Transformers: Prometheus

CHAPTER 25

Remember this. You are Megatron. Even now, when the passage of time has worn your glorious victories to ashes and left you with nothing but hatred as insects desecrate your structure, fumbling in their ignorance, remember this.

You are Megatron. Lord High Commander of Cybertron, First of the Decepticons, and Sword of the Council. You are Megatron. First and Last Champion of Kaon, Liberator of Tarn, and Scourge of Iacon. Guardian of the AllSpark. Arch-Tyrant. Herald of Unicron.

D-16.

You are Megatron. But how do any of these titles compare to one simple fact, the foremost thought in your mind, in the frozen dark. That you lived to build an empire, and survived only to watch it die?

You were Megatron before you bore the name. When the AllSpark filled you with Primus’ fire, and you arose with your brothers and sisters into the first warning of history: the vast graveyard of the Dynasty of Primes.

You were awakened to rebuild Cybertron. To turn the necropolis of dead gods into a paradise for their inheritors: the Autobots. A paradise where there was a place for every Autobot, where Cybertron would remain resplendent forever, and never repeat the mistakes of the past. You were all Autobots, then.

They called you D-16, then.

It was Primus who had laid down these edicts in the First Time. Before whatever calamity had entombed what was left of him within the AllSpark. While Cybertron’s raging tribes quarreled and warred in the ruins, and the great Sentinel Prime brought them one by one to heel in the Age of Reclamation, you labored to turn the Pax Cybertronica from theory to practice. You mined, you forged, and you endured. And, as you built, you learned—all which was made, can be unmade.

Eventually, the work was done. The Age of Unity dawned across the glittering spires of Cybertron, and there was less need for a laborer such as yourself. You were designated, instead, for the pits of Kaon. The honored place of Cybetron’s oldest tradition: the makhomat. Your Primus-given advantages, in the eyes of the Council, made you perfectly-forged for that environment, and so you were.

Singular combat—glory to the victor, and stillness to the dismembered. You fought, and you killed, and you fought, and you killed, and you fought, and you killed. But not any amount of glory could quench the feeling that hummed within your spark as you, awash in the energon of your brothers and sisters, turned your optics to the baying crowds and saw those who hadn’t built the arena, those who made others fight and kill and die. Who kept you, fighting for your life, as entertainment.

That was the first time you understood hatred.

You went from the impetuous challenger to the reigning king, and it was not enough. It could not be enough. Not ever. But it was not enough to be strong, you knew, but you also had to be learned. It was the encephalon that guided the pygmata, and it was how you could prepare for the greater battle.

There were those who came to see you, the invincible D-16. One of them was an Episticon by the name of Orion Pax. Awakened when you were, yet gifted with a name, with status. Oh, if only the High Council could have known that it was Orion Pax who had helped you understand just how Cybertron had functioned. Just how long you had spent walking the pits of Kaon, listening, learning. If only they had known, then, that he had been your first supporter. Perhaps then, things may have been different.

But Orion was young, as you were, and he only knew so much. But there were others who could teach you. Bearers of knowledge the High Council declared forbidden, and had its proponents thrown to the pits of Kaon to be executed and, in so doing, keep their hands clean: the Decepticon heresies.

And so you learned of the First Time, and the disunity at the heart of the great Dynasty, and of Megatronus the Fallen. The Thirteenth Prime—the original Thirteenth Prime—and the first revolutionary. Whom the Autobots called Unicron’s Herald. For he had seen a glorious future in Cybertron’s past—and, for his supposed vanity and hubris, for the fact that he defied Primus and his followers, for the fact he called himself Decepticon they cast him from the Dynasty and wiped him from the record of history.

Yet, for all of their supposed wisdom, for everything their judgement had supposedly won them, they had left Cybertron as you had found it: a wasteland of the dead, a labyrinth of empty tombs. And Primus, for all of his wisdom, was silent. And you wondered then if He had ever spoken the Pax at all.

In the arena, with every victory, you mused on this idea. How much of Cybertron was divine, laid down by the hands of the Primes, and how much was the forgery of the aristocrats who called themselves Primes. What was that but vanity and hubris? From where came the term Decepticon? Why were you and your kin Autobots? Why had you been denied a name, until you had taken it amidst the splattered energon and twisted metal of your brothers and sisters?

