A/n: Hello everyone sorry for the long update I've been busy with college and work and I managed to write this chapter before Christmas consider this an early Christmas present from me to you all, I do hope you enjoy this chapter

At the High Council chamber

Investigators would later determine, from a detailed analysis of disruptions in the Grid, that the string of synchronized explosions that ripped through Six Lasers, Uraya, Polyhex, Stanix, Blaster City, and several sites in the Sonic Canyons took place less than a cycle apart.

"It is clear that these attacks were carried out at the behest of the criminal gang leader and underground gladiator who calls himself Megatron," stated High Councilor Halogen as the rest of the High Council looked on. Halogen was the longest-serving member of the Council. His district included Blaster City and the entirety of the Badlands. For more orbital cycles than any Cybertronian cared to remember, he had agitated to annex the Hydrax Plateau and its lucrative spaceport to his district. For this reason, few Cybertronians tended to believe anything he said, on the grounds that anything he said concealed an agenda that would eventually lead to an attempt at that annexation.

In Blaster City, an armaments factory filled a steel canyon, its exhaust portals and smokestacks coming just level with the surface. Once raw materials were mined out of the canyon; then when they were exhausted, the factory was built in the space they left behind. When the bomb went off, attached to a reservoir containing plasma fuel for the arc torches used in the construction of highly heat-tolerant weapon barrels and magazines, observatories on Moon Bases One and Two recorded a flash that momentarily whited out their lenses directed at that portion of Cybertron.

From the ground, it looked as if a column of energy had erupted from the canyon, reaching toward the sky and spreading into a torus of expanding heat and light. Bits of debris as small as the casing of a conduit junction and as large as the entire cooling stack, which had until that moment stood radiating away the heat from a small fusion reactor, rained down across multi-hics of Badlands and the unfortunate Cybertronians who happened to be working, scheming, or just passing through.

In Blaster City, Sparks were cheap. No one cared about life or death. And no one knew how many Cybertronians disappeared when the armaments factory vaporized.

The people who watched did know one thing, though. Cybertron's Council militias had just lost an important source of munitions.

Orion POV

When I heard about the attack right way Megatron called me though a secure Grid link. I had tested myself using the security apparatus available to me in the Hall of Records… and then Megatron had put Soundwave to work adding another layer of security. "If you ever need something hidden, or need something to disappear," Megatron said, "Soundwave is the bot you should talk to."

"I'll keep it in mind," I reply as Kurama was rubbing against my pedes trying to settle my nerves, as I got the reports of the bombs started to flood the Grid.

"By the AllSpark," I swore. "What is this?"

On the videolink, I watched as Megatron registered the events. Then I turned back to face the link. "Orion Pax," he said. "It is time for me to speak out. Cybertron must know that this is not how our movement will operate, and they need to know it now. You are in Iacon, correct?" I nodded. "I need an open channel, one that cannot be interrupted. I need it to feed to all of the caste aggregators and directly to the Council's group input. Can you do this?"

Before Megatron spoke up, I was constructing the necessary parameters. Legally this task belonged to one of the programming castes, not my own data caste, but I was coming to full realization of just what my actions already meant for my existence within the caste system.

"It's done," I said, and opened the link for Megatron. Then I watched as, for the first time, Megatron stepped out the shadows and into the public consciousness of Cybertron.

"I had nothing to do with these attacks, but I do not deny the possibility that the Cybertronians who carried them out were partly inspired by my belief that every Cybertronian has the right to self-determination." Megatron swept a powerful arm in an arc over the assembled crowd, taking in a cross-section of castes and occupations. "I pity the loss of life, but how many of those who died took pleasure from watching me fight for my life in the gladiatorial pits below Kaon? How many other Cybertronians died for their pleasure? Now those Cybertronians, whose lives were your pleasure, are telling you that they reclaim their lives! No Cybertronian shall tell any other Cybertronian what can and cannot be done!"

Megatron was in control of a much larger network than I had understood. This was a situation I he had not expected… had Megatron choreographed the entire thing because I was in Kaon, on Megatron's home territory, to witness it from the inside?

"I am Megatron. I lead all those who choose to follow me, and I repudiate all those who perform despicable acts in my name. I do not fight with bombs but with logic. I do not believe in killing, but in the arena of ideas. Let the perpetrators of these attacks feel the full weight of Cybertronian justice." Megatron stepped closer to the feed, his visage filling the frame as his expression grew cold and menacing. "If I find them first, my justice will be swifter and more final."

The Sonic Canyons were said—by some of the more pious and conservative Cybertronians—to be the ears of Primus, his means of keeping track of events in the universe his creations inhabited. The great multiversal computer, Vector Sigma, was popularly said to be installed in those canyons as well, although it had been long orbital cycles since any Cybertronian had directly interacted with Vector Sigma. Most of them did not know for certain that Vector Sigma was still active or functional—or had ever existed.

