CHAPTER SIX: CONVERSATIONS AND DIVINE INSTRUCTION
“So, the mission was straightforward, if terrifying in scale,” Countdown said. “Locate the other fragments of an ancient cybertronian relic, which would then automatically summon the local god, who would warn their people of a coming global apocalypse, allowing them to prepare.”
Letting out a low whistle, Rodimus stood up and went to a cart in the corner of the room, retrieving himself a glass of energon. “This Hydaelyn character seems to have more basic sense then some fortune tellers I’ve dealt with. Keeps her message relatively simple, assigns a task that you’d not only want to achieve, but should be within your abilities and resources, and she actually provides suitable compensation.”
“You sound particularly annoyed about that,” First Aid noted.
“Long story involving the Solstar Order and a Dire Wraith, you really don’t wanna know.” Returning to his chair, the captain took a sip of energon, then turned his attention back to Countdown. “Obviously the relic parts combined into the Matrix you brought back, that or they led to it.”
“The former,” he confirmed. “Which made for a fun surprise once we collected all the pieces. Took us the better part of a year, even with Tamel Koh helping to provide introductions at some points, and I won’t say it always went smoothly…”
***
“Hey Fylgja, remember back when we were talking to Ifrit?” O’riana said as her axe carved though yet another butterfly seemingly made of light. More took its place, with wings sharp enough to cut through steel, forcing the miqo’te back. “I seem to recall you saying something about how our mission wasn’t suitably epic?”
“I remember that,” Countdown continued, ducking under a burst of flame that reached across the arena. “I believe it was something about how we’d need to do something like duel an angry god in a thunderstorm.” Powering up his arm blasters, he opened fire on their opponent, only for every single energy bolt to be deflected by four gleaming blades. “It’s more of a firestorm,” he added with a glance at the flames surrounding the platform they were on, “but it should still count.”
“He’s not really angry though,” the woman mused.
Landing in front of them, the giant insectoid form of Ravana, Wrath of the Colony, laughed in delight. “There are few ways better to understand the soul of a man than to face him in combat!” He swept his four arms wide, swords glowing with inner light. “Come my friends, dance with me in the song of ringing steel!”
The tiny dragon cringed as the firestorm around them grew stronger. “I have regrets!”
***
“...but we managed. More or less. But until that point, the pieces we recovered failed to react to each other at all. While someone was holding them, they would transform from one shape to another, but aside from that…” he waved a hand. “They were mostly decorative.”
“Which still would make them incredibly valuable,” Dustoff noted. “If only from a historical perspective. There aren’t exactly many pre-Quintesson cultural artifacts left, after all.”
“True, and I even said as much a few times to the others. But by the end of our little quest, they’d almost become a side detail, especially compared to the more local issue.” Smiling at the memory, he shook his head. “So, needless to say, after we’d spoken to the last of the local gods and returned to the Wayforward, we weren’t expecting much.”
***
“How can we even be sure this is all of them?” O’riana wondered, looking over the collection of orange shapes on the table that served as the centerpiece of the Wayforwards recreation room. “I mean, I can’t even see how they’d all fit together, so…”
Leaning across the table, Fylgja tapped a claw against a piece, causing the glyphs on it to glow, before it unfolded from a cube into a long thin cylinder. “Ohhhh, I hope they don’t need to be in certain shapes before you can fit them together. It’d be like a jigsaw, only all the pieces are cheating and can’t make up their mind. And I’m terrible at jigsaws!”
Chuckling, Countdown took an aether crystal from a storage locker, biting into it like an organic would a piece of bread. Wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, he shrugged. “The annoying thing is, it's entirely plausible. That's the problem with hunting old relics. Still, based off everything we've seen, I can't really see Hydaelyn cheating me out of a decent payment for our work.” Flipping open a panel on his leg, he retrieved the last relic piece that they'd just retrieved from the god Alexander, holding it up to consider it.
“So, what, jigsaw time?” Fylgja mused, before the piece in Countdowns hand began to glow. Not the glyphs engraved in it, as all the pieces had countless times, but the entire thing, glowing with a soft inner light. A moment later, all the other pieces began to do the same thing. “Or bring them all close enough to each other, I guess.”
As they watched, all the fragments floated into the air, positioning themselves in an intricate pattern, before transforming again into specific forms that then locked into each other. Then, over the space of a few seconds, the entire object transformed, some sections splitting open and swapping parts with others, resizing drastically, all while a familiar five tone harmonic could be heard. When the transformation was complete, the collection of relic parts had become a mostly spherical container that settled back on the table without incident.
Ears twitching, O’riana leaned in for a closer look. “Huh. So, I don’t suppose you can recognize it now…? Countdown?”
The Autobot didn’t seem to hear her, all his attention on the relic. Slowly, as if afraid he would break the illusion, he reached out and gently touched it with a finger, tracing along the glyphs that now all led to an indentation in the apparent front of the object. “A Matrix,” he said at last. “It’s a Matrix. It's…” laughing unsteadily, he dropped into a chair, optics never breaking contact.
“Okay?” Fylgja said, glancing at O’riana nervously. Neither of them had ever seen the transformer as shaken as he was now.. “And I’m guessing that’s important?”
Running a hand down his face, he forced himself to take a deep breath. “You wouldn’t know, right, of course. Okay, so, I should note a lot of this is myth and legend, but almost every version of the myths have certain similarities that indicate a shared origin. It starts with Primus. I’ve mentioned him before.”
