Carly had had a bad day.  The previous few days hadn't been much good either.  She hated visiting her father-in-law, but she supposed that that was the downside of putting him in an out-of-state nursing home.  Still, at the very least, she thought Spike should come too, but her husband always had some convenient excuse.

"Sorry, honey, I'd love to go, but I've got to help an alien race in another galaxy.  Tell Dad I love him." 

She couldn’t count the amount of times she’d heard that one.

Not that Sparkplug objected particularly to Spike's absence.  It was his grandson that he wanted to see.  However, Carly had long since weighed up the options and had decided that she'd rather leave Daniel in the care of alien robots rather than have his behaviour blamed on her child-rearing abilities.  Naturally, this was a vicious circle, since Daniel's brattishness was a direct result of being spoiled by said alien robots.  It was a wonder he hadn't been killed with all the 'toys' they gave him—somehow, Autobot generosity never seemed to run to high-tech safety-gear.  Before she left, she had had to make Wheeljack swear that he wouldn't upgrade Daniel's new skateboard to a turbo-charged hover-model.  She had remembered yesterday that she hadn't made sure his fingers weren't crossed at the time.

And now she had switched on the news to find a report that Autobot City had been attacked by the Decepticons.  The exact details were unclear since even the media had decided that this was a time not to interfere with foreign politics.

Personally, Carly didn't give two hoots about foreign politics.  She had left her son in a warzone, and she was damn well going to get him out before Sparkplug could accuse her of being a bad mother.  Again.  Before the old man had time to open his mouth, she kissed him goodbye and drove straight down there.

She had to stop the car before she got into the city.  The roads were nothing more than rubble, which was pretty much all that could be said for the rest of the place. Here and there, robot corpses were scattered—it looked like a conclusive defeat for the Autobots.

In absence of a doorbell, Carly used her car's horn.  Presently, her radio crackled to life.

"Carly? That you?"

Carly did not waste time wondering at what point some Autobot had upgraded her car-stereo to a two-way transmitter.  "Blaster!  What's happened?"

"Long story.  You might want to come up here and sit down."

* * *

Blaster had had a bad day.  And he was going to take great pleasure in telling Carly all about it.

"The Decepticons gatecrashed when we weren't looking.  Pretty much everybody got toasted.  Optimus Prime and Megatron really went to town on each other—Optimus died later, and I'd bet Megatron did too."

"And the survivors?" Carly asked, in the sort of voice that made him realise he was forgetting something.

"There's not many of us still up and running.  Me, Perceptor, Kup, Springer, Hot Rod, Arcee, Blurr, the Dinobots... er... Ultra Magnus..."

"Think about it, Blaster... did I really speed all the way down here to find out the fate of a bunch of robots from another planet?”

The penny dropped.  "Oh, and Daniel.  Daniel's fine... yeah."

Carly pursed her lips, tallying the names he had and hadn't mentioned.  "Who's leading now?"

"Prime passed the Matrix of leadership to Ultra Magnus before he died."

"Ultra Magnus? Did Optimus die from a blow to the head or something?"

"He didn’t have much to choose from at the time. Magnus made sure Springer and I were out on cleanup duty while Prime was on his deathbed."  While he remembered, Blaster added that to his list of grievances.

"What about Kup?"

"Oh, Kup's been blackmailing Prime for years, threatening to tell stories of his college days.  Ain't no way Prime was giving him the Matrix.  Kup told them all to us once he was dead of course, but I guess it's not as if Optimus has to look us in the face again."

"The Matrix?"

"Yeah... it's our most sacred artifact.  One day The Chosen One will use it to Light our Darkest Hour ™," Blaster told her happily.

"How come I've never heard about it until now?"

Blaster shrugged, having no valid answer to that.  "It just never came up?"

Carly rolled her eyes.  "So where is everybody?"

"Well... I hate to be the one to tell you this, Carly, but I got a message from Spike and Bumblebee saying that a cannibalistic planet was chowing down on Cybertron's moons.  We haven't heard anything from them since."

