Megop - Castle in the Sky
The day should have gone like any other for the young miner D-16. Head to work, mine for energon, head off to a quick lunch break, return to work, clock out, go home, go to sleep. Rinse, repeat. But the did in fact not go like any other, for on that day, D16 saw a mysterious blue mech float down from the sky.
Roles:
Orion Pax as Sheeta D-16 as Pazu Sentinel as Colonel Muska Alpha Trion as Sheeta’s mother Starscream as Dola The High Guard as The Pirates Omega Supreme as The sentient Robot The miners as the miners
Continuity: Transformers One with some IDW elements
Castle in the Sky has been my favourite Ghibli movie for DECADES. It’s a fantastic adventure and love story (yes even better then howl’s moving castle in my opinion) and I really wish it were more popular amongst the Ghibli fandom.
Well as I said a while ago, I recently rewatched this movie with my situationship and I could not get the Idea of a Megop AU out of my head.
Now first things first, of course Sheeta's magic flying stone is just straight up the Matrix of leadership in this. Yes in this AU Sheeta IS Orion Pax. Yes Orion Pax has the Matrix of Leadership. Don't question it too much, please. So Orion lives with his grandsire Alpha Trion on a small farm high up to the north in a secluded village. But not long after his grandsire dies of old age a mysterious Mech named Sentinel with a bunch of soldiers kidnap Orion and take him with them on their airship. But as the airship is flying through the sky, they are attacked by the 'high guard', an infamous band of pirates, yelling about how they are here for the matrix. In the chaos resulting from the Pirates' attack Orion takes the chance to try and escape, but during his escape he falls out of the airship and plummets down through the sea of clouds onto Cybertron.
But suddenly the Matrix inside his chest lights up and he rather then taking a straight nose dive to an early grave, Orion begins to float and light as a feather saunters down onto Cybertron.
Down on Cybertron at the same time a young miner named D-16 just returned to the mines from his break when he saw a strange star in the sky slowly 'falling down' towards the mines. Curious he runs towards the light and notices that the blue falling star is actually a mech! D-16 manages to catch the, as he now notices, unconcious bot and his helm is instantly filled with questions. When D-16 tries to tell his Boss Elita-1 about the mysterious mech that just fell from the sky, he is promptly dismissed. So with no other options D-16 takes the weird mech to his habsuit and waits for him to finally wake up.
When he finally does open his optics the next morning the blue mech introduces himself as Orion Pax and explains how a group of strange men had kidnapped him and while trying to escape he had fallen from the airship they had been keeping him in. D-16 promises that Orion is safe now and whoever his kidnappers are, they won't find him here. Suddenly Orion notices a photograph of a floating island on D-16's berthroom wall and D-16 explains that it was a picture his foster sire Terminus had taken of 'Laputa', an ancient floating island and how D-16 was someday going to find Laputa as well and proof to the world that his later Foster Sire was not a charlatan. Just then who comes knocking at D-16's door but the infamous High Guard Pirates themselves, with their leader Starscream in toe.
D-16 grabs Orion and runs out the back door with him and one chase scene later and with the combined help of Iacon's mining community the unlikely duo is able to escape the pirates and even Sentinel and the military who had somehow managed to track Orion down as well.
As Orion and D-16 flee through a system of old abandoned mines, Orion confesses to D-16 that 'Orion Pax' is not his actual name. His true name is 'Optimus Prime Toel Ur Laputa'. But before D-16 can even react to this revelation he gets struck from behind by Sentinel and his men and gets knocked unconcious. Sentinel takes Orion to the highest tower in his palace and throws D-16 in the palace's deepest dungeon.
Sentinel tells Orion that he will let D-16 go as long as he cooperates and helps him find Laputa, all he has to do for that is activate the Matrix to show them the way to Laputa. Orion attempts to protest that he has no idea how to control the Matrix and how he has no idea how to reach Laputa or why Sentinel got it in his head that Orion can somehow help him on this endavour to find some stupid flying island.