“He’s the god of your star, correct?” O’riana said. “Basically your peoples Hydaelyn.”
“Very much so. Some say Cybertron is his body, others that he merely slumbers at its core. Either way, the result is much the same. The sheer power of his spark, what you call the soul, radiates outward, fusing with the unique metals of our world, reshaping it to suit its own needs, and from that…” he waved a hand across his body. “A new transformer is born. Natural Forging, the first and, once upon a time, most common method of transformer creation. We live, we grow, we learn, and finally then our spark rejoins his Allspark, to begin the cycle anew.”
Tilting her head to the side, Fylgja looked somewhat confused, then gestured at the Matrix. “Ssssooo, how does transformer babies lead to this?”
“There have been times when the Allspark dimmed. Never enough to put a halt to new Transformers, not entirely, but even with our lifespans, there were concerns. It’s said that Primus himself, seeing the risk to his children should something happen to him, crafted the first Matrix from a portion of his own spark. A piece of a god, as seemingly infinite as he was, and a source of new life, to ensure that we would always have a future.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “A lot of the old myths then talk about how he proceeded to come up with even more methods for us to reproduce, just in case.”
O’riana glanced at the Matrix with an expression of respect. “Well, I’ve heard of architects and spell-weavers working to account for failure points in their designs,” she mused, “but this is the first I’ve heard of such a feat being done with living beings.” Smiling wryly, she glanced back up at Countdown. “Every time I think your people run out of ways to surprise me, you prove me wrong.”
“The real surprise is that all those precautions? Nearly weren’t enough.”
Thinking back to some of the stories of Cybertrons history Countdown had shared with her, O’rianas eyes narrowed. “The Fall.”
Nodding, the mechs shoulders slumped. “Some of them had been used before, to create what we called Hot Spots on various colony worlds, to allow the creation of new transformers there. Some had been lost somehow, and most of the ones that were left were kept in very secure locations, thanks to the threat posed to them by the war.” Sighing, he reached across the table and picked the matrix up, tracing a finger across the glyphs again. “Those locations all had large populations, both civilian and military, and often were sites where the lifespark of Primus was particularly strong. Which made them the first locations where the Endsong took hold. Every single remaining Matrix was lost in the chaos.”
Moving across the table, Fylgja leapt onto the mechs shoulder, providing a comforting presence. “You lost Cybertron, and the second option for continuing your people,” she said, her voice gentle.
“We’ve got other ways to create new bots,” Countdown replied, “but all of them are a lot more limited. There's been a fear, ever since we left the fatherworld behind, that we were the beginning of the end. That time would take its toll, slowly but surely. But this…” a smile appeared on his face, weak but genuine. “This gives us a future.”
For a long moment, there was silence in the room as Countdown savored that feeling. That silence ended as the Matrix began to glow again, in a similar manner as its separate components had before combining, but with a far greater intensity. Before anyone could react, the light grew blinding, washing away the room around them, before fading away completely, leaving the three… elsewhere.
“What in all the hells…” O’riana muttered, looking around in awe. Where before they had been surrounded by the dull gray of the ships bulkheads, now they floated in an endless blue-black void, broken by drifting crystals of various sizes, and odd lights that danced in the distance. “What just happened?”
“Teleportation,” Countdown said, as Fylgja leapt off his shoulder and darted over to their companion. While the starship captain was adjusting to their situation with the experience of a man who’d spent considerable time in zero-gravity, O’riana was starting to drift away from the group with no real idea of how to compensate. “Not any sort I’m familiar with either. When such things are cybertronian in nature, there’s a common feeling to them.”
“So, it wasn’t the Matrix itself, but something placed on it from this star,” O’riana guessed, as Fylgja dug her claws into the back of her tunic and pulled her back towards Countdown. “Hydaelyn’s doing, one assumes.”
Nodding, he held up the Matrix for a closer look. “I can’t really think of anyone else that would have the opportunity to apply a spell like that to the Matrix, let alone have the power to do so.but I can't imagine anywhere ”
“So, next question,” Fylgja said. “Where the heck did she bring us… Um… Guys?”
Following the dragons gaze, Countdown looked at the void beneath them. Emerging from the mists was a mass of aether crystal, larger than any he'd ever seen, on this planet or beyond. As he watched, it slowly rose higher, rising up next to them. After a moment, he winced and shut down several of his sensor arrays, as the sheer power in physical form before him was leaving them screaming.
Then, a new voice spoke, seemingly emanating from the mass before them. “Countdown of Iacon, Autobot and Ranger of the Commonwealth,” the feminine voice said, echoing through their bodies with a sheer presence that not even the gods they'd met could match. “Riana of the O tribe, daughter of Aleph, former marine of Nym and Explorer of the Unknown. And Fylgja, daughter of Ratatoskr and Seeker of Stories. I bid thee welcome.”
“Ohhhh…” Fylgja whispered in understanding, eyes wide. “‘She rests in the depths of the lifestream, her soul a radiant crystal like none other.’”
“The will of the star,” O'riana managed. “Hydaelyn.”
Chuckling softly, Countdown considered the goddess. “I think I can see why you sent the other gods to speak with their people. This kind of power on the surface…”
“Perceptive as always Captain. While the gods of the Wild Pantheon could manifest briefly without endangering the mortal people of this star, alas, that is a luxury my nature denies me.”
