Chapter Text
Eastern Kalis, the Sea of Rust.
The flight back towards Iacon was far quieter than the flight down to Kaon had been, and despite that it took far longer flying the same stretch in root mode than in altmode all of them were nonetheless flying together. The Coneheads had muttered, but a sharp word from Thundercracker had quieted them, and despite that they could've flown ahead, they were currently bringing up the rear. The Aerialbots had fluttered uncertainly between speeding ahead and then dropping back reluctant to leave. Not for the Decepticons and the possibility of something attacking them, of course, but rather gathering in two clumps above and below the only other Autobot in the group, who wasn't following them as they hoped.
As such, in the end, they all flew back together. The reason being the same as what had smothered all conversation into nothing but brief, almost single-word exchanges; the graying chassis Jetfire was carrying.
It was perhaps a surprise that Jetfire had reached Starscream's falling form before Skywarp had given the latter's ability. Jetfire had dived immediately after the shot had dissipated however, while Skywarp had been transforming and turned around, half a hic away. The rattle as the limp chassis had hit his arms had echoed through his own frame more than the air, but it had drawn the attention of all the aerials present, Decepticon and not.
That led to now, a cycle later and the restrained silence along the eastern Kalisian coast. There was crumbling buildings and pockmarked land to the left, and the fumes and flux-reactions from the Sea of Rust to the right. It stained the sky reddish before it paled to gold further west and far north.
Those colours, red and gold, were the only ones colouring the frame he was holding.
The cycles passed, and the red faded away for gold as they left the Sea of Rust behind and flew in over Altihex. Below them, groups of sharkticons and their lumbering companions could be spotted, but they were ignored - the numbers noted, but ignored. Jetfire was quietly, darkly, relieved they didn't pass close to the Academy, ruined like anything else. It wasn't something he'd wish to see, even so long after it'd been razed. It had, understandably, not been among the first group of rebuilding projects after Iacon had been finished.
The winds changed the further north they flew, and as they passed over the continental gap between Altihex and Iacon, harsh and stinging whip-thin vortices of polar wind rushed down from above to be sucked into the chasm beneath them and disgorged after warming up. It made for distracting flying and Jetfire almost missed Skywarp warping in right in front of him.
They almost crashed together, their EM fields briefly intertwining and then bouncing off as if repelled, snapping like the wind around them.
"Skywarp..." Jetfire narrowed his optics and pulled the limp, cold chassis closer, didn't even need to see those outstretched arms to know what the Seeker wanted.
"Give it here."
It shouldn't be hard to hand the gray frame over - this was not Starscream, and he'd been prepared for the eventuality.
Maybe.
Or perhaps he hadn't, Jetfire quietly acknowledged as they stared at each other, Skywarp's expression darkening with each passing second. He should hand the chassis over. He wouldn't be able to do at least half of the ceremonies that would be needed, because he was neither trine nor military. And even if Starscream hadn't had much over for trine and the efforts needed to uphold that connection, war meant trine meant the connection, and trine was also military.
Which, for some reason, was important.
Jetfire wasn't sure why that thought came up, exactly, but either way. It shouldn't really matter that he wouldn't be the last to touch the gray, cold and broken chassis in his arms, because his connection... Well, it had far less to do with all of the things that might be important to pay attention to during the funerary rituals.
And yet his arms stayed locked.
"Give it the frag over, Autobot!"
And it wasn't the crackling hum of Skywarp and Thundercracker's arm cannons that startled him into easing up his grip and holding the frame out. No, it was the sharp, angry accusation in Skywarp's voice when he said 'Autobot'.
Skywarp's glare was narrow and carmine, but Thundercracker's, before he turned to follow the black Seeker, had softened slightly from its grim flatness. Jetfire resisted crossing his arms over his chestplates as the six--- five Decepticons flew away, leaving the six Autobots behind. Even if both groups were going to the same location, and breaking up didn't make sense.
--------------------
Iacon, Autobase.
::Processors' sharp, mechs. We've got an alien hack in our broadcast system, so all of this is bein' sent out, loud and clear. Private channels still rockin', though, both ours and the 'Cons.:: Blaster's murmur over the comm. frequency wasn't acknowledged in any way but brief, non-verbal pings as all attention was on the screens showing their strange intruders.
