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The Quintessons were the almighty judges of the universe. They had passed their judgment on an endless number of universes. They had the powers of unspace at the tip of their tentacles and could obliterate all.
After spending some time in this universe, they had found enough evidence to judge it guilty. They would have gotten here sooner if those six pesky Cybertronians hadn’t stood in their way. For such a small group of supposed enemies of each other, they worked incredibly well together.
This anomaly had been noted, logged and deemed irrelevant. It would not change anything.
Now these same six Cybertronians were standing in front of them, beaten, battered, but still trying to stop them.
Their plan to free the other Cybertronians from the loop had failed miserably. Although they had successfully stopped the draining. With no other option, they had been forced to confront and stop the end of the universe themselves.
It was pathetic really. Six of them had no chance against their forces. This had happened before in other universes that they destroyed. Every time the Quintessons had beaten them. These six couldn’t pull anything they hadn’t seen and dealt with before.
‘’CYBERTRONIANS OF CYBERTRON, TODAY IS THE DAY. YOU WILL REJOICE WITH US AND RENOUNCE YOUR UNIVERSE TO OUR JUDGMENT. YOU’RE SALVATION IS AT HAND WHEN EVERYTHING WILL BE WIPED AWAY.’’
The judges rotated slowly as they spoke. Their voices overlapping and harmonizing in a way that was crazy and specific for them.
Hot Rod leaned over to Perceptor and whispered. ‘’So…when do we start panicking?’’
Perceptor didn’t look away from the information of his scanner. ‘’I already ran the numbers. Panic would be statistically appropriate right now.’’
Dead End sighed dramatically. ‘’I told you this was all pointless. Now I'm going to be executed by floating faces.’’
Clobber, ever so hopeful, loaded up a strong punch. “We can still try to punch them right?’’
‘’I call dibs on being the screaming one.’’ Whirl perked up.
Soundwave didn’t say anything. He just stood there as he was going over every single possibility in his head.
‘CYBERTONIANS, YOU STAND ACCUSED OF-‘’ The Quintessons were cut of by a loud BEEEEP. Furious they looked over to who dared interrupt their speech. They found Soundwave raised with arm, one finger to the sky. It was like...like…like a cool pose?
It was deadly silent for a while.
Then the music hit. Nothing ominous and threatening played. Instead of that, it was absurdly upbeat. A synth-heavy Cybertronian dance track blasted through the entire space, the bass so heavy they could feel it vibrating trough their plating.
The Quintessons froze. Head spinning to take the lead.
‘-IS-THIS?!’’
‘’IS -A-WEAPON!’’
‘’WHY-SOUND-LIKE-’’
Soundwave stepped forward. One can say that desperate times leads to desperate measure. Pressure leads to hasty, uncalculated decisions. Sometimes a plan was so incredibly stupid that it was brilliant. With the fate of the universe hanging in the balance, there would be no one to remember this if it would fail. So why not?
He started dancing.
Soundwave didn’t flail or stumble. He danced with so much confidence that only he somehow could pull off. His movements were sharp. His timing was perfect. He hit a glide that should not have been physically possible with amazing footwork.
The other five couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Hot Rod’s jaw dropped. ‘’Yo what?! I know we’re all going to die, but that is sick. Teach me that right now!’’
Whirl screamed. ‘’HE’S DOING A DECEPTICON DANCE RITUAL!’’
Clobber started cheering on. ‘’Yes! Go Soundwave! Show them why you are Decepticon beat box champignon! Hit the spin!’’
Soundwave did exactly that. The Quintessons recoiled.
‘’ERROR--NOT-COMBAT’-’
‘’WHY--SO-SMOOTH.’’
‘’PROCESSING-UNABLE-TO-’’
Perceptor couldn’t believe what he was hearing and frankly what was happening, but that…what the judge said. ‘’Their logic systems can’t classify this. They don’t know what to do, since this is not surrender of aggression. They are confused.’’
