Apologies to the world. I had to do this. Someone (and you know who you are) mentioned this song, and after that I couldn't shake this particular image from my head, so you all have to live with it now too. Forgive, if you can, the overlyrical tone, and please don't even think of trying to take this seriously.
Transformers belongs to Hasbro. Presumably this execrable song belongs to Celine Dion. She can keep it.
Night on Cybertron is not much different from day. The atmosphere on the artificial world is so thin, bleeding off into the void cycle by cycle as our work slowly decays, as entropy has its way with the work of our hands, that we can see the stars even through the light of our red sun at its noontide. In another few million years we will have to light the planet's vast jets once more and pull ourselves away, finding another star to orbit; for now, the rust-coloured light pours clearly down over the spires and pinnacles with a kind of grace.
Our night is purple. I have not seen night on other worlds for myself, but I am told no other planet has a twilight quite like Cybertron's, a dusky violet pall which begins in the shadows of courtyards and thoroughfares and rises like a liquid filling up valleys to pour over the cityscapes, encroaching as the red sunset dies away. Every night I watch this transformation from the high windows of my tower, keeping most of my mind on my duty, yet unable to look away. I have never expressed regret at remaining here whilst the rest of my immediate comrades departed, and I have never quite felt it, either; yet in these moments where day slides almost imperceptibly into night, I cannot help remembering my dreams, and the one who strides through them like a conquering colossus, red-lit by the pyres of his—our—enemies' citadels on fire in the night.
My recharge cycles are set short on purpose. I do not need much rest in order to replenish my energies, nor do I wish to waste time in idle repose; my duties are more important than my dreams, no matter how compelling they become as the millenia slide by. I shake the memory off again, aware that our kind is nigh-immortal, that the gap of many millions of years between contacts does not mean he is no more. He is eternal. He will return, one day, in conquering glory, and on that day I will stand by his side; the lighthouse-keeper, the one who remained behind, to keep the memory alive.
Every night in my
dreams
I see you
I feel you
That is how I know you go on
And, once again, the console before me fades, and is replaced by the billowing smoke of a broken city, and the fires of his wrath flare and flicker in my mind. "My thoughts light fires in your cities," he says, almost to himself, staring out over the blasted plain, and in that moment, he seems to blaze out in a burning aureole of power; beauty, and power, without regret, without weakness, without a shred of mercy to temper the baking heat of his regard. I bow to him, all those years ago, no longer feeling the memory of the blaster-bolts singing my armour, the dull ache of ebbing mechfluid in my conduits. The vision is so vivid, so clear, that for a microsecond I question my sensors; am I standing where I should be, in the high pinnacle of the control tower, or am I leaning against the twisted wreckage of what had been Illyrium City, with the sparkless hulks of Autobots lying at my feet?
The doubt flickers and fades as my single optic sensor processes new input. My peripheral scanners are picking up an intruder, someone or something approaching the tower, vector C3-882, at speed. Within a few nanoseconds all the useless memory data are refiled in my central banks, and my whole being is focused on identifying the intruder and—if it is dangerous—terminating it. I cannot allow my personal weaknesses to affect my performance of my duties. That would be betrayal.
But my instruments must be telling me lies. It cannot be. After so long...unannounced...it cannot be he. How? I begin to run a series of diagnostics on the sensor controls—they must be malfunctioning, this is inconceivable—this is....miraculous.
And he is
in visual range now.
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on...
My hand, and my gun-appendage, are almost shaking; there is too much to process, too many queries going unanswered by binary logic, to allow me complete control of my physical body. He has landed, and the doors iris open against the purple night, and he is silhouetted for a moment—oh, that familiar silhouette!—against the dying red dusk. The last rays of the setting sun drip down his silver-white armour like the...the blood of humanoids; he is a thing of fire and terrible beauty as he stands there watching me. His optics are twin windows to the heart of the scarlet sun setting past the curve of his planet. My body feels suddenly heavier, ungainly, under that burning regard. I salute, stiffly, joints moving like those of a much, much older mech.
"Mighty Megatron," I greet him, my voice as processed and flat as always. For once I am grateful that my face is not designed to permit expression; I would be shamed to show my inner turmoil. That is not my way. "You have returned to Cybertron."
"Full marks for observation," he says, and his voice is as I remember it—of course, with the perfect digital recall of my kind, it could not be otherwise, but it still affects me as it did before; steel-cold, low and rough around the edges, it slices like a stealth-blackened blade through the rarefied atmosphere of my tower. "I have returned on personal business. Business which has remained...unconcluded...for too long." He takes a step forward, into the room, and the red light of the last of the sunset winks out beyond the curve of Cybertron; the only light in the chamber now is cast by my instruments and his optics, dim green and blazing red; they throw crazed shadows over the orderly curves of walls and consoles. My spatial awareness reels for a moment. What does he mean?