::... If that's so, that means we'll have others than just ourselves questioning this. Magnus, could you...:: Optimus didn't need to finish as Ultra Magnus nodded, his faceplates drawn into a tight frown as he left. Prowl followed in his footsteps until he came to where Blaster was and stopped there. Their helms bending together as they focused on trying to figure out how to toss the quintessons out and to keep their comm. frequencies secure, but the second in command of the Autobots did allocate some attention and processor power to the wider discussion as well.
Not that it was much of a discussion at the moment, as after the field-fluttering, silent staring, the room had broken out into a heaving mess of noise. If one didn't know almost every single mech present was, or had been, a veteran of a millions of years long war, it seemed more like the room was filled with confused protoforms.
"That can't---"
"What is even going on..."
"Well, we do know nothing beyond the Golden Age records..."
"Preposterous! It's not as if they could've found out ways to make sparks--- "
"---How the frag is this even---"
"Lemme shoot the equipment an' we can deal with these jokers without listenin' to their slaggin'---"
Optimus put a hand on Ironhide's arm to hold him back, but the red mech's last last word was drowned out by another, which cut through the din like an angry bell.
"LIES!" Elita pushed past them, rocking Ironhide in his stance and Chromia right behind her. Her pale faceplate wasn't widened into confusion or her optics paled in shock. There wasn't even any incredulity. Only the lines of her faceplate drawn sharp in a thunderous expression that vibrated out into her voice, losing her temper for the first time since she'd come to them. "Filthy, scum-dripping liars and truth-twisters."
That spurred laughter from the quintessons on the other side of the screen, a strange, five-pitch whooping that crawled underneath their armour. Optimus had to resist to rub his arms and elsewhere to dispel the feeling, concentrating on the pink and blue mechs now at the head of the room.
"Ah. The extraction team. We were wondering where you were," Kledji was murmuring in a whisper that could have been congenial, but the plump, round-crowned blue and gold face at the front merely radiated vague threat, "perhaps you could make sure your mission is not a failure and finish it?" There was a sense of expectation following those words, as if he believed he'd be obeyed.
Elita and her mechs, both at the front of the room and back where Springer and Hot Rod were, all straightened, optics narrowing and their chins lifting up.
"No. We are ourselves now, and your orders mean nothing," Elita snapped as she crossed her arms under her chestplates, her optics a bright and livid aqua. Optimus and Ironhide were, along with Megatron and Soundwave, close enough to the two so that when Chromia leaned in and whispered, they could hear the words clearly.
"I'd like to see them give orders if we got rid of their faces and whatever else they make noises with."
Ironhide smiled grimly, and Optimus just shook his helm but allowed himself a slight twitch of his lips behind his mask. It wasn't something he'd condone here and now, but he could (somewhat, he hadn't been in their position) understand the sentiment.
"So to the list of crimes should be added viral re-purposing of data intending and resulting in loss of property---" the quintesson that had come up beside the supreme magistrate lord Kledji, displaying the almost grotesquely smiling face as it flicked in something on a computer it held in one tentacle was disrupted by the roar of an engine.
"You're liars, and your accusations a mockery of justice!" Chromia yelled and when a black hand came down in front of her, she snapped around to glare up at Megatron. She looked liable to rip his hand off if it remained in its position for much longer and Optimus almost took a step forward, especially as Megatron wasn't looking at her, but the screen.
"Perhaps we should do our... ah, judges," despite the term afforded them, there was nothing but mockery in Megatron's voice when he said it, "the favour of hearing them out before we refute them."
Given the way Elita and Chromia's expressions darkened and the grumble around the room, Optimus realised he needed to do something. He knew they needed to know more to have something to work with, so letting everybody get justifiably angry wouldn't help. Towards that end, he stepped up to the front of the room again, and, with an apologetic tilt of his helm to Elita and Chromia, started to talk before they could.
