It has always been a well-known fact that Optimus is the perfect leader of the Autobots - both idealistically impossible and spotless at the same time. He carries the heavy weight of leadership responsibility with ease, he's courageous and optimistic in the face of impending doom, he's smarter than most and comes with a comparably strong build, and he's always coming out on top, both from heated battlefields and any history book that even remotely mentions any kind of conflict at all.

But not all of those are correct, though. In truth, none of them got it entirely right, either. Optimus is, at the same time, all of it, and none of it. History records, dates and months and all that unforged information aside, of course. This is not a story, but an actual recollection of what might or might not have happened, bits and pieces voluntarily provided by anyone, ranging from real-time witnesses to by-stander's gossips, whose validity may be questionable, but it is not the point of this writing to accuse him in an open court. Here, where all regulations are non-existent and every card is revealed on deck, the judgement is yours to proclaim.

CHAPTER 1
#Birth in the Ashes of Light

It was a heavy acid rain. The heaviest one, actually. Everything touched by the unholy substance almost instantly evaporated off the surface of Cybertron itself, to be returned into its natural compositions in a flurry of raging chemical reactions.

To Primus himself, it was a torturous scene to observe first-handedly as his creations were wiped out one after another, in a last disgrunted scream of unimaginable anguish as if begging for a more merciful death. To Cybertron, it was nothing more than a simple natural selection, whereas carrier nature's law prevails all of bot's plan, effectively clearing the path for the eventual appearance of a more evolutionary cybernetic species. To Unicron himself, in all of his destructive might, this was merely a gourmet snack compared to his insidious plot of universal extinction, but it was still satisfying to watch the prized creation of his lifelong opponent aiding his cause. All perspective considered, this is one of those events that actually does worth bothering the gods themselves with, which actually signified its magnificance to all Cybernetic lifeforms, varying from an end-of-the-world doomsday to an incredibly entertaining show.

All except one.

All except the thirteenth First Prime.

He sat back and observed leisurely as the first-ever generation of Cybertronians was decimating. On some wicked whims, he was even letting out a few rueful giggles as if the world hadn't come to an end. While his true intention remained disputed between power corruption and mental disorder for millenias later to come, no conclusion could justify his abnormal behavior, as the laugh drawn into a fit of hyper hysteria, shattering nearby asteroids with his every intake of air. As time stretched out, gust of winds blew harder and stronger, soon becoming a giant whirlwind of enraging storm, sucking acid clouds in its waking path and spitting even more horrendous liquid from its Eye. Acid now rained down streams of destruction on Cybertron's surface, and soon Cybertronians were no longer.

On the scorched wasteland of what was left lay a tiny sparkle of light, flashing with bright intensity, shining its aura into the surrounding vacuum of nothingness. Light filled the absence space of a recently collapsed planet, and within it a planet was reborn from ashes. A new Cybertron was brought back into the plane of existence as if nothing has ever shifted.

Though if there was any survivor of the day, they would have witnessed the dark silhouette of a First Prime flying straight into the remnants of a yet recovering Well of Allsparks, disguising as a newly formed spirit, ready to be given birth on the new planet.