Please forgive the huge delay in posting this chapter. I won't bore you with the details of my severe health issues and losing my job earlier this year, but things are better now. This chapter has been a long time coming!
Red energy scythes collided with the white energy blade, causing a shockwave blast that shook the entire laboratory, but neither opponent faltered. Far away in another section of the planet, the battle was being keenly watched by hidden observers. Silently looking on, they had every confidence in Kālī's ability to destroy Sari.
"You are a fool, Sari," said the purple Technorganic. "You can't win; I have all of your abilities, and then some." Kālī jumped and spun, landing with a loud shout over Sari, energy scythes criss-crossed and slashing over the Cyber Ninja's head. But just as they were to make contact, there was a white flash, and Sari disappeared! Kālī landed with an awkward thud on the floor. "What?!"
"I'm here, Kālī," she said, standing nearby, energy blade out.
"You...you can't do that!" Yelled Kālī, "I turned your warping power off!"
"Little problem you have," Sari responded. "Since our last battle, I've learned how to respond in kind! I can turn off your abilities, with Processor Over Matter - or did you neglect to factor that in?"
The observers watching turned to each other, contemplating this development. A recognition: the Kālī they enhanced is not, as they had assumed, a clone of the Sari now before them, but a clone of an older Sari.
This Sari must have somehow been rebuilt - "reborn" - with much more advanced capabilities - but how?
Now it was Sari's turn at agression. Left side back, right side facing her enemy, a confident smirk crossed her face as she raised her blade slightly at Kālī. "En garde!" She yelled.
"En...what?!" said Kālī in reply, her face in a scowl.
"Fencing. Oh dear! Did the Creators neglect to teach you that?" She mocked. "I was taught by a master - Dai Atlas. Now - you see my position?" She gestured with her free servo. "This is called "En garde".
"It looks ridiculous!" Kālī sneered.
"Not at all, Kālī. Fencing is all about economy of motion, making as few movements as possible to accomplish a task. So, from this position, I can do a LUNGE!" And extending her right pede forward, Sari thrust her blade suddenly at her opponent, catching her off guard, stabbing her in the chassis.
"Ow! You BITCH!" she yelled back, and attacked maniacally with her scythes.
"Ah ha! An attack!" Smiled Sari. Now, to demonstrate another technique." And twisting down, she dropped her body just as a scythe came across. Placing her free servo on the floor, she used the opportunity to straighten her blade arm up, and once again stab the purple Technorganic, this time in her armpit, yelling "Passata Sotto!"
Screaming in pain, Kālī yelled "Shut up! I've had it with these stupid words of yours!" And switching to her chainsaws, she came charging straight at the Cyber Ninja, who once again warped away with a white flash.
"Coward!" She screamed, "Stay in one place!"
"A coward, Kālī?" Sari continued calmly, "or am I merely adapting to your tactics?" From behind, she continuing her fencing attacks. "Allez!" she yelled, advancing against her opponent with masterful strokes, energy blade painting arcs in the air as she repelled and diverted each of Kali's attacks, stabbing her at every opportunity, all the while infuriating her opponent more and more.
Back on Earth, Megatron and Optimus were listening to the strange alien, the messenger of a race known only as 'Thieves', explaining the Technorganics' true purpose: That the Creators had manufactured them to be killing machines to annihilate them all.
Optimus asked a completely normal question. "What do the Creators want our annihilation for?"
The Thief explained. "It's not your race they seek to destroy, actually."
Megatron, growing impatient, growled. "Then explain yourself, otherwise I am returning to my troops and have them armed to give our retribution to Kālī and her masters."
The Thief continued like he hadn't been interrupted. "The Creators seek to destroy all life that is not their own."
A stunned silence followed, from both the present Cybertronians and everyone listening through them.
"They believe only they have the right to exist in Creation. That all other life-forms, from every Universe, are inferior and must be exterminated." the Thief paused and raised an thin, elongated arm to the sky. Suddenly, the clouds parted away, racing toward the horizon until the entire visible sky became an enormous projection. The projection then somehow presented an image to the observers that enabled them to view the entire cosmos at once. Optimus gave a small gasp; these Thieves must have been an incredibly ancient and powerful race to be able to accomplish this.
