The very core of their world was being poisoned.

Orion Pax did not wish to leave the others in order to make this journey. A part of him worried that his absence would be a tipping point; that he would return to find Megatron had seized total control of the fledgling militia and the world itself.

The very core of their world was poisoned and only a portion of that was due to the warfare above it.

Cybertron had been dying for eons.

Not long ago, he had believed the words of a revolutionary and dreamed of a regeneration for this dying world. Now, he acted on the words of someone who had meant to insult him by asking why there was no Prime present to save the collapsing society.

The council had offered the Matrix to him. Alpha Trion had told him to search for it and take on its mantle. Starscream had mocked him for avoiding it and therein making this world suffer in a Prime's absence.

Only then did he go.

He traveled into the Well itself. He saw the erosion and damage from the poisons pumped into the planet in the absence of all that energon taken from it. He saw hopelessness and refused to accept it.

Primus reached for the nobility of a lone archivist. As Orion turned from another set of steps downward, he saw the very spark of his planet- and the lifegiver of his people.

There also was Vector Sigma.

And there also was the golden mantle of the Primes.

The great Allspark and the core of Primus called for him in a language innate to all cybertronians. It carried no sound or word, but it was the Original tongue. Orion comprehended its beckoning even without noticing its soundlessness.

The Matrix hovered downward in its golden glory.

It wanted him.

He was to be a Prime.

The grand council, Alpha Trion, all of them...they had been right. Even still, he could not believe that he, of all those great speakers or leaders or tacticians on Cybertron, would be the best choice.

"Are you certain?" he murmured. The device whirred. It folded smaller and lost none of its mighty presence in doing so. The energy reaching off of it swelled and wrapped around his own energy field. It slid inward to test his spark and found it worthy.

In light of this, Orion Pax opened his spark chamber.

He remembered seeing the Matrix hover near until it had connected to his chamber.

He remembered watching the eye of Primus focus in on him and felt the approval there.

And then Orion felt himself washed and folded away-

His body burned as it expanded.

His spark swelled as it took on the weight of the Matrix.

His mind transformed through added knowledge, collective wisdom, and responsibilities chosen by Primus himself.

Orion Pax submerged under a newborn Optimus Prime.


Eternity dragged out.

His mind was pulled along over memory after memory. Unicron had stopped speaking. Unicron had been forgotten.

Everything had been.

Layer after layer had stacked over as his mind was dragged along agonizing experiences, feelings, beliefs. One memory became a million. A million became far more still. An exponential addition of layers and submersion hid reality. Hid time. Hid identity.

What created the form, the image, the concept, of Megatron shattered somewhere along that way. Pieces crashed apart, fluids spread over distances unreal, an empty spark chamber pulled into shattered bits. The plating fell alone, far from other plating remains, and alone they dissolved. They melted in until they were waste, dripping down, down, down, carving their path through the soil until they dripped free in a mine over the head of a single drone while he dug and dug and never noticed the shadow constantly dripping over his head.

Until there was at once a sickening silence.

The sudden absence of sharing minds made phantom tanks roil nauseously.

Except even that felt too real. He groaned and grabbed at his own gut. It felt far too real.

There were noises around him, but they did not come in eternal layers. They were bearable. They were...

Megatron opened his optics. There was ground beneath him. Real ground. There was a servo poking at his abdomen; his own servo. Although it did not feel as his own should have. He brought it out from under him and stared. The claws were too long, too wide; there were golden, rusty spikes bumping along them. But they were still his own; they belonged to no other mech. This body did not. He had returned from the multitude to the individual.

Then...Unicron..?

He continued to heave upwards. Once upright once more, Megatron fought from wavering on the stop. Everything felt so...empty. Was it this frame's method of adjusting to the absence of its secondary passenger? Or was his mind too broken now to comprehend being alone among itself?

Disgusting.

This frame was disgusting as well. It was not mangled, but it carried Unicron's taint. The corrosion and added bulk weighed it down as reminders of who it belonged to. Of who his spark belonged to. He would have preferred control over a merely mangled form to this.

One of those voices was getting even more shrill. It was approaching.

"Master!" it cried to him.

Of course. Starscream.

Megatron looked to the seeker and saw far more than just one standing mech. He saw millennias of manipulations, molding, joint betrayals, misery; he saw trust crushed and rebuilt into hateful dependency that had long gone both ways.

