehicle mode Orion Pax was driving across the Antarctican ice shelf at dusk with his headlights on when his comms were reached by Ironhide from the Autobot base. Returning from a three day long excursion into the glaciers hadn't even crossed his processor yet as he kept thinking how many more possible human hideouts there were that Bumblebee and Wheeljack hadn't found out about.

Even in four hundred Earth years.

Even if the lost bunkers and caves contained only corpses, there could very well be enough DNA left to create more humans, Orion thought.   

"Yes, Ironhide?" he spoke to the comms, his wheels nearly crushing a penguin skeleton on his way. Sharp walls of ice protruding ahead of him forced him to slow down as the terrain kept getting bumpier and suddenly his wheels came grinding to a halt as he got stuck in the ice. "Thankfully my T-Cog hasn't frozen," he thought aloud as he forced himself to transform back to robot mode.

"Orion, did you hear me?"
"I heard you, Ironhide," Orion said, optics fixed on the trail ahead.
"What's your situation?"

"My wheels got stuck in the ice but I am fine. I did not find any abandoned research bases or bunkers on my way."

"Prime-- Orion, there's been an incident at the University of Iacon," Ironhide informed him. "Burglary. Some beast machines, one of them Scorponok - I thought Megatron killed him? - stole a book from the prohibited section of the Archives. Brainstorm said it belongs to museum collections and is extremely rare."

"What is the name of the book?!" Orion grumbled, his whole frame seemingly now frozen of shock.

"Brainstorm wouldn't say but it's from the time of Nova Prime, the author is Jhiaxus. Crazy old."

"I'll be on my way! Prepare the spacebridge!" Orion's circuits were on fire as he guessed which book the burglars had been after, cursing the idea that the book he was looking for had quite likely been right under his nose all this time but he simply didn't know exactly what nor where to look.

Headlights back on, he drove himself nonstop for twelve Earth hours straight all the way back to the Autobot base, in dire need of refueling.

 

"Prime." Jazz greeted him first upon his return. The Autobots felt uneasy when they read Orion's EM field - there was something scary about his current sentiment, as if he was going crazy; the former Prime's entire chassis was steaming, his smokestacks fuming.   

"Do they know on Iacon's side that I am coming?"

"Yes," Ironhide confirmed. There was something seriously wrong with Orion but he couldn't pinpoint why he seemed to be so riled up over a burglary at the University.

"Is the spacebridge ready?" Orion asked them.

Jazz and Ironhide looked at each other. "You might wanna hurry; they ain't gonna keep it active all day," Jazz mumbled.

"I see." Orion turned around, glancing over the construction site of Corona Australis as other Autobots stopped everything they were doing just to stare at him. There was no doubt about that in their optics he was still Prime - a powerful leader worthy of their loyalty, not unlike a mysterious, amazing force of nature whose example inspired them all to do their best.  

Smokescreen brought him a bowl of energon cubes. Orion took a handful, removed his faceplate and eyed the Autobots gathering around him, sensing the confusion in their EM fields and reading from the frequencies carrying their thoughts and emotions which implied they not only respected him but were a little frightened of him as well for some reason. He consumed the energon cubes, looking at Tigatron and Airazor who also arrived on site in their beast modes.

"Men, as the patron of Iacon University I must head back there to inspect the cost and damage of a recent burglary," he told them all. "I ask you to resume your work as normal; I shall soon return."

As Ironhide and Jazz escorted him to the spacebridge, Orion kept thinking how much his inner contradictions regarding matters such as his feelings for Megatron versus the fact that Megatron was also the biggest war criminal in the galaxy, at least in terms of the Autobot Code - certainly not by Decepticon standards - and this was just the start of his inner turmoil. It was perhaps this turbulence within his spark and processor which his collected, regal disposition belied but which his subordinates and friends could detect via his EM field regardless; at times it seemed the only thing to keep his mind, ridden with layers and layers of cognitive dissonance, barely intact was the endless stream of justifications he kept making over time, especially when forced to explain his reasoning to others.

