Release My Soul

An LLS Production

Prologue: Manifest Destiny

"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself."
– Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Reader, I welcome you. If you have found this tale at last, then one of us are freed, at least. I have masqueraded as this human boy, this alien soldier who has yet to be jaded by war and who still holds the greatest of inspirations in a spark untimely snuffed out. Neither know nor care for the process by which I have manifested in this alien; weakened shell of flesh and cells it has become now that the soul has departed for an undiscovered country. For its fragility has stolen one of the best persons I shall ever have the company of, and in turn has hurt his friend very deeply.

Where to begin my tale, I ponder. Time is unusual in that it is relative, at least that is what I remember one of my multiple brothers saying. Come to think of it, I can no longer remember the youngest of us. The seventh, though, was far too indelible in my mind; Megatronus Prime was my brother and my killer. It was many æons thence, dear reader; do not grieve for me. However, discussing my brothers have brought up that point at which I shall begin the tale, one that stretches, perhaps, the span of time itself.

As I am blessed with the name of Alpha Trion, I write this as the last will and testament of Nathan Zimmerman. By some incredible, astounding fate, two specimens of different species across the spheres of the Well of All Sparks have met, have survived, and have finally died.

I come from Cybertron, a planet entirely of metalloid and mechanics. Until we took to the stars, there had been not a glyph for organic life; we too, were once as ignorant as the organics certain followers of another brother decried as inferior. Of a universe of sentients, Cybertron was entirely populated by mechanoid life, ruled by what was referred to as the Dynasty of Primes. Prima is the oldest and wisest amongst Primes, bearer of the Matrix of Leadership and the Star Saber.

That much you might know, dear reader – since it is more likely that you are part of the soldier contingent Nathan belonged in, who are in touch with my people – but they are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The true wisdom of Prima lay in the insight of our eldest's black optics, damaged in the last battle of true destruction against creation and its children. If only I could relate to you how vital and how tragic it had been! To speak, or etch, the name of the Unmaker, though, is dangerous amongst we of the Original Thirteen; the adversary knows, but even that which is destruction could only bow to the insight that even the Creator does not know; such is Prima.

"I have though about placing my spark elsewhere, Alpha Trion," declared Prima one day. Such declarations were not unusual from Prima; one possessed of such foresight, now deprived of the use of optics as my brother had been, must seek alternatives. The furor poeticus that overtook Prima saw and reached for the stars, far more than any of us could dream even with our sight.

"And what would you use that for?" I asked.

"This," Prima waved to the frame he used, that once shone as a star. "The frame we are granted upon creation are finite, as any other shall be. It shall present an interesting dilemma, to see if I can transplant my spark into an empty frame, and still function as expected. Perhaps, then the taint need not follow me. Perhaps that shall be the recipe for immortality; a strange, but true form."

Specialised sensors had another of us, Solus Prime, developed to cure Prima, to detect the carbon and hydrogen and oxygen about open space and the rest of the universe and assist our helpless brother. Yet, Prima's black optics were haunting in their terrible reminder of our mortality. They stood blank and empty, devoid of the light that Prima's optics once held. Yes, I supposed, transferring a spark might be possible. How, could always be worked out later in the far future.

So I believed, even as Prima was dead, I was bleeding the lifeblood on the floor of the Hall of Records, and Megatronus had left to raze Simfur and, by extension, the rest of the Dynasty, to ashes. I considered that mad scheme of Prima's devising, and for once I felt that which must have hounded Prima in the darkness. True, sparks could not normally survive... the desperation to live overrode all thoughts of that.

In my hand I wielded the artefact known as the Quill. The Covenant I had sealed in the Hall of Records upon which I had instituted my reign as Prime of another city beside Simfur, as I knew Alchemist Prime and Quintus Prime would have done with their own precious artefacts.

The Covenant could not save me here, either way, but as I dipped the Quill into my own energon, I found myself heedless of that. The Cyberglyphs of my Name shimmered, filling the scratches I made by a case of slates with the great artefact. The quill shall triumph over arms this day.

I vented slightly, feeling my consciousness shift and, in a rare fit of inspiration, I hid the Quill with the case that now bore my name. I watched the precious reality-dictating stylus drop into the depths of the Iacon Hall of Records as I dropped into the dark of stasis.

I awoke to see Vector Prime falling before my discarded frame. Living as part of the Iacon Hall of Records was surprisingly curious a sensation.

"Vector!" I called. "Vector Prime!"

The guardian of time and space was lost in his grievances, such that his bellow of pain-filled sorrow echoed in the lonely depths of the hall. "Alpha Trion... Trion, beloved brother. Be at peace now. Know that I will slay Megatronus for this."

"Vector, it's me!" I entreated. "Vector, please! Hear me!"

He could not hear me; as a ghost, I watched Vector Prime haul my frame out, and leave me here in the heart of the Hall of Records æons ago. Such was the tale by which I have been left in the Iacon Hall of Records.

'Good morning.'

Barely klicks after my impromptu return to the Hall of Records by a kindly officer, and Prima had arrived. Her helm shaped to taper off at the centre of her faceplate, her very visage itself resembled some organic species of flight-capable creature, sharp of eye and gold of plumage, brilliant and golden as the star that now provided energy to our planet. They called Prima the Twin Horizons sometimes; dawn of light and darkness both heralded in her wake.

'Welcome back, Alpha Trion,' Prima intoned. 'See Cybertron now; how it welcomes visitors of another world!'

'Prima? Another world? We are dead, could it be...'

Below us, at the ground of the Hall of Records, a bare mechling and a fleshy alien were about. The organic was climbing a movable staircase, and the youngling was leaving with a yell in some unusual language of glottal stops.

'Prima,' I answered. 'How are you alive? Better yet, how am I alive?'

'We are not, Trion,' Prima answered. 'Of the Original Thirteen, now only Vector lives. Megatronus Prime and I have sacrificed ourselves to create light for Cybertron.'

I would have vented, had I still vents. The traitorous Megatronus Prime, and Prima having survived? Having created light for Cybertron?

'It is a curious thing,' Prima imparted. The blank optics were directed down towards the lone alien, who did not seem to have noticed us.

'What is?'

'The coincidence of deaths, of course.'

"Oh my," I said as he fell, seeing the giant staircase roll away and take his lifeline with it. Just like he could not hear me again, I reflected as I watched the alien life-form smash onto the same spot where I bled to death. Red liquid stained the exact spot where I had bled to death, millennia before, and where I had uploaded myself into an unsuspecting data folder attached to a bookish Autobot who had just returned me to my demesne. Red liquid continued to stain the ground as the hand relaxed, quietly.

So this is how its life ends. I felt the nanites streaming along, and considered the vestiges of twitching little servos and pedes. An alien so like us! And yet so unlike us... but there were electronic additives in his blood, compatible to transfer myself and find help for him...

'He will not need the body when he is dead,' Prima mused. 'In a while.'

There was a chance, then.

I made my choice, and I used his voice to summon help in the form of the careless friend that left him to die.

"Help...! Help...!"

Here is the tomb of Alpha Trion. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.

Please review, so that I know if this is a good pilot to explore! Critiquez, s'il vous plaît!