By Brian Brousseau
all_are_not_lost@hotmail.com
The crowd is a sea of bodies; a mass of shapes with hands and antennae waving. To one who views the world through sound, the buzz of conversation imparts a soft fuzz over the sea with sharp flashes where an enthusiastic Predacon whistles or cheers. Here and there, in the sea of Predacons, islands jut up where Ultra class bots loom with smaller brethren on their shoulders. Darkwave looms above them all and wades through the crowd. The sea parts before him as none dare to oppose him; though there is no outward sign of his disappointment, inwardly he sighs. He knows that he should say something, acknowledge the throng, encourage their pride, but he only wants to get inside the tower.
He has sacrificed far too much to Duty to hold back now. He gives a powerful flap of his great wings and soars up and turns to face the crowd. The crowd quiets down slightly to hear what he may say and his voice carries through the square. "In honor of the Decepticons and for the glory of the Predacons and for the Cybertron which is rightfully ours... Unicron is dead!" He raises one massive fist into the air and waits. Some of the crowd is yelling "Predacons forever" but some are cheering in the name of their Decepticon ancestors. He hears but does not care anymore. Enough display has been made; Duty is satisfied. He turns and flies to the top of the tower, his tower, and enters.'
"Contact our shipyards at Kuat Station. Tell them to set up a new design team to draw up plans for the "True Nemesis"-Class Battlecruiser. Offer Upgrade a position as head of the team. If he doesn't want it, tell the Commanding Officer of Kuat Station to use his best judgement in assigning engineers to the team. The "True Nemesis"-class will be huge. If they can make a ship with the same power as a Decepticon vessel in a smaller size, they can make a vessel the same size as a Decepticon ship more powerful. I want the preliminary designs in 6 decacycles and a prototype in two stellar cycles.
"Contact Commander Stahldrache and tell him he is on indefinite furlough until the prototype is ready for its test run. Hardhead will be under his direct command.
"Contact Oblivion and inform him that he is now the head of the Predacon Secret Police. He will report to the main Computer room tomorrow morning and begin compiling a list of possible agents to build his new force. He has three days to submit his preliminary list for my inspection. Also tell him to look into the possibility of using Armageddon as an information sorter. He enjoys multi-tasking on multiple viewscreens.
"Contact the Protoformation Team at the Pit facility. Tell them to raise their standard criteria for physical and psychological fitness for prospective parents by ten percent. Any Predacon who meets these higher requirements will be allowed to bear sparks as often as they wish. The Protoformation Team is not to announce this, but any Predacons who meet or exceed the criteria are not to be turned away no matter how many times they return.
"Contact our ships in-system. Tell the commanders to increase patrols and to set up a regular schedule of drills: boarding, boarder repelling, hot landings, everything.
"Have an autofactory with a fabrication computer brought to my personal chamber."
"Any other orders, sir?" The little Predacon asked nervously.
"I don't want to be disturbed." Although not phrased as an order, the aide knew it for what it was. Darkwave walked farther into the tower towards his quarters leaving the actual celebration and work to the Predacons whose ranks were still low enough in the Alliance hierarchy to require titles.
It was finished. The massive throne was made of four massive monoliths. Two vertical slabs formed the sides and one taller monolith formed the back. The fourth slab was horizontal and formed the seat. The front of the right slab was carved to resemble the Decepticon Shockwave, his one hand upraised as if holding up the seat of the throne, a stalwart and faceless caryatid. The front of the left slab was carved to resemble the Predacon Megatron, both hands raised up to help hold up the seat and one wing wrapping around the side of the throne. On the back of the throne, on the side facing the wall where it wasn't likely to be seen, there was a bas relief of the combined form of Tripredicus with the three individuals in triptych beneath him. The whole thing was made of a dark shiny metal that gleamed in the dim light of the chamber. The gleam of the throne was lost on its creator.