He continued: "Beyond the stars unknown to Cybertronians and other adolescent races, the Creators have already destroyed a billion species, old and young alike, and continue to destroy billions more."
Back on the Creator's planet, Sari and Kālī continued their battle. The White Skystriker continued to infuriate the purple Technorganic with her taunting, keeping her off balance psychologically and physically. Using every fencing technique she learned from Master Dai Atlas, Sari parried and feinted with her energy sword, leading Kālī back toward a wall.
In a final move, Sari did a thrust, but Kālī jumped backwards. "Fool! You thought I'd fall for that move? I…"
However, at the same moment that Kālī jumped back to the wall, Sari warped with a white flash into the wall! Only her servo stuck out, and the second her opponent made contact, she released the energy sword, piercing Kālī's back until it came out front - piercing her Spark Chamber!
Kālī looked down in shock to see the sword coming out of her body, her Spark leaking Energon. In the next instant, Sari warped back in front of her, sword now positioned in the opposite direction, through her chamber and out the back. The Cyber-Ninja glared at her silently, in self-righteous anger.
Kālī reached weakly and grabbed Sari's arms, in a vain attempt to push her away to retract the sword. "You...cannot...defeat...me…" she said in vain, before her optics went dark, arms falling lifeless to their side.
Sari retracted her sword, and Kālī fell to the ground, optics dark, chassis gray.
Suddenly, the Technorganics began to stir. Their helms quivered, as they struggled to recover from the grip of the virus installed in their systems. The first to free himself was Jack. His optics brightened and blinked, and he looked around, disoriented. Finally his focus centered on Sari.
"Sensei…? Where…? What…?" He looked at his Captain standing over the collapsed gray body of Kālī, and confused, surveyed the surroundings.
"Welcome back, Jack," she replied. "This has been an incredible journey. You and the others have been under the influence of a virus implanted by Kālī."
This same moment on Earth, The Thief continued his tale. Standing up fully, he extended both hands. "It is time you learn of a history of terror."
Something sparked in Megatron's and Optimus' processors. Not only theirs, but the processors and minds of Autobots, Decepticons and humans who had been listening to the exchange. Each saw images and memories of a time long, long, long gone; of a lost past.
A planet of continents filled with yellow vegetation and gray oceans. Needless to say, none of the spectators knew what it was.
And the voice of the Thief resonated: "The Creators were the very first sentient race in the Universe, born on a galaxy that has scattered into atoms and atomic particles eons ago. They started out as any organic species, evolving from animals into sentient beings, building a civilization, killing each other in senseless wars and advancing their technology until they reached the stars."
The shared vision zoomed in on the alien, living planet. They all saw a small humanoid sitting by the margin of a gray river. The creature appeared to be a child - whether male or female was hard to tell - red skinned and hairless. Despite its alien nature, it looked no more ominous than a human boy or girl.
"Do not let yourselves be fooled by this appearance. The Creators long ago abandoned this natural form. Billions upon billions of years past, before Earth or Cybertron were spawned, the Cosmos was still young, nubile, with faint signs of life. Therefore, these primeval Creators spent dozens of millennia searching for life beyond the sea of ancient stars, to no avail."
June had to recognize the irony. Nowadays, Earth had been visited by life hailing from more than one planet. Autobots, Decepticons, Technorganics, Denebians, Regulans and others. Even life from another dimension.
"Millennia passed and the young Creators gave up on their searches and conformed themselves with the idea that they were alone in all of Creation. In reality, they were not, for far away from their birth galaxy, other fledgling races began to be born. We, the Thieves, were the second-born sentient race."
This didn't come as much of a surprise to Optimus. Only a being from a race almost as old as the Universe could wield the power and have attained the seemingly infinite age this 'Thief' has demonstrated.
"Over time, the young Creators had become used to - perhaps even basked in - the idea that they were unique and alone. This belief, coupled with their technologically advanced society, made them believe they were like Gods; the only thinking arrangement of molecules that could reshape the Universe to their whim. Which is understandable since the only life-forms they could compare themselves too were the animals and plants on their homeworld."
"So these Creators are a race of delusional, senile organics who fed themselves the idea they were superior because they crawled into existence first?" Megatron didn't know if he should growl or laugh at that.
