Fanfic / Magic and Steel

1 Following

Magic and Steel is a The Transformers and Sleeping Beauty (1959) (plus elements of other Disney Animated Canon works) crossover fanfic by Kenyastarflight. It was originally posted on Fanfiction Dot Net and DeviantArt from April 9, 2014 to February 1, 2017, and crossposted on Archive of Our Own on May 2, 2020.

The plot kicks off with Sparkplug, Spike, Carly and the Autobots visiting an old castle in Germany, home of Spike and Sparkplug's ancestors, only for the castle to come under attack by the Decepticons. They get away with one thing: an ancient black sword, said to have fantastic powers... and which turns out to be a can for the dark fairy Maleficent, who sealed herself inside it centuries ago in order to ensure she would survive long enough to avenge herself upon Phillip and Aurora's descendants. The wicked fairy and the Decepticon leader quickly form an alliance to defeat the Autobots and Witwickys, only for an unexpected romance to blossom between the pair... meanwhile, the Autobots and Witwickys get some unexpected help from Merlin, and both sides gain further aid from additional Disney characters as the story continues.

This fic contains examples of:

• Act of True Love: When Optimus is hit with Maleficent's curse and starts being corrupted into Nemesis Prime, Merlin and Grand Pabbie explain that only an act of true love can save him. The others assume they mean True Love's Kiss, but in the end, it's Maleficent's love for Megatron — and her revoking her curse, restoring Optimus to his true self in time to stop him from killing Megatron — that saves him.
• Adapted Out: The events of the Aladdin sequels did not happen in this universe, allowing Maleficent to call on a still-living genie Jafar (and to a lesser extent, Iago) for aid.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: After she's freed from the Sword of Truth, Maleficent agrees to an alliance of convenience with Megatron, since he claims to be the one who inadvertently freed her from her prison and they both have enemies to deal with (and it helps them even more when said enemies turn out to be allied already). Later, after Maleficent's supposedly dealt with Optimus Prime for good, therefore solving Megatron's chief problem, he persuades her to continue their alliance (rather than ending it like she initially planned, since she believed he no longer needed her aid) by having his troops serve her in holding Earth while she focuses on expanding her power; in return, all he asks is that she teach him magic.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In the epilogue, it's revealed that for his part in trying to assassinate Maleficent, Soundwave has been punished by... becoming her student in magic (which he's none too thrilled by), and using Starscream as a test subject in his magical transformation lessons.
• Crossover: Primarily between The Transformers and Sleeping Beauty (1959), but elements of other Disney works slip in as well, including:
  • Pinocchio — the Blue Fairy appears as one of Merlin's group of magical allies.
  • Cinderella — the Fairy Godmother appears as one of Merlin's group of magical allies.
  • Peter Pan — referenced when Merlin talks about pixies, and Tinkerbell in particular.
  • The Sword in the Stone — Merlin himself is a prominent ally of the Autobots, appearing before them after Maleficent comes into the picture.
  • Aladdin — Maleficent has Jafar's genie lamp recovered, and makes use of him to attack the Autobot femmes on Cybertron.
  • The Lion King — Rafiki appears as one of Merlin's group of magical allies.
  • Lilo And Stitch — Stitch is brought to the Ark in order to serve as Spike and Sparkplug's bodyguard, and his caretaker Lilo is mentioned a few times.
  • Treasure Planet — a new Captain Nathanial Flint attacks the Autobots en route to Cybertron after being contacted by Megatron, and the now adult Jim Hawkins shows up to aid the Autobots.
  • The Princess and the Frog — Mama Odie appears as one of Merlin's group of magical allies.
  • Frozen (2013) — Grand Pabbie appears as one of Merlin's group of magical allies, first arriving when Optimus has fallen prey to Maleficent's curse and helping analyze it.
