One Half

By

LigerJager

…

Transformers © Various Creators & Companies

Chapter 1: Horrors of War

From the moment the comm. was cut, Optimus felt a growing sense of apprehension. The feeling was only compounded and morphed into full out horror when he actually did open the mission report the stalwart captain had sent him.

What RazorWind hadn't realized was that because of the critical damage he'd obtained in that death match so long ago, was that he'd accidentally ended up sending more than he'd thought. More than he and his kind would have willingly shared. The side the captain never meant for the Prime to see. As it was, the Dragoon was gone, leaving Optimus to reacquaint himself with the darkest side of the war.

From the moment Philian Hold fell to the ravages of Megatron's ruthless slaughter to the outright degradation of their race by his own to the outright suspicion and prejudice to watching comrade after comrade fall, one by one, to finally the spectacularly brutal face off with Optimus' megalomaniacal brother.

He almost felt physically ill, like the humans, when he finally, finally understood just a little the Dragoons' resentment towards Cybertron's secondborn. As it was he could hear the once, fiery commander WildWing's sharp reprimand after a confrontation with Megatron that left the brute alive.

"Why hesitate? End this now, unless you too want our kind extinct."

At the time he had thought the Dragoon was just referring to the overall inhabitants of Cybertron, and in essence did. However with the revelations he'd just viewed, the Prime had a distinct feeling the double meaning of 'our' was meant specifically for the dragon mechs.

They were allies, much needed firepower and support. And yet…they had been treated far worse by their own allies then how the Autobots had treated the Decepticons. Optimus didn't know how to respond when he saw his own people gleefully put their allies in harm's way because they could. Even drawing upon friendly fire. It was a never ending nightmare.

He saw the battles that had been reported an Autobot victory and yet had been fought and won, with heavy casualties, by the Dragoons. What was left of high command had a lot to answer for.

He was the Prime. He trusted his men. And yet…how could he trust his own people when they acted far worse than the Decepticons? At least Megatron's troops were honest about their hate and superiority. This though…

This was much worse.

Optimus was shaken deeply.

When his emissaries were sent to the Firstborn, to ask an alliance, the small contingent that showed up was what, he had assumed, their best warriors. Now, though, he knew.

They were the survivors.

The remnants.

…All that was left out of a race thousands.

And now he had no way of apologizing to their kind, to give reparations. Because, honestly, the Autobots would have been finished, decimated even, within the first three vorns of Cybertron's civil war had not the planet's first guardians taken up their mantle and fulfilled their duty.

And with the last transmission from the Dragoon Captain it seemed that all that they had fought for was for naught. They had doomed themselves with their arrogance…and pride.

In the end, they all lost.

::Twins Part II: To Be Continued::

A/N: And I thought I was done with this. Bah.

Philian Hold was something like a civilian city/home-base for the Dragoon Mechs. Much like the Jedi-Temple was to the Jedi. It was also the birth place of the Dragon Mech after their exile.

If you want to think of a comparable horror to what RazorWind and BlazeBite felt and saw, I say that it was a cross between Anakin's slaughter of the Jedi Temple and multiply the brutality by a thousands. And that was only the one Hold alone.

There were five.

…And each one worse than the one before.

LJ 6/4/10, 6/30/10