“Hence why you had us running around as your couriers,” Countdown said.
“Indeed. Thine actions over the recent moons are to be commended. Whilst none can avert the coming calamity, my children are now better prepared to survive it to the best of their abilities…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, before continuing with a tone of wistful amusement. “And they have always excelled at exceeding expectations. Which brings us to what must happen next.” A stream of aether reached out from the mothercrystal, wrapping around the Matrix in Countdowns hands. As they watched, the aether gathered within the opening at the front of the artifact, condensing into an incredibly dense sphere, before shifting back to a physical form, becoming a blue-white crystal that glowed with an inner light. “Whilst the spells to call the Wild Pantheon forth were crafted from my own aether, separating the Matrix into so many pieces meant that the fragment of Primus had to be carefully hidden from those that would use it for ill.”
The armor plating and panels that made up Countdowns torso began to move, followed by internal components moving aside. Carefully, he fitted the Matrix into place in the hollow that formed, before closing his chest up again. “Best to keep it hidden I think.”
Looking slightly uncomfortable with her friend opening his body, O’riana turned towards the Mothercrystal. “Forgive me, but I must ask. How did a relic of Cybertrons past come to be in your care?”
“Some time ago, before the first of the races of man were born, a transformer came to this star, bringing with him the Matrix thou now possess. Upon the instructions of the god Primus, he sought an audience with me.” The space between the trio and the crystal wavered, forming into an illusion of silver and white mechanoid kneeling, his outstretched hands offering up the Matrix to Hydaelyn.
Floating around the illusion, Countdown considered the mech, optics widening in surprise. The outer layers of armor paneling were complex patterns of moving gears, some of them interlocking systems, others merely decorative single gears, a style of transformer design that hadn’t been seen on Cybertron since the Quintesson occupation, nearly twelve million years ago. “I don’t recognise him,” he said out loud. “But the Matrix is certainly proof he speaks on behalf of Primus. Making that claim without his permission… it wouldn’t end well.”
“Primus knew this day would come, as did I. When thou would stand before me, having spread word of the coming Calamity to mine children. And so, thou has a reward worthy of thine efforts. A way to ensure the survival of thy people despite the Song of Oblivion that has engulfed creation, until the day when hope shines once again.”
Pausing, Countdown chose his next words very carefully. “You’re the first being I’ve encountered on this world to know about the Endsong. I wondered if whatever prevented it from taking root in this worlds aether meant that there was simply no contact with it. But you… you existed before the people of your world.”
“Indeed. There was a time, before the first mortals were born, before Midgardsomr arrived carrying what would become known as the First Brood, that the Endsong struck this star. I am all too familiar with what that unnatural despair can do to the soul.”
Tail lashing back and forth, O'riana shook her head. “You've told me of this Endsong before,” she said to Countdown. “How is it any different from the coming Calamity?”
“An Umbral Calamity is destructive, true, but it is finite. In time, balance will restore naturally, and the Calamity will end.”
“...But this Endsong won't.”
“The Endsong seeks out life itself. Should it reach Etheriys, it will not relent until the star is dead and cold.” Her voice wavered slightly, and the light streams flowing through the void suddenly flickered and flared as an echo of the goddesses own horror rippled through them all. “But the day will come captain, when your people and mine can strike back at the oblivion that threatens us all. I have seen it, as has Primus. We have been preparing not just for the Calamity, but what comes after.”
***
“Crack my cog,” Red Alert muttered. “We should have seen that coming… If he knew enough to have a Matrix waiting for someone to retrieve it, then he'd know why we needed it.”
“I'm more interested in what it says about the Endsong,” Dustoff said. “If I'm understanding this correctly, not only is there a point of origin to the phenomenon, it won't be hidden forever. But if it involves the same divine precognition they've already demonstrated…”
Snapping his fingers, Countdown pointed at the femme. “From what she said, I got the same impression. Some of this is speculation on my part, but I believe that certain events still have to happen for us to get the opportunity to strike back at the Endsong. Not that she told us all of them.”
Groaning, Rodimus leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Of course not. First rule of precognition. The more you try to force the future to conform to your preconceived notions, the more it slips out of your control. So it’s like when she got you to deliver her messages for her. She’s keeping the details as vague as possible.”
“Still, some details didn’t need to have divine instruction,” Countdown said, his smile turning slightly bitter. “Namely, that I needed to leave Etheirys as soon as possible. We'd brought the pieces of the Matrix together, and Hydaelyn had returned its core to it. If the Calamity was even half as bad as she was implying it could be, I couldn't take that risk. Some of us took that better than others.”
***
“How is it you're less bitter about this than me?” the Autobot wondered, standing at the edge of the island and looking at the world below. The skies were rather clear at the moment, giving him a good view of the mountain of Sohm Al that the islands floated around, and the fields and woodlands beyond. He could even make out the city of the insectoid Gnath, where he'd summoned, then fought, the rather battle hungry god Ravana.
