A glimmer among the shadows rouses Smokescreen from his slow drift toward stasis lock — a glimmer and a whisper. He starts up, weapons powering on automatically, and casts about for the threat. But nothing stirs in the gulf below or clings to the vaults above, nothing but a few euhedral crystals in a tracery of growth like Terran hoarfrost. He's not sure how he missed seeing them before, except that he's been looking downward, not upward — down toward the Core, where perhaps the Matrix of Leadership still burns in unapproachable light.
The Allspark's elusive gleam seems stronger now; the crystals shimmer as it plays across them, emitting a faint, sweet hum. Smokescreen hopes the sound won't draw unwanted attention. Every sensor on alert, he crouches with his back to the wall, apprehensive yet grateful for the respite from a silence so absolute it had his audials generating error messages.
Gradually his processor stills again, self-defense routines cycling down, but stasis fails to claim him. Instead, he realizes how arrogant he's been, convinced that only he can save Cybertron. That right time, right place must have meant right bot after all. That the Matrix has been waiting for him to retrieve it, despite what Optimus said.
"The Matrix cannot be restored, or passed down to another."
But just as he always has, Smokescreen ignored his orders to follow his inclinations, putting himself and his friends in needless peril. Oddly, that knowledge no longer mires his thoughts in despair. In this twilight hush, with the crystals murmuring overhead, his choices seem clear, too: stay here and die, or push on and probably die, or go back and maybe live.
Put like that, it's no choice at all.
Smokescreen waits a little longer, gathering his strength, until a disturbance in the atmosphere warns him that the Allspark's guardians are approaching. On impulse, he reaches up and breaks off the largest crystal, tucking it into a seam in his left armguard. For luck, he thinks, though it's not luck he wants.
Then he turns around, taking his first step on the long road home.