She walked the corridors of the Autobot funeral gallery with a mixture of pride and caution. Pride, because she would not shrink from being who she was. Caution, because she knew she was not welcome here. She had an appointment to keep, but it could wait. First she needed to bid her farewells to old days, old ways, and old friends.
The catacombs loomed around her. Here, at ground level, were the dead from the Quintesson War. Autobots they might have been, but many of them had been her comrades then. A blessing, perhaps, that they had not lived to see what she had become--what she had done with the freedom they1d died to give her.
The older dead...the soldiers from the Three Cybertronian Wars...were buried below ground. The more recent were entombed in the new addition to the top of the building. She found the stairwell, and began to climb.
The hallway she stepped into seemed to stretch into eternity. The sense of comradeship that she had experienced in the Quintesson War Galleries, the communion between living veteran and dead heroes, was gone now. This was the corridor where the Autobots who died in the Decepticon Revolt had been laid to rest. Here, the faces of the statues that lined the walls glared down at her accusingly. Even the eyes of the stylized Autobot logos on the tombs were hostile, as if passing judgment.
Her spark raged inside her. ~I did what I thought was right...~
She was grateful when the grave she sought was not to be found in that hall. Instead, it was found in an anteroom, a place between the Revolt Corridor of Martyrs and the adjoining Peacekeepers1 Tombs.
ZODIAC AND STORMRAVE
REST IN PEACE
Tempest raised her right hand to her right eye, saluting her fallen sister, and then got down on one knee beside the grave. The yellow Seeker, her Decepticon markings oddly out of place in this hallowed cemetery of Autobots, reached out to trace the carved lettering with her left index finger. Despite the fact that Cybertronians had been surrounded by circuitry and digital screens since the dawning of their race, both Autobots and Decepticons had always followed the custom of engraving the names of their dead. Perhaps, as robots, they knew and feared the impermanence of high technology, and so, reverted to the primitive for their holiest remembrances.
Her finger traced the Earth-style letters. Z-O-D...
Zodiac. She1d hardly known him--the Autobot triplechanger medic. A pacifist, as those of his profession tended to be, and a kindhearted soul who held reverence for all life, be it Autobot, Decepticon, human, even Quintesson.
Not much of a soldier, though, and hardly equipped to survive in a hostile universe. Zodiac had been the sort of robot whom Tempest had targeted for her victims--one of the weak who1d survived through others1 charity rather than through personal strength. While he lived on borrowed time, he ate up resources best reserved for the mighty. Perhaps, if he1d built other robots using his own hardware as a model, he1d passed on his defective circuitry to subsequent generations and weakened the race as a whole.
She should have destroyed him sooner.
Or so her logic processor told her. Her spark, however, felt sickened at the thought. Zodiac1s easygoing manner and personal charm made it hard for anyone to dislike him.
Mentally, Tempest chastized herself--she couldn't be going soft--and reminded herself that the law of survival of the fittest had eventually played itself out. During the Decepticon Revolt, one of Tempest's captains had killed Zodiac.
~and he was never the same afterward,~ her electronic brain added.
What had happened during that battle, that had left Zodiac dead and his Decepticon killer very close to mad?
Tempest remembered the aftermath clearly--the odd mood swings in a formerly professional Decepticon soldier who had always kept his emotions in check. Perhaps the captain had finally cracked under the strain of war. ~And,~ Tempest admitted begrudgingly, ~if anything would do that to a ‘bot, it would be killing someone like Zodiac. The medic was hardly much of a threat on his own, but he was the kind who1d tell off the very Autobot leader for a chance to save an enemy's life."
Still, the sight had been horrifying to behold. The Decepticon captain had screamed, had sobbed, had spent one night confessing to her his spark-tearing guilt, and had spent the next night wildly blasting anything that moved, screaming 3GET OUT OF MY HEAD!2 until Tempest had been forced to order that he be restrained. He had died shortly afterwards, of no physical cause that the medics could find (although the mechanics discovered potentially deadly stress fractures in his frame).
Tempest remembered the words she had spoken to Lili Marlene. "There was something wrong in his head, Lili. It was as if two sparks were fighting in one body, and the strain of it tore his mind apart."
And Lili had replied, "What happened when he killed Zodiac...what happened inside that explosion?"
And Tempest shuddered before the memorial stone, because she had not had an answer then, and she still did not have one now.
She did not want to think about Zodiac.
She diverted her attention to the other half of the marker... STORMRAVE. Her sister, from long ago on the neutral planet of Kilair. They had played together as children, until Brigand and his Decepticon raiders had killed most of the other Kilairians. And from there, their paths had diverged, never to merge again.