Next to him, O’riana shrugged before she sat on the grass and let her feet hang over the islands edge. “We’ve always known you'd have to leave eventually. And that you wouldn't be coming back in my lifetime. Fylgja and her kinds lifespan maybe, but certainly not mine. Even if I live a long and safe life, old age will almost certainly claim me before you even make it back to your own people. The fact the moment has come sooner than we expected doesn't change that. So, I suppose the real question is, why does it bother you so much?” Looking up, her expression turned sympathetic. “You're not abandoning us by leaving now.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asked, wheels spinning in agitation. “You’re all about to face a world-changing crisis, and I'm just going to fly away? All our plans about how the Wayforward might be able to help, just thrown in the smelter.” Fans revving up, he made himself take a deep breath. “It certainly feels like abandoning you.”
“You heard what Hydaelyn said. The Calamity is a disaster, true, but the Endsong will be our annihilation one day, unless we find a way to stop it. Which you should know better than me, given you've actually faced it,” she pointed out. He growled slightly but nodded, conceding her point. “That relic will give your people a stability they currently lack, and it will convince them to lend you their aid. When you return, and I have no doubt you will, you will not be alone.” Smiling, she looked out at the horizon. “Who knows, perhaps we’ll meet again, in whatever form I’m reborn in in the next life.”
Sighing, Countdown dropped down next to her. “You are entirely correct,” he admitted. “The problem is, logical arguments mean nothing to the spark.”
“Yet another similarity between your people and mine.” They fell silent for a time, watching the world below. “I'm going to miss you,” she said softly after a while, as a flock of drakes flew past, darting around each other in a giant game of tag with no real rules.
“Now that, I can agree with.”
***
“Launch went smoothly. I waited until that damn war moon was on the other side of the planet, and left the system without incident.” Countdowns voice was level, the grief at the inevitable passing of mortal friends contained thanks to long, painful experience.
And it fooled none of the other bots in the slightest. “And planned your route with a lot of care, I'm guessing,” Rodimus said, giving the smaller bot something to focus on.
Entering a command into the holoprojector, the mech switched it back to map view, a line appearing along it, leading from Etheriys all the way to their current location of Gorlam Prime. It was nowhere near a straight line, doubling back on itself more than once, and avoiding certain regions entirely. “Paranoia was the rule of thumb, yes. If the Wayforward was at a hundred percent, I might have been willing to take more risks, but I couldn’t be certain I’d missed something in the repairs. Better to take it slow than have something go wrong during a desperate dash.”
“Given we found you in an escape pod…” Dustoff said.
Letting out a sigh, Countdown slumped back in his chair. “I don’t know why, I haven’t had time to go over the logs yet, but something glitched in the transwarp drive as I arrived in system. Right as I left the conduit back into normal space, alarms started screaming at me. Some sort of power surge maybe, I don’t know. Either way, I made it to orbit, by which point it was clear that the planet had been hit by the Endsong. But, given how limited my options were at that point…” He sighed again. “I launched the primary distress beacon, got in the escape pod and bailed out. About three minutes later, the transwarp drive discharged, and, well…”
“It twisted reality in ways not approved of by the committee?” Rodimus suggested with a wry grin.
“That's an accurate assessment. If nothing else, I now know what green tastes like. But more importantly, once I was convinced the planet wasn't safe to traverse alone, all I could really do was activate the deep stasis systems and wait for rescue.”
Glancing at the map, Red Alert did some quick calculations in his head. “So, about a hundred and eighty years from Etheriys to here, and just over a century in stasis before we arrived. Nearly three hundred years all up.”
“That time in stasis makes me wonder,” First Aid said. “Do you think Hydaelyn knew you'd run into trouble like that?”
“Maybe. She didn't say anything about the Wayforward, but it's possible she didn't want to skew my decisions along the flight home. After all, this way, I still ended up somewhere that I'd be found.”
“And that brings us to today.” Tapping his fingers against the table, Rodimus considered the matter. “So, I have to admit, when we picked up your distress signal, I was not expecting us to get a literal mission from God. One with the fate of all explored space at stake, at the very least. Anyone else trying not to freak out?”
“Just a little,” First Aid admitted, holding up a thumb and forefinger.
Taking control of the holoprojector, Ultra Magnus shifted the map across, highlighting a specific location some distance from the current location. “Nebulos. While the planet itself has been abandoned since the Endsong manifested in the region, the orbital space bridge hub remains manned and operational,” he explained to the micromaster.
Nodding in reply, he considered the map. “That was my planned destination,” he said, to no one's surprise. While a ship with transwarp drive could go anywhere, it was still a method that took considerable time, even by the standards of long lived species like transformers. Space Bridge portals, on the other hand, allowed for instantaneous travel between two linked locations, no matter how great the distance. Even without his ships top speed being limited by possible damage and power limitations, making use of such a facility was only logical.
“Even better, they finally managed to link one of the bridges to the Nexus Station hub a century back,” Rodimus said. “We can deliver the Matrix straight there without any detours. Percy, time estimate?”
Looking over the map, Perceptor rubbed his chin in thought. “A cursory estimate based on current information for all known stellar conditions in this region of space suggests minimal concerns for possible delays. Combined with current energy reverses and the current abilities and limitations of our transwarp drive, my initial estimates for arrival at the Nebulos Space Bridge Hub are approximately four-point-five-seven years at cruising speed. If you wished to strain our engines somewhat, we could reduce that time to three-point-four-four years while still remaining within fleet recommendations for power reserves and drive maintenance.”
“We don’t need to redline the drives for this,” Rodimus said. “We’ll aim for about four years. And then, we get to convince the boss bots to send the Lost Light to Etheriys.” Some of the around the table showed surprise at that statement, while others were merely amused. “What, did you think I was going to just leave this for someone else?”