Carly muttered something about what happens to people who don't make family-time and Blaster nervously ploughed on.

"Just after we lost contact with Moonbase Two, the Decepticons attacked.  They've got a new leader too—some purple dude.  So everybody ran for the shuttles, and..." his voice grew petulant, airing his own complaint.  "They left me.  Just took off and didn't pay any attention to where I was.  They made sure Arcee got aboard, yeah, but Blaster?  Let's take the girl, but leave the guy with the biggest collection of eighties music this side of Saturn?  Well, they'll regret it.  They'll miss me when Perceptor brings out his Spice Girls CDs.  It’s a long voyage to Cybertron."

"How'd you escape the Decepticons?" Carly asked, largely out of courtesy.

"Oh, I transformed and they didn't see me."

Carly nodded.  Blaster's alternate mode was a stereo with a bright, distinctive red and yellow colour scheme and a clearly visible Autobot symbol.  Due to a technology far beyond the grasp of humans, the transformation rendered him completely unrecognisable.

"Everybody else went?" she asked pointedly.

"They left Snarl too.  Well, actually, he kept muttering something about how it was his day off and he was going to get in touch with his union if they made him do anything.  He wouldn't even fight the Decepticons—he just made a note of whoever shot at him and said he would have his lawyer speak to theirs.  They left him alone after awhile."

Carly sighed. "Never mind Snarl, what about Daniel?  Remember?  My son?"

"Oh, don't worry.  He got on a shuttle."

"You mean the shuttles that are going to see what they can do against a planet that eats moons?"

"Er... yes." 

"Let me get this straight.  Your home planet gets threatened.  So you decide that you'll go fight this unknown menace, and while you're at it, you'll take along an unaccompanied minor from a completely uninvolved race and world—"

"Hey, we've been fighting the Decepticons on Earth for twenty years."

"I know, and we've so enjoyed watching you do it."  Carly glared at him until he hung his head.  "Never mind.  Daniel's unlikely to be missed by anybody but his grandfather—as long as you make it clear I had nothing to do with it.  What happened to Snarl anyway?"

"Oh, a few hours later he announced that he was back on duty, fixed up a ship and took off after the others."

"Snarl did that?  The Dinobot Snarl?"

Blaster shrugged.  "Yeah. Took me by surprise too...  Of course, since then I've been busy trying to clean things up around here.  I've dragged everybody who still has a hope of being repaired inside—but there's nobody around to fix them."  He cast Carly a hopeful look.

Carly picked up a soldering iron.  "Show me to whichever shuttle is in the best condition.  We're going to Cybertron."

"But what about the Auto—"

"Never mind them.  I'm going to find my son and my husband and give them a piece of my mind."

* * *

A few hours later, Blaster was firing the engines preparatory to take off.  "Are you sure we shouldn't tidy up a bit first?" he asked Carly, looking out at the city somewhat disconsolately.  "This place looks worse than the football pitch we put in for the Dinobots."

"Who's going to see it?" Carly pointed out.

Long after their vapour trail had dissipated, another robot staggered into the city, larger than Carly, smaller than Blaster.  He stared around at the desolation.

"Hello? Anybody home?"

Brawn had had a really bad day.  Nothing Blaster and Carly had experienced could really compare.

It all started on the shuttle down to Earth, when the Decepticons attacked.  He charged forwards only to realise that he had neglected to pick up his gun.  Before he had time to think up an appropriate expletive for this, Starscream shot him in the shoulder with Megatron.  The impact sent him flying backwards, he hit the floor hard and was knocked out cold.  This was extremely embarrassing. 

When he finally regained consciousness, he discovered that the shuttle had crashed, the Decepticons were long gone and his Autobot shipmates were lying in partially vaporised pieces around him.  This was decidedly upsetting. 

Determined to do his duty, he then dragged himself through the mountains on foot since he was too battered to transform, in the vain hopes of giving assistance to his comrades back at Autobot City.  This was inordinately gruelling. 

And just to cap it off, his shoulder hurt like a peeled Witwicky in a bag of salt.

Now Brawn faced this.

"Everybody is dead but me...."

