Born of Risen Apes, Not of Fallen Angels

The Autobots currently on the third planet of the Sol solar system, named Earth, were all assembled upon a single location. Nothing less than a Decepticon all-out assembly should have merited the presence of every one of them. Yet, the current aim was similar to that; perhaps, a threat even worse than Decepticons.

"Dahlia Su Daji," Optimus pronounced the name of the woman whose image was being projected three-dimensionally before the circle of Autobots. Beside her image spun the grey keyboard. "This woman is currently in possession of a human instrument known as an 'electronic keyboard', similar to Cybertronian synthesisers."

"So we're killing her?" someone spoke up, if very quietly. The same unease pervaded the quiet hangar all Autobots were currently in, shared as they beheld the organic that made them dance like wooden puppets on strings.

"The aim is to replace her keyboard with an ordinary one," Optimus clarified. "Tomorrow evening, the... package... shall be present on Nellis Air Force Base, at the behest of Captain Graham to perform for our human allies. A similar replacement has been arranged to arrive here."

"It's a replacement mission," Ironhide exhaled, or cycled air through his vents. "So why are we all here?"

"The current capabilities of the keyboard are unknown, as its range is," Optimus clarified. "What we currently know is that, she has become capable of controlling any of us, and of disrupting our sensor capabilities."

Ratchet paused. "So the reason that we're holding this conversation here, under private comms..."

"The woman has done nothing wrong knowingly," Optimus reflected. "She has merely stumbled upon a weapon beyond her comprehension or our knowledge, as Archibald Witwicky had done before. Was it not an accident that intertwined our fates here first?"

"That same Witwicky produced Megatron's slayer," Sideswipe pointed out.

"...that, too," Optimus acknowledged, giving voice to the uneasy thoughts shared by so many Autobots now.

"When you said I was performing at Nellis, I expected the mess hall or... something," Dahlia sighed. "Not the bloody hangar! What kind of crap acoustics are you subjecting me?"

"Calm down, calm down," Graham cautioned. "It's a... precaution."

"Against what?" Dahlia raged. "Your superior? For one thing, why am I performing on the base itself? On an American base?"

"My superiors caught your YouTube videos," the captain answered. "They really wanted you here."

Dark eyes widened. Black hair spinning wild out of her scorpion plait waved as she motioned towards the revamped hangar, and then outside. "The fact is... they insisted... here? No. Look, I can show you-"

"Wait, wait!" Graham bodily chucked himself between the keyboard set up at one end and the irate musician. "Erm, what are you doing?"

"A sound test," Dahlia motioned. "It's the bit where I bounce sound off these aluminium walls and prove that, even if you want classical or jazz, this hangar is not where you want it. Unstable power supply, lousy acoustics, and parked beside a presumably busy military airfield. Making any sound here is going to take a full band, not just me. I can't work like this."

"Couldn't you... try?" Graham pleaded.

"I'll show you," Dahlia picked her way through a sea of wires, pressing a green rubber button to switch the keyboard on. "Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do. See? Not even a single octave can be heard."

Graham looked around surreptitiously. "Still... it's not normal, I agree, but it's really the best we could do..."

Dahlia seemed to droop. "Is there no other place?"

"I'll go check. Don't move."

"Mmm."

Dahlia sank her face into her hands once the captain left. "What am I doing...? A job is a job... music is music. Right next to an airfield... I won't go."

Her fingers played a few notes ineffectually, the melody simple yet profound as she hummed along.

"So-Do, So-Do-Ri, Te. Re, Fa-Te-Do, Si. Do, So-Do-Ri, Fa. Ri-Re-Do-Si, Do. So-Do-So-Ri Fa, Ri-Re-Do, Si."

Something... twitched.

Dahlia paused. In the silence of an empty hangar, nothing but the notes played simply echoed.

Do, she played. Nothing.

So-Do, So-Do-Ri, Te. A twitch in the shadows.

Re, Fa-Te-Do, Si. Do, So-Do-Ri, Fa. Ri-Re-Do-Si, Do.

Dahlia started as the crackle of electricity reached her ears. "Electric surge? That kind of output could set this whole place on fire! What kind of idiots are at this air base-"

Her feet had taken her across the hangar floor, but then she stopped. "This... a car collection?"

The Topkick was the only recognisable vehicle. There was a silver car, three motorcycles, a yellow-painted Hummer, and a giant semi with flame decals.

"So I'm performing for a host of soldiers and their vehicles," Dahlia finally commented to herself. "Americans and their cars... still, these aren't typical cars on a military base."

Turning her back on them, back towards the keyboard. "At least I'll have an appreciative audience. I can't give anything, but at least we have met. A song is the only courtesy I can afford to give."

The keys of the keyboard clanged, ringing with a piano facsimile as Dahlia smiled. "Dancing bears, painted wings, things I almost remember... And a song someone sings, once upon a December..."

The song came naturally, without needing a reference or sheet music to refer to. And, even if the ground trembled, or even as metal screeched, oblivion had reached her already, lost in the memory of the song.

There was definitely something about prancing horses. The fact that the ground was shaking so much could only be due to a horse stampede.

"And a song someone sings, once upon a December..."

As the song wound down to its coda, finally, Dahlia opened her eyes to see a tall black robot with blue glowing eyes and massive shoulders begin to aim glowing cannons at her.