"He's on his way back," Tigatron stated as he saw Orion step through the spacebridge's hatch. "The Autobot leader has anger inside him that is not readily obvious."

"I too sense a sanguine temperament underneath that cool demeanor," Airazor confirmed. "I've watched him. He carries a secret... that he doesn't know about."

The two interdimensional time travelers observed the huge red Autobot vanish via the spacebridge. 

 

In Iacon, still in need of refueling as well as recharging, Orion Pax arrived on the other side of the spacebridge in his robot mode, then transformed and drove all the way home, calculating how much time had passed on Cybertron while he had been staying on Earth. This was his home, a crudely beautiful place; a big, crowded city, full of life and energy. When Orion arrived at the palatial gates, he realized how much he had missed the vibrancy of a place that seemed to be always alive.

Not something you could say of Earth anymore.

The first thing he did after entering the gates was contact his sparklings; however they were at the battle academy, so he resorted to marching into the palace, casually greeting the staff he encountered along the way, including a service droid that beeped happily and fluttered off. Then Orion registered a familiar energy signature that he hadn't spotted in quite a while, that of Ultra Magnus.

What's Magnus doing here? 

"Your Excellence, Queen Orion has returned," the service droid chirped at Megatron's office where he was going through the budget and Ultra Magnus sat across his desk analyzing the cyclical tax revenue. Both lifted their heads, looking up from their datapads to stare at the droid and then at each other, very awkwardly. 

"Well, we knew this day would eventually come," Ultra Magnus complained, looking worried. "What are you going to tell him? Are we keeping things a secret?"

Megatron looked mildly amused. "The truth about you being my lawyer and accountant?"

"Ehh..., that hardly needs to be kept a secret," Ultra Magnus admitted, looking surprised. "I was referring to the other subject."

"Yes, the exoskeleton in the room." Megatron stood up. "Orion isn't stupid. Crazy he may be - usually in a good way - but not stupid. There will be a confrontation sooner  or later, I suspect; I will have to bring it up with him myself. If I don't, he will quite likely go back to Earth again and never return."

Ultra Magnus looked confused.

"See, Magnus, this is about our sparklings. C-RAM and Railgun haven't seen him for an entire semester. Now, I don't doubt that Orion loves them but he simply puts greater emphasis on completely other things than home and family. He is out to 'save the world', whereas I am happy to have a steady, peaceful home base to enjoy."

"It is a beautiful home," Ultra Magnus agreed.

"Orion did the interior design himself, can you imagine?" Megatron laughed. "And does he live large when he has no limits on materials or shanix! Gold, marble, obsidian and jewels everywhere. The lounge has an opal wall. The washing racks have crystal walls embedded with rare minerals, opaque pink and blue. It's ridiculous."

"I had no idea his tastes are so opulent," Ultra Magnus admitted. 

Megatron shrugged. "Opulence hasn't been popular in this country since the heyday of the Crystal City," he pointed out, "but let's not keep Orion waiting. I don't actually know if I'm able to tell him about us before he makes his own deductions."

Sighing, Ultra Magnus followed Megatron to the main lounge where Orion Pax was drinking energon and shoving energon cubes into his intake. He quickly spun around when noticing his former Second Lieutenant behind Megatron who was approaching him with a curious radiance of melancholy about his EM field.

"Megatron." Orion gave him a nod. "I won't be here for long; I must head to the University to examine a recent burglary. But Ultra Magnus - what is he doing here?"

"He's my current lawyer and accountant. I required someone I could trust. Someone who has my back."

Ultra Magnus looked sheepishly apologetic when he saw Orion's suspicious expression. However as Orion was in dire need of recharging, he had to lie down on one of the expensive divans in the room. Megatron understood his condition and went over to connect him to a charge port.

"Primus only knows how long he's been going on without recharging; his battery is almost empty." Megatron pulled a warm indoor vehicle cover gently over Orion as the mech fell into recharge, now appearing very innocent and vulnerable. "Orion, I believe you are a great warrior, one of our finest," Megatron whispered, "but your journey to the Antarctican mountains of madness didn't exactly cure you from your craziness; I can tell. Abusing your frame while telling yourself the human wasteland is the freedom you seek, deluding yourself that bringing that Primus-forsaken species back from the dead is the gateway to your redemption, giving you meaning and purpose when our own people made it clear to you that you and your Autobots failed them."

