Transformers: Remnants of Cybertron, a RWBY + Transformers/Beast Wars Crossover fanfic

Cybertron. A name, in its most literal sense, meaning something like "steering wheel", "control yoke", or even "joystick".

It is thought by some to more symbolically mean "Instrument of Guidance"; others seem to think it means "Instrument of Government", or—more befitting their purposes—"Instrument of Control".

In either case, the name befitted the great mechanical world that carried it well.

It was once a peaceful, prosperous place: abundant in wisdom; firm in self-conduct; a shining, travelling star in the far reaches of space.

But, once it fell to tyranny through demagogy, and her people, the Transformers—named for their unique abilities and technology—came to be divided, the near-heavenly blue light of that once-great world quickly shifted to a distant, hellish red.

During the twilight of the Golden Age, in the city of Kaon—whose name roughly means "place of the Wicked", for it was built from the remains of the Fallen Prime—located in the southern hemisphere, a slave was forged: an energon miner whose original designation has long-since been forgotten by the records of history.

But this obscurity was not out of the injustice of his life leading to it remaining small and insigniﬁcant. Quite the opposite, in fact: he rose above his miserable life by gaining glory for himself in the city's notorious gladiator pits—known affectionately as the Burning Gardens. As time went on, and he earned himself both victories and connections, he came to learn more and more of the world beyond his city, and the history thereof: what it once was; what it had since become; and, most importantly, what it could someday be again.

And so, understanding what had to be done—at least in his own mind—he vowed to himself that he would ensure that the glory of their world would return in full swing, and that he would bring all those who had suffered at the bottom castes as he had up from their undeserved suffering. To this end, he took up a name that symbolized his newfound convictions.

That name was Megatron—"Instrument of Greatness".

As it happened, the gladiator would come to ﬁnd that he was not alone in his vision. He would ﬁnd a somewhat like-minded soul in the most unlikely individual he would have imagined: A young archivist from the academic city and planetary capital, Iacon—whose name means "bustling," for it was the ﬁrst city built by the Transformers—on the complete opposite side of the world. His name was Orion Pax: "Heaven's Light of Peace."

Despite their vastly different backgrounds, the two came to get on famously, with the gladiator becoming something of a mentor to the young archivist who so idolised him. A sense of brotherhood was forged between them, and they vowed to work together to better their world side-by-side: the elder Megatron's strength, firmness and abundant experience on the harsher side of life meshing perfectly with Orion's scholarly knowledgeability, intuition and gentle diplomacy, bound together to their combined convictions and shared pride in and love for their world, their people and their heritage.

But even the strongest of bonds may wear with time, and the greatest love, spoiled badly enough, may turn forever sour.

In time, differences in ideology and ambitions divided the two, and their shared goals diverged as their own separate circles eventually drove a wedge between them—one that became insurmountible.

Megatron became drunk on the praise, admiration and glory he had received since he had risen above his life as a mere miner, and saw himself, given his unique and unprecedented success in life compared to all other Transformers by all metrics of merit, as the only one who could return Cybertron to her former glory—and even more besides.

He saw himself as the one before all others worthy—deserving, even—of the title of Prime: the First leader their race, under whom all would become one.

Orion, by stark contrast, believed ﬁrmly and unwaveringly in the right of all their kind—and all other beings who possessed minds and souls of their own—to forge their own destinies, as he and Megatron had both done; in the potential of Cybertron to once more be a shining light among the stars for all to look up to, in whose promise all could ﬁnd hope and counsel.

And so when they ﬁnally gained the audience of the Council of Elders, after the former gladiator had given his grand and dramatic speech of empires and glory (and sung his own praises and merits besides), though the Elders saw what truth yet remained in his words, they were sorely disappointed in his painfully obvious lack of both humility and faith in his fellows.

But when Orion—the once-meek former librarian, who had so long looked up to his adoptive older brother with such starry eyes—saw what kind of narcissist now stood before him, he could not help but speak out against him. When the Elders saw this bold opposition come to light, they turned their eyes and ears to him, and they willed that he should speak his own piece and have it be heard; and now, having finally gained a voice of his own, the young Orion Pax almost broke into song as he preached the message of freedom, charity, and all the virtues that had guided their race for so long before they had started to fall to corruption and selfish hedonism in so much of their modern society.