"Praise the Allspark! Master-" Starscream came nearer, though noticeably far enough to avoid being in reaching distance. Just as he always did. He had done that. He had demanded words like 'master'. He had made this mech by ruining another. "You're alive!"

What was he to say to that? Of course he was alive. He was Megatron! He would never have allowed Unicron to have the lasting word over this frame.

"Indeed." Megatron said instead, inspecting his corroded servos once more.

Starscream drew nearer still.

"Your new battle armor will take things to the next level, my liege!" he exclaimed. How odd that Starscream would find this parasitical change an improvement. This armor was disgusting. "Together, we will reunite all decepticons!"

What decepticons? He had led almost all to their deaths already. They had been among the multitude. Those remaining were likely to be few: just as the few ones near him now were all that had survived from the Nemesis's former crew.

Soundwave was trying to make his way over; the spymaster was littered in enough wounds to make doing so evidently difficult. It seemed wrong that Starscream would greet him before the other gladiator. Those wounds likely were the only reasoning for such. Shockwave was not rushing frantically to him. Dreadwing was holding back, keeping a smaller decepticon behind himself.

Starscream was still talking even as Soundwave painfully reached his leader's side. He tried to take Megatron's arm and prop the other up. It was almost laughable, seeing how much effort it was taking Soundwave just to keep himself upright. Almost. He wished instead that the other would not attempt it. Not after he had led him along into a war that had drained his fractured spark to nothing.

"-and once again grind Cybertron under your mighty heel!"

There was an irony to it. To all of it: to Soundwave's injuries, Shockwave's hesitance, Dreadwing's avoidance, and mostly to how his wayward, unloyal air commander believed so thoroughly in Megatron's vision and leadership when offered just a few scraps of affirmation in return.

Even after attempts to lead him on suicidal missions, undermine his authority, hide mines for himself- Starscream was still the first to excitedly claim full control went to Megatron. He did not ask to lead as a partnership; he did not ask to crush Cybertron under both their heels together.

And he did not realize how revolting such a plan even was.

"No!" Megatron snapped before he had even realized he had done so.

The mere idea of leading, controlling, of once again returning to the source of suffering for innumerable beings...

"What?" Starscream had stumbled backwards. Dreadwing, even as far away as he still was, had bristled his plating outward to cover the smaller decepticon from view even better. Reactions deserved, deserved, it all was deserved- wasn't it?

The autobots were staring now.

He'd worn a memory from each of them. Their optics were something he could not think to meet now.

"Why?" the seeker continued as flatly.

Soundwave's grip on Megatron's arm had tightened imperceptibly.

The autobots continued to stare. The Prime was being held upright by his first lieutenant and medic and yet he was ignoring both in order to look at a fallen warlord.

Megatron tasted the air before he found his own words.

"Because I now know the true meaning of oppression," he spoke in reply to Starscream's question, but the words were meant for Optimus. They were all the Prime had tried for the duration of the war to pry from him. He had never even considered or comprehended them then- after all, he was the meaning of oppression for that era, was he not? It was merely a state of pride.

Or it was a pride until he tasted the boast and discovered how very true it had always been.

"...and have thus lost my taste for inflicting it."

You win, Prime.

You get your victory.


It played out similarly enough that Knock Out could have quoted all the words being said back at the air.

To a point, at least. There were differences in the crowd this time.

Breakdown was alive and near his side. The predacons had flown, evidently exhausted, back out of the Well and crashed down near Shockwave. Soundwave and Shockwave and Dreadwing were all present rather than dead or who knew where. On the friendlier side of things, Ultra Magnus wasn't comatose and Ratchet wasn't busy sitting by the old grump's berth on some hilltop somewhere.

On occasion, he'd rewatched what memories he'd recorded from that big fight. There was something sad but thrilling about watching Optimus's farewell speech. There was just something exciting in general about having been included with the autobots in that last fight and the immediate aftermath.

Then things had gotten awkward, but ah well.

Sadly, things were getting awkward much earlier now.

First came the fact that Optimus had disposed of Unicron with the jar of doom strategy he had last time. It made Knock Out's spark sink, really. After everything he'd come and said to the big guy, he'd still gone ahead and pulled his sacrificial move on them all.

So he supposed that meant he'd be dying soon.

It just wasn't fair.

