Took a week off this fic and ended up writing a short TFA fic dedicated to Prowl called "Eulogy to a Fallen Hero" (check it out!) last week, so i apologise to waiting readers! For some reason, this chapter and the next have been difficult for me to get off the ground, but i've finally written them up.
The last chapter somehow managed to gather my highest number of reviews for a single chapter yet! So thank you very much to all you lovely generous readers! I do appreciate your support, show of interest and thoughts! Starfire201, you're quite correct that my previous "Dystopia" chapters were based on an episode from the show "Gargoyles". Nice to hear from someone else who watched the show too. Atalanta123, I'm sorry about leaving you with cliffhangers. I'm afraid you you may have to endure another one at the end of this chapter... Pheonix13, yes, the Fallen fooled Optimus pretty good as you'll find out more about in this chapter.
Speaking of this chapter, we're about to find out what's been really happening with Optimus for the past five chapters. The unexpected return of the Fallen at the end of the last chapter certainly does not bode well for the Autobot leader. But in what capacity has the Fallen returned? And more importantly, for what reason?
This and the next chapter will be the finale chapters for this fic, so they're meant to wrap it all up. I'm intending to write an epilogue or two to finish this story after these finale chapters.
I should probably inform you all that this and the next chapter will alternate between two 'worlds': the real one and Optimus' internal one. I hope you all can tell which is which. The real world will be in third person past tense narrative while Optimus' internal world will be in his first person present tense narrative. You'll know what I mean as you read.
Chapter 21: Battle Within – Part 1
"How is he?"
The gruff question made Ratchet look up from inspecting the still form of Optimus Prime laid out flat on his repair table in his N.E.S.T. medical hanger on Diego Garcia. Ironhide had just entered, his expression worn from prolonged stress. Following behind the black Autobot weapons specialist were Bumblebee, Major Lennox and Sergeant Epps.
Ratchet shook his head.
"Still no idea what caused him to shut down in the first place. His vitals all seem in working order, but he's just...inactive."
The Autobot medical officer dropped his frustrated gaze back down to his offline leader. Optimus Prime lay motionless, optics dark, his chest plates open, gently glowing Matrix overlaying his spark exposed. Ratchet had spent hours examining the Prime's internal systems to locate the source of his sudden fall into stasis-lock, but to no avail.
Opposite from Ratchet, Jolt stood alert and waiting for further instructions. Beside Optimus' head on the large repair table, the small motorcycle form of Elita One sat keeping vigil over her beloved.
"So Optimus is just unconscious?" Epps asked from beside Ironhide's ankle.
"I believe that would be the human equivalent for it, yes," Ratchet replied without looking up from his leader's body.
"Don't you know how to bring him back 'online'?" Lennox questioned.
"No. I've tried," Ratchet sighed tiredly, "but his recently altered systems are still presenting a new problem for me. I have to be careful not to disrupt his reconfigured internal equilibrium or trigger off some of his unusual energies whilst examining and handling him."
"Maybe that's what's caused Optimus to shut down," Ironhide theorised, staring hard at his leader's formidable altered form that was still new and alien to them all, "his transformation may have destabilised something internally."
"Or what if the Matrix is having an adverse effect on him?" Jolt added as he looked down suspiciously at the gently glowing artefact in the Autobot leader's chest.
From beside Optimus' head on the repair table, Elita turned to look up at her fellow Autobots.
"There is a lot we have yet to understand about the Primes." Her gaze fell back down to Optimus' face. Her gentle azure optics scanned the various symbols of the Primes lining the sides of it. "Perhaps there are other forces at work within Optimus..."
Lennox placed a hand over his creased forehead in a subconscious attempt to settle himself. This was worrying. Optimus Prime had been in 'stasis-lock' for over twelve hours and they had no idea how to help him.
"Well, how long could he possibly remain like this?" Lennox questioned further, "I mean, he's gotta wake up sometime, right?"
Ratchet did not answer. Lennox thought he saw faint uncertainty and fear creep into the lime green Autobot's face briefly, but then they were gone.
Bumblebee stepped forward next to Lennox and knelt down to him.
"Optimus...*crzt*...he'll be okay," the yellow Autobot scout said reassuringly in his broken voice. He looked like he was trying partly to convince himself of that as well though.
Ironhide glanced briefly at Bumblebee and smiled a little. Good old Bumblebee, always hopeful and optimistic. Ironhide hoped he would be right though as he looked back at Optimus' vulnerable body on the repair table.
He burns before me, red liquid fire veining through his body, an aura of flames surrounding him, his crimson red optics searing into me...
"Fallen...," I murmur in disbelief, "It was you all along..."
I sit in paralysed shock staring up at his smoke-emitting form. The bleak future world on Cybertron that I had believed myself to have reactivated to is gone. There is only endless blackness around us, like a starless Space. The harsh flaming aura of the Fallen in front of me and the gentle white glow of Matrix from within my chest are the only sources of light. There is nothing else but us in this empty and impossibly black place.
