The Lost Prime
Summary: Primes and their Lord High Protectors are made as twins, their sparks coming online together far from other Cybertronian life, protecting one another until the Herald of Primus comes for them. However, the Council can't allow that and the newest Prime goes missing, his Lord Protector tearing Cybertron apart to find him. Every war has its reason. This one is just coming to light. TFA AU
He had been nothing but a miniature hint of a spark in a greater sea of sparks when something extraordinary touched his barely there consciousness, bringing him to high alert and awakening his sentience and individuality, just second before he was yanked out of that warm, familiar sea of peace and thrust into a cold world he knew nothing about. He was no longer a floating spark in the Well, awaiting his turn to get a frame out of Vector Sigma. He had one already, a strong and powerful one, durable, meant to fly and to protect. He could feel his systems slowly categorizing themselves into their right configurations and parameters and, for a little while, while he was alone in this world that all must endure at one point, it was all he knew and he knew that terrifying feeling as loneliness.
Then came another feeling, a new and stranger one that somehow warmed his spark and his frame all over, filling him with purpose. A spark especially created by Primus, one so pure and bright that, had he had the ability to open his optics he would have surely been blinded by. In its pure state, the new spark that onlined next to him was unbearable to be around and yet he wished nothing more than to protect and preserve this little spark. The other one was smaller, not as durable, not meant for fighting. He had different parameters and configurations, ones that were complementary to his own. As if the little one was made for him as much as he was made for the little one. How very intriguing. He was curious.
At the simplest thought of reaching out to the other, he was surprised when he felt the other's consciousness reaching back just as curiously. It was as if some long since ingrained instinct directed them and they opened up to each other. All sorts of feelings not his own rushed through his still not functioning - at least not for higher functions, not yet - young processor and he would have purred when he felt the other settle somewhere near his spark. He was not really there, but he could feel him, this other spark, his little spark. This one was his and only his. And he belonged just as much to the little spark.
Cybertron purred and Primus sent his approval as the bond snapped into place, strong even as young as it may be. The two sparklets just curled into each other in their nest of pure blue Energon crystals and settled into prenatal stasis, waiting for their time to come. He was a little startled with how easily the smaller one fell into stasis when he himself was still half aware. Yet he knew this was perfectly normal. He had a duty.
He must protect the other, even at the cost of his own spark.
He has no idea how much time passed, not that it mattered. They were slowly growing sparklings, their protoforms taking on their desired shapes, molding them for their future life. The little one seemed to remain smaller than him, even if they were developing and growing at a similar pace. Perhaps he will forever remain smaller. Only more reason to be so protective, he supposed. He, on the other hand, could feel that his protoform was being encased by strong, sturdy metal, forming thick plating that will help protect his spark as he grows older and faces what the world has to throw at him and the little one. He could feel himself developing systems and subsystems that his companion wasn't and the urge to protect only grew with each megacycle.
It was peaceful, like this. Just the two of them, surrounded by the song of humming Energon crystals, wrapped in the cocoon of ignorance and bliss, their energy fields always intertwined, their Creator's plating keeping them warm and safe and the planet's very Spark feeding their frames. It was bliss. He would have liked to remain here forever, just staying close to the one he must protect in this safe haven.
But all peace must come to an end when balance is not straight. One megacycle, in a joor any other would have been just another joor, he was awoken by the presence of others like him and his little one, only their fields and sparks spoke of no serenity and peace like the little one's did. The fields that brushed against his own were full of corruption and malice, almost as though the Unmaker himself had contaminated the sparks that must have come from the AllSpark, like every other spark. Whether they were or not was not his concern. They were too close to his little one!
His systems revved and his frame let out a fearsome rumble, startling the mechs who had gathered around the two sparklings. He gave a frustrated growl when he realized his systems were still not ready to awaken but he forced them, his most basic protocol to protect his little one urging his body to awaken as his processor already was. He just needed a little more ...
"This is bad. They are not meant to awaken yet." One of the intruders spoke, addressing the others. In later life, he will learn that the fluctuations in the mech's field were that of fear, as the mechs gathered around the two sparklings looked down at them.
"They aren't. Only that one is. He must be the Protector, then." Another spoke, barely held back contempt in his voice.
"It won't take long for all of his systems to come online." Yet another said and he was now getting agitated. There were so many unknown persons around his little one. He had to protect him. He can't afford to stay in this state!
"Then we must be quick. Before he wakes up." The fourth one ordered and dread filled him when he felt that one coming even closer, bending down, reaching for-
"We must take the Prime before Alpha Trion or that fool, Megazark, show up to claim them. The Council will want to raise this one themselves."
His Prime! They were taking his Prime! How dare this fools even touch that unmarred spark and frame! That was the conduit of Primus' will, he was his! The little one was his and only his! None shall claim him but he himself! None shall take him from him! He will fight Unicron himself for his Prime! Any who dare touch his Prime will perish!
