Movieverse Kup was there for the Tomb of the Primes. So was Jetfire... his memory just doesn't work so good anymore. Wild conjecture and feral ROTF spoilers ahead...

Prime's Honor

“My father was one of those great pioneers on Earth,” Jetfire loudly and proudly proclaimed. Again. “He was a wheel – the first wheel!” he added at an even greater volume. Just like all the others, this group of trainees was swallowing every word. “And do you know what he transformed into? Nothing! But he did so with honor!”

Kup resisted the urge to swipe Jetfire’s ever-present walking stick and swing it at his rusty, half-broken head. He’d heard it all before. Probably, he complained silently in his processor, because that story was one of exactly two stories Jetfire still remembered.

It was a shame, really. Jetfire looked, sounded, acted and moved like a mech centuries older than Kup, yet it was Kup who was the elder of them – by centuries, in fact. Too bad the creaky mech hadn’t remembered to take care of his frame as well as he had remembered that story about his father. And too bad the creaky mech hadn’t remembered the part where he made the whole thing up.

And how did Kup remember that Jetfire’s favorite tale was a lie concocted to grab the interest of otherwise uninterested youths? Because Kup was there. And because, like most convincing lies, it held the smallest grain of truth. Jetfire’s father had indeed been on Earth long ago. And, well, he had wheels, if landing gear counted…

***

The Fallen’s descendants and drones swarmed over the landscape of the dusty organic planet, dwarfing the scattering crowd of fleshy native beings. The Decepticons and their master paid little heed to the humans, only tossing them or their remains out of the way when their presence became inconvenient.

One of the Fallen’s descendants, though, sought to protect the organic life forms. The mech, one of many created as the Fallen’s devoted disciples, instead focused his firepower on any Decepticon within targeting range. Jetfire had long ago rejected the Decepticon cause and presented himself to Nova Prime as an Autobot, a follower of the six remaining Primes. His prowess in battle, proven many times over, was once again on display as he felled three of the Fallen’s drones with three consecutive shots.

Jetfire’s kills did little to improve the lot of the Autobots. The Fallen’s threat that he would make himself stronger than his brothers had proven devastatingly true. A Decepticon who appeared to be only a drone effortlessly shoved Kup aside with a force that sent the elder Autobot warrior tumbling end-over-end for nearly a hundred yards. Kup wondered how far he would have gone, and how alive he would have been, had the enemy been trying.

The drone’s target was not Kup, but Nova Prime. As the physical bearer of the Matrix of Leadership, he was a prized target indeed for the Fallen. Kup fired over and over into the vicinity of the drone’s Spark chamber; each shot looked less effective than the last. He gave a warning shout of “Prime!” and half expected six large conical heads to turn and face him. Instead, Nova Prime correctly discerned – whether through the ancient wisdom of the Primes or through ordinary battle smarts – that the warning was meant for him. He whirled about on the drone and knocked it off-balance with a swing of his staff.

The drone only fell as far as its knees before rising and grappling with Nova Prime, both mechs pulling on the staff with two hands. Again, Kup’s assault did little to give any advantage to Nova Prime. This called for a fighter younger and more technologically advanced than Kup, and more to the point, it called for a fighter more acquainted with the well-hidden weak points of the Fallen’s minions.

“Jetfire!” Kup called, in as loud and booming a voice as his vocal circuits could produce. He scanned the vast battlefield around him, hoping against hope for a clear view of Jetfire soaring to the rescue, and saw only unmitigated chaos. It seemed that the very ground under Kup’s feet had risen to life, spawning hundreds of nearly identical warriors and setting them arbitrarily against each other. Amid the clouds of dust in the air and the corpses and pools of oil on the ground, it was impossible to tell who was Autobot and who was Decepticon, who was drone and who was fully sentient mech, who was infantry grunt and who was Prime.

To Kup’s left, Nova Prime continued grappling with the drone over control of his staff. With a final wrenching motion, the drone relieved the Prime of the weapon, broke it cleanly in half over its knee joint and – now holding two weapons – advanced toward its disarmed prey.