Ultra Magnus stood intake agape behind him, looking infinitely sad. He recalled the protests against Optimus Prime as Orion was still known as back then, how only after the war could he admit that the once faithful servant of Sentinel Zeta Prime's regime was indeed part of the problem. You couldn't really blame him for turning his attention to organic races after realizing Cybertronians as a whole did not condemn Megatron the way the Autobot regime or Starscream did. On the contrary, the longer Autobots reigned the more the general public wanted Megatron back.

"Do you think he already knows?" Ultra Magnus asked. Megatron turned around slowly. Because he knew Orion would never agree to seek treatment on his own, he decided to call Rung via his internal comms, telling the psychiatrist that there was a very special patient waiting to be treated and that he needed to attend to them in their home, to which Rung reluctantly agreed to. 

"It seems it's time for me to go to the University myself to find out about that burglary. Orion will be asleep at least until the sparklings return from school."

"I'm coming too," Ultra Magnus stated firmly. "It very well may be that I can be of use on the burglary case." 

The two mechs left the palace, transformed into their vehicle modes with Barricade and Motormaster following as Megatron's bodyguards and made their way to the University where Brainstorm was still keeping Scorponok locked up. Upon Megatron's arrival, the Predacon was nervous for reasons he couldn't quite explain; there was a very vague memory now of having seen the mech up close somewhere under very unpleasant circumstances.

"I know you," Scorponok uttered hoarsely. Brainstorm had apparently done something to him to make him more placid, and the way the Predacon was giving scared glances at the inventor indicated Scorponok found the Autobot more than a little bit horrifying.

Because the captive was strapped to prevent him from using his chelae and stinger, Megatron kneeled right next to him.

"I recognize your designation. So the rumor is true, the Quints rebuilt you. But most of your memories have been destroyed, haven't they? Sometimes the Quints reprogram the goal alignment while everything else is left intact. They once did that to Orion before he was changed back. Very cruel practice."

Scorponok stared at him nervously. "The book of Jhiaxus. The Empty Spellbook."

"Excuse me, what?"

"The Quintesson Governor, Admiral Lionheart wanted it. Please don't kill me again."

"So, you remember your death after all."

Megatron figured the official police forces wouldn't be of any help under these circumstances since as beast machine-controlled they took direct orders from the Quintesson Admiral himself. Instead, Megatron considered utilizing the University's security services - Elita One's company - for assistance regarding the burglary, considering contractually they were responsible for the University's property. 

"I will confront the Quintesson personally about this matter," he told the others in the premises. After a brief discussion with Elita One via his private comms, Megatron assembled a team consisting of Override from Elita's security company, Ultra Magnus, Drift and his bodyguards Barricade and Motormaster for a raid to the Admiral's headquarters in Altihex using Astrotrain.

"Are we actually doing this without Optimus-- Orion Pax?" Drift asked Megatron when they stood waiting for Astrotrain in the University's courtyard, not paying attention to a teenage looking android girl with sharp, intelligent eyes observing them from a rooftop. Alexis had replaced her originally reddish brown glued-on wig with long, black synthetic hair to surprise Starscream while waiting for his return.

"I have to know what's in that book," the warlord replied. "This situation needs a resolution. I've postponed my involvement for far too long."

When Astrotrain arrived to pick them up, nobody noticed the android girl sneaking in after them and hiding behind cargo.   

 

***

 

Orion Pax woke up after a long, deep recharge to the voice of an unfamiliar orange mech sitting by his side as he lay on the divan. He realized the bot had been talking to him while he slept; it was a curious but friendly and understanding voice. There was another mech standing nearby with a syringe and a wrench; apparently a medic.

"I'm Rung, I used to be the psychiatrist of the Lost Light," the mech introduced himself when Orion was staring at him in suspicion while sitting up. "That is Red Alert," he waved towards the silent mech, "Megatron ordered us to check on you; you were not very well when we found you asleep here. Not damaged or injured per sense, but it seems you have put yourself under unnecessary strain lately while trying to survive on minimal fueling and recharging - as if to punish yourself."