Darkwave stands in the dark chamber listening intently to the sonar and radar waves he is bouncing off the throne, effectively "staring" at it. He wants to carve something into the seat: glyphs explaining to whom the throne belongs. But what should it say? This is the throne of Darkwave, leader of the Predacons, but it is only Darkwave's throne, not the throne of the leader of the Predacons. If someone else should depose him and become leader of the Predacons, this would still be Darkwave's throne. It is Darkwave's not because he conquered the Predacons but because he sits in it. How could he sum the throne up succinctly, and should he even bother? After much deliberation, he shuts the autofactory down and pushes it to the edge of the chamber. Then he sits down on his new throne and takes his axe out of his chest compartment. His little drone, Scratch, hops out and curls up on the floor at his feet. Mentally, Darkwave orders Scratch to cloak and go spy on Oblivion. Fracas, his little ally whom he constructed in the likeness of the Decepticon Frenzy, is already with Oblivion, but Scratch looks too much like Soundwave's old friend Ravage. Darkwave is in no mood to hear the faces of old long-dead friends. Especially not Decepticon friends. He tunes the strings on the guitar. He begins to play.
The dark chamber is silent now. The echoes of Darkwave's music have died out and now he sits on his throne with his axe in his lap, blade up. He runs a giant fingertip over the cool metal edge and listens to the soft rasp of metal on metal. He restricts his audio receptors to that one narrow band of frequency so that he may focus on the sound to the exclusion of all else. He runs his finger along the edge again and listens to the scraping.
Darkwave becomes aware that there is another soft metallic rasp elsewhere in the room: the light touch of a soft footstep on the metal floor. He returns his audio to normal levels and lifts his head. Nightbird stands in front of him with her hands together in reverence and bows sharply at the waist. He can hear her optic mechanism adjust to the gloom. She hadn't turned on the lights.
As his daughter, in body if not in spark, returns to an erect posture and looks up at his blank face mask and blind optic visor, Darkwave runs his finger over the edge of the axe again. "I should have had a sword. One cannot run oneself through with an axe."
"You intend to kill yourself?" she asks softly.
"Do you expect me to continue to live?"
"Why should you not? You have achieved great glory. You lead the Predacons..."
"I did not take my crown!" Darkwave roars more loudly than he had intended and stuns Nightbird into silence. More quietly, he continues, "I picked up the crown that Tripredicus dropped, but I did not take it from them. I'm not a Predacon: I'm just a lowly scavenger, like before. Look at my throne."
Nightbird slowly walks around the throne, examining the carved caryatids of Shockwave and Megatron as she passes. When she is behind the throne, Darkwave can hear the tiny whine of her optics as she stops and adjusts her vision to examine the throne's back.
"Shockwave was the one who made the plan. Megatron was the one who carried it out. After he was gone, I was left with this position only because Tripredicus turned their backs on it." He listens as Nightbird slowly returns to the front of the throne.
"That final battle with Tripredicus was the moment for which every Predacon lives their whole life. I went into that battle fully prepared to cheat. To not do everything in my power to win would have been disrespectful and dishonorable. I fully expected Tripredicus to cheat in order to defeat me. I stepped onto the field of battle with only two possible outcomes in my mind. I would destroy my opponent and legitimize my control of the Predacon Alliance and win the dream so desperately sought. Or, I would be destroyed having expended the last energy in my Spark trying to win and I would dissolve back into the Matrix in a blast of light: a fitting end for a fallen warrior headed for Silicon Valhalla. Soundwave was nuked because of a poor decision made by a foolish commander. Nightwing was shot in the back over a minor slight. Here was my chance to go down fighting for something that mattered.
"I could not have anticipated even Tripredicus doing something so heinous. They did not cheat to win. They cheated to avoid fighting. They put my spark into a ruined body and cast me adrift in space. They robbed me of my victory. But, even worse, they robbed me of a proper death. After I was..."
Nightbird waits patiently as Darkwave struggles to vocalize his next words. "...rescued, by Starscream and the Maximals! I found that I couldn't even take my revenge on Tripredicus and finish our battle properly. Tripredicus... Tripredicus... Tripredicus was already dead, killed by Stahldrache! Why couldn't they have held out long enough for me to get to them? Why couldn't they have just killed me and let me die like a Predacon?"