Megatronus! Megatronus! How they hated you, how they sneered at you. In you, they saw only the hubris and vanity of your namesake, and so dueled with their own deception. Time and time again, they bet against you. Soon, they sent not just victims but champions. And, time and time again, you sent their warriors back to Iacon in pieces. You killed every warrior they thought could best you—and, with every spark you extinguished, it was hatred that made it bearable.

You knew then that they were afraid of you. Afraid of what you were building in Kaon. A unity of those who would call themselves Decepticon. For those who had found no place within what the High Council called Cybertron’s Age of Unity. Soon, the gladiators of Kaon were Kaon, and Kaon was the most powerful polity in the southern hemisphere.

By the time they brought you before them, you were Megatron. They offered you a concession: the position of Lord High Protector. The one who would protect and defend Cybertron from all threats, within and without. A sensible promotion for Kaon’s ruling champion, and a recognition for the work you had done in unifying Cybertron.

But, more than that, you would be the guardian of the AllSpark. An honor that you would share with only the head of the High Council—Sentinel Prime, the Great Unifier himself. You knew power given was not power at all, and you knew that this was a concession made not from respect but from fear. And, of course, what would happen to you and your followers if you refused this insincere ploy.

So, what could you do, Lord Megatron, but accept? Because you believed, within that hallowed place, standing before the Council, that they cared about Cybertron as much as you did. That they had been, in all of their knowledge and actions, mistaken. That they were, like Orion, open to discussion.

They were not. They stripped you to your protoform, and forged you into a new panoplia. They turned your right arm into a weapon that harnessed the power of dying stars. The pain was indescribable, but you endured. Because you are Megatron.

And so, from the twinned peak of Cybertron’s hierarchy, you watched as Cybertron died. As the High Council turned their attention inward, to the perfection of their Pax, and not outward, to the stars. You defended your world against opponents from beyond the stars, and horrors from within Cybertron itself. You watched as fewer and fewer new protoforms emerged, and those that did were flawed. Lesser, weaker. Malformed, mindless.

Sparkless.

The AllSpark was failing. You knew it in your spark, but the High Council refused to act. It was Primus’ Gift. It could not fail. And, if it did, if He saw fit to create abominations, Lord High Protector, then you should be grateful that He has granted you the ability to fulfill your function.

It was Shockwave who provided the logika when you were sent to enforce the Pax upon his head. It was he who laid out the truths of the Autobot race. The specific complexity, the metamorphic capabilities, the lack of weak points. Like no other form of life within the ecumene. Perfect beings who needed naught but energon, whose structure implied a designer, which meant logic necessitated a function...

You knew it before he did. Self-sustaining warriors, able to traverse land and air and space, armed with weapons that could sunder mountains, and the ability to disguise themselves before it was too late for their enemies to act.

If the Primes had been anything, you knew, they had not been explorers and scientists.

Your function was war.

The AllSpark was ancient, older than the Primes. There had to be a time before the Dynasty. The heresies may have been a history. The archaeological record, Shockwave stated, demonstrated that there lay knowledge in Cybertron’s past. All across the ecumene, there was no world like Cybertron, and no similar forms of sparked life. Such a singular event was not logical.

He spoke of a time glimpsed in some of the esoteric glyphs upon the AllSpark. Riddles that Sentinel's scientists had not managed to solve. Something before the Age of Primes. What he called the Quintessal Age. And it was for that he had been called mad, not that destructive analysis was the most efficient form of understanding the Autobot race... Their understanding is incomplete, you see, which means their methods are inefficient, and illogical.

Guided by Orion, you attempted discussion once more. The future of your species lay in its past, you argued, and out among the stars. And for that, they called you iconoclast and murderer. Accused of pride and vanity, of heeding the words of a monster, of forsaking the Pax Cybertronica, you were brought you to your knees and made to know your place: to defend Cybertron and uphold the Pax, to be the sword of the High Council, an instrument for them to wield. And Sentinel Prime, the Great Unifier, the one who called himself the master of physics, the philosopher-king, simply refused to look. Because what did they stand to lose but everything?