"You are a stubborn one, Optimus Prime," the Fallen's words are dripping with ancient malice, "I tried coaxing through Sideswipe, I tried threatening through Megatron, I tried pleading through Elita One. But still you refused to relinquish your hold of the Matrix!"
My gaze falls briefly to the gentle white glow emanating from my chest.
"The Matrix...?"
The Fallen takes a heavy step toward me. The flaming aura around him intensifies. He raises a blazing hand.
"If I cannot obtain it from you by deception then I will do so by force!"
Suddenly he throws his hand out toward me and releases a stream of fiery energy. Reacting instantly, I roll out of the way.
"How can this be? I deactivated you deca-cycles ago!" I exclaim as I quickly rise to my feet.
A low growl rises from the Fallen's vocaliser.
"Foolish young Prime! Did you really believe that I could be disposed of so easily? I am a PRIME! One of the first! We exist in more forms and ways than you realise! I may be removed from your level of existence, but my spark essence remains, wandering metaphysical planes, able to infiltrate your dreams."
The sensation of rising heat spreads throughout my body.
The Matrix in his grasp, the Fallen raises his lava-red optics toward me.
My mouth opens. Strange words come out.
"The sun burns. Power is mine."
It is not my voice though. It is the Fallen's dark voice coming from my own vocaliser.
"The power of the Primes."
Looking down, the Matrix of Leadership is in my hand now. But my hand is not my own anymore. Burning hot dark talons are clasping the Matrix instead.
In the intricate silver lines of the Matrix, I catch my reflection. My optics are no longer illuminating a blue light; they are fiery red. They are the malevolent optics of the Fallen.
Dropping the Matrix of Leadership, I raise both my hands in disbelief. Veins of red heat are spreading throughout them and all over my body. My internal temperature is rising uncontrollably.
Under the Egyptian sun, the Fallen stands ablaze, fiery energy rising and pulsing from his body, terrible yet amazing to behold.
The unsettling sensations, words and images of that old haunting dream come back to me...
"The dreams, the visions I had of you, ever since the Matrix began calling to me... It still links me to you as it links me to the other Primes," I realise aloud.
The Fallen raises both his hands and an invisible force throws me back abruptly. I crash heavily onto my back. The shock to my systems and sensors incapacitate me for a moment. I groan as I register a dull pain travelling up from the impact on my back. The Fallen's malevolent voice echoes in my audios. His footsteps approach me steadily from a short distance away.
"Your ignorance has left your mind like an open file to me," he rumbles, "I was able to enter your mind undetected whilst you were preoccupied with a vision of the slaughter of your sibling Primes. I accessed your memory banks and learnt of your Autobots followers. Then I constructed a future in which you lost everything, the war, Cybertron, your loved ones. You played right into my hands until the moment you managed to see through the illusion."
His burning red optics appear above me as he comes to lean over me.
"You attempted to manipulate me into giving you the Matrix by creating that...nightmare," I state tonelessly, hardening my gaze.
Looming above me, the Fallen raises a hand of billowing fire. Like an inescapable field of crushing gravity, his invisible telekinetic forces press down on me, pinning me down flat on the ground. He narrows his crimson red optics at me.
"You are still in a nightmare, Optimus Prime, one that you shall not awaken from."
"Ratchet! Something's happening to Optimus!"
The Autobot medic rushed back to his leader's offline body at Elita's urgent call. Jolt looked down from the other side of the repair table.
"He feels like he's getting hotter!" Elita informed in alarm, her small hand pressed against Optimus' face plates.
Ratchet stared down into Optimus' open chest. The Matrix was glowing vibrantly and brighter than before. Underneath it, Optimus' large spark seemed to be pulsing faster and harder as well. Ratchet held his fingers as close to Optimus' spark chamber as he could without touching it. He began to run internal thermo-scans. Watching in trepidation further away, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Lennox and Epps had all fallen into breathless silence.
"His core temperature's rising too quickly!" Ratchet informed rapidly. He looked up speedily at Jolt and Elita. "Jolt, Elita, help me attach some energy dampeners on him! We've got to try and stabilize his core again!"
From Ratchet's arm emerged small disc-shaped devices. He held them out to Jolt and Elita. The three Autobots immediately set to work attaching the devices around Optimus' spark chamber and the Matrix.
"What's going on in there?" Jolt wondered aloud as he glanced down at the increasing vibrancy of the Matrix and Optimus' pulsing spark.
The plates of my battle mask slide over my face. Hot energy runs through my systems as I build a resistant charge to push back against the Fallen's oppressive force holding me down. Slowly, through concentration of my power, I begin to lift the Fallen's gravity upon my body. The Fallen grunts as he strains to keep me down under his telekinetic weight.