“Jetfire!” Kup called again.

The roar of an engine directly over Kup’s head masked the cacophony of the rest of the battle. “Don’t have to yell so loud!” a brash, confident voice shouted over the engine noise. Jetfire flew directly into the drone, lifting it with his nosecone and tossing it several times as far as the drone itself had earlier tossed Kup. The severed staff clattered harmlessly to the ground; the drone shed limbs and oil as it impacted over and over; Jetfire, without speaking further or transforming, disappeared back into the sea of combatants.

Nova Prime picked up one of the broken halves of his staff. Kup retrieved the second and presented it to him. “How many more times does he have to do that,” Kup asked, “before you admit he’s earned the Matrix?”

Nova Prime scoffed. “You never miss a chance to advocate for your reckless young friend.”

“I never miss a chance to tell the truth,” Kup retorted, adding “sir” almost as an afterthought.

Nova Prime, angered by Kup’s reply, threw both halves of his staff to the ground and nearly spat, “Jetfire is a descendant of the Fallen! No descendant of the Fallen will ever earn the Matrix of Leadership!”

“Jetfire may be descended from the Fallen, but he –” Kup’s argument was interrupted by a low hum that grew in volume and intensity. The Fallen, set apart from his brothers the Primes only by the crackle of red in his optics and under his housing, held his staff and his free hand aloft. The Autobot warriors, set apart from the Decepticons only by their susceptibility to the Fallen’s powers, struggled against the sonic attack that lifted the dirt and stones around them into the air. The Fallen lowered his staff, and the debris rained down on the Autobot forces, causing little in the way of physical damage but plenty in the way of damage to concentration and ability to fire back. Decepticons by the dozens took advantage and moved in on the Autobots, engaging them one by one in vicious hand-to-hand combat in which Autobot after Autobot fell.

Nova Prime, without his staff intact, could no longer approach the heart of the fighting and survive. He raised his voice instead, calling to his five brothers in the sacred language only those known as Prime understood. The five other Primes heeded Nova’s call and moved in formation toward the Fallen, raising their staves and pointing them at the first of the Decepticons.

Kup watched the tips of the Primes’ staves begin to glow. He watched until he could watch no more. Straining against the Decepticon who had attacked him from behind, Kup heard the high-pitched whine of the Primes’ weapons reaching full charge. Amid the growls of the Decepticon with whom he wrestled, he heard the whine grow into a terrifying screech. And over even the discordant harmony of the fully charged staves, Kup heard the voice of the Fallen: “Decepticons! These others are nothing. Destroy the Primes!”

Kup felt himself being dropped unceremoniously to the ground as his opponent obeyed. First dozens, then hundreds of Decepticon fighters marched single-mindedly toward the six Primes – including the unarmed Nova Prime, who again uttered the mysterious language to call his brothers to his aid.

The six mechs, the Autobots’ military leaders, formed an inward-facing circle against a cliff and against all military wisdom. They spoke words comprehensible only to them in tones barely audible amid the clattering and snarling of the Decepticons who closed around them. Kup and the other Autobot warriors formed a series of outward-facing semicircles surrounding and defending the Primes.

They failed to notice when Nova Prime removed the Matrix of Leadership from his chest.

The glow from the center of the Matrix cast a bluish light over the field of battle. The Autobots, finely trained, continued their concentration on the enemy. Many of them were so young that, despite their training, they knew nothing of where the light originated.

Kup knew. He allowed himself a quick look over his shoulder and witnessed the lifeless body of Nova Prime crumbling to the ground, the Matrix still in his hand. “Prime!” he shouted in vain. The call reached none of the mechs for whom it might have been intended. Following the lead of their brother, the five other Primes released their Sparks from their bodies and collapsed dead against each other, their remains forming a shell to protect the precious artifact sought by the Fallen.

The Decepticons continued their methodical advance. The Fallen raised his staff, again creating a swirl of dust and rubble in the air, and roared triumphantly at the deaths of his brothers. Kup, Jetfire and the rest of the Autobots remained in their formation, following the last command they had received from the Primes: protect the Matrix.