"I am fine! My name is Orion Pax and..." Orion saw he was still in the lounge at his home instead of... what? There was an error message on his HUD.

His sudden disorientation caused concern in Rung. "Exposing yourself to huge changes in temperature and moist may have done a number on you."

"You mean... cold damage? But it's always cold here on Cybertron too." Orion still felt weak for some reason. "I... came back here to help solve a crime at the University. A book theft. Long ago I used to work in the Iacon Archives as a data clerk, yet there is a book I never recall personally seeing or cataloguing but I knew someone who read it. I believe the stolen book is the very same item." 

"I see," said Rung amiably. "You came all the way from Earth to bring back this book? It must be very important to you. Why is this?"

Orion found himself laying back on the divan again, explaining to the psychiatrist that according to an old scientific journal and references to Jhiaxus' book implied he was the subject of early Quintesson experimentation. "I have to find out what they did to me," he grumbled. 

"Do you think this stolen book has factual evidence of your assumption being correct?"

"I believe it has," Orion muttered. Rung persuaded him to try to gather his strength for some time while asking questions about his health, life and youth, which Orion found interesting after considerable hesitation about discussing these matters with a stranger, but he understood Rung was a professional nonetheless.

"I know I was not always like this," he finally admitted, "and I don't just mean battleworn and weary." He sighed. 

Rung nodded. "You have a hard time accepting your trauma because you hate the thought of others pitying you or perceiving you as weak, unfit to lead," he said.

Orion stared at the ceiling. The psychiatrist made it sound like he was Megatron, although he happened to know Megatron's own issues stemmed from attempts at Shadowplay by the government and being constantly harassed by officials prior to overthrowing the Senate. 

The psychiatrist continued: "You must stop detaching yourself from what happened to you in the past or the pressure of this emotional baggage will eventually cause a nervous breakdown from which you may never recover. I don't want to force you to live those daunting experiences all over again in your mind but at least acknowledge them, please. For the sake of yourself, your friends and family."

Orion remained quiet, now reminiscing the events that led to his first death by his own Conjunx during Decepticons invading Autobot City, but recalling this event wasn't nearly as devastating to him as losing Senator Shockwave to governmental Empurata and Shadowplay, and the Quintessons' partially successful attempt at reprogramming him into a killing machine against those he used to fight for. What he had gone through was far worse than he had wanted to accept, and it was killing him inside.

"You have unprocessed PTSD," Rung spoke. "Your natural response to this is to head for the next thing, into the future. But when you refuse to process your pain, you will ultimately run into a wall with yourself and your life no matter how perfect it looks on the outside."

Orion lay silent, trying to accept the psychiatrists' words. "I want to find a way to experience life like an organic does," he then confessed. "To be able to laugh, cry, rejoice, dance. Megatron thinks my insistence on protecting Earth and humans is some kind of misplaced compassion but it is really selfishness on my behalf. Because I want to live like the humans used to. I need to learn how they did it. I want to bring them back from extinction to find out."

"Interesting. I am sure recent technological developments will enable it if that's what you truly want."

Something ignited within Orion's spark. His optics now brighter alight, he slowly sat up and looked at Rung and Red Alert with quiet determination. He pinged Megatron with a brewing urgency within him, stood up and nodded to the psychiatrist. 

"I appreciate your visit but I must go. If Megatron thinks he can solve the problem between us without me, he's wrong."

Rung and Red Alert watched the Autobot leader get up and march down the palatial hallways.

"Can he be Optimus Prime without the Matrix of Leadership?" Red Alert asked the psychiatrist as they both made way out of the palace.

"He was always Optimus. Because time is not linear, and all events must fulfill the causality loop on a Möbius Strip."  

"Oh. Uhh... Right."