Dead End also stood in disbelieve. ‘’Are u telling me that we have a change of surviving, because they don’t understand…dancing? Kill me please.’’
The music intensified. Primus know where Soundwave was getting lights from, but they were suddenly there.
Soundwave pointed at the Judge. ‘’WHY-CALLED-OUT?’’
Hot Rod laughed so hard his cheekplates had to hurt. ‘’If this is how we’re going to beat them. I am not standing on the sidelines.’’ He revved his engines and joined, dramatically sliding forward with finger guns blazing. ‘’HEY FIVE FACE! EVER SEEN THIS?’’
He stuck the most heroically silly pose that was so unnecessary, but had the right effect causing the judge to audibly gasped.
On the other side, Whirl attempted to break dance and rap. The was mostly just screaming, roters spinning clumsily and accidentally knocking over stuff, but he was absolutely getting an A for effort. ‘’I am art!’’ Whirl declared boldly.
Clobber enthusiastically grabbed Perceptor and began to twirl around while stomping way to hard on the ground. ‘’Lets dance together Percy!’’ She yelled over the music. Poor Perceptor was now left hanging on the mercy of Clobbers movements one could call dancing if they were generous.
Dead End crossed him arm, but began nodding to the beat. ‘’If we win like this, we are not telling the others.’’
The Quintessons began arguing with each other.
‘’-TACTICAL-DISTRACTION-‘’
‘’-THIS-CULTURAL-WARFARE-’’
‘’MOVE-BEAT-‘’
Soundwave snapped his fingers and the beat dropped so hard it felt like the whole universe was flickered.
As the Judge spiraled helplessly, Hot Rod suddenly froze.
Dead End noticed. ‘’Why do you look like you just remembered something?’’
Hot Rod grinned. ‘’Because I did.’’
He reached somewhere in his subspace and pulled out the…what the actual fuck…Matrix of Leadership?
Everyone screamed. ‘’You just had that the whole time?!!’’ Whirl yelled.
Hot Rod shrugged. ‘’Before the squiggles invaded, Optimus gave it to me. For if the Allspark needed help from the Matrix to restore Cybertron. But I got stuck in the energon waste instead. And with everything going on I can’t exactly give it back right now.’’
The Matrix flared to life, blazing gold and blue. It was almost like it was reacting to the chaos, music and the absolute nonsense around them.’’
The Quintessons noticed the artifact in Hot Rods hands.
‘’-ARTIFACT-DETECTED-‘’
‘’-IMPOSSIBLE-OPTIMUS-BEARER-‘’
‘’-ELIMINATE-‘’
A lot of things happened at the same time. In the rhythm, the Matrix pulsed, Soundwave raised both arms, the music peaked and Hot Rod lifted the Matrix.
‘’HEY SQUIGGLES!’’ He shouted. ‘’HAVE YOU GUYS EVER HEARD OF THE POWER OF MUSIC, THE MATRIX AND BAD DECISIONS?’’ He opened the Matrix of Leadership, and lighted their darkest hour.
‘’I’VE GOT THE TOUCH! AND WE’VE GOT THE POWER!!!’’
Optimus and Megatron stood the now ruined Quintesson ship, getting the run down of what happened while they’ve been captured. ‘’So-‘’ Optimus said carefully. ‘’You’re telling me the Quintessons gave us our darkest hour, had the power to destroy entire universes, and you defeated them by…’’
Perceptor cleared his throat. ‘’Music.’’
Optimus blinked. ‘’Music.’’
Grimlock smiled. ‘’Grimlock like music.’’
Optimus rubbed his temples. ‘’And the Matrix was involved?’’
Hot Rod nodded proudly. ‘’I opened it to light hour darkest hour and blasted ‘em.’’ He sheepishly rubbed his neck. ‘’Here is it back.’’ Hot Rod overhanded the Matrix back to Optimus, who stored it where in belonged.
Megatron turned slowly towards Soundwave. ‘’…Is this report accurate?’’
‘’Affirmative. Quintessons lacked rhythm. Music superior, Quintessons inferior.’’