“So, the mission was straightforward, if terrifying in scale,” Countdown said. “Locate the other fragments of an ancient cybertronian relic, which would then automatically summon the local god, who would warn their people of a coming global apocalypse, allowing them to prepare.”
Letting out a low whistle, Rodimus stood up and went to a cart in the corner of the room, retrieving himself a glass of energon. “This Hydaelyn character seems to have more basic sense then some fortune tellers I’ve dealt with. Keeps her message relatively simple, assigns a task that you’d not only want to achieve, but should be within your abilities and resources, and she actually provides suitable compensation.”
“You sound particularly annoyed about that,” First Aid noted.
“Long story involving the Solstar Order and a Dire Wraith, you really don’t wanna know.” Returning to his chair, the captain took a sip of energon, then turned his attention back to Countdown. “Obviously the relic parts combined into the Matrix you brought back, that or they led to it.”
“The former,” he confirmed. “Which made for a fun surprise once we collected all the pieces. Took us the better part of a year, even with Tamel Koh helping to provide introductions at some points, and I won’t say it always went smoothly…”
***
“Hey Fylgja, remember back when we were talking to Ifrit?” O’riana said as her axe carved though yet another butterfly seemingly made of light. More took its place, with wings sharp enough to cut through steel, forcing the miqo’te back. “I seem to recall you saying something about how our mission wasn’t suitably epic?”
“I remember that,” Countdown continued, ducking under a burst of flame that reached across the arena. “I believe it was something about how we’d need to do something like duel an angry god in a thunderstorm.” Powering up his arm blasters, he opened fire on their opponent, only for every single energy bolt to be deflected by four gleaming blades. “It’s more of a firestorm,” he added with a glance at the flames surrounding the platform they were on, “but it should still count.”
“He’s not really angry though,” the woman mused.
Landing in front of them, the giant insectoid form of Ravana, Wrath of the Colony, laughed in delight. “There are few ways better to understand the soul of a man than to face him in combat!” He swept his four arms wide, swords glowing with inner light. “Come my friends, dance with me in the song of ringing steel!”
The tiny dragon cringed as the firestorm around them grew stronger. “I have regrets!”
***
“...but we managed. More or less. But until that point, the pieces we recovered failed to react to each other at all. While someone was holding them, they would transform from one shape to another, but aside from that…” he waved a hand. “They were mostly decorative.”
“Which still would make them incredibly valuable,” Dustoff noted. “If only from a historical perspective. There aren’t exactly many pre-Quintesson cultural artifacts left, after all.”
“True, and I even said as much a few times to the others. But by the end of our little quest, they’d almost become a side detail, especially compared to the more local issue.” Smiling at the memory, he shook his head. “So, needless to say, after we’d spoken to the last of the local gods and returned to the Wayforward, we weren’t expecting much.”
***
“How can we even be sure this is all of them?” O’riana wondered, looking over the collection of orange shapes on the table that served as the centerpiece of the Wayforwards recreation room. “I mean, I can’t even see how they’d all fit together, so…”
Leaning across the table, Fylgja tapped a claw against a piece, causing the glyphs on it to glow, before it unfolded from a cube into a long thin cylinder. “Ohhhh, I hope they don’t need to be in certain shapes before you can fit them together. It’d be like a jigsaw, only all the pieces are cheating and can’t make up their mind. And I’m terrible at jigsaws!”
Chuckling, Countdown took an aether crystal from a storage locker, biting into it like an organic would a piece of bread. Wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, he shrugged. “The annoying thing is, it's entirely plausible. That's the problem with hunting old relics. Still, based off everything we've seen, I can't really see Hydaelyn cheating me out of a decent payment for our work.” Flipping open a panel on his leg, he retrieved the last relic piece that they'd just retrieved from the god Alexander, holding it up to consider it.
“So, what, jigsaw time?” Fylgja mused, before the piece in Countdowns hand began to glow. Not the glyphs engraved in it, as all the pieces had countless times, but the entire thing, glowing with a soft inner light. A moment later, all the other pieces began to do the same thing. “Or bring them all close enough to each other, I guess.”
As they watched, all the fragments floated into the air, positioning themselves in an intricate pattern, before transforming again into specific forms that then locked into each other. Then, over the space of a few seconds, the entire object transformed, some sections splitting open and swapping parts with others, resizing drastically, all while a familiar five tone harmonic could be heard. When the transformation was complete, the collection of relic parts had become a mostly spherical container that settled back on the table without incident.
Ears twitching, O’riana leaned in for a closer look. “Huh. So, I don’t suppose you can recognize it now…? Countdown?”
The Autobot didn’t seem to hear her, all his attention on the relic. Slowly, as if afraid he would break the illusion, he reached out and gently touched it with a finger, tracing along the glyphs that now all led to an indentation in the apparent front of the object. “A Matrix,” he said at last. “It’s a Matrix. It's…” laughing unsteadily, he dropped into a chair, optics never breaking contact.
“Okay?” Fylgja said, glancing at O’riana nervously. Neither of them had ever seen the transformer as shaken as he was now.. “And I’m guessing that’s important?”
Running a hand down his face, he forced himself to take a deep breath. “You wouldn’t know, right, of course. Okay, so, I should note a lot of this is myth and legend, but almost every version of the myths have certain similarities that indicate a shared origin. It starts with Primus. I’ve mentioned him before.”