She recalled a conversation she had overheard eons ago, between the two robots who now lay buried beneath the stone. They hadn1t known she was there, listening in on her old friend.
"I worry," Zodiac said to Stormrave, "what you might do if I was to die in battle."
The red Seeker shrugged, pointed her index finger like the barrel of a gun, and mimed loading it, raising it to her head, and pulling the trigger.
Zodiac instantly looked sick. "Primus, Stormy, promise me you'll never kill yourself...I mean it."
Stormrave bowed her head. "I don't know if I can. I mean, I don't think I could live without you." She pushed her visor back from her face, revealing red eyes shining with emotion and fear.
"Stormrave..." Zodiac's voicebox choked for a moment. "My spark could never become one with the Matrix if I knew ye was gonna do that. Please. Promise me."
She looked into his eyes for a moment and then nodded. The red Seeker placed her hand over her core processor and said, "I promise that I will never kill myself."
"And I wants ye to promise me that if I dies, ye ain't gonna go around asking for death. No kamikaze missions. No careless flying. No actin' like a maniac."
Stormrave smirked. "You know me far too well, Guppy-bot."
The medic didn1t return her grin. "Promise me," he said, in all seriousness.
The smile fell from her face and she averted her eyes. For a few minutes, all Tempest could hear was the whistle of air in and out of Stormrave1s valves. Finally, the red Seeker wrenched her gaze back to Zodiac's.
"I can't promise you that," Stormrave said softly. "I'm sorry. But I swore I1d never lie to you, and I don't think I can make that promise in good faith."
And then she1d hugged the navy-and-maroon triplechanger close.
br> And Stormrave had been as good as her word. Not suicide, no...but it wasn't long after Zodiac's death that Stormrave began piling up medals for her courageous behaviour on Autobot galactic peacekeeping missions. Tempest knew that it was easy to be courageous when a 'bot didn't care if she lived or died.
For those years, Stormrave had lived for the moment, tearing through the galaxy, moving too fast for her grief to catch up with her, staying one step ahead until the day her luck ran out...as it was certain to do, when a 'bot took such horrible chances. That day came far too soon for Stormrave's other friends.
And, Tempest suspected, took far too long in coming from the red Seeker's point of view.
At the end, Stormrave had virulently hated her yellow sister. Tempest stretched out her hand towards the stone. "I'm sorry, Raver," she whispered. "Sorry it had to be this way. I had no choice...and from your point of view, neither did you."
The stone stared back at her, silent, and yet seeming as if it tried to speak in the heavy aura it gave off, blanketing both the gravesite and its Decepticon visitor.
"So I am the last Kilairian," Tempest whispered. "Chopper is dead. All the other survivors of Brigand's raid are dead now. And so are you." She knelt to caress the top of the stone.
No sooner had her fingers touched it than she received a flash memory of late 2005. She could almost hear Stormrave1s words echoing through the catacombs as her red sister screamed at her from hundreds of years out of time. "You're not a Kilairian any more...you're a Decepticon. You sold out, forgave Brigand just because Galvatron gave you and him the same mission.."
Tempest begged to disagree. There had been nothing wrong with her allegiance with Brigand. Brigand had done nothing wrong when he destroyed Kilair. He had been strong. Kilair had been weak. The strong destroy the weak. All over the universe, that was how it was...and how it must be, if species were to remain viable. She thought of screaming her philosophy of life to the restless spirits, but...but...but it had been so many years of war, and she was so very tired. Kilairian Squadron was gone...the Decepticons had ousted her as leader...and she had so little to show for her centuries of work.
Was this what Stormrave had felt, when she had been rejected by the Autobots for being a Decepticon model, and unable to join the Decepticons because she still held Autobot beliefs? This weariness...this loneliness...this despair?
"No!" Tempest raged. She could not, would not, fall apart now. She had been lost and alone before.
The yellow Seeker remembered how quickly she had grown up while living in the seedier corners of the universe. Learning how to fight on the mean streets and skyways. Recruiting Kilairian Squadron from among the scum of the galaxy, searching for those with potential to be more than thugs. Training her soldiers and turning the Squadron from a pirate gang to an elite Decepticon battle unit. Building herself from a nobody to the Decepticon Empire's brightest star...
And watching it all fall apart. It started with the Quintesson War, when the Autobots and Decepticons had been forced to unite, lest both sides perish. Chopper had died in that conflict. The war merged Autobot and Decepticon, promising to end the age-old conflict between them, and as peace reigned the smaller Maximals and Predacons evolved.