His weapons systems growled and the mechs started backing away.
A shot was fired, scaring the mechs.
But it wasn't his. Someone else had released that shot.
And it was all that the mechs needed to make up their minds, one of them bending down against and ripping his Prime out of their nest, out of his hands! He struggled, frame jolting awake too soon, all systems coming online, his weapons humming, his protocols screaming at him to find his Prime, to protect him, to offline all those who dared touch that pure spark-
One of the mechs had stayed behind and now looked into the eyes of a red eyed little demon of a sparkling, nearly leaked himself, took out a blaster and shot the sparkling straight through the chest before transforming and driving away, terrified. And his world was all pain, pain in his frame, pain in his processor as his protocols were still demanding that he find his Prime, pain in his spark at the missing little one. Just onlined and fully conscious for the first time and all the new Lord High Protector to be knew was pain.
Pain and betrayal.
Corruption. Corruption of the very planet he was meant to serve with his Prime.
His Prime who was stolen from him.
"Frag!" A new voice joined the fray, and he revved his engine in warning, even if he was in no state to fight anyone. Let alone a mech whose entire hand could scoop him up like it was now. "Lord Megazarak! We're too late! The little Prime was stolen!"
A roar that was closer to a howl ripped through the air and he felt his plating crawl as he sensed the grief and despair. He recognized those feelings as amplified versions of his own. A mech like him, then, one who had their Prime stolen. Only his Prime was still online and he could still be saved. This mech's could not. His Prime was lost to the Well.
"And what of my successor?"
"Still online, but barely. He needs medical attention and I'm not sure if we'll be able to get him there in time."
The other mech came up to the one carrying him and took him out of that one's arms. This one was even bigger. The bi bot hummed. "He will survive. This one is a fighter. He has a Prime to get back. The AllSpark will not claim him until he is good and ready and I doubt he is willing to leave his Prime alone."
He fully agreed with that statement. His little Prime needed him. They were a pair. He refused to be left without his counterpart. He will find him, even if it takes his whole function! He revved his engine in agreement, earning a chuckle out of the bigger mech.
"And what of the Prime, Lord Megazarak?"
"I have contacted Alpha Trion and Dion. They will try to intercept those glitches and find the Prime. We must hope that they are successful. For now, let us take the new Lord Protector with us."
And so he was taken away from the nest that had been his safety and his bliss since Primus gave him and his Prime life. He could never return there. His place was no longer there. He was awake and Cybertron awaited its Lord High Protector and its Prime.
He awaited news of his Prime.
And soon they came.
Dion had apparently indeed been able to intercept the traitors to Cybertron itself - if they had stolen its new Prime - somewhere outside of a city by the name Iacon in the northern hemisphere of their planet and had even managed to secure the Prime, intent on taking him to Alpha Trion to protect in the Archives, only Dion was also intercepted. Somewhere, on the streets of Iacon, the loyal bot was found offlined and with no traces of the little Prime anywhere.
Megazark and all his forces fell into a state of grieving. Megazarak couldn't even look at the little Protector to be anymore. "Perhaps it is best for me to offline you now than for you to live without your Prime and grow mad." The big mech mused one megacycle, startling his companions. He was quickly wretched out of the mech's hold and into the arms of the medic.
"Don't you dare, my Lord. He is our world's future. His Prime is not dead yet. He would be, too, if it were otherwise."
A couple of decacycles later, he was made aware of the fact that his Prime was hidden somewhere, lost to both his rescuers and the ones who had wished him ill. "It will be up to you to find him, little one." Megazarak told him that megacycle, a flash of hope in optics as red as his. "We have done what we can."
An orn later, the current Lord High Protector's face appeared on the wanted list and Megazarak had to hand the little Protector to be to a trusted friend. "Terminus will hide you, so you can grow big and strong in order to find and protect your Prime. Stay safe, little one."
And Terminus did keep him safe, up until the Protector to be hit his youngling frame, several vorns later. He kept him safe and far away from the Decepticons as was possible, before he was found by the Elite Guard, a new regime with the Magnus at its head, and brought in, only to be executed. Luckily, Terminus had arranged for the youngling to remain hidden and the future Lord High Protector found himself working as a miner. He was strong, sturdy, with thick plating and clawed digits. A warframe, a flightframe, but close enough to an ordinary miner that he fit in and no one cast a second glance at him.
He worked like this, tirelessly and endlessly, for vorns and vorns on end, until he hit his final upgrade and something in him stirred upon seeing how his fellow miners were being treated. It had always been there, demanding attention, but he had been too young. Now, in his final upgrade, his battle protocols were mature and online and with it an ancient programing demanding he protect his people. He killed their supervisor, his first kill, and his spark contradicted itself with pain and relief. A lost life, several saved ones.
He was brought out of the mines and thrown into the pits, becoming a gladiator before he could reset his optics.
