He remembers what he used to be...how he used to be.
Illogical.
Reason second to emotion.
A plain and simple descriptor.
A descriptor that his former self wore as a badge of pride.
Disgusting, really.
There were few that he...disliked more than his former self.
But he had accurate points. About the system. About the Senate. About the senators.
A distant flare of something surges through him, but is gone just as quickly as it came. Those odd surges were of no consequence, despite their frustrating frequency. His work, his plans were far more important. Plans millions of years in the making were culminating, converging at a single point that would make it all worthwhile.
If he could feel, he'd almost feel bad about what the result would be. But no, what he was doing was the most logical course of action. He would not be swayed by the ghosts of a past that no longer belonged to him.
He would not be swayed by the memories of what he lost. What he would never have again.
An ache settled in his processor and suddenly he was no longer in the present.
Like an old projector, memories he would rather keep locked firmly away began to play, and he was swept away into them.
Suddenly he...not him, but the old him was shouting...no arguing exuberantly with several members of the Senate.
Ah yes...the Functionists and their antiquated beliefs. Though...from a logical standpoint, they managed to make it a good way to keep bots compliant and in some cases content. Well, the upper castes content anyway. For a time.
Too bad the fools couldn't see the tides changing and refused to listen to more...scientific evidence. They hung themselves with their own arrogance and false sense of superiority.
The memory changes with the subtly of a crashing ship. Now old him is offering to retrofit Orion Pax with a matrix chamber...something that current him begrudgingly agrees was a good call.
Oh yes...that's right. The Senate hadn't been too impressed with those actions, nor with his Academy and the protection it offered outliers. It wasn't long after that...
No. No. NO!
He couldn't stop himself from trying to fight the direction his memories were taking. Not that it ever did much good in the previous encounters, but...the pain that accompanied them was something...everything hurt.
As he's shoved into memories that he'd rather forget, he can no longer tell where present him begins and past him ends. In every way he's reliving them.
He doesn't fight the hands holding him as they threaten Orion and his men...his students. If they want him they can have him. If he doesn't fight they won't hurt them...how naive.
Energon shackles clamp around his wrists and the natural urge to fight is forced down. His final words tossed out in resignation.
Remember me as I was.
He had a suspicion about what they were going to do...he didn't want the memory of the person he was before to be tainted by what he would become.
They...were not gentle. They yanked him along laughing and taunting until they'd arrived at one of the many Institutes. There was little hope for a rescue. Few knew that there was more than one "The Institute."
His tanks churned at the sight of so many of the Decepticons that had signed Nominus' agreement.
These bots had been lied to.
There was no safety on that list.
Only a fate far worse than death.
His friends, Orion was safe. He could fight back now, so he did. He struggled and threw himself at his captors until his wrists leaked rivulets of energon and his armor was dented to an unrecognizable state.
Either way they'd succeeded in strapping him down to one of the operating tables...if it could even be called that.
Optics wildly roaming around he noted the cameras in different areas and laughed hysterically to himself.
Of course the sadistic bastards would enjoy this.
His laughter is cut off when a bot walks over to him and grips his chin so tightly he's sure he hears the metal creak.
The...doctor seems to be examining him with a critical eye, why he's unsure...but it all goes out of his mind once a twisted grin stretches the bots mouth plates. The bot turns and addresses others that he'd only just noticed.
This is the most ambitious piece of cerebral re-engineering I've ever attempted. By the time I'm done with him, he'll be lucky to muster an emotional response to anything.
Hot, blinding anger and blinding, animal fear courses through him and he thrashes wildly, spouting every hateful thing he can. If he was doomed to be emotionally neutered, he'd damn well experience the most violent of his emotions right here and now.
Still thrashing around, he hardly feels the prick in the crook of his left arm, right between the plates where his protoform is thinnest.
His struggles turn sluggish until he's hardly able to form a coherent thought let alone move.
They'd drugged him with something...but it wasn't something that took away pain...that shut down his pain receptors.
The pain started when they started cutting away at the joints where his upper right arm met his shoulder. It was agonizing. Each cut and piece removed more agonizing than the last. And he couldn't even flail in discomfort.
His vocalizer had long been disabled once they reached his head.
The first cuts were blinding and he felt his optics short-circuit because of it. He felt energon rush over his glossa and leak out of his mouth. Deeper and deeper they went until he knew no more.
I hope it was worthwhile.
And one by one we all become numb.
The him of the present jolted out of the memories, flailing wildly, at least for him. His larger winglets were raised high and held stiffly in distress.
It had been a long time since he'd been dragged down into those memories. Frustrating, useless things!
His vents were in overdrive trying to cool him and that distant feeling from earlier seemed to pulse in time with his spark and processor.
No.
This was unacceptable.
They all, bar a few, were dead and gone, either by his own hand or by Soundwave's.
He straightens himself, having not realized earlier that he'd hunched over.
That burning feeling was replaced with cold certainty.
They were gone, but this universe still needed to be cleansed.
It was rendered useless by a war they had grown pointless after Cybertron had died. His allegiance had never lain with Megatron, though the bot, at least at first, held promise.
In front of him was something that had been in progress since he had awoken and been released from The Institute. There was no going back.
A voice in the back of his processor stayed his good hand for a moment. It sounded suspiciously like his past self. It threw out arguments that he quickly grew bored with and dismissed after several moments of hesitation.
The strange duality that existed within him was not enough to stop him from beginning what was to become the end of existence for the universe.
No.
There was no turning back now.
Because I'm a fraud, I'm an impostor.