  • Kingdom Hearts — Maleficent summons an army of Shadows and other Heartless to attack the Ark, serving as a distraction to prevent the Autobots returning from space from arriving in time. Bumblebee later wields the Prime Ascendant — a Keyblade designed for use by Cybertronians, transformed from the Matrix of Leadership by Merlin — against them (it's later unmade so Optimus can have the Matrix back).
• Crossover Relatives: Sparkplug and Spike Witwicky turn out to be descended from Prince Phillip and Aurora of Sleeping Beauty (1959).
• Curse: Maleficent creates one early on to use against Bumblebee, as the one closest to the Witwickys, in order to hurt them by targeting their friends. She accidentally hits Optimus with it instead (which she considers to be just as good a result as hitting Bumblebee), and it's only then revealed what it was meant to do — corrupt his Spark and make him evil.
• De-power: Maleficent ends up sacrificing her magic to restore Megatron to life, with the side-effect of leaving her stuck in a Cybertronian Seeker form.
• The Dissenter Is Always Right: While the majority of the Decepticons feel that Maleficent isn't trustworthy, with even Soundwave (whom Megatron regards as his most loyal officer) agreeing that Starscream (one of the most vocal complainers) is right in this regard (remarking that "Starscream: correct in suspicions." (pauses) "For once."), the lone dissenter is Megatron himself, who refuses to listen to their complaints and accepts her as a true ally, which she ultimately proves to be (though he is cautious about certain aspects of their alliance at times).
• Evil Feels Good: After being restored to normal, Optimus confesses that as Nemesis, he enjoyed being a monster, and is horrified at himself for it.
• Eye Scream: During the battle with Captain Flint and his crew, Ironhide loses an optic when a sword gets flung into it. Him being a Cybertronian, this is just an inconvenience.
• Forced Transformation:
  • To prove a point about magic being real, Merlin temporarily turns Grimlock into a goat. The latter is not amused.
  • Later, when Laserbeak is caught in the vents of the Autobots' base, Merlin zaps him with a spell that turns him into a wild turkey. Maleficent is able to undo it after he returns to their own base though.
  • Maleficent herself transforms Megatron into a human temporarily in order to grant him his initial access to magic, since his original form did not have the potential.
  • During the final battle, after discovering Starscream's treachery and Megatron being badly injured as a result, Maleficent turns Starscream into a goose in retaliation. Megatron later orders Soundwave to learn magic (since he has the potential), and to use Starscream as a test subject, resulting in the treacherous Seeker being turned into a peacock at one point, and then a mechanical peacock during another test.
• Foreign-Language Tirade: After learning the Autobots have gone to bring back Elita-1 (Optimus's true love, and the one being who can break the curse she hit him with), an angry Maleficent breaks out into "a slew of words in the old tongue that sent greenish flames crackling up the walls". It takes Megatron yelling to break through her fit of rage, but when she explains what this means, he understands why she lost her temper.
• Freeing the Genie: As part of her bargain with the genie Jafar, Maleficent agrees to use her third wish to free him. She keeps her end in chapter 22, in return for his giving her information on how to restore Megatron to life.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Inverted — when Maleficent creates a curse to use on Bumblebee (only to hit Optimus instead), it works to corrupt his Spark and change him from good to evil, making him into Nemesis Prime. Unexpectedly, it's Maleficent herself who reverses the effects, protecting Megatron (whom Nemesis is targeting) by revoking her own curse when faced with Nemesis.
• Hidden Depths: Swoop proves to be smarter and more knowledgeable than even his mentor Ratchet expected — when Merlin references Thomas Edison ("As a great thinker of your kind once said, we haven't failed. We've merely found a way that doesn't work."), Swoop surprises Ratchet by recognizing the line and responding with a variation on the rest of the quote ("Didn't him Edison try ten thousand ways that not work?").
• Hollywood Acid:
  • Hook keeps an acid blend in storage for his work; it's brought out so he can conduct a resistance test on the Sword of Truth, but when the blade accidentally falls into the canister, the acid dissolves it entirely, releasing Maleficent in the process.