"You are learning fast, young Prime," he drops one hand and suddenly brings it up again. I am flung upwards and tossed heavily onto my side, "but not nearly fast enough."
Ignoring the shock of jarring impact to my body, I push myself up onto my hands and knees.
"Whether you want to or not, you shall help me to rise again," the Fallen utters ominously, "I shall be reborn through you."
Though slightly disoriented, I stand again and face the Fallen with clenched fists.
"What do you mean?" I probe.
The Fallen regards me with an unrelenting intensity.
"I will take back from you that which should have been mine millennia ago."
His intense crimson gaze drops to my chest which is glowing softly with the pure light of the Matrix.
"And through its power, I will claim the new vessel for my resurrection...," a malicious smile appears on his thin lips, "...your body."
My optics widen.
My mouth opens. Strange words come out.
"The sun burns. Power is mine."
It is not my voice though. It is the Fallen's dark voice coming from my own vocaliser.
In the intricate silver lines of the Matrix, I catch my reflection. My optics are no longer illuminating a blue light; they are fiery red. They are the malevolent optics of the Fallen.
Cold horror fills me.
"Impossible! You cannot inhabit a body that already carries a spark!" I reprove.
The Fallen's hand closes into a demonstrative fist.
"Then I guess the first spark will have to be crushed to make way for the new one."
From the Fallen's hands, fire shoots down to the black ground and travels like lightning toward me. It encircles me in a wide ring of flames. The Fallen's voice seems to echo from the wall of fire.
"As soon as I take control of the Matrix residing within you, your body will be mine to possess. And your spark will be extinguished!"
His blazing form appears through the fire by my side, taking me by surprise. Hot talons tear through my grilled abdomen as I turn to face him. The searing pain causes me to grasp at my wounded grill. The Fallen lunges at me again. Reacting instantly, I bring up a transparent energy barrier to stop him. I feel the vibrations of his impact as his burning hands slam into it. Bright ripples of violent energy are generated where his talons attempt to penetrate my barrier.
"Your face, your strength, your power will be mine!" he declares, molten red optics burning into mine, "With your image and voice, I could lead your precious Autobots to destruction. With your power, I could burn Earth and other worlds. Everything you love and sought to protect would be annihilated by your own hands!"
"Ne...ver!" I growl as I struggle to maintain my energy barrier against the immense pressure of his power.
"You took my body on Earth, but now I shall take yours!" he snarls, "You will give me life again!"
"His energy readings are still rising fast!" Jolt exclaimed in alarm, "The dampeners aren't working!"
Elita looked up at Ratchet frantically from Optimus' body.
"Ratchet, what's happening to him?!"
Ratchet focused his optics into Optimus' open chest. The white light from the Matrix was growing in intensity, almost merging with the light from the great spark beneath it.
"His systems are drawing energy from the Matrix at an uncontrolled rate!" Ratchet informed disbelievingly, "His body's overheating! I've never seen anything like it!"
"Then we've got to get the Matrix out of him!" Elita exclaimed, throwing her gaze down at the vibrant artefact in Optimus' chest.
Ratchet shook his head quickly.
"We can't! His body's building defences around it! He's not letting anyone near it!"
Ratchet, Elita and Jolt worriedly looked down again to see Optimus' internal parts subtly but noticeably rearranging themselves within his open chest. The Matrix seemed to be drawing its surrounding housing components tighter around itself, pulling wires and fuel lines toward and connecting them to itself. Strands of the Matrix's white energy were crackling through Optimus' circuitry.
"The Matrix is merging itself with his systems," Ratchet explained in a troubled tone, "Removing it now might take Optimus offline permanently."
"Then what can we do?" Jolt asked.
Ratchet paused uncertainly for a moment.
"We'll try and siphon off some of his excess energy." The Autobot medic turned to a box-shaped machine behind him and reached for some cables attached to it. "Hurry! Get these cables plugged in!"
Jolt speedily made his way around the repair table to help Ratchet. Elita moved herself higher up on the horizontal table out of their way. She watched anxiously as Ratchet and Jolt began to attach the siphoning cables into Optimus' chest.
Near the Autobot medical hanger entrance, Bumblebee turned to Ironhide and indicated to the entranceway with his thumb.
"We should...*crk*...wait outside," he said quietly.
The yellow Autobot scout looked down at Lennox and Epps as well and indicated with a tilt of his head for them to start moving out. They nodded obligingly and turned to leave. Bumblebee, Lennox and Epps walked out of the hanger. Ironhide also turned to follow them out, but he cast once last fearful glance back at his leader before striding out.
On the repair table, Elita was gazing in unsettled anxiety at the radiant glare of the Matrix as it continued to intertwine itself tighter into Optimus' internal systems. At its heart, she thought she saw a red flame piercing the pure white light.