Second came the uncomfortable amount of not-so-friendly decepticons everywhere. Sure, Megatron had called them off last time, but he'd only had Starscream available then. He most likely was just trying to avoid a fight that he was heavily outnumbered in. It wasn't like he could actually want to avoid fighting autobots or anything. But this time he had a whole lot more backup to even the playing field. Soundwave was trying (and failing, Knock Out had to admit; the silent con may have been tall, but he'd also been trampled by a herd of zombies and was practically falling over himself) to prop Megatron upright. Shockwave was near them. Starscream was looking at the Big M in evident confusion.

Really, the only one that didn't look willing to join the warlord's side was Dreadwing.

Strange enough. But not really interesting enough to focus on for long.

Knock Out went through the script in his mind once again. Megatron had just shut down Starscream's proposal to continue the war and...

Wait, what? Well, there went that theory of his. Not that he was going to complain. There was no fragging way he wanted this stupid war to get prolonged. That hadn't been why he'd come back here at all.

Now Soundwave had twisted his neck at an incredibly awkward angle to look up at the warlord and Shockwave had tilted his own head to one side. Neither were particularly readable, but they still seemed pretty good at portraying a bit of surprise there.

"...You are ending the war?" Shockwave said over Starscream's suggestion that Megatron was traumatized and rambling.

Of course he wouldn't be happy. Without a war, there'd probably be rules and laws and all sorts of things prohibiting his labs from being operational.

No more predacons or combiners or anything of the like.

Thank Primus.

Megatron looked away from his air commander to stare at the scientist.

"The decepticons are no more," he confirmed.

Shockwave leaned back. Soundwave froze up. Megatron easily peeled away from his stationary TIC's attempted help.

There was a highly uncomfortable moment wherein the warlord (former warlord? was someone even allowed to just retire from a position like that?) looked over each of those gathered nearby. When the stare landed on Knock Out and his partner and lingered there, he felt the increasing need to just ditch this scene entirely.

"...and that is final."

Knock Out forced his vents open again in relief. They'd survived whatever that was. They were decepticon traitors, but apparently that didn't matter anymore. Not if their founder was a traitor too.

After the words were said, Megatron shoved away from the decepticons around him and shot into the sky. Soundwave was shaking minutely; he made to follow, but any good (or at the least decent) medic could say that was never going to happen so long as his body looked an inch away from offlining.

Starscream was the next to leave, nervously giving some smile and excuse and flying from the scene. Shockwave had backed away and folded down to drive. It would be easy enough to track him down. The mech had no speed at all to his altmode.

And, from the looks of it, they still had three of the "ultimate autobot hunter"s on their team. Bumblebee could work his charismatic magic and probably get the predacons to round up all AWOL decepticons on the planetside.

The rest remained still. The container with Unicron's anti-spark inside had been picked up by Optimus under one arm. The autobots wordlessly resumed their attempt to gather around him.

"Optimus!" Smokescreen was the first to begin congratulations. "You were- you just showed up and- you were like 'bam' and-"

Bulkhead slapped a servo down on the rookies shoulder with a laugh. "What he said," the wrecker grinned. "You got here just in time."

Arcee was a bit more restrained than either of those two, but she was still smiling. "We couldn't have done it without you."

That was completely true. Unicron apparently had to be beat by mystical means.

Optimus still shook his head minutely.

"You can win battles without me," he replied.

As nice as the vote of confidence was, it did make Knock Out's spark pang in panic. Was this his way of saying goodbye? It had to have been, with the Allspark missing and only one place it could've gone. Dammit Optimus. Dammit.

"I don't think we would've," Bumblebee argued with a smile of his own. "Sure, we had help, but we couldn't have gotten him sucked out of Buckethead like you did."

Finally, someone with an ounce of intelligence.

"Optimus..." Ultra Magnus started up after the words had sunk in for all of the autobot circle. "What can we do to dispose of him now?"

That wasn't quite what Knock Out would've asked (he was rather stuck on the question 'where did the Allspark go?'), but it was a good one regardless. Last time, he was pretty sure it had been buried in some hole with a good set of protections over it. Not ideal, but who had cared about the chaos god when there was some upstart government causing problems?

A frequency of static fritzed into the air. It brought their attention over to the culprit where he was still standing where Megatron had left him. Soundwave's visor flashed; a picture overlaid on top. It looked like a graph of a groundbridge vortex- near another one? seemed like it. What...

"The shadowzone?" Ratchet narrowed his optics. "We hardly know enough of that phenomenon to risk putting Unicron in there."

"I concur," a different voice joined.

The peanut gallery was just really being nosy today, wasn't it? And by that, Knock Out of course referred to the annoying decepticons interrupting a moment of magnitude for the future of Optimus Prime.