“He’s the god of your star, correct?” O’riana said. “Basically your peoples Hydaelyn.”
“Very much so. Some say Cybertron is his body, others that he merely slumbers at its core. Either way, the result is much the same. The sheer power of his spark, what you call the soul, radiates outward, fusing with the unique metals of our world, reshaping it to suit its own needs, and from that…” he waved a hand across his body. “A new transformer is born. Natural Forging, the first and, once upon a time, most common method of transformer creation. We live, we grow, we learn, and finally then our spark rejoins his Allspark, to begin the cycle anew.”
Tilting her head to the side, Fylgja looked somewhat confused, then gestured at the Matrix. “Ssssooo, how does transformer babies lead to this?”
“There have been times when the Allspark dimmed. Never enough to put a halt to new Transformers, not entirely, but even with our lifespans, there were concerns. It’s said that Primus himself, seeing the risk to his children should something happen to him, crafted the first Matrix from a portion of his own spark. A piece of a god, as seemingly infinite as he was, and a source of new life, to ensure that we would always have a future.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “A lot of the old myths then talk about how he proceeded to come up with even more methods for us to reproduce, just in case.”
O’riana glanced at the Matrix with an expression of respect. “Well, I’ve heard of architects and spell-weavers working to account for failure points in their designs,” she mused, “but this is the first I’ve heard of such a feat being done with living beings.” Smiling wryly, she glanced back up at Countdown. “Every time I think your people run out of ways to surprise me, you prove me wrong.”
“The real surprise is that all those precautions? Nearly weren’t enough.”
Thinking back to some of the stories of Cybertrons history Countdown had shared with her, O’rianas eyes narrowed. “The Fall.”
Nodding, the mechs shoulders slumped. “Some of them had been used before, to create what we called Hot Spots on various colony worlds, to allow the creation of new transformers there. Some had been lost somehow, and most of the ones that were left were kept in very secure locations, thanks to the threat posed to them by the war.” Sighing, he reached across the table and picked the matrix up, tracing a finger across the glyphs again. “Those locations all had large populations, both civilian and military, and often were sites where the lifespark of Primus was particularly strong. Which made them the first locations where the Endsong took hold. Every single remaining Matrix was lost in the chaos.”
Moving across the table, Fylgja leapt onto the mechs shoulder, providing a comforting presence. “You lost Cybertron, and the second option for continuing your people,” she said, her voice gentle.
“We’ve got other ways to create new bots,” Countdown replied, “but all of them are a lot more limited. There's been a fear, ever since we left the fatherworld behind, that we were the beginning of the end. That time would take its toll, slowly but surely. But this…” a smile appeared on his face, weak but genuine. “This gives us a future.”
For a long moment, there was silence in the room as Countdown savored that feeling. That silence ended as the Matrix began to glow again, in a similar manner as its separate components had before combining, but with a far greater intensity. Before anyone could react, the light grew blinding, washing away the room around them, before fading away completely, leaving the three… elsewhere.
“What in all the hells…” O’riana muttered, looking around in awe. Where before they had been surrounded by the dull gray of the ships bulkheads, now they floated in an endless blue-black void, broken by drifting crystals of various sizes, and odd lights that danced in the distance. “What just happened?”
“Teleportation,” Countdown said, as Fylgja leapt off his shoulder and darted over to their companion. While the starship captain was adjusting to their situation with the experience of a man who’d spent considerable time in zero-gravity, O’riana was starting to drift away from the group with no real idea of how to compensate. “Not any sort I’m familiar with either. When such things are cybertronian in nature, there’s a common feeling to them.”
“So, it wasn’t the Matrix itself, but something placed on it from this star,” O’riana guessed, as Fylgja dug her claws into the back of her tunic and pulled her back towards Countdown. “Hydaelyn’s doing, one assumes.”
Nodding, he held up the Matrix for a closer look. “I can’t really think of anyone else that would have the opportunity to apply a spell like that to the Matrix, let alone have the power to do so.but I can't imagine anywhere ”
“So, next question,” Fylgja said. “Where the heck did she bring us… Um… Guys?”
Following the dragons gaze, Countdown looked at the void beneath them. Emerging from the mists was a mass of aether crystal, larger than any he'd ever seen, on this planet or beyond. As he watched, it slowly rose higher, rising up next to them. After a moment, he winced and shut down several of his sensor arrays, as the sheer power in physical form before him was leaving them screaming.
Then, a new voice spoke, seemingly emanating from the mass before them. “Countdown of Iacon, Autobot and Ranger of the Commonwealth,” the feminine voice said, echoing through their bodies with a sheer presence that not even the gods they'd met could match. “Riana of the O tribe, daughter of Aleph, former marine of Nym and Explorer of the Unknown. And Fylgja, daughter of Ratatoskr and Seeker of Stories. I bid thee welcome.”
“Ohhhh…” Fylgja whispered in understanding, eyes wide. “‘She rests in the depths of the lifestream, her soul a radiant crystal like none other.’”
“The will of the star,” O'riana managed. “Hydaelyn.”
Chuckling softly, Countdown considered the goddess. “I think I can see why you sent the other gods to speak with their people. This kind of power on the surface…”
“Perceptive as always Captain. While the gods of the Wild Pantheon could manifest briefly without endangering the mortal people of this star, alas, that is a luxury my nature denies me.”
