5.July.06||Modified: 28.Oct.06

Eternal Shore

By: Razor One

“Stay away!” screamed Blackarachnia, or would have screamed had there been air to carry the sound of her voice.

The red giant star soaked the airless moonscape with its bloody crimson glow, matching Blackarachnias’ furor.

“Blackarachnia,” started Silverbolt

“Don’t call me that!” she yelled, the commlink between her and the thing that called itself Silverbolt carrying her voice to it, “I’m not Blackarachnia and you’re not Silverbolt!”

“Try to make me understand!” he yelled at her in frustration. Even Silverbolt had been fazed by what had happened. The escape, the scope and horror of what had happened to them and others like them, the chilling sight of their duplicates in stasis lock…

But how? Thought Blackarachnia. How could she make him understand the horrible truth? Was he in denial? Or had she only imagined seeing the irrefutable proof before her eyes…

“They cloned us!” she yelled in frustration, “Body, Mind, Spark, everything!”

“But…” he trailed off, the possibility dawning on him that she might be right “But I remember Earth,” he said, “I remember rescuing you from Dinobot! I remember being Silverbolt! How do you know that the ones we saw were not the clones?”

Blackarachnia reached up and felt for that secret little nook, that small secret chink in her armor where she carried the Gift that Silverbolt had given her not long ago, feeling its silent, empty testament to her own falsehood.

And it clinched in her mind then and there, the thought asserted itself within her mind adamantly. She was not Blackarachnia, and he was not Silverbolt. To pretend for a single moment that they were would be an insult to the True Silverbolt and Blackarachnia. The thought crystallized with such rapidity that she didn’t notice Silverbolt coming close to her, offering a comforting arm and wing.

She flinched instantly at his touch, “Get away from me you freak!” she yelled, pushing him away with utter disgust.

Love warred with Contempt in her heart. On the one hand, her memories and every fiber of her being insisted that this was Silverbolt, who loved her and she him. And on the other hand… the truth. That he was not Silverbolt. Merely some cheap clone that thought he was Silverbolt. And what of herself? Was she no longer Blackarachnia, the one and the only? Was she no longer unique? Was their fabrication so perfect that they would never have suspected had they not seen their original selves? Why had they been cloned?

The thought sunk into her mind as surely as the bloated blood red star that lit this world in its litany of crimson merged evermore with the horizon. It engulfed her conscious mind so thoroughly she didn’t notice Silverbolt approaching once more, and scarcely felt his gentle hug.

“Get your hands off me! You’re not him!” she started violently upon the realization of his touch, revulsion and attraction mingling together in a violent concoction.

“But Blackarachnia!” he exclaimed, all too late. She broke free of his grip, spun around, and punched him squarely in the face

“I warned you!” she yelled as he fell to his knees in shock.

The instant she saw his face she regretted what she had done. Seeing that look of defeat and pain in his yellow optics likewise pained her, as though she had also cut herself in that single act.

In despair, she sat down on the parched dusty regolith, drinking in the blood red sun that shined its crimson crescent past the edge of the horizon. The long and ever growing shadows cast by distant mountains and hills matched her mood. For the first time since becoming a Maximal, she’d hit Silverbolt. She’d hit him many times before, when she was a Predacon, but never as a Maximal. She felt the need to apologize, to make him feel better and yet… Of what worth were the feelings of an imitation? What, if ever, did the reflection of what was real matter?

Silverbolt sat near to her, dejectedly keeping his distance, giving her the space he knew she needed, and gazed out into nothing as the last filaments of the crimson star sank beneath the distant horizon of this alien and barren world. Shadows, horrendously long, stretched forth and engulfed them in an icy cold. With no air to carry sound or moisture, there was no herald of fog or frost that might have followed such cold, only darkness.

Blackarachnia quickly switched to Infra-red to adjust to the darkness they found themselves in and saw something odd in the distance… water?