"My twin's corpse roams that 'shadowzone' as a mindless undead drone," Dreadwing continued. "If Unicron is the one who controls such abominations..."

He left it hanging. Ratchet was still frowning.

"We never learned whether the shadowzone is a direct parallel of this world or if it exists in pockets unconnected to each other, as the children reported it being" he said. "If it's the latter, then putting Unicron into it in a pocket here could be disconnected from wherever Skyquake is roaming around."

The frown deepened. "Either way, it's too risky. We'll just have to guard it until we think of something."

Soundwave hardly seemed disappointed to have his suggestion shut down. The mute had already turned to limp away.

Just another one to sic Predaking on later, Knock Out supposed. Maybe they could get him locked up again. Or maybe he'd disappear with Megatron, implicated to have flown offworld last time. It was weird enough to watch him offer help in the first place; the medic was good not seeing that- or Soundwave in general- again.

For now-

Someone finally asked the question before he even had the chance to.

"If that's the container for the Allspark," Bulkhead started, pointing at the reliquary where angry purple energy was swirling ineffectually. "-then where's the Allspark now?"

Knock Out felt steeled enough; he supposed now was as good a time as any to find out if Optimus had completely ignored his pleas to stick around in the world of the living.


They gathered further from the spot of Unicron's defeat.

The Well happened to be rather close to that spot. Now, all of those still present stood at its edge with the last of the Primes.

"In order to both protect the Allspark and secure Unicron's defeat, it was necessary for me to empty the vessel's contents," Optimus explained.

He looked over those who were gathered near.

These were the brave, the trusted, the unexpected, who had stood as Cybertron's last defense before his return to the planet. There were no better cybertronians to entrust the future of Cybertron to; this, Optimus knew.

And yet he knew of Knock Out's warnings as well.

"Into where?" Ratchet asked with an edge of suspicion.

The medic was always sharp. His old friend had always been quick to figure out when something was wrong; Optimus could not help but grieve preemptively for Ratchet's inevitable upset.

"Into the Matrix of Leadership."

And there it was- the hurt. It flashed over Ratchet's face.

Optimus did not allow himself time to dwell long on it.

"As such," he spoke again, "the Matrix can no longer be separated from the Well of Allsparks."

Had it not been for the forge, it would have been his very spark that would not have been able to be separated.

His spark would have joined with the multitude and his body would have crumbled in its absence.

Yet Optimus Prime's persona was tied intrinsically with the Matrix. While his body would not crumble without it, it would not be him who sat in its helm once the Matrix was relinquished.

And that was realized as well.

"Optimus!" Ratchet took a step closer. "Without the Matrix, you won't be- you won't be you."

The break in the medic's voice stung Optimus deeply. But he was, for this moment still, a Prime. They lived behind a veil of dissociated professionalism. As painful as his companion's emotions were to witness, he still would take the actions that were best for all cybertronians.

For now, he knew.

How odd it would be to lose that veil.

"Our war is over, Ratchet." Optimus looked at him gently. "Now is a time for peace. A peacetime government must be established."

Knock Out began to splutter.

"B-but you should lead it!" he argued. "You should at least be a part of it! Don't let the world forget you."

Not this time.

"I have taken precautions," Optimus told him and all those others nearby. "This will not progress as it did after I used the Matrix in the Earth's core. My memories and experiences will be retained by that whom I become after relinquishing the mantle of Primehood. Optimus Prime will live on through those."

In a sense, at the very least. And he knew that his own memories and experiences would never allow the mech he would become to stand aside and let a hostile government hunt his autobots down.

"That won't make him you," Ratchet said desperately. "I didn't go through all this today just to lose the life I care about the most."

In many circumstances, the medic tried not to reveal his own affections. He acted bristled and blunt and almost apathetic in some situations. It was a wartime survival tactic. It preserved his own sanity. It broke apart now for all those to see.

And still that could not stop him.

"The war is over," he repeated with a shake of his head. "I am a Prime: I am a leader of warriors, not governments. And I am eager for time away from fighting."

There was little wonder that his alternative self had taken the Allspark into his spark without those precautions. But he had not allowed that option. Instead, Optimus would search for a different peace; he would fade under the presence of Orion Pax once more and allow the former archivist to face the complications of a peacetime world.

"Hold up." Arcee lifted a servo with a frown of her own. "How do you know this would let you survive? I don't think we can afford your death right now. Not with Megatron back."