 

***

 

Upon approaching the Quintesson base in Altihex, Astrotrain with Megatron's team aboard was met with several jellyfish-like Quintesson warships but instead of opening fire, one of the Quintessons opened comm lines to Astrotrain and demanded the shuttle to surrender, leaving an increasingly enraged Megatron under a difficult decision. It was his nature to both boldly head straight into battle as well as devise a clever plan to deceive the enemy to thinking they had won and then strike when they least expected it.

Or, he thought, he could use the old Optimus Prime trick of heroic self-sacrifice? Or use the alternative Optimus trick of leading the crew into a suicide mission without their consent and not telling them about the low chances of survival. Would Optimus/Orion finally be happy if he used such exemplary leadership?

"As much as I admired Orion as Optimus Prime," Megatron told Ultra Magnus next to him, "he was always more of a good warrior than a leader, in my opinion." Noticing the others staring at him, he continued: "Sure, he inspired a lot of people and attracted a considerable amount of followers. But a leader has to be able to make tough decisions, delegate, have others do the dirty work so you can continue on leading the big picture. But he treated his army like his sparklings."

Megatron had always thought that having someone with a value system like that as his toughest opponent was not only ridiculous - it was downright insulting!

“We’re going to actually fight Quintessons?” Barricade muttered behind him.  

“You scared of them tentacle monsters?” Motormaster mocked his colleague, and before Megatron could say anything his bodyguards were on each other's throats, in classic Decepticon style. 

"I'll cut you into small pieces and feed them to the Autobots!" 

 “There’s an Autobot right next to you,” said Drift.  

“You’re as much an Autobot as Starscream is, Deadlock,” Motormaster snarled. Drift’s expression darkened and he was about to pull out his sword. 

“Stop this nonsense,” Megatron growled. “We are diving headfirst into the Quintesson lair. I am taking this risk because I doubt the Quintessons will kill me.” 

“Doesn’t that kind of exclude the rest of us?” Override grumbled.  

“Why, it would most certainly seem that way. But whatever their response is, it shall consist mostly of bluffing. They will try to scare us.” 

The jellyfish-like Quintesson warships circulated around Astrotrain as the shuttle went ahead to land. The Quintesson headquarters spawned brigades of sharkticons, some of which were far larger than others, comparable to Megatron himself. However, Megatron had predicted accurately that they had no intention of attacking him or his team; instead, they gathered in silent rows to see them descend from Astrotrain and march to the tightly sealed doors of the Quintesson headquarters. 

Megatron noted that on each side of the building complex, square miles of cybernetic forests were full of splendor in their metallic sheen of gold, silver, and platinum, resembling birches of Earth as well as ferns, cycads, and conifers.  

An unusual looking figure approached them after the doors slowly opened. They might have been Cybertronian but could as well be a Quintesson; however, those with recent updates were able to register them as a beast machine which was confusing by their plantlike appearance.  

"I know her - she's Botanica from the University," Drift pointed out to Megatron. "Ratchet sometimes works with her. We assumed she was one of the unaffiliated folks some call Nails. No one's ever said anything bad about her so seeing her associate with the Quintessons is a bit underwhelming." 

"Alright, but what in the name of Primus is Starscream doing with her?" Ultra Magnus said as the flamboyant jet followed the elegant, serene Botanica goose stepping cheerfully.  

"Hi, Megs!" Starscream greeted. "I see you too have an appointment with the Quintesson Admiral!" 

"I don't - but I'll be seeing him anyway," Megatron rumbled. "What were you doing there? Has the Admiral made you his pleasure drone?" 

"Ha! I just won Quintessa's most popular game show!" 

"Oh? And what was the reward?" 

"Well, they promised cake. But I assumed they were lying and that there was no cake. I was made to run around in a multilevel labyrinth with really fragged up non-Euclidean geometry where this huge yellow ball with a giant mouth full of teeth was trying to eat me. I then found out I could destroy the walls with my missiles - which was not prohibited - but doing this led me to run into a Klein bottle. Now, because my spark is theoretically immortal, I found myself outside of time and was able to deal with the Klein bottle as a 3D object. That's how I got out of it alive and got a cake after all." 

"And was the cake made of energon, perhaps?" 

"Um, no." 