"In that vein... what proof do you have for your claims? Not of our... supposed crimes, but the reason you're making those claims of crimes." The past. A past they didn't know enough about, had never known anything about. He wished Alpha Trion had had the chance to answer Megatron's question before they'd gotten Vibes' message. Perhaps they wouldn't have to rely on a group of individuals who clearly wanted them no good for what was either the actual truth, or a distortion of it.
At least they did have two mechs present who would hopefully know it for the lies or truth it was, even if they would probably also have their reasons for lying if it came down to it. Optimus did not glance over at Alpha Trion and Solus Prime where they were out of view of the screen and thus the recordings, but he couldn't not shift his stance at the thought of his mentor willfully lying to him.
Patience.
If nothing else, perhaps... perhaps he could venture into the Matrix. It was, after all, among other things, a window to the past.
Lord Kledji's stout, blue-and-gold mask remained, and despite that it had an expression locked in a narrow stare and a flat line of a mouth mostly hidden behind a dull brown-gray facial decoration, even across the screen Optimus was pretty sure he could pick up on the satisfaction radiating from the quintesson.
It didn't make his - or, as he glanced around, anyone else's - unease any less. Elita was glaring at Kledji with a singularly intense expression of flat loathing.
"Since the extraction team is present, this shall be much easier than otherwise to at least begin." The nearly blue-white optics, their glow sort of wet, flickered around the room before settling on Optimus and Megatron again. "You were built for a purpose, after all, but it appears that those of you fashioned after the more outgoing and dominant biological sex proved to be far more... rebellious, than your sisters. They have remained, as is proper, with us while you broke away---"
"Well, I know that's a lie, at any rate," Vibes said, her voice dry and rough but easily heard across the room. She was followed by Broadside, who was like a gray, lumbering shadow behind her as she came up to the front, tilting her chin up at the screen and the quintessons displayed on it. "Because no matter what you want, and can pretend to claim when it comes to them," a tilt of her helm towards Chromia and Elita, "I have never left Cybertron. I remember hiding from your sharkticons, as much as anyone else did."
There was a moment of silence in which Vibes' crossed her arms as the glittering optics on the other side of the screen narrowed, muffled shifting of the oval-shaped quintessons as the moment grew and lengthened. Then Kledji chuckled.
"Perhaps you didn't, but it doesn't surprise me that your more forward brethren managed to pull a few of you aside. You are disposed towards obeying your more dominant brothers, after all. That a few of our more obedient ones has managed to be kept illegally behind as your brothers rebelled against their nature, means nothing really."
Optimus was getting a particular ache that was spreading from the center back of his helm, from some processor cluster or other. He was angry, but also confused. Their talk about complimentary halves didn't make sense - what little he'd seen of Arcee, and somewhat more of Elita and Chromia indicated no such differences.
Well, there was some sort of difference, but he was pretty sure it had nothing to do with some set personality. The only thing that was similar to what the quintessons were claiming was something Shockwave had briefly mentioned, that Autobots and Decepticons were built for different purposes. That, however, didn't take into account that Autobots and Decepticons hadn't existed before the war... and what few mechs of the type that Elita and the others were could be found on both sides.
The room was mostly filled with incredulous staring from the quintessons to Elita, Chromia and Vibes at the front - Vibes was as incredulous as anyone else, Elita outright sneering and Chromia looked distinctly insulted.
"I don't think anyone here is identifying with what you're claiming, Magistrate," Megatron said, amusement softening the sarcasm in the words and sharpening the angles of his faceplate. Perhaps it was odd that Optimus could pick that out, even from an angle, but they'd fought enough in close quarters that he ought to know the shifts in the warlord's faceplate.
"I would not expect appliances to know the differences with which they've been programmed with to please their creators and others who might have use of them, even as they're belabouring under a glitch of delusion towards independence." Lord Kledji sneered as his faces whirled around, settling on the spiny crowned one.
"Appliances?!"
"The slag---"
"---feed 'em their own stupid tentacles..!"
The air was thick with growling from engines and vocalisers both, and Optimus would be lying if there wasn't a low noise from his own engine among the rest. It wasn't easy to reign in the temper that wanted to rise and instead to find words - and to speak them calmly.