The pits awoke many of his other dormant protocols. Becoming the champion brought him, once again, in contact with Megazarak, only long since was gone the mech who had tried to save him. Before him stood a mad tyrant, brought to insanity by the loss of his Prime. The Decepticons were terrorists, not freedom fighters, as they had started out. He was pulling their people into war, tearing their planet apart, leading them to ruin.
He didn't flinch when he offlined Megazarak with a shot through the spark.
The Decepticons loved him. They recognized the little Lord High Protect they had been meant to save and who they had thought lost to them when Terminus was offliend. He had no opposition when he took over command, intent on leading the Decepticons towards a better future. Decepticons were the warframes of Cybertron, natural protectors of their smaller counterparts, the civilianframes. Decepticons naturally fell in line behind the greatest protector of Cybertron, the Lord High Protector himself.
He asked for his Prime to be returned to him. Civilly, might he add.
The civilians and their Council declared him a murderer and a traitor, someone who fights against the Prime regime and the new Magnus one, for killing the previous Lord High Protector, Megazarak. Decepticons were declared enemy of the state, the civilians forming their won pathetic little army, the Autobots.
So started the Great War.
It was hard, at first, to send his mechs out to kill mechs they were supposed to protect. It was hard pitting one half of his people against the other. But the more the Autobots preached about being cogs in the great Autobot machine, the easier it got because they no longer registered themselves as Cybertronians. Decepticons always thought of Cybertron, especially when the Autobots started pushing them off world. The were his people. The Autobots were starting not to be.
As the war progressed and heated up, both sides started doing things, unthinkable things, to each other. They broke so many rules of fair conduct and seemed to have set out to destroy each other. With every megacycle spent fighting, with every spark extinguished, the deeds became more horrific. The Decepticon Justice Division was as ruthless as the Autobot Science Division was moral-less. Long since were forgotten the eons when there were only Cybertronians. Now, there were only Autobots and Decepticons, two completely different factions with two completely different people, set out to annihilate the other.
He no longer asked for his Prime to be returned to him. He demanded it. For the sake of his spark and for the sake of Cybertron. For who will stop this war if not Primus' own chosen? Who will unite these two completely different people.
His Lord High Protector coding weeped for six million stellar cycles before the Autobots created the Omega Sentinels, started using their Space Bridges for military purposes and jettisoned the AllSpark through one, never to be seen again.
The AllSpark was the only means of survival for their race, he knew, so he abandoned a fruitless war and set out after it, all of his Decepticons searching. And four million stellar cycles later, he was slowly losing hope. He knew he couldn't return to Cybertron without the AllSpark and despaired to ponder what his Prime would think of such failure. He pushed on, never giving up, always keeping a tight grip on his leadership and a wary optic our for traitors (Starscream in particular), and finally, finally, he was rewarded.
They had found the AllSpark.
Or rather, the AllSpark had found a group of Autobots and they had found them.
He wouldn't let the chance pass up to finally start the beginning of the end of this accursed war. And with the AllSpark, he will find his Prime with far greater ease. It was practically within his reach when Starscream had decided to betray him. The explosive damaged him, yes, but it was more damaging to the Autobots' ship. It served more to disorient him, which gave the Autobots a chance to somehow fly them through a nearby Space Bridge despite the pitiful state of their ship. He had felt the AllSpark respond. He knew it had something to do with it.
When they were through, he immediately made his assault, demanding the AllSpark, only for the young mech he held to thwart him with the help of a cyberninja. At one point, they found themselves together in the cargo bay, just him and the little mech, and something in him stirred. Something that had practically been dormant since he had first onlined too late to save his counterpart. He had the Autobot pinned down, leaning over to inspect him closer, not wanting to believe it, blaming it on scrambled circuitry and motherboard due to the explosion, when the AllSpark lit up again. His spark pulsed and his Lord High Protector coding activated with a jerk to his systems that disoriented him enough for the red and blue bot to push him out of the vessel and into the planet's atmosphere and gravity pull.
He simply didn't have the time to contemplate just what had happened before his world went completely and utterly dark.
Until recently, when even he was losing belief that his Prime was still online, he would have welcomed it. But not now. Not when he was so sure it was the one, that the little Autobot he last saw was maybe, just maybe, his little one. His Prime.
Fifty long stellar cycles later, when he was jolted awake as a mere decapitated head without a body in an organic's lab who was using his biotechnology to build his own robotic empire, still burning with the AllSpark's energy, the first thing he saw when he connected his mind to the primitive system was Starscream daring to fight his Prime!
The Lord High Protector vowed to kill the seeker as soon as he repairs his body. Then, he will take his Prime and they will return to Cybertron. They had much to do. Starting with bringing the little Prime to Alpha Trion to be led to the Matrix of Leadership.
But first, he had to get his body back. It will take a while, but he was a patient bot. So he settled to wait.
In the meantime, he set up a surveillance net for his little Prime.
Megatron had already once lost his Prime.
He won't let it happen again.