I find myself wondering briefly if I have erred in my duty, if I have disappointed him so sorely that he returns in person to express his displeasure with my performance. What have I done? I have kept the lighthouse burning against your return...
He advances again, the black hulk of his fusion cannon looming in the dimness. I stand my ground, although it takes more effort than I had imagined. "Do you....fear me, Shockwave?"
My central processor's internal clocks speed up a little; I can feel the pulsing of mechfluid and energon through my conduits as though all my internal sensors have been turned up to full. I stare monoptically at him, glad I don't have a jaw to drop.
"Yes, mighty Megatron," I say, at last; it is the truth. We all fear him. It is one of the reasons we follow him.
"Good," he says, cryptically, and reaches out a hand to me. His fingers are black, slender—deceptively slender for the strength they hold. He tips up my faceplate, forcing me to look him in the optics.
"What..." I begin, before my voice modulator shorts briefly; there is a kind of odd heat at the point of contact between his finger and my face, as if energy is flowing through the join.
"Quiet," he tells me. "Do you know why I have returned to Cybertron, alone, on the darkest night of our solar year?"
I shake my head. He moves closer; my internal clocks speed up again, my oxygen-cooling intake rate shifts. This is like no dream I have ever had. This is like no memory stored in my databanks. I have no behaviour protocols to fall back on.
"Because," says Megatron, my leader, the white death, the crimson angel, "I have had a dream; I have had it night after night, year after year, ever since I first left this planet. Ever since I first left you."
"You...?" I manage to choke out, despite my malfunctioning voice modulator. "You dream...?"
"I dream of wanting," he says, evenly. "And what I want, Shockwave....I take."
And now his hands are on me, and his strength pulls me off balance so that I stumble and nearly fall against him, weak with astonishment and denied desire. He catches me easily, slipping one hand around my neck. "Megatron," I gasp. "I..."
"Shut up," he says, and runs a finger down my faceplate. The pressure is just on the edge of pain; he pauses, circling my optic sensor. "I have waited four million years for this, and I will not be denied."
"I..." I manage. "I don't..." But I do, and I cannot deny it any more than he; my arms creep around him, and his optics narrow into slits of passionate red fire.
He leans closer, and I can feel the soft breath of his oxygen intake hiss and sigh against my metal skin. His hands on me are urgent, unyielding; he wants, and as he has said—what he wants, he takes. I have dreamed so long of moments like this that now, as it actually happens, I have to kick in subroutines to remind myself that this is real—that this is not just another unrequited dream.
"I have wanted you," he hisses, so close I can smell the heat of his mechfluid, "for four million years now. Even in the darkness of cold shutdown I have wanted you."
A surge breaks free of my central processors and flickers its energy along all my circuitry...my voice modulator lets out an inarticulate sound of longing, but I transmit on radio frequencies too—and the burst of energy in my communications circuits must startle him, for he gasps and pulls me closer. "Shockwave," he murmurs, still using the voice modulator. "What is this?"
"Fact," I hear myself reply: "this is desire."
And now his lips—those chiseled lips often set into a thin line of disapproval or a mocking smile...touch my faceplate. I have often wondered at the utility of having such facial features, but as that touch—hard and soft at once, hot enough to send my coolant flaring through its conduits—moves down from my face to my wide chestplate, I can only lament my lack of similar features.
Megatron pushes me down, his vast strength barely held in check, until my knees buckle and I fall backwards to rest against the floor. The shock of the cold metal against my overheated skin makes me shudder and clutch him tighter, and he rears his head back and laughs in delight.
So few have heard that laugh—that true laugh, not the mocking cackle with which he regales his enemies—deep, resounding, delight made into soundwaves by its possessor's sheer energy—and I have time to regret that it is not more often produced, before he releases the catch of my central processors and finds my sensor arrays.
I cannot describe it; the sensation is beyond coding. Heat, yes, and pain—as his perfect mouth explores the center of me—but intensity and sweetness beyond all I have known. The closest analogue in my memory banks is the pure hot delight of hitting the mark at which I have aimed—a kind of warmth that transcends sensor systems, filling my whole being with a sense of such delight that I find my central reasoning abilities go into cascade failure. There is only the pure power of Megatron's inquisitive touch, and the swirling, illogical desire it awakes in me.
