To Have a Spark
Facing Agincourt II: One and One
"Step out of hell,
Demons dancing 'round your brain
Step out of hell,
Streams of madness flow through your veins
You did your best
To keep yourself down
Give it a rest
And just turn around!"
-Helloween; Step Out of Hell
"I am he," the words tasted foul in his mouth, like poison running down his throat. Still, the Prime said them. A lance was in his hand. A wound needed lancing.
"Are you Death?"
"I am not. I am he," Prime said again.
The only response he found was silence. Optics narrowed, watching the teenager in front of him turn and walk away. So, the Prime followed. The ground grew parched, increasingly blasted. The rain intensified, growing colder still as the wind truly began to pick up into a howl. Peering ahead, the Prime scowled. Roiling clouds twisted on the closing horizon and shot forth spears of lightning.
"Renalt, listen to me. You will not survive here!"
"That's the point," the half-answer shot like a bullet. By now, Renalt walked aimlessly; the wind whipping his cane out of his hands. He veered to his right, wandering into an increasing cold.
"You are being a fool. Did you not hear me? I am right here," the Prime almost couldn't hide his growing ire.
"And I don't believe you."
"I say again, I am he! Now turn around and face me!" This was a command, not a request. It was a command Renalt flatly ignored.
Renalt kept walking, though without his cane his path became crooked. Like he was permanently drunken, unable to walk a straight line on his own. The storm closed in on them and as Prime listened, the being shook his head violently. He heard the evil whispers at the heart of the storm. He picked up his pace, now matching stride with his quarry. Beyond his immediate sight, the Prime peered ahead. Through the storm, between spaces of torn, ruined earth and rock, the ground simply...vanished. It didn't drop like a cliff's edge or a steep hill. It just...stopped existing.
"You failed him..." the oblivion taunted.
"Renalt, do not listen to that. Turn around!"
Met with his silence, Optimus growled. He couldn't hide his frustration any longer, and that seed of frustration grew into desperate rage. One step turned into a downward lunge. Arms whipped forward, then locked together at the hands into a loop. Using his other knee, the Prime managed a graceful, yet utterly gravity-driven fall forward. Upon landing, his arms ended up placed to 'corral' Renalt within their enclosure.
"That does it," Prime rumbled. Above and around him, the storm continued its onslaught.
"...failed him... Reunite with him... no more nightmares..." The storm continued its assault, whispering echoes of poisoned words.
Renalt finally met the steel of Prime's locked arms with a dull, thudding clang that was lost to the din of the environment. Confused, his hands immediately investigated. Fingers found painted steel that, while smooth in places, bore scars. Pocked with little pits, cuts and scratches, the thing was longer than it was tall. No. not 'tall'. Wide. Down its length he went until it connected with a wrist, then twined fingers.
"What is this? Let me out of here!"
"No. You are not going anywhere," Prime's posture gave the advantage of his face being a mere foot or two from Renalt. The latter spun around, awkwardly trying to aim toward the sound.
"Who are you?"
"I told you. I am he. I am...Leonard," Finally, Prime managed to get the name out without faltering.
"I don't believe you."
"Then I will prove it," Click. The battle-mask snapped off of his face.
Slowly, carefully, the Prime moved to rise. His arms unlocked for a brief, dangerous moment. Hands ended that moment – a moment that, had Renalt been able to see, he'd have been able to run – in a smooth sweep. Fingers grasped, wrapping around Renalt's body. His grip was gentle, but firm enough to prevent escape. The Prime stood to his full height and faced into the malevolent storm. Thirty-five feet of Cybertronian met a storm and an eroding ground.
"I will not see another spark extinguished, do you understand me?"
The storm mocked him, sending a fork of lightning mere feet away. Optimus didn't move. Prize in hand, the Autobot held him close now, against a chassis that was somehow layers of warmth and coolness. His neck twitched. His shoulders set. One foot adjusted 'just so', planting into the devastated ground.
The Prime bent his head down.
Startlingly bright blue optics stared into the heart of the storm. He could do this for a very, very long time.
Releasing a great, howling roar, Optimus Prime knew then what he was looking at. Knew what then, he faced, and he roared out his fury against it.
"You cannot be trusted," came the blackness.
"I am here," Renalt wriggled, squirming against the thing which now held onto him.
"Then fulfil it. And be reunited."
"No!" the Prime's roar couldn't be disregarded. It rose above the howling wind and seemed to shatter the oppressing silence that wore the storm around itself like a great cloak of chaos. "I will not allow you to – "
"Shut up! You aren't him!" Renalt screamed back at the deep voice that greeted him, that sounded too close to his metallic binding to be a coincidence. Renalt heard the voice somehow slightly above him.
"Yes I am! Now listen to me!" the Prime had to roar above the storm.
"I. Said. Shut. UP!" It was pointless to move now, as the Prime allowed Renalt to beat against his hand, to howl out his pain.