All around lay the shattered dreams of everything he had stood and fought for.  The once proud city that had reigned as an impregnable fortress lay in broken ruins.  His comrades, with all their hopes of an eventual end to the longstanding war, with all their courage born of survival through insurmountable odds, with all their honour in maintaining justice in the face of Decepticon depravity, now lay in piles of twisted metal.  And he, he stood alone, seemingly the last life, last promise and last hope of the Autobots in their eternal struggle.

"Bugger this."  Brawn turned around and walked off in search of a garage.

* * *

Meanwhile, Carly and Blaster were orbiting Cybertron in stunned silence.

There was no sign of the other Autobots.  The two moons had vanished without trace.  In their place was a new celestial body: grey, orange, metallic and at least as foreboding as a lake underneath a full-moon at midnight where two teenagers were about to go skinny-dipping.

Carly was the first to speak: "I don't suppose there's a pension scheme for Cybertron War Widows, is there?"

"If there is, there's probably a clause rendering null and void all claims regarding acts of aggressive planets of no obvious faction."

"Then that thing's going down."

"Gotta plan?" Blaster asked hopefully.

"Heck, no.  It's your home planet... can't you think of one?"

"The Decepticons are in control of Cybertron at the moment, and they don't seem to have done anything," Blaster pointed out.

"Then ask them."

At this point, anything seemed worth a try.  Blaster tuned into the Decepticon frequency and hailed their headquarters.

"Yo, Decepticons!  This is Blaster blasting—er, waving the white flag of peace talks at ya."

"This is Shockwave," a voice returned at length.  "If you are here to surrender, I should warn you that it is unlikely to save your lives."

"Actually, we were wondering if you'd noticed that bizarro planet in the skies up here?  Because it doesn't look particularly friendly."

"We are well aware of Mighty Unicron's presence," Shockwave replied.  He sounded vaguely embarrassed.  "We are working for him now."

"What happened to the purple guy who succeeded Megatron?"

"Megatron is the 'purple guy'.  Mighty Unicron rebuilt him into Mighty Galvatron and sent him to get the Autobot Matrix.  Now Mighty Galvatron leads us, but we belong to Mighty Unicron."  He definitely sounded embarrassed now.

"That's a lot of mighties," Blaster muttered, glancing at Carly to see if she had any more bright ideas, but Carly was staring dumbly out of the window.  Following her gaze, he gaped.

Either the moons were giving Unicron some really bad indigestion or... the whole thing was transforming into a planet sized robot.  Actually, Blaster reasoned reluctantly, the latter option was definitely happening.  About two seconds later, it started tearing into Cybertron, sending up a startled flurry of Decepticon jets.

"Er, Shockwave.  I don't think that's the sort of kid to take good care of his toys."

"In the absence of Galvatron, last seen heading to negotiate with Unicron, I think it would be logical for us to change our allegiance," Shockwave agreed.

"Then let's counter-attack together!" Blaster declared resoundingly.  "For centuries our kind may have warred, but now let us put aside our differences.  A menace greater than anything we've ever faced before has arisen, but are we going to let that thing kick us around??  No sirree!  We've been fighting for Cybertron for nine million years, and we're not going to let somebody else take it from us in just one day.  It may be big, but we're brave, Deceptibuds, and fighting side by side, we can kick its butt!"

He finished with a stirring drum roll from his stock sound effects, and awaited Shockwave's response.  Nothing came.

"Blaster," Carly said, as she watched Unicron munch into Decepticon Headquarters.  "Next time, make the speech shorter."

The airwaves crackled, and Blaster picked up a new voice, that of Soundwave's.

"Information: Shockwave and Decepticon Headquarters destroyed.  Analysis: Cybertron doomed.  Operation: Get the heck out of here."

Decepticon ships left Cybertron and all surrounding celestial bodies en masse.  Some made a last ditch effort to stop Unicron and ended their lives nobly as toothpicks, but most of them disappeared off into space.

Watching them go, Blaster and Carly noticed a new object moving through the vacuum—this one heading towards them.  A small spaceship, the size of an escape pod but of unfamiliar design, approached and attached itself to their side.