  • As a reward for helping her, Maleficent upgrades Laserbeak's weapons so he can fire acid rounds that eat through metal.
• Humanity Ensues: After their second deal, Maleficent turns Megatron into a human temporarily so he can gain his initial access to magic, and train in it, though she assures him he'll be able to wield it in his Cybertronian form as well after the initial empowering.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: After Optimus gets hit with Maleficent's curse, Ratchet determines what it's doing, but can't stop it — he fixes bodies, not sparks, and exclaims that "I'm a medic, not a wizard!"
• Interspecies Romance: Love gradually blossoms between Megatron, a Cybertronian, and Maleficent, a dark fairy.
• Keeping the Enemy Close: Megatron cites this as the reason why he keeps Starscream around — "Starscream is a vain and backstabbing pain in the aft, but he has his uses. And better to have him close where I know what he's up to, than off on his own plotting Pit-knows-what."
• Kung-Fu Wizard:
  • Megatron already has the "kung fu" part down, being a skilled hand-to-hand combatant (with over ten million years of experience), but after she temporarily takes down Optimus Prime, he seeks to invoke the trope by asking Maleficent for help in the "wizard" department, requesting that she teach him magic.
  • Maleficent herself proves to be quite the agile fighter in her Seeker form, but with Megatron's aid, becomes even more effective in hand-to-hand, while retaining her magical skills, though the latter is eventually subverted after she sacrifices her magic to restore Megatron to life.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Defied — Maleficent specifically makes a deal with the genie Jafar to ensure he won't try to pull this off during their temporary alliance:
    "Obey my first two wishes, and do NOT subvert my requests as I know you djinn like to do. If you do so… my third wish will be for your release."
  • Invoked with her first wish — genies can't kill, but as Maleficent says before making said wish, "But I am sure you can orchestrate a large enough catastrophe to ensure lives are lost, hmm?" Jafar agrees.
• "Magic A" Is "Magic A": Discussed in chapter 16 — as the Fairy Godmother says of magic, "It's not an all-powerful fix-it-all get-out-of-jail-free tool! It has rules! And not rules that change every five minutes like the Force or anything of that nature — hard and set ones! All spells have their limits and abilities, even ours!"
• Magic Harms Technology: Discussed and subverted. As Merlin explains, contrary to what "television and tawdry fantasy novels" would have you believe, magic and science can work in harmony together, but only if you know what you're doing.
• Major Injury Underreaction: While experimenting with magic and energon, Wheeljack fails to notice that one of his arms was blown off in the blast. Swoop comments on this:
  "Me Swoop starting to think you Wheeljack not have pain sensors."
• Mythology Gag: As Nemesis Prime, Optimus quotes a few of Megatron's lines from The Transformers: The Movie — "Such heroic nonsense..." in chapter 20, and "Why throw away your life so recklessly?" in chapter 21. In the same chapter, Maleficent quotes herself from Maleficent, in an act to save the person she's come to love — "I revoke the curse. Let it be no more."
• Not Quite Dead: It turns out that unbeknownst to her enemies, Maleficent survived her fight with Prince Phillip (albeit injured) because she's more powerful than the three fairies together, though she has to seal herself within the Sword of Truth to ensure that she stays alive long enough to get her revenge.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Discussed and subverted. Megatron initially becomes angry that Maleficent defeated Optimus (or so it seems) with her curse, feeling it was his right to do so, but quickly calms himself, rationalizing that in the end, victory is victory no matter the means, and as long as Optimus is dealt with, it doesn't matter who did it.
• Paint It Black: When Maleficent's curse finally succeeds in turning Optimus into the evil Nemesis Prime, his armor turns from the standard red, blue and silver to violet and black. Inverted when the curse is broken and he instantly turns back to his normal coloration.