And sense upon sense—sense as dismissal of darkness—he brings me higher and higher, his fingers—and then his central-processor clamps—close upon my spark. It is pain of a sort I had never expected to experience and live, and yet it is the sort of pain which I would experience time and time again were I to have the chance—the sort of pain I have imagined as the last thing to experience before total oblivion.
Near, far, wherever
you are
I believe that the spark does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my spark
And my spark will go on and on
His spark is...rich, dark, flooding my sensor arrays with the metallic taste-scent of power surging through circuits built to withstand energy more powerful than our sun; as he pulls me closer, crushing me to his body, forcing the centers of us into alignment—forcing himself into me, myself into him—I feel flickers of what he is feeling, and there is the strange sensation of looking at myself through another's optics. I can see myself—utilitarian, designed with an eye toward functionality rather than elegance, my face reduced to nothing more than a single optic scanner—but somehow, through his optics, my form is altered to reflect an unutterable beauty; everything I am is filtered through his desire, and I see myself as he sees me, and with a shudder of delight I feel him exploring my own vision. He must see how perfect and terrible he is; must see how perfectly I worship him. I have never been able to put it into words, even had I possessed the sheer courage of mentioning it to him, but the feelings now are the feelings of millions of years ago; time has not altered that.
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go till we're one
He thrusts himself forward against me, forcing our sparks into closer contact, and throws back his head in a sudden surge of...pleasure; I know it to be pleasure, for I feel it through our link as clearly as I experience it myself. And as his movements grow more rhythmic, as the connection between us establishes itself and steadies into a streaming broadband of sensation, I feel an answering stir within myself; slowly, delicately, Megatron's central processor clamps manipulate the cage in which my spark is held, teasing my sensor arrays into greater and still greater ecstasy. The force of the power building within me is terrifying, and I manage to gasp out, "I can't.....I can't, Megatron...it will destroy me...."
"You can," he snarls, clutching my midsection to him. "You can and you will." He bends his head to my chest again, tracing his lips along the exquisitely sensitive beam-panel that makes up the breadth of my torso, and now I cannot protest even if I wanted to; the energy flowing to and from my sensors has drained the rest of my systems into total inutility. He raises his head and smiles into my expressionless face, and plunges once more into the living center of me.
Cascades of energy flicker down all my circuits, sparking and grounding themselves wherever they can; in the darkened tower chamber, it appears that he and I are grappling in a net of blue-white flame. Our reflection in the canopy plasteel is the last thing I see for some time, as my visual circuits flare offline in response to the massive buildup of energy in my body. "Please," I mutter. "Please."
And he is
merciful; with one more thrust he frees me from my bonds, from my body, from
everything but the white-hot roaring pleasure that seems to melt me limb from
limb. I cry out, wordlessly, a burst of energy flaring out across radio and
audible wavelengths; my back arches, and I lift him from the floor with me as
the brilliant coruscating power illumines me from within. Then there is only blackness.
Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we'll always go on
I awake to nothing but silent desolation and the faint scent of overheated electronics. Megatron, my dark angel, has gone; he has left no evidence of his presence behind. The whole episode could have been nothing more than a cerebral glitch—a waking dream, if you will, a sort of daydream so powerful it fooled my central processing units. With an effort—I am badly depleted, although I recharged fully not two days ago—I stagger to the console and demand to contact Earth Decepticon headquarters.
There is a long pause, and then Soundwave comes on the screen; his face is only marginally more expressive than my own, but he still shows no noticeable reaction to my appearance. "Proceed," he says.
I realize I have no idea what to say. "Has Megatron returned?"
"Affirmative," says the lieutenant. "Is there a problem?"
"No," I tell him, after a moment. "Just checking that the Earth end of the space bridge is functioning at optimal capacity."
"Affirmative," he repeats. I nod, slowly. I wonder how I am going to be able to go on functioning normally, how I am to be able to pay attention to my duties with the memory of that encounter still sizzling along my neural circuits.
"Excellent," I say, dully, and cut the connection, leaning on the console weakly. I don't know how long I stand there staring at the dead screen before something slowly begins to blossom in my core processor; a realization of sorts. I am not alone, up here. No matter what, I am not alone. I carry him with me now, in a way; my digital memory banks hold the very center of him, as I felt it inside myself. He is part of me.
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the spark does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my spark
And my spark will go on and on
There is some love that will not go away
You're here, there's nothing I fear,
And I know that my spark will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my spark
And my spark will go on and on....
And I would have smiled, there in my solitary darkness, had I had a mouth to smile with; I merely let go of the console, straightening up, and look out at the jeweled void of the space between us; it no longer matters to me. At long, long last, I feel complete.