"Even giving that any of your claims are true, doesn't take away the fact that we no longer are obeying you and haven't been for as long as nearly any of us present can remember. And all it took to break your control over your... extraction team... and let their own personalities through was to make sure energy was being fully distributed through their chassis," Optimus said, raising his voice enough to cut through the rumbling in the room which slowly quieted as he spoke. "We're no one's slaves, Magistrate, and have a right to our freedom." Crossing his arms over his chestplates, Optimus' optics were narrow as he stared at the oversized quintesson taking up most of the screen.
It didn't matter what their past was, not even in relation to the quintessons' claims of "crimes", because the quintessons didn't have a "right" to them. They were both sentient and independent.
"... property, thinking itself grown beyond its original purpose and creators or not, cannot be slaves." The malice in those words was tangible, and Optimus felt like recoiling. Beside him, there was the faint whine of Megatron's cannon powering up and then down.
"So how did you create the first ones, then?"
Optics flickering, Optimus looked aside to see Solus striding forward, her own optics blazing azure and highlighting the challenging set of her expression. The question seemed quite obvious now that it'd been spoken, and shouldn't there, if they weren't lying, be some recognition of Solus Prime, considering... But the optics of the half a dozen quintessons regarded Solus Prime with no recognition at all.
Which could just mean they were good actors, but he wasn't convinced that was it.
"Because if you are our origin, this is something you should know." There was no way not to hear the self-assurance in her voice, a near-smug pitch that indicated Solus was pretty sure she knew something the quintessons didn't. Optimus hoped she was right, and that they wouldn't be able to give anything that would seem like it could be a real account of the first thirteen's creation.
Aware of Kledji's cold stare at him, and then the flicker of that gaze into the back of the room - Hot Rod, perhaps? They had been after them both earlier - before it went back to the front, Optimus arched the ridge above his right optic as he waited with the rest of them for an answer.
The oval-shaped and hovering quintessons moved aside enough to create an empty circle on the floor, allowing two lumbering, barrel-shaped creatures inside. One put down a container of energon with an accompanying cable that led into a smaller, see-through cylinder, the other put down a device of some sort.
It wasn't hard to figure out what they intended to show, and Optimus slowly fisted a hand at his side. He hadn't actually thought they'd "show and tell" merely tell them because this meant that if they were successful, they'd have another spark in their grasp. A spark that might not have come from the Matrix, but that didn't matter as the thought was still like a virulent fire in his processor. The Matrix pulsed along with it, because how dare they... Alpha Trion's hand on his shoulder startled him out of the slow snarl that he hadn't even noticed was building.
"While scouting the planet you think to claim your own the first time, we found this liquid. While experimenting with it to see what uses it might have, we found that a particular manipulation of the energy caused this to happen..." This time, it wasn't Kledji who spoke, but a bulbous-headed, tentacle-armed quintesson with a single face that had followed the barrel-bodied brutes.
Its voice was higher and brighter than any of the others quintessons' had been so far, a soft, insistent drone as the tentacles flicked over the keys and mechanisms of the interface. It flickered online with a glow to the small screen facing the quintesson, and even if no sound could be heard, those who had at any given point been present for an ignition using energon and an artificially generated imitation of the Matrix' frequency all knew what ought to be heard.
It'd be a tingle along their armour too high to hear in basic audio frequency, accompanied by a thrumming that set their spark chambers vibrating, and then something else. If the light of their sparks had a sound, it was that, but it had eluded proper recording so far. The impact circles started to spread over the energon in the container, and then, without seemingly going through any other stages, just flashed into plasma and then beyond. The colour leeched out into electric blue-white and tendrils were drawn, one after the other, into the cylinder.
"Of course, there's nothing to do with this on its own," the... scientist? murmured with a dismissive flick of a tentacle against the cylinder's glass and the sphere of blue-white energy contained within, the container of energon now empty. Optimus shifted on his feet, and there were a few mutters or growls that ripped through the room behind him.
Nothing to do with it on its own, indeed!
"We tried to put the resultant energy in vehicles, but that did nothing. After a few trial and error attempts, we put them in simple drones, and with some basic commands to follow, we finally found a use for them. Especially when we used more sophisticated programming to direct things more efficiently, which led to the differences between most of you, the military and labourer partition. Then, of course, the few that were kept for inside work, domestic as well as house guards, and were given no altmodes as that was unnecessary."
