The Last Day of Iacon
Smoke and fire. The streets of Iacon were once dotted with countless lights reflected endlessly across the smooth metal of the buildings that shifted and changed when the people needed. A living city.
The city is silent. Its people are not.
Fires light the streets, exposed electrical wires spark and ignite in pools of propellant and spilled oil. Blaster fire fills the sky muted against the smoke-covered, ruined buildings. The sounds of shouting, orders hollered through the smog filled atmosphere and across radio transmissions.
Siting, perched among the buildings is a single Autobot transportation ship. The last ship. A single gold colored structure among countless grey buildings. Autbot warriors slowly back towards the ramp entrance, dragging their wounded brothers in arms even as they keep fighting, halted only by the oncoming assault.
Megatron and his army advance. Not the whole of it but a select fighting force kept on the planet. Here to route the last of the Autobots, the ones who protected the others as they fled, the ones who stayed to fight on a dying world in a silent city. The warriors, the heroes, the best.
And him.
They fight for him, they fight because of him. Even the giant Grimlock who hates Prime fights beside him, protecting this few hundred square meters of city and their last transport off of a dead world. They have lost their home, their entire history and he gives them hope. Megatron has won and they dare to hope!
Each charge of Megatron's fusion cannon is one less Autobot; each swing of his mace is one less barricade, one less square meter of distance between him and Optimus.
Optimus does not hide in the smoke and fire, he never does. He emerges from the flames running across the city streets at Megatron. He looks to the side seeing another burned out building, another pile of scrap metal that was once… what? An architect? A builder? A politician? Someone who lived in this city. His city. He narrows his optics and stares forward at Megatron. His speed doubles as a roar forms in his vocalizer but never leaves the synthesizer.
Optimus catches Starscream's blade as he backhands Shockwave with his blaster, sending the mad Decepticon scientist crashing to the street. Optimus quickly turns and fires on Starscream forcing the cowardly flyer back and out of the fight.
Megatron does not give Optimus the chance to turn and face him; he swats away Optimus's blaster with his mace before kicking the Autobot leader right at the center of his chest, striking the core of his mass and knocking him off of his feet. He takes a second to look down at his hated adversary before raising his mace for a fatal blow. It is a costly second.
Optimus deactivates his blaster and presses his hand to the city street. The city once protected its people from the elements, it was their home. Now the city is silent, it is a tomb of the city's children.
Optimus gives an order. He does not need to ask.
Streets split and fold, separating Optimus from Megatron. Countless scrapped bodies fall as buildings shift and rise. Sections of maintenance tunnels, energy conduits and disposal sewers shift and become joints, pistons, limbs.
Optimus is carried aloft in hand that was once a major intersection. He stares up at as the transformation finishes at the face of an Autobot not seen for millions of years.
The city is no longer silent. Iacon moves and it speaks.
"Metroplex heeds the call of the last Prime!"