"A pointless reward then."    

"Yeah, but I was the only contender in the game show's history who made it out alive." 

Then they all spotted Alexis Thi Dang who ran over to hug Starscream's leg. Utterly delighted, the jet picked up the android girl and placed her on his shoulder. 

"See, Megatron, there are rewards you wouldn't understand," Starscream commented and was about to wander off with the girl when something big, red and winged came shooting from the sky, pointing their ion blaster at Starscream. 

  

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TAKING HER, STARSCREAM?!" Orion Pax with his jetpack yelled, Alexis looking terrified. 

  

Megatron waved his servo at the menacing Autobot leader in the sky, turning to Ultra Magnus. "I told you he's absolutely crazy." 

Then the Quintesson Admiral appeared from the building, swaying casually like a bundle of vegetation in the wind, appearing bored. He said something to Botanica in Quintesson; she bowed and returned inside.  

"Does Botanica work for you?" Megatron asked him while Orion's attention shifted away from Starscream and to the Quintesson leader. The Admiral had the two metallic palm tree-like pseudowings on his back change shape into shredders of a thousand blades. 

"I am Botanica's father, mind you." 

"What?!" The Cybertronians were staring at the Quintesson with their intakes agape.  

The Quintesson shrugged. "Stop wasting my time. I know you came for the book. You want to know what's in it." 

"Well... yes," Megatron admitted reluctantly, folding his arms. 

The Admiral now smiled. "Since Orion Pax showed up as well, you both can follow me to a chamber where I am keeping the sacred tome you seek. Come." 

Orion Pax had landed behind the other Cybertronians, looking imposing with his four wings and glaring at the Quintesson menacingly. Megatron nodded him, after which both entered the Quintesson lair sternly while telling the others to stay behind, despite Ultra Magnus insisting on coming with them. 

Megatron and Orion lumbered behind the gracefully moving Quintesson through corridors full of crisscrossing cables and wires that seemed to be part of a greater living organism. They knew the Quintesson ships were alive, so perhaps their buildings were no exception: they were sentient, thinking, feeling.  

"This book that Jhiaxus wrote. He was enamored with our culture, our language, our civilization and its achievements," the Admiral spoke as he led them to a large dark room lit with UV lights, making the premises look like the oceanic abyss with its bioluminescent creatures.

The Quintesson reached for a sealed cabinet, and to the shock of both Optimus and Megatron, revealed not only Jhiaxus’ tome but the Matrix of Leadership itself. Rage, awe and confusion in their EM fields created a whirlpool of emotions as the duo tried to decide whether to protest or stay cool. 

“You think this object is so special and have forgotten that the most unique thing in the world is your own spark,” the Admiral continued with the Matrix in one tentacle, the book in another. “I’m not going to give you both of these items. You must choose.” 

“What? But how do you even have the Matrix?! It belonged to Rodimus!” Orion shouted. He quickly turned to Megatron, noticing the itchy feeling the warlord was getting from the sight of the holy artefact. “And no, Megatron, he’s tempting us with the Matrix but what would you do with it, hang it on a wall like a trophy? We need to know what’s in that book.” 

Megatron slouched, recalling his ordeals with the crew of the Lost Light. “Somewhere there is a universe where I can use the Matrix just like you, Orion,” he sighed, “and knowing that is good enough.” He turned to the Admiral. “So, let’s see what’s in the book.” 

The Quintesson nodded, smiling. Passing the book to Orion, he continued: “Orion, I know you have asked yourself this question: Why are Cybertronians always in danger? It makes one angry and insane. Why does the world you live in resemble the closed loop system that you yourselves are creating on Earth to save humanity? You know the saying: ‘as above, so below’, and just like a PID algorithm, a feedback based power balance structure is needed to support such a closed loop both here on Cybertron as on Earth. On this planet, it’s you and Megatron.” 

“But we destroyed our planet!” Orion cried out. “What kind of a balance is that?” 

“Without you, the Functionists would have turned the planet into another Unicron.” The Quintesson’s usual sophisticated but frivolous demeanor became a bit more serious. Both Megatron and Orion were paging through Jhiaxus’ book. “By now you know what the Idealized Cognitive Model is, don’t you?” 