Tempest couldn1t allow it. The Autobots were pacifistic cowards, and at the time she'd doubted the viability of the Maximals and Predacons. The infusion of Autobot circuitry and beliefs into the ranks of the Decepticons would only serve to weaken her military-hardware comrades...
She had to stop it, before it was too late. Before the Decepticons degenerated beyond recovery.
And so she took her gamble...the Decepticon Revolt. Inciting the Decepticons to rebellion. Aided by some of the Predacons, they took on the Autobots and Maximals. Tempest had planned to exterminate the Predacons later...
...but later never came. The Autobots won.
She had waited too long. The Decepticons had already fallen from grace.
But her revolt inflicted massive losses on both sides. The Maximals and Predacons were the real winners of the war. They reproduced like mad, taking over the old Autobot and Decepticon cities, while the numbers of Autobots and Decepticons dwindled. The Decepticon Revolt had given the two smaller species both dominance over Cybertron and a suspicion of one another.
The Decepticon Revolt had killed Harrier and Zodiac, and brought on Stormrave's end. Over the years the last two members of Kilairian Squadron, Beretta and Deuce, had...
...Primus, Tempest didn1t even know whether Beretta and Deuce were alive or dead. Either way, though, they were lost to her forever.
And when the Decepticon Revolt failed, most of Tempest1s troops had deserted her, and she was left with ashes.
But living. Still living. And as long as there was survival, there was hope.
A hope now lost to Zodiac and Stormrave...
~You killed them both.~
The voice came from everywhere, and nowhere. Heedless of any Autobot sentries, Tempest spoke her retort aloud. 3What do you mean?2 she demanded angrily.
~Zodiac died in the Decepticon Revolt. His death drove Stormrave half mad. She sought her own end.~
"So what does that have to do with me?"
~You started it, Tempest.~
Her mouth dropped. Her optics darted up towards the ceiling, but all she could see was blank walls, memorial statues--not likenesses of actual Autobots here, but rather representations of mythic heroes--and the dust of time. The room seemed to spin around her until the statues were dancing in some kind of circular rite unlike any she knew of, with the yellow Seeker as the center of their dance. And from out of nowhere...from across the passage of years...the voice still boomed.
~None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for you. You put the events in motion. You started the Decepticon Revolt.~
Tempest bowed her head, closed her optic lids, and struggled to think. "By that logic," she retorted tersely, "you could say that Brigand and his Decepticon raiders started it, when they destroyed my homeworld of Kilair. When in the rubble of our world, Stormrave went racing headlong into space and crashed in the arms of the Autobots, who took her in and taught her their ways, whereas I crouched in the rubble and swore from that day onward to be one of the victors instead of one of the vanquished." Her core processor swelled within her. "Kilair was weak. It took resources away from the mighty Decepticon army. Brigand and his raiders were justified in doing what they did. Very few of us were fit to survive, but survive that handful did--me, Stormrave, Chopper, Macroburst, the others..." She wrenched her head upwards. "Brigand made me what I am and I am GRATEFUL to him! Without him, I would have passed my life as one more quiet little Kilairian worker, rather than a Decepticon general who's seen the farthest reaches of the galaxy, tasted the greatest pleasures it has to offer, and taken those she enjoyed to have as her own!"
"Then enjoy the life that you have created for yourself," the voice laughed quietly. "Enjoy the blood and oil on your hands, enjoy the loss of your friends, enjoy the pain you brought to the galaxy by starting the Decepticon Revolt...and enjoy the way it felt to lose! ENJOY THE ECHOING SILENCE AND THE TASTE OF ASHES!"
Tempest jumped to her feet, her fists clenched in balls. Despite all her anger, she managed to prevent herself from screaming. Her voice was a vehement snarl. "I needed to know. There was a reason we lost." She paced the vault. "There was a time when the Decepticons were the pinnacle of Cybertronian evolution. I had hoped to prove it...but I was beaten by the Autobots and their accursed Maximal descendants."
The voice spoke with a quiet and sad tone, as if a new speaker uttered it. "And did that teach you the futility of your wars?"
The yellow Seeker sucked air into her intake valves. "In my defeat I found two proofs--the end of my belief in Decepticon superiority, and the seeds of another theory. The Autobots would never have won without the help of the Maximals."
"And now your Decepticon empire is decimated and there is no more hope for the great Decepticon renaissance. Have you learned your lesson now?"
"Indeed I have," Tempest retorted coldly. "Organics are the way of the future."
The voice was silent, as if it blinked.
She gestured outward. "Out there exist a handful of Autobot and Decepticon colonies, but the home planet itself belongs to the Maximals and the Predacons. Autobots and Decepticons are slowly dying out; few new robots are being built to replace them. Meanwhile, the Maximals and Predacons reproduce at stunning speed--but the Maximals retain the weaknesses of their Autobot forebears. The glory days of the Decepticon empire are over. The future belongs to the Predacons. And to me, as to all creatures throughout all time, is given the only choice survival allows: Evolve or die."