"It's hardly that simple, Megatron of the Cybertronians. For a great part of their young existence, the primeval Creators believed they were alone in the Universe. Until they developed the technology to quick travel between galaxies. And when they were scouting and mapping another one, they stumbled upon another space-ferrying race, one that, unlike them, was still bound to their birth galaxy."
"Your race." Optimus deduced.
"Quite so. Our own ancestors had not yet found alien life, but were still hopefully searching. The first contact was made, our ancestors were shocked yet exhilarated to discover alien life. The Creators, in stark contrast, were horrified. It was a world-shattering event that practically defied all their beliefs of their own uniqueness and superiority."
Megatron smirked. He just loved when some self-righteous scrap-eater got served to swallow their own arrogance.
"Over the centuries, more and more burgeoning sentient races made their appearance and the Creators found their culture and believes even more threatened. The problem with them was, after growing up in the image that they were alone and special, the discovery of alien intelligence was deemed an insult to them.
"Eventually, the insult led to isolationism. The Creators retreated into their world, refusing to have contact with any other alien civilization. This period of isolationism lasted for so long it became rooted into their collapsing culture. They hoped if they ignored the Universe, the Universe would let them be."
"It's never that simple." Optimus said, simple but wise.
"Indeed. The isolation fostered arrogance and ignorance. Those were the feelings that germinate hostility. And that hostility grew into the very first war between alien lives."
The younger beings now saw the vacuum of space being lighted up in fire and radiation as a fleet of dark purple ships mowed down several fleets of less technological ships. It was a massacre, each enemy of the dark purple vessels became a ball of fire, given no chance to surrender.
"It was in this primordial conflict sparked by the Creators extreme xenophobic propaganda that the first attempt of genocide was made. One of the youngest species of that time, whose name has been forgotten by our ancestors, was eradicated. Whether this was an unforeseen result or the goal of the Creators, we are not sure.
"But the Creators had become so obsessed in their creed that the Universe was exclusively theirs to have and experience and that every other species that followed was a trespasser, that their entire civilization and culture shifted and corrupted to spin around that purpose. Their insane quest to cleanse all of existence of said trespassers was their one purpose of existence.
"And for most of the history of the Universe, the Creators have been attempting to wipe out all that came to be after them, all through several means."
The Thief stopped talking, giving time for them to register the bombshell of information.
Optimus, level-headed as always, was the first to collect his thoughts and ask:
"How can they be stopped?"
The illusion ended and everyone who telepathically attended the cosmic history lesson found themselves back in their places. Humans and Autobots in Area 51, Decepticon command staff on New Kaon and the respective leaders by the Thief at the summit location.
"Can your people fight these creatures? Don't you have any allies?" Optimus kept the questions polite and restrained, but behind them was a tumor of despair. If a primeval god-like species, virtually as old as the Big Bang, was out there for eons destroying worlds and species older and more powerful than the Cybertronians, what chance could they have?
"Since the Creators began their omnicidal campaign, billions of years ago, our species had been allied with our ancient compatriots. Tragically, all of our oldest allies have been exterminated over the eons of war. More often than not, the elders have had to sacrifice themselves for the young to live."
The Thief grimly continued. His tone, previously omnipotent, now sounded heavy and weary:
"Over the eons, we have met and saved many species from the Creators' senseless wrath and brought them to our safe haven planets, galaxies safeguarded and out of the Creators' reach. Those races grew and evolved, until they voluntarily joined our fight. But not every time were we successful in safeguarding life."
Megatron crossed his arms. "You speak of your mission, but you fail to explain exactly how the technorganics fit into this?"
"The Creators invented many ways to wipe out life, weapons of nightmarish proportions that could automatically sterilize clusters of thriving planets in such horrifying fashion that your minds could never realize it was possible. We have halted all of these attempts from causing a Universal death.
"Recently, they decided to use more subtle means. Building smaller, inconspicuous weapons but with just as much destructive power."
The mortals all reacted in different ways, with varying levels of subtlety. They all had come to the same conclusion when the Thief mentioned 'smaller, inconspicuous weapons'. Megatron frowned while Optimus' optics widened. Starscream flinched and Shockwave hummed. June gasped, Miko muttered disbelief and Fowler swore imaginatively.