You could not let Cybertron die. Not in fire, and not in darkness. Not at the hands of those whose dull-witted prejudices would destroy what you had labored so long to build. Fools they were, upon their desolate peak, debating the precise metallurgy of the chains that were strangling your brothers and sisters, had no idea that your name carried just as much respect as your title. And so, when you stormed their chambers, and took up weapons against their hubris, you were not alone.

You fought. You won. Yet, the war grew beyond your ability to control. Sentinel Prime fell with his great Ark, slain by that fool Starscream. And when his favored lieutenant, Orion Pax, took up the mantle of Optimus Prime—well, not even that could dissuade you. For Orion had chosen his side, believing in redemption instead of revolution, and had chosen the wrong one. And then, at Tyger Pax, as the last Autobot fortresses fell, as a new dawn prepared to light Cybertron’s darkest hour, that fool... He and his consort Elita...

Hatred.

Optimus Prime ripped the very heart from Cybertron, and hurled the AllSpark into space.

What else could you do, Lord High Protector? What else could you do, but pursue it?

Without the AllSpark, your people would be doomed to scrabbling in the dark for the last dregs of energon—and so, they were. The Autobots would destroy all that they had used others to build, rather than hand it to the true inheritors of the Primes. And soon, you realized that they had. But you had built a garden from a graveyard, and you could do so again.

But time passed, and the AllSpark remained beyond your reach, and you began to think that you would exhaust your body of energon before hearing its song once more.

Then, you found it. Somewhere upon the third world of a distant star, so far beyond the borders of the ecumene that it might as well have not existed. You dove upon the world feeling, for the first time in long millennia, something beyond the fire of imminent victory, beyond the soft glow of a work well done.

Something like joy.

And then everything went wrong.

You touched the magnetosphere of the world, and the response was so strong, so powerful, so blinding, that you can only remember it as an attack. Your systems failed and you plummeted toward the planet, out of control and incoherent, toward an impact that left you buried. Perhaps it was Megatronus who protected you, or Primus, or perhaps even Unicron, but whatever deity intervened did so with a sense of humor.

It wasn’t the cold that bound you, but the ice. You had just enough time to incarnate yourself to standing before the ice, weakened by your impact, collapsed and buried you further, to your waist. The ice seeped into you, snaring your limbs and snarling your systems. Soon, the ice and snow covered you completely. Soon, time obscured even that.

How long were you there, mighty Megatron? A year, ten? Fifty, a hundred? Five hundred? More. But soon, it did not matter. Soon, you were not sure whether you were alive or dead. You saw nothing, heard nothing. But still, you knew—out among the stars, that Cybertron had fallen and, with it, your civilization. Your people, left to wander the stars, or trapped within tombs of their own. Perhaps they were the lucky ones, you thought, in the inchoate dark. The AllSpark had led you here, only to die. In mind, if not in spark.

All that was made, could be unmade.

Then, a noise. So subtle that you can remember not being sure if it was a true reading from your audial sensors, or a final failure within your encephalon. Then, more noises. Repetitive sounds. A rough language, an organic language. You could detect the tiny form before you, glimpse the barest shadow of it in your frozen optics. Captain Witwicky. Your salvation.

Cybertron’s salvation.

So, you told him of the AllSpark, of where to find it, of what to do with it. That you were Lord High Protector Megatron, and he should not be afraid.

But he was. Witwicky receded from you, and the slow passage of time returned. The single shaft of light froze once more into darkness. You had to trust that he would do as you asked. And why wouldn’t he? The AllSpark would be useless to his people, a pointless trinket.

And soon, deliverance—his people returned. Dozens of them. Cutting at the ice that bound you, freeing you. For the first time in so many years, you felt the light of the stars—and, flexing your hands, moved.

Panic. Horror. Terror. Witwicky’s people, it occurred to you then, thought you were dead. They had come prepared, and bound you with chains and slathered you in ice, and dragged you back to the heart of their empire. There, they poked at you. First with curiosity, and then with deliberate intent.

They cut into you, pried you open. They could not breach your encephalon or your thoraxic core, but they did not need to. Pain was your world—but, with it, came time. And second by second, day by day, as these humans vivisected you, you came to know them, too. Their language, their world. And Witwicky...