It all sounded so very neat, but something didn't add up. Why had they been after Cybertron's core that Megatron had the Autobots dig up earlier? Or the fact that their explanation didn't account for Overlord and the fact that Lady Mega had had a Seeker altmode before Shockwave joined her and her dying beloved, Lord Giga together in an attempt to save them. Or the fact that Vibes had an altmode, even if Elita's group did not (for the moment).
Optimus frowned as he turned the various facts over in his processor, and didn't look in the direction of the gaze he could feel on him. The Supreme Imperial Magistrate was still staring at him. He was pretty sure that while they hadn't known from the start that there were more than one way to create sparks, with the attempt to kidnap him... and Hot Rod, for whatever reason, and the earlier attempt at Cybertron's core, they did know now.
"That is all very well and good, but what Solus asked was about the literal first ones created," Alpha Trion said as he took a few steps in front of Optimus, drawing Kledji's gaze away from the Prime. "You merely gave a generalised account of a potential first creation. Who were the first ones, what drones did they inhabit? Because our memories do not contain you. Optimus, if you could..?"
"You speak as if the first would have been special; they were tools as much as those of you who came after." Kledji huffed while Alpha Trion held his hand out and Optimus, confused but curious as to what his mentor wanted, stepped up beside him again. Or would have, if Megatron's hand hadn't slapped against his chestplates, accompanied by a flat, narrow stare. That he could hear the snapping of a few guns being brought out behind him wasn't surprising, nor was the feeling of his energon axe being readied to activate, but what was surprising was the lack of violence from Megatron.
Merely... restraint.
::I think it's too late to hide that I only lead a faction in our civil war, Megatron. I doubt they were after a hostage when they sent Elita's group in after me and took Hot Rod.:: He couldn't quite hide the dry tone, holding up a hand to keep his "defenders" at bay, and Megatron snorted.
::Then don't come whining to me when they go after you.::
::Says the mech that was going to trade the core of Cybertron away for one million clone soldiers.:: Optimus stepped around Megatron, and this time he was allowed to, even as Megatron shifted his stance behind him and crossed his arms.
::It was that or you, Prime.::
Only the mocking, drawling tone stopped Optimus from turning around and staring. It was still impossible to stop the twitch of his audial finials, but Megatron was probably just joking. Maybe. The fact that he couldn't tell was... well, he wasn't sure what he thought about that.
Shaking his helm, he kept his optics on the quintessons on the other side of the screen, unable to also keep his optics from wandering to the new spark in its cylindrical container. It didn't belong there.
"What do you need me to do?" Optimus kept his voice low enough only those absolutely closest to him and Alpha Trion would be able to hear, and his old mentor smiled faintly.
"Concentrate on the Matrix. I'll do the rest," Alpha Trion murmured before raising his voice and his optics to the quintessons while he reached out and closed his hand around Optimus', "tools, you say, and yet I have very specific memories of my creation..." There was another mild, bland smile that Optimus nearly missed due to the sudden direction of the energy within him.
He'd been concentrated as asked, bringing that quiet, bright humming closer to the surface but not touching it, despite the swell of presence and power. Then it flared, seemingly pulled---
And the flare had apparently not been something just felt, but also very physical, Optimus realised as his optics resettled and there was a pool of gold in the open space between the screen they were all facing and the crowd in the room.
::Blaster, make sure the recording keeps being broadcast to everybody, if the quintessons stop and try to cut what they made public earlier,:: Optimus sent the request out quickly, because it was hard to concentrate with the bright rise of power and light both within and on the floor of the room.
::Nothing's gonna pull the plug while I'm here, even if I can't stop 'em from broadcastin',:: Blaster chuckled dryly, but the words were rather indistinct as the swell of light shifted, flickered, and slowly seemed to take shape.