And more so than with the words of Megatron—indeed, much more so—the Sparks and minds of the Council were deeply moved: his inner fire, his flawless insight, his untainted ideals, and the wisdom beyond his years with which he spoke, became not only a well-versed archivist, but one who could, given the chance, become a very great and very good leader indeed. The best, even.

In that moment, howecer Megatron heard nothing his friend had said. All he could think about was how deeply his pride was being wounded by the complete subversion between his position and Orion's. With the Council's permission, he had done the unthinkable—the unspeakable. Orion had opposed him—openly, no less—at the most crucial time above all others that he should have supported him; and to make things worse, he alone had been nominated between the two as the candidate for the Primacy. This grievance would never be forgotten, nor forgiven.

And so, when they faced one another down æons later, in the battle that raged across the Heavens far above their world, when the time came that their race finally had to flee their homeworld to survive—as Megatron had, in his pride and desperate bid for absolute power, corrupted the core of their planet with the Blood of the Chaos-Bringer—the two former friends did not hesitate to fight one another with all they had.

Including killing intent.

But as fate would have it, their battle would be cut short as the vortex of the collapsing spacebridge tore the ship apart, sending the two careening through to the other side in freefall; as fate would also have it, neither would cease to function that day. Megatron's ever-loyal Seekers intercepted him, and returned him to the Nemesis as he cursed his foe's name—now long-since changed to Optimus, meaning "the Best"—and the latter was caught by his own ﬂying comrades.

As was the heavily-wounded and selflessly brave young scout Optimus had come to see as a son.

The two leaders of their factions—the Lord and the Prime—able to do naught more than issue the orders to fall back and prepare for whatever danger or opportunity awaited them on the other side of the great portal, followed thusly.

All the Transformers, no matter their loyalties, were collectively dumbstruck by the untainted beauty of the brave new world before them: a great body of blue, with swathes of green and golden-yellow adorning its surface like splashes of fresh paint, and polar caps of pure white like the blank edges of a canvas.

But there was no time to waste admiring this young, organic planet: the two ships had to prepare for either a crashlanding or a stable orbit.

The Nemesis altered its course, knocking the Ark in a direction that would ensure the golden starship crashed while the cannibalized body of the great and terrible Decepticon known as Trypticon, the Piercing One, entered orbit around the white moon of the world they had come to.

But the tyrannical forces of the Decepticons, "Those of the Burning Gardens", would not escape justice that day: Seemingly out of nowhere, a great blast of deep violet light shot up from the planet below, straight past their ship and blasting straight through the moon into the cosmos beyond.

Though not hit by the mysterious beam itself, the ship was thereafter battered by pieces of the moon that fell to the world below, knocking it about as badly as it had done to its former target and worse.

And so, to survive the chaos, all Transformers on either ship entered into stasis for a long, long time.

It is said that when mankind ﬁrst experimented with space travel, attempting to send a probe out into the stars to carry a message calling for help, they quickly found that they were forever bound to the world they called home: the mystical energy propellant they used in almost every aspect of their daily lives lost its power whenever it left the lower atmosphere of the planet.

To this day the reason for it remains unknown to them, despite their rapid technological advancements in more recent times; however, that fact has only incentivised them to focus on improving and enhancing their use of that precious substance, which they affectionately call "Dust"—as it is speculated that when Aura first developed within organic life, it did so from the microscopic dust particles of these crystals present in the air, reacting in some as-yet unknown way to grant the sapient races of Human and Faunus the ability to harness their power.

But, despite Dust's atmospheric limitations, an immense discovery was garnered from the attempts of Man to reach out to the stars above, showed him something hiding among them. Something far closer than he had ever expected.

A massive, artiﬁcial construct of some yet-unidentiﬁed metal or alloy was detected by instruments aboard the probe, located on the dark side of the moon. Based off of the readings, it was inactive—though they possessed no means of discerning how long for.

This groundbreaking fact that Man was neither alone in the universe nor even in his own solar system was kept an absolute secret by the few who received the results, for the idea that Remnant is not alone is equally as terrifying to them as the idea that they are: on one hand, there may be no threat besides the Grimm, but no help that should ever come to them; on the other, there may be interstellar threats that are far, far bigger—against which they may be absolutely helpless against.