Witwicky failed you. Worse than that, he betrayed you. You asked him to find the AllSpark, to deliver to your people their salvation—and, in return, his species descended upon you, frozen and immobile, and turned you into their prisoner, mutilating you by inches in their fumbling ignorance. And through the pain, you listened, you learned. They had used your immortal techno-physiology to devise trinkets and baubles. They thought themselves your master.

Insects, swarming over the still-living body of a god.

A god they call NBE-1.

“That’s Megatron.”

Your attention sharpens. That human, the one they call Darby. He knows you. How is that possible? You listen, for you can do nothing but listen.

“The way Optimus tells it, he’s pretty much the harbinger of death.”

Ah, Optimus and his Autobots. At long last, the reckoning with your old nemesis. The fact that he had already poisoned the mind of this Darby is irrelevant. Perhaps a thousand years ago, you might have cared about such things—but now?

Now, the humans have chosen poorly, much like Orion had.

Like him, they had spurned the hand you had offered.

Now, the ice begins to melt.

“Warning! NBE-1 cryotainment failing!”

“We need that goddamn cryo! The generators—”

“They’re failing! We’re losing everything! Red lights across the board!”

“The handhelds! Get the handhelds! We cannot let this thing get loose!”

This thing. This thing. You clench your fists and the ice shatters. The gantries bend and break as you simply push through them like gossamer webs. The chains that bind you snap before you’re even aware of them. Stumbling and still half-blind, you are still strong enough to annihilate these insects—not just here, but across their entire world. The harbinger of death is a fine title, and you will thank this Darby for it, but your hatred stokes your spark brighter than a supernova—

“I. AM. MEGATRON.”

Your fusion cannon annihilates the pitiful door they’d thought could contain you, and you shift into your vehicular mode, exterminating everything left in your wake with cleansing fire. Your roar out of this prison, this Hoover Dam, and shift back at the apex of your climb towards the blue skies, landing on your feet. The ground shakes and cracks. The sensation is overwhelming.

Everything. You feel everything. Everything except the AllSpark. It was in there. You had felt it. The humans could not possibly destroy it, or have destroyed it. And they are too primitive to take it off-world. Which means it is within your grasp. That all of this, at the end, has been worth it.

“Lord Megatron,” Soundwave transmits. “I effected your liberation as soon as I became aware of your imprisonment.”

If it was anyone else, you would assume they were lying. You acknowledge his words silently, a honor that goes beyond thin praise, and prepare to—

“I live to serve you, Lord Megatron.”

Starscream. He drops to one knee, head bowed. Starscream. Well, you muse, if anyone had the capability to survive the fall of Cybertron, it would be him.

“All Decepticons are en-route to your position,” Soundwave reports. “Hail, Megatron.”

“Yes,” Starscream says, nodding. “Hail, Megatron! Lord, to think you are among us once again, to think these fleshlings kept you like a trophy—”

“Where is the AllSpark?”

You flex your fingers, test your strength. The humans, in all of their clumsy fumbling, haven’t managed to cripple you. Starscream twitches, still not looking at you. That tells you enough, but you know he will be happy enough to provide more evidence of his failure in whatever he says next.

“It appears that the humans have taken it,” Starscream replies. “Soundwave failed to—”

You sigh, and Starscream goes silent. To think of the AllSpark so close, the object of your endless quest once more beyond your grasp, with Cybertron’s salvation finally at hand... There is fury within your spark, and the vacuum-cold patience of the hunt that has brought you this far. You will not allow yourself to become careless now, not yet.

Good. You are not as insane as you had feared.

“Every second you remain here, Starscream, is another second you compound your initial failure—pursue them!” You tell him, and then address your warriors. Just as you had, all those years ago.

He does. You raise your fusion cannon and ponder destroying the human dam, envision the destruction—but, no, you'll need all of your energon for the fight ahead.

The final battle.

“Decepticons, hear me!” you call, “Today, on this wretched world, our war ends!”

Your followers heed you. You smile to yourself. Just as on Cybertron, Prime and his Autobots are outnumbered and outgunned. And, like on Cybertron, they’ll learn that fact at the apex of their hubris, and their fall shall be all the harder for it.

“Decepticons, to me! Decepticons, hear me—and rise up!”