“Hence why you had us running around as your couriers,” Countdown said.
“Indeed. Thine actions over the recent moons are to be commended. Whilst none can avert the coming calamity, my children are now better prepared to survive it to the best of their abilities…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, before continuing with a tone of wistful amusement. “And they have always excelled at exceeding expectations. Which brings us to what must happen next.” A stream of aether reached out from the mothercrystal, wrapping around the Matrix in Countdowns hands. As they watched, the aether gathered within the opening at the front of the artifact, condensing into an incredibly dense sphere, before shifting back to a physical form, becoming a blue-white crystal that glowed with an inner light. “Whilst the spells to call the Wild Pantheon forth were crafted from my own aether, separating the Matrix into so many pieces meant that the fragment of Primus had to be carefully hidden from those that would use it for ill.”
The armor plating and panels that made up Countdowns torso began to move, followed by internal components moving aside. Carefully, he fitted the Matrix into place in the hollow that formed, before closing his chest up again. “Best to keep it hidden I think.”
Looking slightly uncomfortable with her friend opening his body, O’riana turned towards the Mothercrystal. “Forgive me, but I must ask. How did a relic of Cybertrons past come to be in your care?”
“Some time ago, before the first of the races of man were born, a transformer came to this star, bringing with him the Matrix thou now possess. Upon the instructions of the god Primus, he sought an audience with me.” The space between the trio and the crystal wavered, forming into an illusion of silver and white mechanoid kneeling, his outstretched hands offering up the Matrix to Hydaelyn.
Floating around the illusion, Countdown considered the mech, optics widening in surprise. The outer layers of armor paneling were complex patterns of moving gears, some of them interlocking systems, others merely decorative single gears, a style of transformer design that hadn’t been seen on Cybertron since the Quintesson occupation, nearly twelve million years ago. “I don’t recognise him,” he said out loud. “But the Matrix is certainly proof he speaks on behalf of Primus. Making that claim without his permission… it wouldn’t end well.”
“Primus knew this day would come, as did I. When thou would stand before me, having spread word of the coming Calamity to mine children. And so, thou has a reward worthy of thine efforts. A way to ensure the survival of thy people despite the Song of Oblivion that has engulfed creation, until the day when hope shines once again.”
Pausing, Countdown chose his next words very carefully. “You’re the first being I’ve encountered on this world to know about the Endsong. I wondered if whatever prevented it from taking root in this worlds aether meant that there was simply no contact with it. But you… you existed before the people of your world.”
“Indeed. There was a time, before the first mortals were born, before Midgardsomr arrived carrying what would become known as the First Brood, that the Endsong struck this star. I am all too familiar with what that unnatural despair can do to the soul.”
Tail lashing back and forth, O'riana shook her head. “You've told me of this Endsong before,” she said to Countdown. “How is it any different from the coming Calamity?”
“An Umbral Calamity is destructive, true, but it is finite. In time, balance will restore naturally, and the Calamity will end.”
“...But this Endsong won't.”
“The Endsong seeks out life itself. Should it reach Etheriys, it will not relent until the star is dead and cold.” Her voice wavered slightly, and the light streams flowing through the void suddenly flickered and flared as an echo of the goddesses own horror rippled through them all. “But the day will come captain, when your people and mine can strike back at the oblivion that threatens us all. I have seen it, as has Primus. We have been preparing not just for the Calamity, but what comes after.”
***
“Crack my cog,” Red Alert muttered. “We should have seen that coming… If he knew enough to have a Matrix waiting for someone to retrieve it, then he'd know why we needed it.”
“I'm more interested in what it says about the Endsong,” Dustoff said. “If I'm understanding this correctly, not only is there a point of origin to the phenomenon, it won't be hidden forever. But if it involves the same divine precognition they've already demonstrated…”
Snapping his fingers, Countdown pointed at the femme. “From what she said, I got the same impression. Some of this is speculation on my part, but I believe that certain events still have to happen for us to get the opportunity to strike back at the Endsong. Not that she told us all of them.”
Groaning, Rodimus leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Of course not. First rule of precognition. The more you try to force the future to conform to your preconceived notions, the more it slips out of your control. So it’s like when she got you to deliver her messages for her. She’s keeping the details as vague as possible.”
“Still, some details didn’t need to have divine instruction,” Countdown said, his smile turning slightly bitter. “Namely, that I needed to leave Etheirys as soon as possible. We'd brought the pieces of the Matrix together, and Hydaelyn had returned its core to it. If the Calamity was even half as bad as she was implying it could be, I couldn't take that risk. Some of us took that better than others.”
***
“How is it you're less bitter about this than me?” the Autobot wondered, standing at the edge of the island and looking at the world below. The skies were rather clear at the moment, giving him a good view of the mountain of Sohm Al that the islands floated around, and the fields and woodlands beyond. He could even make out the city of the insectoid Gnath, where he'd summoned, then fought, the rather battle hungry god Ravana.
Next to him, O’riana shrugged before she sat on the grass and let her feet hang over the islands edge. “We’ve always known you'd have to leave eventually. And that you wouldn't be coming back in my lifetime. Fylgja and her kinds lifespan maybe, but certainly not mine. Even if I live a long and safe life, old age will almost certainly claim me before you even make it back to your own people. The fact the moment has come sooner than we expected doesn't change that. So, I suppose the real question is, why does it bother you so much?” Looking up, her expression turned sympathetic. “You're not abandoning us by leaving now.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asked, wheels spinning in agitation. “You’re all about to face a world-changing crisis, and I'm just going to fly away? All our plans about how the Wayforward might be able to help, just thrown in the smelter.” Fans revving up, he made himself take a deep breath. “It certainly feels like abandoning you.”