Blaster and Carly had been through a lot today and were currently contemplating ways of destroying a planet-sized robot.  Therefore, they found it hard to be particularly worried about the apparent invasion of their vessel by an unknown traveller.  They only watched with mild curiosity as the hatch opened, but the person who entered made their jaws drop.

"Snarl!  What are you doing here?  Where've you been?"

If Snarl had had a bad day, it was hard to tell, since his natural demeanour was that of somebody with a hangover who was forced to keep company with a morning person.

"Me go join Dinobots.  What you expect me do?"

"How?  I didn't even know you could fly a ship!" Carly said.

"You not ask.  You just assume me too stupid," Snarl huffed.  "Me fly good."

"But how did you track down the Dinobots?  They were supposed to be going to Cybertron, but they're not here."

"And that's not the ship you left in," Blaster added.

"Me explain.  You listen.  Me long ago put homing device on Grimlock, so me always know where him is.  Where Grimlock is, other Dinobots are.  Make things very easy when me come back from day off.  Me follow Dinobots to dumb planet full of dumb robots.  When me find them, them with Hot Rod, Kup and Wheelie stealing—"

"Wait, who's Wheelie?" Blaster wondered.

"Him annoying, just like people who interrupt," Snarl said severely.  "Anyway, them stealing alien ship.  Me point out me have perfectly good Autobot ship, but Grimlock say him leader and him want alien ship.  So us took alien ship and left Autobot ship to dumb robot monsters who ate it.  Me also put homing device on Ultra Magnus once him Autobot leader.  Us find other Autobots on Planet Junk, and Hot Rod make friends with Junkions.  Then everybody started kissing and dancing, so me decide to leave.  Steal escape pod from alien ship and head to Cybertron to see what attacking it.  That when me find you."

"Is Daniel with the others? Is he OK?" Carly asked.

"Him dancing too."

"He won't be when I'm through with him.  Let us go to this... Junk."

Snarl lashed his tail.  "No.  Let us not go to Junk.  Is a silly place.  Others probably come soon, but us not wait for them.  Me have cunning plan."

* * *

And so it was that they presently found themselves heading straight towards Unicron.  Snarl turned out to be a first-rate pilot in robot mode and flew them deftly into Unicron's mouth in between bites of planet.  When Carly and Blaster respectively opened their eyes and switched on their optics again, they were slowly making their way through the gloomy interior of the behemoth.

"There it is!" Blaster exclaimed.  "That's his broadcast centre, I can feel it in the airwaves—what a sound system he must have!  Talk about your mega-woofers!"

"Me give you mega-woofer if you not get on with it."

Carly had already put on an exo-suit, and the three of them left the shuttle.  Blaster transformed, and Carly started wiring him up to Unicron, while Snarl supposedly stood guard.  Standing guard seemed to consist of watching the monitors that relayed what Unicron was seeing: currently the Autobot counter-attack outside.

"Hmm.  Them not doing too well.  Them stupid.  Outside him too tough."

Suddenly half the screens flickered and went blank.

"That good move," Snarl admitted grudgingly.

"No, it's not!" Carly retorted.  "The only light in here is light from those monitors—now I can't see what I'm doing."

"You're telling me!" Blaster complained.  "Careful... I need that transistor!"

For several minutes there was silence as Carly continued working, then Blaster squawked in outrage.  "Don't stick that there!"

"If only it wasn't so damned dark in here!  I need light!"

Elsewhere in Unicron...

Hot Rod struggled weakly in Galvatron's grip.  His optics blurring, he focused on the glow of the object swinging from the Decepticon's neck.  The Matrix of leadership.  Mesmerised, he reached for it with his remaining strength.  When he touched it, light spilled out....

"What the..." Blaster exclaimed as blue light suddenly filled the room.

"That'll do it!" Carly whooped, making the last few connections.  "Blaster, you're online.  Download!"

In answer, electric chords played through Unicron's system.

You got the touch!
You got the power!

"Blaster, what is that?"

