Full summary; some things should never be forgotten and some legends should never be viewed as simply stories. When one such legend proves just that, the Autobots find themselves, their new found allies and pretty much all of earth threatened by something more dangerous than possibly even Megatron. With their pitifully small numbers and lack of supplies, things look pretty bleak. Then a startling discovery leaves more questions than it does answers; Ironhide is somehow directly related to it all. The problem is, he has no idea how or why.
Epilogue:
It had been going on for so long that, had they really stopped to think about it, no one really remembered just exactly how the fighting had started. To many of them, notably the younger generation, there had always been war, the lines had always been divided into the Autobots and the Decepticons. Peace was something they could only imagine from fantasy. Only the older war veterans could remember a time that the air wasn't filled with smoke from war torn buildings, that the ground wasn't littered with the dead and the dying, that the only sound they could hear was the booms and cracks of various weapons firing.
How had the war begun? It was a common question that the younger ones asked. They knew WHY they were fighting…but sometimes, it was nice to know how it started and, more specifically, WHO had started it.
There was no straight answer, only stories and legends. Legends that, truth or not, they had to be satisfied with. There was one legend, however, that was common to both Autobots and Decepticons alike.
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Contrary to popular belief, Megatron was NOT the one to form the Decepticons. No, they were started long before him by a mech whose name would burn in infamy. One whose cruelty, malice and will to dominate the universe made Megatron pale in comparison. Though his true name was lost, the name he went by made others shiver in fear.
Kinslayer!
No one knows why Kinslayer chose to betray his home world. Speculation ran through everything from simple things like a glitch in his mainframe or a virus corrupting his programming to more complex theories such as grudges held against various government officials. No one knew for sure. Kinslayer certainly wasn't telling anyone.
As the legend went, Kinslayer built up the Decepticons secretly in the shadows of illegal gladiatorial games and other underground circuits, recruiting those who were like-minded to him, those with malcontent seething in their circuits. At first, they were recruited in secret. Mechs and femmes pulled suddenly into quiet corners and "offered" admittance. Those who refused…well, their bodies were found days later. As their numbers grew, they became more visible, openly recruiting. Kinslayer himself was rarely seen, adding to the fear revolving around the faction, but that fear only seemed to serve to pull more in. Slowly his forces grew into an army.
He had caught Cybertron grossly unprepared. The Senate and the Council of Ancients had turned a blind eye for far too long to the activity of the underground circuits and know the price was being paid in blood. Cybertron found itself thrown into war.
The resistance forces, the Autobots, bravely stood against the Decepticons and their deadly leader, but they were not the warriors the former gladiators were. Despite all their efforts, they were slowly pushed back under the force of the more organized and deadly army of doom.
Kinslayer would have certainly destroyed the Autobot army easily and have taken over Cybertron before continuing his conquest…
…Had it not been for one small sparkling.
This sparkling, found with his dying femme creator at the gates of Iacon, had been Kinslayer's downfall. His femme creator, who had died getting her sparkling to safety, was a member of the Autobot army that Kinslayer and his Decepticons had taken captive. No one was sure exactly who the sparkling's mech creator was, or how she had escaped with the newly sparked little one, but they all celebrated the fact that he had survived, especially as the sparkling had blue optics, a trait common to many Autobots. A trait that usually meant death.
Kinslayer disappeared suddenly. Rumor had it that he had lost his prestigious standing among his army when the femme had escaped with the young one. It was also rumored that Megatron, his ever-critical second-in-command, took the opportunity to over-throw Kinslayer and take control of the Decepticons himself. Whatever it was, the discovery and subsequent survival of the sparkling seemed to have thrown the Decepticons, once famed for their organization skills, into utter chaos.
No one knew what became of the sparkling, whose name was not recorded, indeed if it was ever known. No one knew if the little one lived or died. There were only whispered rumors. Rumors that were just as shadowy and mysterious as their subject matter. Thus, the sparkling, and Kinslayer, faded into history, turning, like most mysterious stories do, into legends.
Millions of years later, Cybertron stands deserted, consumed by war and death, its survivors scattered across the universe. There are very few, if any at all, left who remember the old legend of Kinslayer and the beginning of the war. And so, legend faded into myth and myth began to fade into the passages of time where it would be lost forever.
But some legends should never be forgotten.
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A/N: Oh dearie me, I actually did it…I actually started my first TF fic. ~faints~
Heh, heh…I know, it sounds sorta prophetic doesn't it? ^^; Almost like the beginning of the 07' movie or the beginning of Lord of the Rings. I promise, it's only for this part. Just like it is for the movies!
Yeah, epilogues are the worst teasers in the world, aren't they?
Please realize that I do not claim any of this as accurate in any way. Though I grew up watching an episode of Transformers every now and then, my obsession didn't take off until the 07' movie came out and one mech in particular stole my heart (I'm pretty sure it was the cannons…yes, it was the cannons…and that too-die-for truck alt-mode! ;p )
Last request; please be nice to me. While this isn't my first fic, this is my first TF fic and I'm doing the best I can in a more-or-less unfamiliar fandom. I welcome tips and suggestions, critiques and pointers, with open arms and hugs and glomps but flamers and the not-so-polite blasters will be fed to my plot bunny on her psychotic days. You do not want that. She makes the bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail look saintly on those days.
-Vanillathunder215