"I shall not allow you to throw yourself away on an uncertainty!" Optimus growled back. He disregarded the haphazard kick to his chassis as he lifted the human to face-level. For a moment, the Prime wished Renalt could see, could look him dead in the optics.
"Just tell me, who are you?!"
"I told you. I am Leonard!"
"Bollocks!"
"Let me prove it to you, then!"
"I promised..." Renalt's voice broke. And with it, the storm raged all the harder. The Prime made his next move. His hands lowered once more, holding the human against his chassis. With his quarry safe, the Prime stood and faced the storm and its brother, the silence.
"I know you did. Fulfil it in another way, Renalt Carwyn Haakon. Let me show you..."
"You're not him. He doesn't say my name that way. Who are you?!" Renalt screamed again, pounding against the Prime's chassis.
"I swear to Primus, I am he! Please, let me prove it!" The wind and water screamed around them. Prime planted his peds, thundering them down into the earth and bent in such a way that suggested he could withstand this sort of onslaught for centuries to come if he needed to.
Optimus let the human give vent to the demons, giving vent himself. The Prime glared at the darkness, at the wind, at the rain. His nemesis, Megatron, may be adept in the gladiatorial pits, but Prime. Prime was adept at another kind of battle.
"I can't do this any more..." His battering of Prime's chassis died away, leaving him trying to cling against it.
"I know, I know. I am here. You are not alone. Let me prove to you that I speak truth!"
"I don't know how..."
"Awaken. Please. Let me purge you of this foulness! Let me prove to you."
"I can't," the confession came out in a faltering whisper. Optimus almost missed it beneath the surrounding chaos.
"Yes you can! Who is it that sang beside you? Who was it but I with you, when together, The Crag stood beneath our feet?!" Optimus moaned inwardly. Exploiting the human's own memories to further this charade turned him inside-out. Yet it was necessary. Prime swallowed his own pride.
"Len..."
"Yes. It is I, I give my word!" The storm engulfed them, trying to devour both human and Cybertronian in its furious oblivion. Prime laced the fingers of both hands around Renalt and stood firm. He roared in righteous ire against it all.
"I can't.. What can I do?"
"Awaken! Please. With me. You will not be alone!"
Tears. Weeping. Renalt added his own roaring cry to the Primes.
"Awaken! Now!"
s=
On the outside, June Darby carefully managed to remove the tube from Renalt's throat. Seconds later, she paled. Ratchet yelped, leaping to catch a now-thrashing Prime. The massive being rolled, feet kicking and hands reaching as if he really was snatching something from the air.
"Orion!" Ratchet's slip went unnoticed amid the new chaos. For a moment, his optics squinted shut at the sound of the Prime's battle-mask coming off.
"Ratchet, should we wake them?" June had to yell over the din.
"No, June. Not now. Not yet. A violent disconnection will lead to complication we don't need!"
Ratchet's arms wrapped around the Prime as the larger mech's body tried to curl in, as if he really did hold the human he was trying to save in his grasp. No one spoke of the tense grimace Optimus wore. Both of them saw the diluted blue tears that streamed from optics tightly closed. The medic whispered into Prime's audial receptor; one hand absently stroking his helm. It was a paternal act, one that almost surely signified Ratchet's age as older than Optimus himself. It was a small act that told of a deep familial bond, one that stretched into the aeons before the War.
When it seemed the Prime had stilled, Ratchet released him, standing straight. His own optics welled up, but he refused to acknowledge it. He had a cortical psychic patch to monitor, and ensure that both came out of it in one piece. The Prime lay still now, but his voice was no longer merely spoken within Renalt's dark world.
"Yes I am! Now listen to me!"
It sounded strange, to hear Optimus Prime speak twice, his own voice echoing from both himself and within the patch. It was an almost one-sided dialogue that burned itself into the memories of the two who remained within Omega One's main chamber.
"I told you..."
A voice so mighty it could sway half of a planet, the bright half of a war, scaled from roaring fury to a gentled, desperate tone in a matter of nanoseconds. It was this voice that belonged to the Prime, and his only weapon against the vile storm that threatened to consume them both.
"Please...Yes you can!"
He was a being that lived an already long life, an extraordinary one. A titan who walked among men, all too ready to lay down his existence for another in the span of a sparkbeat. He was once a humble data clerk, a librarian at least and an historical archivist at most. He was the Prime, the beacon of his species. Yet he too, was mortal despite how long he had already lived, or how many times he had played poker against Death and won. He never cheated. He was simply lucky. Lucky, or very wise. Lucky, or someone the universe couldn't do without.
"Yes! Yes, it is I! I give my word!"
The Prime thrashed again, turning to lie flat on his back. His battle-mask clipped into place again, his voice roared out a command that could not help but be obeyed. The Prime gave this command with everything he had in him.
"Please. With me."
Three seconds.
"You will not be alone."
Two seconds.
"Awaken!"
One second.
"Now!"