There was a request in there too.

Perhaps if he had not complicated matters by forging the Matrix, he would have leapt into the Well by now. Perhaps that would have allowed him to avoid these questions and sparkbreaks and flaws in his own plan for escaping his exhaustion.

"Optimus Prime was once Orion Pax," he replied. "The process was reversed once, after I used the Matrix of Leadership on Unicron's anti-spark on the day of alignment; such a reversal was unprecedented. But it was done regardless."

He looked up over the others, over the crashed warship, over the planetside itself at the stars beyond- and then he spoke on.

"The Matrix was built around the idea of personal transformation. A mortal cybertronian will transcend themself by taking on the Matrix of Leadership. It will not only change their body; it transforms the mind and spark."

Optimus looked back to all those gathered near him. He was so very proud of each one. He was so very proud of all those who had given their lives to allow these few to see this victory.

"In that sense, the Age of Primes was one characterized by this transformation. Mechs and femmes found the mantle and sacrificed their own individuality to be remade. Once the Matrix is accepted, their original self will, in essence, die and a independent figure will be built out of their most prevailing qualities."

The war could not be excused. But the fruit it bore could still be commended.

All of these before him had been tested, molded, and ultimately transformed by how the war met and clashed with their own ideals. The Age of Primes was merely an analogue for those brave persons like the ones before him now. Its end was not one to mourn, but one long coming. There was no need for analogy anymore. There was no need to give a crutch to the many who were not Primes in ceremony but were at spark.

"A Prime is an extreme of ideals and traits mixed with the duty to protect Primus and the collective wisdom of all those before them to help guide them towards what decisions would be best for their people. One individual is sacrificed and replaced with a unity of knowledge and experience. Each that takes the mantle on understands that they will never again live as they were."

When Orion Pax had accepted the Matrix, there had been fear. It was subdued and pushed under questionings on worth and wonderings if he would be an acceptable Prime, but it had still been present. No one was immune to even the slightest of fears when faced with their own end.

By accepting the Primehood, Orion Pax had stepped aside, sunk into a state of slow existence, and allowed Optimus Prime to rise. By accepting the Allspark into the Matrix, Optimus had made peace with his own inevitable fading just as Orion had once of his.

"They accept this sacrifice. They accept this reality. They show themselves before Primus to be one willing of the greatest transformation."

It was too much for many to bear. And so it was that many would never be faced with the option at all.

The Ages of Primes was a great time- an era of greatness- a history to be proud of-

but it was one that excluded many of the worthy in order to choose but one.

One that would be faced with changes and accept those transformations rather than touting rigidity.

"A Prime is a leader, but also a culmination of willingness to adapt. While my actions today have spelled an end to the Age of the Primes, leadership can be earned: with or without the Matrix. And in my view, you have each acted as a Prime."

They were all silent now. There were no protests vocalized. Each was watching him with rapt attention. He gave them a gentle smile and continued his praise.

"You have displayed leadership; bravery; heroism; sacrifice. I ask now that you be willing to adapt as well."

There was little choice; the Allspark must be returned to the Well.

But he did not desire for them to mourn his parting in this world. It was a strange farewell to give. It asked them to see his very frame moving around them in their everyday lives whilst knowing that he was not the mind inside. Not in full.

Orion Pax had retained his existence through phantom emotions and shared values. Optimus believed he would exist on in much the same manner- and, in that, his family here could catch a glimpse of the familiar and how he did live on.

"This is not the end," he offered them a smile. "Though I will not remain Optimus Prime, my memories and experiences will be retained. I believe that we shall all meet again, in little ways and moments."

He inclined his head in Ratchet's direction. The medic looked no less devastated.

"Do not lament my absence. This change is not a farewell. It is merely a new beginning."

The Prime tried to smile again.

"Simply put: another transformation."

With that, he took his last look at those he called his dearest companions and then faced the expanse of the Well. Optimus opened his chestplates. The Matrix- or that which he had irreversibly changed the Matrix into- disconnected with his chassis and spark rapidly.

It dropped into the Well. He dropped to a knee. As he felt the veil lifting and his own self slipping beneath anothers, he was still able to watch the light bloom deep within the Well. It flared softly once and then bloomed brighter, larger- it rose up from the core swiftly until its mass of light became unique strands of colors.

A million sparks- a million voices- a million lives.

Life on Cybertron would burn once again.

And that made any personal sacrifice worth it.