Even as she thought that, she felt her thermal units come online, trying to keep her mech fluid warm enough to flow.

“Silverbolt,” she said, “How cold does it get here at night?” she asked, acutely aware of just how little they knew of this world, and of those that had copied them.

Blackarachnia felt her feet go numb quite suddenly. She looked down and saw translucent fluid curling up her legs.

“Helium!” she exclaimed with dread.

Liquid helium. At this temperature the substance was amongst one of the deadliest liquids known to Cybertronian life. Its superfluid properties allowed to flow up hill, against gravity itself, and made it superconductive. Even now, it had flowed within her far from water tight frame and short circuited several of her internal mechanisms.

“Set internal thermal units to maximum!” she exclaimed

As she said it, she felt a surge of warmth. The fluid retreated in some places, and evaporated in a small puff in others. Still, its lingering icy presence was carrying off valuable heat.

All around them liquid helium roiled up through the regolith and spat upwards, the spray and spatter rapidly crystallizing before raining down again to rejoin the smoothly flowing sea of liquid helium rapidly forming about them.

“We must retreat!” gasped Silverbolt, realizing the predicament they found themselves to be in.

Before either of them could react, however, a wave of liquid helium washed over them, instantly evaporating at the touch, but carrying away what precious heat they had. Both of them collapsed, their bodies quivering from the shock of the cold.

The helium sea subsided away from them, hissing and bubbling away from their heat and warmth, but still drawing near enough to rob them of it, slowly, surely, inexorably drawing them to the frozen icy death which they found themselves destined for.

Silverbolt had never known such cold could exist. He felt as though his body only vaguely belonged to him and struggled to keep his optics open and his head up. He saw her, his beloved, lying there in the dusty soil quivering with cold to prevent her mech fluid from crystallizing, and he felt his heart and his spark ache for her, despite her earlier rejection, despite the knowledge that he was not the real Silverbolt, he felt, he knew, he could never deny his love for her and could never foreswear that which he could seldom deny. He loved her and he was damned if he would die here in this frigid wasteland, so close, and yet so far from her.

Summoning all his willpower, he commanded his deadened limbs to work, forcing them into servitude. He dragged himself inch by treacherous inch to the only person the universe had seen fit to deliver unto his heart's desire, and was now just as assuredly tearing away.

She seemed to awaken from her stupor at his touch and he gazed once more into her rich crimson optics, embracing her tightly to ward off the worst of the cold. And to his surprise she returned the embrace without the slightest hesitation, hugging him tightly and without reservation.

The frigid sea lapped ever closer to them, eager to claim their lives and sparks. Silverbolt knew that any chance of rescue was remote at best, that any chance of reprieve was hopeless. He looked into her eyes once more, sensing, knowing, feeling the only correct course of action.

Blackarachnia could scarcely believe it. She’d always known that Silverbolt hadn’t been the brightest bulb in the bunch, but this… why? Silently she cursed him for being a stupid oaf. Why had he enveloped her in his wings? It only assured his quick and rapid death in her arms as the wings would radiate his heat away.

“Silverbolt.” She whispered, on the verge of tears.

The idiot had sacrificed the remainder of his short life to give her… what? An extra cycle or two? If that at all? And for what? Stasis lock would only preserve his spark for so long before the emergency power was leeched away and his spark exposed to the elements.

The frigid sea eagerly lapped closer, Blackarachnia could no longer feel anything below her waist and her torso was numb. Her Transmetal 2 body, despite its alien power, was weakening before the tide of the superfluid.

She gazed into his blackened optics, her thoughts racing.

Slag it all! She thought. She loved that stupid bone brain even if they were both clones. And now it was too late to tell him. She fought back tears of rage and sorrow as despair consumed her. How cruel a hand fate had sought to deal them. She had rejected him outright as a mere copy and now that she loved him as no other, he was beyond her, no doubt tumbling through that same dark tunnel she had once seen the last time she had been near death.