Although he lacks eyes as such and his sightless optic visor is not capable of shedding any kind of fluid, he stills leans forward on the handle of his axe and lets his shoulders shudder. In his own way, as best he can, Darkwave weeps. Nightbird trembles at the sight in uncomprehending terror. Not knowing what else to do, she hugs the knee of the foundation of her whole world. After several cycles of silence pass, Nightbird speaks.
"Don't." she says. Softly at first, then again more forcefully, "Don't kill yourself. You are a great Predacon. You never backed down from a challenge. Is it not good that all your challengers backed out? You met all opponents with the best of your abilities. Is it not good that none could defeat you without the intervention of a god? A god you later destroyed? You carried out all duties assigned to you at any cost, even when it meant sacrificing friends. Is it not good that you have never failed? You betrayed those who stood in your way and were foolish enough to trust you. Is it not good that your treachery culled the weak? You faced death with resolute courage because of your convictions. Is it not good that you showed no weakness or cowardice? You followed the code of honor more closely than you realize.
"Every Transformer on Cybertron knows your name. The Maximals respect you as a hero for saving Cybertron and destroying Unicron. Every Predacon aspires to be like you, to serve you, or to take your place. Those who do not love you fear you. You have a duty to Cybertron, to the Decepticons, to the Predacons, and to yourself to see this life through to its ultimate conclusion. Other challenges await your conquering fist. You cannot get revenge on Tripredicus for what they did to you, but you can punish those who robbed you of your rightful vengeance. And there are other conquests to be made." Nightbird waits patiently while Darkwave processes her words.
"You are right, Nightbird. There are still things to do: vengeance and conquest."
Nightbird soars triumphantly around the gloomy chamber in her graceful wyvern mode before transforming mid-air and alighting in front of Darkwave's throne. Darkwave leans forward as she bows. "Is it done?" he asks.
"It is. I have recruited the new Razor Woman. She will serve your purpose well. She was being 'rehabilitated' by the Church of Primus but I explained to her your concept of Balance. She found it to be much more comprehensible and... comforting to her. She lacks some of the more active skills required of a Razor Woman but she knows all she needs to know to carry out her current mission admirably. The rest she can learn after her task is completed. She is going to take her time so as not to arouse any suspicion and there is the chance that she will become pregnant by him before she accomplishes her mission. Will this be a problem?"
"No. Let his line continue in his absence. He was, after all, a good traitor. His treachery must be punished, but we shouldn't deny the Predacon Alliance of future generations equally adept in treachery. Her line should continue as well... to maintain balance. Are you sure she will succeed?"
"Yes. She seemed almost delighted at the idea. I think killing her mate appeals to her primal urges. With further training in appealling to a wider variety of males, she could serve well as a specialist in this kind of mission. I have checked her out thoroughly with Oblivion's help. There is no need for concern. Destine will take every precaution and prepare very carefully before striking. He will never see it coming, but before he goes completely offline, Stahldrache will be told why it is that he is being terminated."
"Excellent. If vengeance is taken care of, I will move on to conquest." Nightbird bows again to Darkwave. "Contact Agent Scanner at the Maximal Citadel. Tell him that in the interest of maintaining the spirit of cooperation between our two alliances, I would like to have a Maximal ship and crew escort me and some of my aides on a reconnaissance tour I am planning. There are some old Decepticon controlled worlds that have not been visited in some time and I would like to check on their status. An exploration vessel, which the Maximals have in plenty, would be ideally suited to such a peaceful mission."
"If you wish to scout out worlds for conquest," Nightbird hesitates to correct Darkwave, "perhaps it would be best to wait until our fleet is at full strength and send warships on this reconnaissance mission."
"It is not the worlds that I am interested in conquering right now." Nightbird is one of the few people on Cybertron who can tell when Darkwave is smiling and somehow she knows he is smiling now. "Tell Scanner that I think Commander Daybreak's ship in particular would be perfect for this mission."