***

The trainees were finally gone. Oh, rapture, Kup thought with equal parts truth and sarcasm. Another cycle or two or ten waiting for the next infusion of fresh oil to make its way through the exhibit where the elders were kept like pets. The quiet, after a flurry of activity and an interminable roll call of inane questions, was welcome; the boredom, though, was not.

The quiet was even quieter and heavier than usual this time. Jetfire, rather than transforming back to his alternate mode for a rest period, leaned against the wall in robot mode, lazily drawing symbols in the dust on the floor with his walking stick. Kup recognized the symbols and broke the silence. “Sometimes I forget you can read and write the language of the Primes,” he commented. “One of these cycles, you’ll tell me you can pronounce it, too.”

Jetfire said nothing, but continued tracing the ancient symbols in the dust. Kup raised the focus of his optics from the floor to Jetfire’s face. “You would have made a fine Prime,” he said.

Jetfire shrugged and remained focused on his tracings. “Mreh.”

Kup fully expected the grunted non-reply – he had paid Jetfire the compliment many times before and had never been believed – but this time, he was unwilling to leave it there. “I mean it, Jets,” he insisted, stepping in front of Jetfire while being careful not to tread on his rendering of the sacred language. “You turned away from the mech who made you. You refused to be what he made you. That’s the stuff of a Prime.” Jetfire still refused to break his concentration on the symbols; Kup pressed on. “Had Nova Prime allowed you the secret of the Matrix –”

“He had his reasons, Kup,” Jetfire interrupted, at last raising his optics from the floor.

“His reason,” Kup argued, losing for a moment the point of the conversation, “was that he showed no honor at all until he…”

Both mechs fell silent. Jetfire turned again to his intricate tracings on the floor, adding to them with greater intensity and speed. Kup resisted the urge to swipe the walking stick and swing it at his own head. Insulting one of the Great Primes? Aloud, and in front of his devoted follower no less?

“Jets. Jetfire,” Kup began. Apologies always sounded better with a full name. “That’s wrong. No honor – how can a Great Prime have no honor?” Jetfire stopped tracing the symbols in the dust and faced Kup. “He made a mistake,” Kup continued. “That’s all. A hell of a mistake, depriving Cybertron of Jetfire Prime.”

The silence hung heavy again, only punctuated by a rasping sound as Jetfire’s vocal circuits approximated a cough. The younger, yet more aged, mech nodded sharply at Kup, and tiny flakes of rust dislodged from his frame and fluttered to the floor as he knelt closer to his tracings. Unwilling to erase the symbols with his hands, he directed a current of air through his mouth, stirring the dust until all evidence of his handiwork disappeared.

Jetfire stood with his back against the wall again and forced a laugh. “You know, Kup, my father was a wheel.” Another artificial chuckle. “The first wheel.”

Kup nodded solemnly. Perhaps the story was more than entertainment for impressionable trainees. “And what did he transform into?”

“Nothing,” Jetfire almost inaudibly muttered through an insincere smile.

Kup nodded again. “But he did so with honor.”

That was amazing, Newsy! I loved it. Great job.

That was a great read. The end was probably my favorite, very touching.

I guess I should get to working more on my entry...

*wibbles and huggles both oldtimers*

Except... "Jetfire Prime" doesn't have as nice of a ring to it.

Great work as always!!

Awesome work, Newsy!

I don't know if "Jetfire Prime" would tick. Aside from that, interesting fic.

I admit I've had to chew on this one for a while -- but you already know the time I've had trying to wrap my head around RotF.

The action is cool, and the character interaction in the flashback is great. I'm a little uncertain where the rest of the setting is, although I think my brain is automatically trying to make a connection with a G1 parallel. You have me pondering the various exchanges of "My father was the first wheel", and who is implied by his father. The Fallen as a metaphorical The First Wheel has intriguing possibilities.

Also, part of me wishes Jetfire would smack Kup in the head with his cane.

I like that. More character than the whole of Rotf and more touching too. Especially the idea that Jetfire is 'older' than Kup, or has let himself go more anyway.