It was like watching a three-dimensional hologram that also was in first person - odd and slightly disorienting as the light went from unfocused nothing to a pair of arms forming out of it, with the edge of a half circle and a staircase in front. Then those arms, mostly made up of protoform, cables and pistons, were grabbed by white hands and then it was suddenly obvious everything wasn't gold because the energy that made up the 'hologram' was gold. No, it was because that was what the mech had been seeing at first. As they were pulled out by a tall, smoothly armoured mech in white and gold and with a strongly-lined faceplate and a kind smile, colours continued to bleed in... along with armour on the arms that they could see.
Rounded purple and magenta armour seemed to just slide up and cover the previously protoform-bare arms, as well as on the feet as the view shifted down, to the stairs that they were walking up. The colours of the metal on the ground and the stairs were bronze and silver, the sky above as the view swung around and an appropriate starfield was displayed on the room's ceiling, was a dizzying array of stars, gas clouds and the band of an unknown galaxy. Down again, and there was the gold and white mech with golden optics on one side, and on the other another mech in white, burgundy, turquoise and details of gold, wings down his back, on the other side.
They turned to face the circle set in the ground, light, energy and warmth emanating from the center of it and pulsing evenly - like a beat.
Soon, the next one will emerge. The whisper didn't exactly match up to the gold and white mech's moving mouth. It wasn't even an actual sound so much as just a knowledge of what had been said, because the display contained no sound at all. Not of the working systems of the mech (Alpha Trion) who supplied the point of view, or the shifts of metal of the other two.
The pool at the bottom of the stairs pulsed and six points around it flared blue. Streaks of lightning surged from each point to coalesce above the center of the pool into a blue-white, crackling sphere that hung there for a moment before it dove down into the golden energy. The gold and white mech stepped down the stairs again, revealing wheels set into his shoulders and at his hips as he knelt on the last step and held his hands out.
Then, a strange thing happened; the metal at the very sides of the pool on each side of the stairs extended outwards, weaving together and plunged down into the energy. Wiring, protoform and spindly scaffolding wove out of the metal fed by the sides of the pool... into hands, that the mech kneeling on the stairs grasped and pulled at. As he pulled, more metal flowed, constructing the chassis around the spark even as he pulled the shape out of the liquid.
The last to fade in of the form, from where the mech was holding the new cybertronian to the bottom of her feet, were the colours; silver, black and blue.
There was no way to mistake who it was as she stepped up on the ground, guided by the mech in white and gold.
The memory construct suddenly collapsed, and Optimus remained upright immediately after it did so mostly by the grace of his mentor's subtle arm at his back.
"As you can see, there was no one else present."
It was a challenge, a fact.
The burning eyes of the Supreme Imperial Magistrate narrowed, even as the sneering mask remained locked in its grimace.
"The memories of computers can be tampered with, data erased or rewritten with no effort at all, and you are clearly old. Old machines are very suspect to glitches." It was a whisper, searing and low, and despite what they'd seen, the words burned in.
The gold on the floor at the front of the room stirred again, and Optimus stared quietly. He hadn't even noticed it hadn't disappeared, but the humming was loud throughout his frame now, and he felt light.
The energy drew in, rose up. It didn't form anything beyond a vaguely humanoid shape that towered over the tallest mechs in the room, but the suggestion of form was there.
And energy always remains true to its form, regardless what container its kept in. Not a whisper, but not audible words either, they still rung like a bell, reverberating through their frames, their sparks. The form turned slightly sideways, facing them more than the screen, despite that there was no discernible facial features. Merely a suggestion of a warmth, a smile that didn't need to be physical to be seen.
I do not require your belief, faith or worship, children of Cybertron. But always remember this; you are individuals, your minds are your own, through which that individuality expresses itself and that which you make your decisions with. You belong to no one but yourselves and Cybertron belongs to you. This time, the light didn't just collapse, but withdrew in a flash, melting into the floor and back into Optimus.
The song, which had been nearly deafening inside of him, abruptly went nearly completely silent.
"... Initial evidence and witness accounts having been presented, the court shall adjourn for three days," Kledji's voice grated, the mask presented having changed at some point to a misshapen, sneering face with a crown that reminded of a smoothly rounded cowl in green. "It would behoove you to use the time to come to the correct decision, to lessen the strain on yourselves."
The screen went black.