Soon after these measurements were ﬁrst discovered, another, similar mystery was revealed deep within the icy glaciers of Solitas: another such structure of comparable size to the other, and—given how deeply it was buried—equally immeasurable age. It was far larger than anything mankind had ever recalled building, and far older than he recalled himself ever being.

It was found by pure chance, as a result of a botched mining expedition and a scufﬂe with a Cenitaur, but it was quickly investigated by the Atlesian military—both to discover its secrets, and to see how they could use it to aid their own advancements.

They never expected that they would be interrupted by immense mechanoids that descended from the sky with the intent of destroying its contents (and its explorers, for good measure); nor did they expect for more such entities to have been laying dormant within the great ship—and to reactivate in time to save their lives by destroying the attackers with extreme prejudice.

That was the day that Atlas, albeit in secret, made ﬁrst ofﬁcial contact with alien life—and discovered that, sentient or otherwise, it came in more forms than organic matter like flesh and bone.

The faction of these great and ancient beings that were found within the ship beneath the ice and stood ready to defend the much smaller and weaker Man called themselves "Autobots". Although some initially interpreted this moniker as a contraction of "autonomous robots", the misunderstanding was quickly cleared up by a shockingly profound explanation provided by their leader:

"Our core and most fundamental belief is in the right of all sentient beings to be free to forge their own paths; therefore, we refuse to herd as or be herded by tyrants. Hence, we are 'Autobots': that is, Self-Shepherds."

The conviction behind his words, combined with his then-already evident fighting skill, swiftly earned him the respect of the leader of the Atlesian military—who had been personally present to oversee the excavation, and witness the subsequent clash of these otherworldly titans—and the two experienced warrior-leaders quickly came to an agreement as to what they hoped for the future of the relationship between the peoples of Remnant and Cybertron, after a brief but amazing explanation was given as to why they were there at all.

But seeing as the populace of Remnant more generally were not yet ready for the revelation that they were not alone—even with the perhaps somewhat comforting knowledge that their own struggles were not wholly unique—and that there was still much for the Autobot refugees to learn about the curious little world they had crashed upon and its organic inhabitants, it was arranged that their ship would for the time being remain concealed in the ice from the sight of others, albeit with necessary systems for both life-support and concealment online, to act as a central base of operations for the Autobots; while the same were debriefed on the circumstances of Man and Faunus, all Remnantals present were sworn to secrecy over these developments—though certain trusted individuals of importance were notiﬁed of the discovery.

Once these individuals arrived after several cycles of travel and arrangements for what was to be done in their absence, they were invariably astounded at the ﬁrsthand conﬁrmation of the impossible truth that had been hinted at over communications.

One individual in particular felt an instant connection with these beings, and especially their leader—one which was, in the latter case, mutual—though neither disclosed this openly then and there.

Talks of how these cybernetic titans could be able to walk upon the world and aid in the establishment of sufﬁcient defenses against Decepticon attacks incognito until the people of Remnant were ready to properly welcome them were swiftly answered when all Autobots out of stasis, at the order of their leader, demonstrated their ability to reconﬁgure their bodies into established vehicular modes and back again. One particular Autobot—a surgeon by the name of Perceptor—took it upon himself to explain their species' mechanical structure would allow him to "remodel" his comrades' injured bodies somewhat based on sufﬁciently similar pre-existing templates, in terms of mass and appearance.

The General and his associates were quick to start a secret project towards those ends, implementing the allocation of such vehicular modes for different teams of Autobots that could blend in with common vehicles in each of the four Kingdoms, and the establishment of further such contingencies should more Autobots ever arrive on the planet. This project was known as the Robots In Disguise Initiative, and would ultimately mark the world of Remnant as the new main theatre of the Autobot-Decepticon War.

As time went on, and the Autobots started exploring the planet, they were struck by how similar Remnant's peoples were to their own: culturally diverse, yet fundamentally alike; divided by their beliefs, yet united against common enemies; fearful of the uncertain, yet courageously facing it head-on. It reminded the eldest and most historically versed among their active ranks of the days of the Predacon War, a fact that gave them a new and reinvigorated sense of purpose in this brave, new world. But their time had not yet come to step into the light. They would have to wait until their help was needed most before they could step forth.

And so they watched quietly, and waited patiently, until the time came.