A very familiar looking source code was spread on the pages of Jhiaxus' book, page after page.

“Yes. It’s us.” Megatron looked up, meeting Orion’s optics. “Both of us.”  

The Admiral smirked. “The perfect code. The finest code uploaded to two different frames but activated at different times under different circumstances. It’s been an amazing experiment.” 

“What? But why?!“ Orion yelled.  

Megatron’s disdainful expression gave cue that he found the Quintesson’s presentation rather sordid. If anything, he knew he should have felt bitterness as he had been intentionally set up to live a much tougher life than Orion but realizing that by him waging war on Cybertron, Orion’s life had become just as difficult as his own until they had become even in that regard.  

“Have a look at the part where Jhiaxus comments on the nature of machine learning,” the Admiral hinted. "Specifically, learning through experience as opposed to learning through data. That way the same code can grow through countless ways in very different directions, to the point that there is only a superficial resemblance to the source code. Look at yourselves, what have you become? So alike, yet so different."

Megatron gave a look at Orion signaling he just wanted to go home. "I have no further business here. You were right, ok? I believe you now."

"Even about the simulation hypothesis?"

Megatron waved the book at him. "It's written right here. When the source code was activated twice, the point of the experiment was to find out which one of us would be able to exit the simulation. I assumed it would be me." He shook his helm. "But no, it's you. And it's because of your bizarre love affair with humanity."     

"You must be careful," the Quintesson warned. "Remember, safety is the first priority. In order to protect humanity, you must protect yourselves."

"How?" Orion asked.
"In your sparks you have the most powerful weapons."
Orion's optics widened.

Megatron grabbed his arm. "Let's go home," he said.

The Quintesson Admiral watched them go to the door, remarking: "I told you all this for a reason: Unicron is returning, which is why Orion will probably have to wear the Matrix of Leadership again. If you want to keep your planet and Earth safe, that is."

Megatron and Orion turned to him once more. "Are you Quints just going to watch us fight and die?"

The Admiral now moved right in front of them like a gust of wind, his nanomaterial chassis shimmering. "Normally we would. In the highest form of existence all you want to engage in is enjoyment. You'll want to play, play and play. Experiment. But I do love a challenge and I'm not giving up on my investment on Cybertron just yet. We Quintessons will fight Unicron."

"Then so shall I!" Orion declared. "With or without the Matrix of Leadership!"

Megatron grinned as he escorted him out of the Admiral's hideout. The rest of the team stood waiting for them beside Astrotrain, and there was sadness in Ultra Magnus' optics which reminded Megatron that he had to confess something to his Conjunx.

"I need to tell you something, Orion," Megatron said, placing his servos on his shoulders. "When you were gone, I and Magnus got really close."

Orion stared at him, turning to look at Ultra Magnus who was now walking towards them. Megatron felt the enraged jealousy in Orion's EM field and despair in Ultra Magnus' own EM field as the two confronted each other.

"How dare you, as my former Second Lieutenant, have an affair with my Conjunx?!" Orion growled to the massive blue mech, proceeding to punch him in the face.       

"He's my Megatron, not yours!" Magnus replied, preparing to fight back, and the rest of the team rushed to separate the quarrelling parties.  

Megatron facepalmed. "We don't have time for this. What's said and done cannot be changed, we'll just have to live with it," he sighed.

"You are correct," Orion pointed out. "We have Unicron to prepare for and humans to raise." However, he gave a sharp look at Ultra Magnus before turning back to Megatron as the group began shuffling up the plank to Astrotrain. "I can understand you must have felt underappreciated when I was away."

Megatron smiled, nodding. "But I have a great deal of faith in you, Orion."
"Well, I have great faith in you too, Megatron."

Astrotrain soon departed, his cargo of Autobots and Decepticons alike anticipating new journeys and challenges on their way to the future.

A blank, unwritten future of infinite possibilities.

"The future is built on dreams," Orion said, holding servos with Megatron aboard Astrotrain.

 

 

THE END