"Dammit, quit that! I'll shoot you!"

Anastasia's lullaby ended with a discordant clang.

So that was the stampede, she realised. I'm going to die here by giant alien robot? Wait, why are giant alien robots here?

"Ironhide!" voices chimed, this one heavy and deep.

Is it an invasion? Doesn't matter, right now I'm under attack. I'm being threatened.

So... what made him stop?

Dahlia Su did not hold her group's highest record of tricky RPG games without much of a strategic mind or the inability to accept extremely wild premises based on flimsy evidence. She buckled down and began playing desperately.

Ironhide was temporarily confused when the human ignored him to continue playing. Not the default reaction of most humans. He realised her real intention when his cannons spun wildly out of control before shooting away.

"She's controlling me!" he yelled. The other Autobots scattered from plasma bursts within.

"Cut the power cables!" someone yelled.

The woman abandoned her keyboard to run, making for the hangar doors once electricity began arcing out.

"We mean you no harm!" Optimus threw himself, transforming midway such that the giant semi blocked her path.

The woman did not pause to consider, but threw herself to slide under the Autobot leader and out the other side of the door. Or would have, until someone's giant metallic hand slammed all five fingers down; then she changed tactics to wriggle out.

"This woman's crazy!" Presumably Sideswipe said it.

"This woman's... tricky!" Ironhide snarled as she got out from his grasp, and ran. "Wait... where's she going?"

A rag tangled from her hands, as well as a jerry can. The Autobots watched as she flicked the cap open with the other hand, and flung the jerry can out to the hangar doors. The flick of flints seemed to echo, and a small flame appeared.

"...Frag."

"You need to put that lighter back now."

Dahlia started. The giant robot, in fact the largest of the assembled machines, was addressing her. The semi transformed back into that metal giant...

"My name is Optimus Prime," the giant in red and blue offered. "Ironhide had frightened you, I apologise. Please put down the lighter or this human establishment could be destroyed."

Slowly, the lighter flicked closed in her hand. The airplane fuel spilled reflected a corona of rainbow colours in the sunlight as human and Autobot considered each other.

"Who... are you?"

"I am Optimus Prime."

Dahlia exhaled. "Designation of species."

"Ah. We are autonomous robotic organisms from the distant planet Cybertron. You may refer to us as Autobots."

"I see," Dahlia acknowledged, meeting his stare head-on.

Silence passed before Optimus spoke again. "You do not seem afraid of us."

"You don't seem very frightening."

"It is in my experience that humans fear those they do not know."

"Hence I do not lack complete fear of you and your... companions," Dahlia answered. "Yet, I do not completely fear you, in the sense that you possess the faculty of reason and thus, can be spoken to and reasoned with."

The lighter was set down. "My name is Dahlia Su. I am just a musician. And, as you have said, I am just a human being."

A head with yellow-green plating poked out. "The keyboard has been secured."

"Keyboard? Wait, my keyboard-" Dahlia started, looking out at the air base. "This is entrapment? What do you want with my keyboard?"

"You live within the human settlement known as San Francisco, correct?" Optimus questioned.

"What about it?" Dahlia glared back. "My keyboard-"

Air vented as soldiers began to congregate onto the airfield.

"Get down on the ground, now!" people were shouting. "You!"

Dahlia knelt, still eyeing the Autobot, spine straight and proud despite the difference in size. "How very human of you."

Those celestial blue optics glimmered, meeting dark eyes that were resigned, but refused to waver even as the woman was caught in a tackle by soldiers and arrested.

"The keyboard?"

Ratchet's buzz-saw stopped. The relative silence of the hangar suffused for a brief moment. Plastic chips lay about them, and the Autobot medic held the metallic chips and circuit boards in his metalloid hands.

"The All-Spark gave some of Earth's technology derived from Megatron's body sentience, and a pseudo-spark of sorts," Ratchet answered. "We know that hundreds of those drones were destroyed over the course of human history from Sector Seven's old records of animate experimentation. Somehow... the sparks merged into the metal, which was smelted into the very circuits of this keyboard into a crude, but powerful signal generator-amplifier gestalt device."

"...you mean a communication array?" Optimus suggested.

"I mean what I said," Ratchet huffed. "The signal was input using the piano keys, and then amplified to any Cybertronian within hearing distance. With some adjustment, humans might be able to perceive the sounds, but the applications are too much. The fact that a human could, with a song, take over a battlefield is... intimidating."

"She's been playing on their heartstrings all along," Ironhide added.

"Damn, she's good," Sideswipe chuckled. "Wouldn't mind seeing old 'Hide dance on his pedes again."

"I'll show you dancing on my pedes," Ironhide grumbled, cannons rotating.

"Yeah? Well, I can dance on my own just fine!"

"Mechs, you're both pretty, now shut up," Ratchet rebutted without batting an optic plate. "The problem is the input. There's a dual component to it, so it requires an electrochemical and physical signal at moments spatially distinct from each other in a fixed pattern unique to an individual human being's bio-signature."

"...it reacts to her brainwaves?"

"Something similar," Ratchet mused. "I'm a medic, not Sentinel Prime. If I had to say it, given the intent behind each command... as humans call it, a prayer."

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