"Stan Bush, baby..."

"I thought you were going to use Barry White!"

"Hey, Stan's the man!"

"Me no care who him is.  Is it done?"

"Downloaded and set to repeat, my dino-friend," Blaster affirmed. "Just got to pump up the volume and then we can blow this joint!"

"Hurry up then, he's going into the chorus again," Carly moaned.

You got the touch!
You got the power!
When all hell's breakin' loose,
You'll be right in the eye of the storm!

"No, us be at safe distance from storm," Snarl vowed as they piled back into the ship. 

As the music reverberated through Unicron, he began to shake apart.  Desperately, he started groping at himself, trying to remember where he kept his manual volume control.  He was too late.

Snarl had piloted his team safely back outside, assisted by the light which Hot Rod had released from the Matrix and which seemed to thrive on the musical accompaniment.  Once back in space they were protected from the sound by virtue of the vacuum, and they watched in blessed silence as a particularly enthusiastic crescendo blew Unicron to pieces.

They were then obliged to pick up various Autobots, Junkions and two humans who had wrecked their ships in fighting Unicron.  Carly didn't mind since she was able to let rip on those she hadn't yet seen.  Blaster didn't mind because he could complain better when she wasn't yelling at him.  Snarl did mind, but nobody noticed.

* * *

In another galaxy, a ship carrying a newly-formed partnership of a robot and a human, picked up a strange transmission.

It's in the blood, it's in the will,
It's in the mighty hands of steel,
When you're standing your ground.

And you'll never get hit when your back's to the wall,
Gonna fight to the end and you're taking it all…

You got the touch!
You got the power!

Autobot and former rock-star looked at each other and nodded. Brawn switched from the radio to the CD player, and Elvis poured out the wine and energon.

The warden threw a party in the county jail,
The prison band was there, and they began to wail,
The band was jumpin' and the joint began to swing.
You should've heard those knocked out jailbirds sing.
Let's rock!

They raised their respective glasses in a toast.

"Long live the King!"

---

Author's note:

This piece was written for my boyfriend, a longstanding fan of the movie and especially the soundtrack.

I think just about every Transformers fanfic writer gets the urge to take potshots at the movie sooner or later, so this is my attempt.  I’m semi-pleased with it.  I got the jokes in that I wanted, and (more importantly) people seem to get them, but it’s not as tightly written as I’d like it to be.  I’m not great at pure comedy though, so this is probably as good as I can get it.

It isn’t a straight parody of the movie for two reasons. One: I’ve read so many of those that it would be impossible for me to come up with any material that wasn’t stolen, subconsciously or otherwise—as it is, I’ve probably inadvertently recycled a lot of stuff.  Two: the idea that occurred to me wasn’t a straight parody.

It was originally going to be a much shorter affair…. I always wondered just what the heck Carly was doing during the movie—and what her reaction was on learning the events.  The initial idea was just her conversation with Blaster at Autobot City.  Then I came up with Blaster using the soundtrack to wreck Unicron, and it all went from there.

Most of it was filling in gaps and making sure that it fit in with the Movie without technically contradicting anything.  The Snarl and Brawn gags were trotted out because, well, it’s not a Movie mick-take if you don’t comment on those two now, is it?

Incidentally, I’m of the belief that Elvis is dead and Brawn died in the Movie… So is my boyfriend who wanted me to resurrect Prowl instead.  He wasn’t convinced by my argument that there was no long-running joke about Prowl living after the Movie and there was about Brawn.

Then again… who am I to dictate what may or may not have happened?  Who’s to say that there weren’t hefty insurance policies taken out on the shuttle and its occupants?  Who’s to say that there wasn’t a massive pay-out on this policy after the inexplicable failure of a radar that had been pronounced to be in perfectly good working order immediately prior to take off?  Who’s to say that that pay-out wasn’t collected by somebody signing himself C. Chase?  And who’s to say that a luxury house in the Bahamas wasn’t bought by a bespectacled thirty-five year old in a wheelchair who subsequently spent his days playing Dungeon Siege with a police car….