“You heard what Hydaelyn said. The Calamity is a disaster, true, but the Endsong will be our annihilation one day, unless we find a way to stop it. Which you should know better than me, given you've actually faced it,” she pointed out. He growled slightly but nodded, conceding her point. “That relic will give your people a stability they currently lack, and it will convince them to lend you their aid. When you return, and I have no doubt you will, you will not be alone.” Smiling, she looked out at the horizon. “Who knows, perhaps we’ll meet again, in whatever form I’m reborn in in the next life.”
Sighing, Countdown dropped down next to her. “You are entirely correct,” he admitted. “The problem is, logical arguments mean nothing to the spark.”
“Yet another similarity between your people and mine.” They fell silent for a time, watching the world below. “I'm going to miss you,” she said softly after a while, as a flock of drakes flew past, darting around each other in a giant game of tag with no real rules.
“Now that, I can agree with.”
***
“Launch went smoothly. I waited until that damn war moon was on the other side of the planet, and left the system without incident.” Countdowns voice was level, the grief at the inevitable passing of mortal friends contained thanks to long, painful experience.
And it fooled none of the other bots in the slightest. “And planned your route with a lot of care, I'm guessing,” Rodimus said, giving the smaller bot something to focus on.
Entering a command into the holoprojector, the mech switched it back to map view, a line appearing along it, leading from Etheriys all the way to their current location of Gorlam Prime. It was nowhere near a straight line, doubling back on itself more than once, and avoiding certain regions entirely. “Paranoia was the rule of thumb, yes. If the Wayforward was at a hundred percent, I might have been willing to take more risks, but I couldn’t be certain I’d missed something in the repairs. Better to take it slow than have something go wrong during a desperate dash.”
“Given we found you in an escape pod…” Dustoff said.
Letting out a sigh, Countdown slumped back in his chair. “I don’t know why, I haven’t had time to go over the logs yet, but something glitched in the transwarp drive as I arrived in system. Right as I left the conduit back into normal space, alarms started screaming at me. Some sort of power surge maybe, I don’t know. Either way, I made it to orbit, by which point it was clear that the planet had been hit by the Endsong. But, given how limited my options were at that point…” He sighed again. “I launched the primary distress beacon, got in the escape pod and bailed out. About three minutes later, the transwarp drive discharged, and, well…”
“It twisted reality in ways not approved of by the committee?” Rodimus suggested with a wry grin.
“That's an accurate assessment. If nothing else, I now know what green tastes like. But more importantly, once I was convinced the planet wasn't safe to traverse alone, all I could really do was activate the deep stasis systems and wait for rescue.”
Glancing at the map, Red Alert did some quick calculations in his head. “So, about a hundred and eighty years from Etheriys to here, and just over a century in stasis before we arrived. Nearly three hundred years all up.”
“That time in stasis makes me wonder,” First Aid said. “Do you think Hydaelyn knew you'd run into trouble like that?”
“Maybe. She didn't say anything about the Wayforward, but it's possible she didn't want to skew my decisions along the flight home. After all, this way, I still ended up somewhere that I'd be found.”
“And that brings us to today.” Tapping his fingers against the table, Rodimus considered the matter. “So, I have to admit, when we picked up your distress signal, I was not expecting us to get a literal mission from God. One with the fate of all explored space at stake, at the very least. Anyone else trying not to freak out?”
“Just a little,” First Aid admitted, holding up a thumb and forefinger.
Taking control of the holoprojector, Ultra Magnus shifted the map across, highlighting a specific location some distance from the current location. “Nebulos. While the planet itself has been abandoned since the Endsong manifested in the region, the orbital space bridge hub remains manned and operational,” he explained to the micromaster.
Nodding in reply, he considered the map. “That was my planned destination,” he said, to no one's surprise. While a ship with transwarp drive could go anywhere, it was still a method that took considerable time, even by the standards of long lived species like transformers. Space Bridge portals, on the other hand, allowed for instantaneous travel between two linked locations, no matter how great the distance. Even without his ships top speed being limited by possible damage and power limitations, making use of such a facility was only logical.
“Even better, they finally managed to link one of the bridges to the Nexus Station hub a century back,” Rodimus said. “We can deliver the Matrix straight there without any detours. Percy, time estimate?”
Looking over the map, Perceptor rubbed his chin in thought. “A cursory estimate based on current information for all known stellar conditions in this region of space suggests minimal concerns for possible delays. Combined with current energy reverses and the current abilities and limitations of our transwarp drive, my initial estimates for arrival at the Nebulos Space Bridge Hub are approximately four-point-five-seven years at cruising speed. If you wished to strain our engines somewhat, we could reduce that time to three-point-four-four years while still remaining within fleet recommendations for power reserves and drive maintenance.”
“We don’t need to redline the drives for this,” Rodimus said. “We’ll aim for about four years. And then, we get to convince the boss bots to send the Lost Light to Etheriys.” Some of the around the table showed surprise at that statement, while others were merely amused. “What, did you think I was going to just leave this for someone else?”