She spun on her heel, turning her back on the voices in her mind, looking down at the gravestone. She felt disembodied, detached. She had turned her back on Kilair, and her Decepticons had turned from her to choose a new leader from amongst themselves. "Maybe I'm wrong," Tempest said softly. "Maybe you are the last Kilairian. If not before, then now...now, after my last act as a Decepticon is done."
The yellow Seeker took a step back and saluted the grave one last time. "Farewell Zodiac. Farewell Stormrave. May you rest in peace."
A peace, Tempest knew, that she would never find.
She transformed into jet mode and fled the catacombs, a yellow arrow in the sky. On the planet1s surface, Maximals and Autobots turned their heads skyward to gaze at the streaking Decepticon fighter. The elders among them winced as Tempest's mighty engines shook the city with an earth-pounding sonic boom.
Screaming into space, Tempest revelled in the power of her turbines and the sleek skin of her jet form, knowing that after this night, the glory of her metallic transformation would be lost to her forever. Something in her spark ached--she loved being a jet, loved being a Seeker, loved being a Decepticon. She could gladly spend the rest of eternity soaring amongst the stars...
...but survival came first, as it always did. And the glory of the Decepticon Aerial Fleet was a dead glory. It was the veneration given to ancient and fallen armies, the way the humans had looked back on their knights in armour and their Red Barons...magnificent, powerful, but in the end outmoded and defeated...
By the time she landed at her destination, she was as ready as she could ever be.
The three leaders of the Tri-Predacus council were seated at their table, waiting for her. "You are late," the lean one said chastizingly.
"Business," she replied brusquely. "Putting my last affairs in order."
The heavy-set Predacon leader seemed to exhibit a measure of sympathy. "It is not too late for you to change your mind. You do realize your choice will be permanent..."
"It was always too late," Tempest replied. "The moment the Predacons became dominant over the Decepticons, my choice was made for me."
The bat-faced Predacon chuckled softly. "Indomintable will to survival. That's what I like about you, Tempest. You will make our species strong."
Several cycles later, the lid of the stasis pod cracked open. The three leaders of the Tri-Predacus Council exchanged satisfied glances amongst themselves. "She awakens," the lean one hissed with satisfaction in his voice.
The lid creaked up and down...
...and then, suddenly, the glass surface of the stasis pod lid exploded outwards. A pair of mighty yellow feathered wings, trimmed with a thin line of short blue feathers below the bone, rose from the pod. Seconds later, a lizardlike head reared from the pod's interior. The mouth opened, displaying a row of titanium fangs.
The wings flared and beat once, twice. Ruby eyes opened and glared down at the Tri-Predacus council. With a thrust of its mighty rear legs--which resembled the powerful hindquarters of a raptor more than the spindly limbs of a bird--the archaeopteryx sprang from the stasis pod like a phoenix from its funeral pyre.
"Magnificent," the bat-leader breathed.
The archaeopteryx perched on the shattered rim of the pod and arched its reptilian neck. Its head was crowned by a single brilliant blue plume; a row of red feathers lined the back of its neck like a mane. There were small hands on its wingtips, reminiscent of a bat. It flexed these talons experimentally, then followed suit with the claws on its feet. Its tail--lean like a rat's, though decorated by a spray of feathers--lashed behind it.
"Welcome," the heavy-set Predacon said. "Now--complete your rebirth. Transform."
"Terrorize!" the archaeopteryx cried, but nothing happened.
"You need to use a name," the lean leader chided.
"Tempest?"
"If you wish."
"No." The reptilian bird shook its head. "Tempest is dead." Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a large object covered up with sheets. The Predacons had done an admirable job at hiding it from view, but the robotic shape and the thin crack between two sheets--the crack that gave her a glance at a yellow and blue wing bearing a Decepticon symbol--confirmed her suspicion that the concealed form was her old Seeker body.
Dead, now.
But she...she was alive, like a phoenix from the ashes.
"I am..."
Phoenix was not the proper name for her. It was too self-sacrificing, too Maximal-like. But she appreciated the Arabian connotations. And her old name, Tempest, the storm...
On Earth, the ancient Turks had given a special name to the hot, dry, desert wind filled with sand. The wind that scoured the flesh of the weak from their bones, and left only the strong alive.
Samiel, they had called it. The poison wind.
The archaeopteryx opened her lizardlike jaw.
"SAMIEL TERRORIZE!"