• Playing with Fire: One of Megatron's first lessons in magic involves conjuring and controlling fire, though it takes him some doing to get the "control" part down.
• Protective Charm: It turns out that the Autobot Matrix of Leadership doubles as one, fighting off the curse that Maleficent hit Optimus with, though it can't hold the curse off forever.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: After reawakening in his dark form, Optimus declares that "I. Am. Nemesis! Prime!"
• Really Royalty Reveal: Downplayed — it's explained that while looking into his family tree, Sparkplug learned that he and Spike are descended from a royal line whose kingdom has long since been absorbed into another kingdom, which in turn became a part of Germany, so any claims they might have on a throne are ceremonial at best. Still, their ancestry is enough for Maleficent to consider them targets, as the descendants of Prince Phillip (and Aurora, though she's less concerned about the latter fact).
• Reassigned to Antarctica: The epilogue reveals that as punishment for plotting to assassinate Maleficent (and consequently being complicit in Megatron's own temporary death), Shockwave has been demoted to fighting on the front lines with his drones.
• Revenge:
  • Maleficent's goal in the present day is to avenge herself on Prince Phillip for her past defeat by targeting his descendants — in this case, the Witwickys.
  • Discussed in regards to King Stephan and Queen Leah — Maleficent wanted revenge on them for snubbing her, which she intended to get by having Aurora killed. In the present day though, she thinks it over and decides that even though her plan was unsuccessful (Aurora survived and was reawakened from her magical sleep), they still lost their daughter by sending her away and thus missing out on her entire childhood, which she deems to be sufficient revenge.
• Revenge by Proxy: One of Maleficent's methods is to target those close to the people she's seeking to avenge herself on; this is why she targeted Aurora, to revenge herself on King Stephan and Queen Leah for snubbing her. In the present day, Carly ends up with the three Good Fairies acting as her bodyguards in case she becomes a target, while Maleficent devises a Curse to use on Bumblebee, since he's the Autobot closest to Spike. It doesn't work out as planned, because Optimus takes the hit instead, but she deems the latter result to be just as good at the time.
• Sanity Slippage: In-Universe, Hook is seriously wondering if Megatron is suffering from this after he's given the Sword of Truth to examine — as he thinks to himself, "[Megatron] had always had a flair for grand, flashy plans, but at least on Cybertron said plans had been halfway effective. Here, his plans were going from effective to plain lunacy.", and cites the griffon fortress as one example.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: While the crew of the Devil's Star is willing to keep fighting the Autobots, when they learn the Silver (which turns out to be a ship from the Imperium Navy, piloted by Captain Jim Hawkins) is approaching, Captain Flint calls for an immediate retreat.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: After her defeat at Prince Phillip's hands, Maleficent does this to herself, sealing herself within the Sword of Truth until it's broken and she's released.
• Sequel Hook: The fic ends with Megatron and Maleficent alive and well, but Jafar is now freed from his lamp and on the loose, and Merlin mentions "still other practitioners of the darker magicks out there" that must be dealt with. In addition, there's Megatron's vow to restore Maleficent's powers and fae form.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: The epilogue reveals that due to the loss of her powers in saving Megatron, Maleficent is left trapped as a Cybertronian, unable to assume her true fae form again.
• Shipping Torpedo: Soundwave, Shockwave and, eventually, Starscream, all conspire to be this to Megatron and Maleficent, viewing the latter and the pair's growing relationship as a threat to the Decepticons and deciding to eliminate her. It doesn't work out due to an unexpected snag in the plan though, and after Maleficent loses her powers and is stuck in Seeker form, they no longer view her as a threat.
• Shout-Out:
  • In-Universe, chapter 3 sees a few of the Constructicons quoting various films, much to Hook's annoyance:
    Scavenger: "'No sir, I didn't see you playing with your dolls again!'"
    Mixmaster: "'Oh, your helmet's so big!'"
    Mixmaster: "'Oh, will you look at that. I've been impaled!'"