But Sentinel simply takes Orion with him to a different part of the castle and shows him the rusted remains of a giant defense Robot (Omega Supreme).
"Decades ago this Defense Bot fell out of the sky. It had died upon impact. But the truly fascinating part is: His frame and compenents are made up entirely of material unkown to Cybertron. In other words, this corpse is proof of Laputa's existence. And you, Orion, are the key to finding it."
"How? How could I help you, until a few hours ago I did not even know Laputa existed! And now you expect of me to just KNOW where this island is? WHY?!"
"Optimus Prime Toel Ur Laputa. That is you real name, is it not?" Sentinel asked with a sinister grin painting his lips. Orion backed away, his servos clasped tightly over his chassis, the matrix's warmth pounding within it.
"Toel means 'true' and 'Ur' translates to 'ruler'. Your name literally means 'Optimus Prime, the true ruler of Laputa'. So 'Optimus', you better figure out how to use the matrix soon enough or I will have to execute your little miner friend." Sentinel grabbed Orion's chin, forcing the shorter bot to stare directly into his optics.
"Don't you dare! Don't you dare touch a single bolt on his frame!" Orion cried out, grasping Sentinel's wrists in a futile attempt to push the blue flier away from him.
"I won't." Sentinel stated, bending down to whisper directly into the blue mech's audials "As long as you agree to help me find Laputa, no harm shall find your friend. His survival is in your servos. So... what's your choice, Optimus?"
Orion's grip on the blue-golden mech losened, and like a docile ragdoll, he seized struggling: "I'll help you... I will find a way to activate the Matrix... Anything... Just please let D-16 live."
"Good boy, Optimus." Sentinel chuckled, at long last releasing Orion from his grasp, gesturing to two of his soldiers to take Orion back to his tower.
Long story short Sentinel pulls D-16 out of his cell and tells him that he is free to go, Orion has decided to work with them instead and has told Sentinel to let Dee know to just forget about him and his dream of finding Laputa. That he should instead focus on living a happy live here in Iacon amongst the miners. Heartbroken D-16, returns to his now empty home only to find the High Guard waiting for him there. That is when the High Guard reveal the truth. Just how Orion can trace his lineage back to the old kings of Laputa, Starscream and the members of the High Guards are not mere pirates, but the descendants of Laputa's royal guard. For Millenia they've been searching for their king's descendants and just when they had at long last managed to track down Orion, Sentinel and his men had kidnapped him right beneath their noses. On the day they had attacked Sentinel's airship, they had not been there to rob the place, but they were trying to rescue Orion and help him return to his homeland of Laputa. But now D-16 had left Orion behind in Sentinel's clutches. He had played right into Sentinel's hands.
So D-16 joins the High Guard to rescue Orion from Sentinel once and for all. Meanwhile on Orion's end, as he was still locked up inside the tower he remembered a 'magic spell' his grandsire had taught him. A magic spell that would keep him safe. As Orion speaks the magic spell however the Matrix begins to glow inside his chassis and oh yeah that dead defense robot in the basement of Sentinel's castle? Yeah he's alive again and ready to keep Orion save, aka 'burn the entire palace to the ground and probably kill several hundred of Sentinel's foot soldiers. Just like in the movie however D-16 and the high Guard can save Orion from the burning palace but unfortunately in the process Orion loses the Matrix of Leadership and it falls directly into Sentinel's hands, who uses the activated Matrix to show him the way to Laputa
Now D-16, Orion and the High Guard (ready to serve their true king Optimus once again) are now in a race against time itself to reach Laputa before Sentinel can.
I hope you enjoyed the premise of this AU and well from here on out nothing really changes about the plot when compared to the movie. If you've never watched Castle in the Sky before, take this post as a sign to go hop onto Netflix and watch it asap.
And as always I hope you enjoyed this post mine. If you have ideas of your own for this AU feel free to send them to me. Or heck if my take on this AU is not up to your satisfaction/doesn't go in the direction you want you can write your own version of it (just by god don't use AI to do it that is my one and only request). And if you do: Tag me in it, I would love to see your version <3