And now there was no Transmetal 2 driver to save them. No friends to grieve their loss. No being that would mark their passing with even the merest hint of sorrow. She would die here, as had Silverbolt, to be alternately roasted by the crimson star and frozen by the frigid night for a thousand stellar cycles and beyond. She wondered, briefly, if any would happen upon their lifeless forms locked in the embrace of love and life for eternity.

Her vision quickly began to tunnel. She could no longer feel her face. The superfluid had been rising steadily, flowing along her frame. Soon her head would be covered and she would die. Her mech fluid would freeze, what circuits could function without the fluid would short circuit and she would enter the empty world of Stasis lock. With no friends, no warmth, no CR chamber to repair them, the stasis would last perhaps a stellar cycle, maybe two before the power would fail and their sparks released into the matrix.

The Matrix. She sighed inwardly at that final thought. It mocked her in those final moments, a question that pained her.

Do Clone sparks even have a place within the matrix?

Her vision faded to black, and she knew no more…

***

Crash

The feeling of weight.

Crash

The feeling of wet.

Crash

The sound of waves upon a shore.

Crash

Blackarachnia Stirred. She opened her eyes to see… sand? She could scarcely believe it. The last thing she remembered was… darkness… cold… that silent eternity enveloping her in the shroud of death from which, she knew, had come to claim her once and for all.

Was this the Matrix?

Crash

The sand felt very fine, almost as though it were dust. A few sea shells were scattered upon the shore.

Crash

The salty water washing over her forced her fully into wakefulness. She arose, extricating herself from the sucking wet sand that begged her to remain.

This wasn’t what she was expecting. She had expected… well… she hadn’t known what to expect exactly. All she remembered from her last near death experience was a dark tunnel. She realised that this wasn’t the matrix and it certainly wasn’t the pit.

Crash

She found herself standing upon a primeval shore; any rocks that had once dared to rear themselves against the effortless onslaught of the sea had long ago been worn away into the finest of sand. The sea itself stretched away into the horizon, broken only by the occasional wave, its emerald depths and salty spray challenging all to drink in its beauty.

Had she been rejected by the matrix? Her death was the one and only thing she was certain of in this place. Had she gone to the Matrix, and had she been judged unworthy of the allspark?

Crash

Behind her loomed vast grasslands and savannah which swayed in the gentle breeze. Beyond them lay a forest, dense and long undisturbed, and beyond them still mountains, challenging the azure infinity of the oxygen rich sky.

Earth, in all it’s primitive beauty, all its savage nobility. Somehow it had taken her tortured soul away from that Primus forsaken rock. Taken her… here? A place that was neither the matrix nor the pit, but… elsewhere? Had it perhaps taken her forsaken spirit in some gesture of compassion? Was it even possible? Or was this the one last hallucinatory glimpse of a still dying mind?

Crash

A tired groan caught her attention.

“Silverbolt!” she exclaimed, rushing to him

She intended to help him stand on his feet, but no sooner was he on one of his knees had she leaned forward, kissing him and embracing him, cherishing him as never before.

If I’m dead, she thought briefly, this is definitely the right way to be dead.

Crash

Silverbolt didn’t care where he was. Blackarachnia was alive, and she still loved him, even if they were copies, he knew that the love they felt for one another was true. That was all that mattered to him. He breathed in her scent as though he could draw life and nourishment from that and that alone, he kissed her passionately and hugged her tightly, hoping never again to lose her.

For a moment the two amorous lovers parted and looked west into the golden sunset. Father Sol shined brightly as it sunk into the west, the moment passed, and they found themselves gazing into each others' eyes. He gave her a sly grin, She gave him a seductive wink, their faces drawing ever closer, drawn together by a force more powerful then gravity, magnetism or Primus combined.

They kissed in the unending twilight upon the shores of eternity, love forever undying in their hearts.

The End