  • In chapter 14, it's revealed that Elita-1's headquarters has several security precautions, including a password that's the title of a "Big & Rich" song: "Save a horse, ride a cowboy."
• Space Pirates: Chapter 13 sees Skyfire and the team aboard him coming under attack by the pirate Captain Nathanial Flint (the Second) and his crew, flying a spaceship shaped like an old galleon with billowing sails and acting on Megatron's behalf.
• The Spymaster: Soundwave, as in canon; he does not trust Maleficent, to the point where when he orders Laserbeak to assist her, he also assigns the cassette to spy on her and report back to him.
• Synchronization: Due to their sharing blood in order to grant Megatron the ability to use magic, Maleficent feels his injuries, including when Starscream's treachery results in his fuel lines rupturing. This leads to her rushing to his aid.
• Taken for Granite:
  • In chapter 8, when Starscream gets mouthy about her again, Maleficent shuts him up by temporarily turning him to stone, but promises Megatron that the spell will wear off in an hour before departing. She later zaps him with the same spell again in chapter 12; Megatron, again, has no issue with this.
  • In chapter 15, when Iago is getting on her nerves, Maleficent turns him to stone too. Megatron even lampshades how she seems to like that spell.
• Taking the Bullet: In chapter 10, during an attack on the Autobot base, Maleficent uses a pre-made Curse to hit Bumblebee with. Optimus, however, leaps in the way and takes the blow himself, which Maleficent is surprised by. She considers this to be just as good a result though.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Late in the story, Starscream places iron filings (one of the fae's weaknesses) into one of the Decepticons' energon cubes, intending for Maleficent to drink it and be fatally poisoned. Instead, Megatron drinks it and the iron gets into his system as a result, rupturing his fuel lines and causing him to collapse during the ensuing battle with the Autobots, which leaves him vulnerable to an attack from Nemesis Prime.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Megatron contemplates this at one point, and how his Decepticons remain divided into groups (playing the trope straight) while the Autobots subvert it, forming a cohesive whole and thereby giving them the advantage. He quickly squelches the thought though, refusing to believe the Autobots can be superior in any way.
• That Man Is Dead: In chapter 19, when facing Ratchet, Optimus declares that "Optimus Prime is no more!" ... "I. Am. Nemesis! Prime!"
• This Cannot Be!: In chapter 22, when Merlin informs Maleficent that Megatron has died from his injuries, her first reaction is "You're lying," and then "Liar! You lie to torment me, you doddering fool! He's alive — he must be! He has to be!"
• True Love's Kiss: Discussed in chapter 11, where Grand Pabbie explains that an act of true love is needed to break the curse on Optimus, and Fauna immediately hits on the idea of true love's kiss. Merlin calls it a cliché antidote, but agrees that it's a likely solution, since fae aren't known for their creativity and wouldn't think of a way to make such a thing not work. Much later, Mama Odie agrees with him on it being a cliché. In the end though, it's not a kiss that cures him, but a different Act of True Love. Later, Maleficent gives a true love's kiss to Megatron, sacrificing all her power to restore him to life.
• Villainous Legacy: In chapter 13, Skyfire and the team aboard him are attacked by the Space Pirates Captain Nathanial Flint and his crew. Chapter 14 reveals that this Flint is actually Nathanial Flint the Second, believed to be a relative of the original Flint who's taken up where his predecessor left off.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: In addition to her dragon form, chapter 9 sees Maleficent working out a transformation into a Seeker-type Transformer, the better to fight alongside the Decepticons in battle. She's also able to change from her Seeker form into her dragon form and back, as demonstrated late in the story.
• Wipe That Smile Off Your Face: After being freed from her prison, Maleficent uses this technique to erase the mouths of those who annoy her, such as Skywarp and Bonecrusher, and therefore silence them. Megatron persuades her to restore them with a little logic and sweet talk though.