The Thief sensed their understanding. "Now you see. The Creators developed the Technorganics for the very purpose of sending them across the cosmos as a mix of super-soldiers and weapons of mass destruction. They applied their most advanced technology to make the ultimate culmination of organic and technological. One Technorganic would suffice to render a single planet sterile. This was their plan, had we not intervened and acquired the Technorganic prototypes before they could be beta-tested."
"There is one fact that does not fit." Optimus opined. "The Creators see all life as unworthy of existence, yet they created living beings as weapons. That, I see, is going against their own philosophy."
The Thief turned to him. "Not at the beginning, Optimus Prime of the Cybertronians. The Technorganic sparklings have a programing that enables them to learn and mold their personality by absorbing information in the early stages of development. The Creators planned to put the protoforms through a hypnotic trance after activating them. This trance would drill into their systems that they were tools incapable of self-awareness, designed to kill everything barring the Creators themselves. Making them perfect weapons incapable of revolting because they wouldn't believe themselves to be able to choose otherwise.
"When we learnt of this, we ultimately decided to steal the protoforms rather than just destroy them. After we had the protoforms, we ravaged the planet where they were developed."
Back in Area 51, Agent Fowler asked in frustration:
"That's great and all, but why did you send them to our planet?"
The answer came like the Thief was right beside him.
"It was nothing personal, William Fowler of the Humans. It was never our intention to lure the Creators' attention to your world.
"Because the protoforms were programmed to learn and develop early, we deduced that if they were educated to be sentient beings who fight to protect life, they could be our soldiers. But then, that would make them nothing more than automatons; if the Creators captured them, it would be just a matter of reprogramming. So it was decided that, in order to protect life, life had to be appreciated. And for life to be appreciated, it had to be experienced."
"Then why didn't you teach them, yourselves?" Megatron quirked an eyebrow.
"We are old." again that weary tone returned. The tone of a person exhausted after a long day of work. "Despite being locked in this war for billions of years, we have seen and experienced everything the Universe has to give. We are old souls of an age long past that still cling. The Creators are the same; where we fight to preserve life, they fight to destroy it. But neither of us experiences it, anymore.
"We no longer live, we merely exist."
"So you needed a young species to teach the protoforms how precious life is." Optimus concluded. "But why didn't you choose one of the species in your care?"
"Our young protégées are aware of the Creators and we didn't want to raise the protoforms where they would know of their predestined purpose. Also the Creators would be targeting us and eventually they would know their project still existed."
June moved uncomfortably.
"Therefore, we located a distant, insignificant homeworld in a distant, insignificant galaxy, far away from us and the Creators - this Earth. Since our enemies were more focused on eliminating us, and most importantly, they thought we had destroyed the protoforms, we covertly envoyed them to this planet. More specifically, to humans whom we deemed morally balanced to raise the protoforms as their own offspring. By our theory, if they were raised with morals and codes of protecting and enjoying life, they would mature to protect it.
"And the experience was a success."
"And Sari?"
"The one called Sari Sumdac was one we selected apart, opted to send her to an Earth on another dimension. Merely a safe attempt to keep one of the protoforms even more distant from her masters. They can break through the fabric of reality into other dimensions, but they would never know where to look, specifically."
Megatron chose that moment to scof. "You call your experience a success, yet Kālī abducted your so-called 'soldiers of life' right beneath your sights."
"We watched these events from afar. The Creators maintained their connection to Kālī very well concealed. We have gathered that they managed to find her in the timeless split-dimension where she was imprisoned. They must have recognized her genetic and technological blueprint as a copy of one of their long-lost projects. Through her, they learned their weapons still existed and where they were."
"Had Kālī not been cloned, and had she not been thrust into that half-dimension, the Creators might never have learned of the Technorganics, unfortunately."
After briefing him on what had transpired, Sari and Jack went and checked on all the Technorganics, making sure they were free of Kālī's virus. The observers had been watching all of this unfold from afar, dismayed at how this could have happened. This was not how it was to be! Where did this Sari come from? If she was not one of their creations, then whose?
"Where are we, Cap?" Asked Ben. "This looks like some mad scientist's lab."
"You're not far off, Ben," she replied. "We're far from home, and quite frankly, I'm not sure how we're getting back."
Two things of course, need to be answered: what will the Creators do with Sari and the Technorganics; and what next for the Thief and his audience with those on Earth? We shall see.