A series of explosions tore through the far northwest terminus of the canyons, where, legend had it, an ancient entrance to Vector Sigma's interface had once existed. No one, initially, could be certain whether it was an attempt to collapse the venerable computer or a forced entry into the interior of the Canyon walls.

In other words, was someone trying to destroy Vector Sigma or access it? Or what else might be inside the Sonic Canyons that only a bomb might reveal? In the chaotic aftermath of the explosions, all possibilities were on the table. Even those who knew for a fact that Vector Sigma was housed in the subsurface expanse built below Iacon listened to the conspiracy theories with interest.

Across the Grid, the upper classes twittered in outraged tones. Was nothing sacred? What did these scum desire, that they would strike at the very foundations of what made Cybertron Cybertron?

This Megatron, they said. He was behind it, no doubt about that. We've heard enough about him to know.

The Council should do something.

This Megatron, he should be in prison. Next, it'll be the resorts he destroys, or the museums, or the Hall of

Or, perhaps, we would all be better off if he were dead.

These where the many thoughts of the cybertronians I knew this to be a fact, but I couldn't stand by any longer I hacked into the media feed using a priority code from the Hall of Records. "This is Orion Pax," I said. "I am a data miner at the Hall of Records in Iacon, working under Alpha Trion himself. And I am here to testify that Megatron is not responsible for what is happening."

The data channels around me exploded with feedback. In that instant, I ceased my former existence as a simple data clerk and was reconstituted as outlaw/terrorist/revolutionary/crackpot. What I heard and saw over the feedback channels—before he instructed the Grid to isolate and focus on the Councilmoderated lines of communication—shocked him.

The moment he spoke in support of Megatron, I might as well have been Megatron. In the public view of Cybertron, me/Orion Pax and Megatron were now the co-leaders of the movement that was setting off lethal explosions all over the

"No," I said. "I have known Megatron. I did not do this. Neither did I. All of you must listen. You must understand."

In the back of my mind I could hear Megatron saying: They will never understand because they do not care to understand. As long as their situation is better than ours, understanding is the last thing they want.

I hoped this would not turn out to be true.

Around me, Soundwave and Shockwave and Megatron's other lieutenants watched. An observer might have noted that they looked less than thrilled to have an outsider taking such an active role. I, in fact, noted this as well. Was there a way to handle it, to change it? I thought that the best thing I could do was prove myself capable. I did not care to be liked by Megatron's lackeys. I cared to be respected. I cared for the good opinion only of those who deserved my good opinion, and those who believed in what was right.

Third person view

At Six Lasers Over Cybertron, the favorite roller coaster was the Plasma Curve. Lines for it extended around the entire setup of girders on which the magnetic coaster rails sat, conducting cars at speed and gravitational forces sufficient to leave riders dizzy and delirious enough to want to ride again. There were seventy-one of these girders, sunk into the surface of Cybertron and anchored with welded bolts.

As Orion Pax created the channel for Megatron's first communication to the Cybertronian public, another feed exploded across the Grid, spilling across a giant screen in the pyramid's interior.

Thirty-six Minicons, their polished frames glinting in the garish light of the coaster's signs and logos, scattered across the bases of the girders. They formed two concentric circles, one spaced around the outside girders and the other clustered near the center of the Plasma Curve's course. Above them the track whined and groaned as the next set of cars whipped through the first turn. Waiting Cybertronians looked up, ignoring the Minicons. All they thought about was their turn on the Curve.

Then, simultaneously, the thirty-six Minicons detonated thirty-six fusion bombs. The enormous steel edifice of Plasma Curve collapsed in a blinding flash of unleashed energy and mangled Cybertronians. As it hit the ground, its riders—coming into fatal contact with the intense electromagnetic energies on the tracks— exploded as if they, too, had carried bombs.

It was this scene that Megatron spoke over, and Orion Pax knew no one would hear.

The truth would not matter.

Yet still, he thought. It matters to me. I will fight for it. I—perhaps I alone—can make them see.

"I have to return to Iacon," said Orion Pax.

Megatron clasped his shoulder. "Do not leave angry, brother. What has happened was the will of Primus— else it would not have happened. We are the vessels of our Creator's will, are we not?"

"We have our own will," Orion Pax said. "The code of Primus is what guides us to know when we should and should not exercise it."

The two Cybertronians looked at each other. "We are friends," Megatron said. "We will do great things together. But we must also realize that once we set events in motion, they will not always unfold according to our plans. That, too, is the nature of free will, is it not?"

"It is." Orion Pax admitted this reluctantly, feeling somehow cheated of the chance to make an important point because of the way Megatron had framed the discussion.

This was the great orator's gift. Megatron, the champion gladiator, had been rousing crowds since early in his career. Orion Pax, the peerless data clerk, had never needed to. He resolved then and there to pay closer attention, and to learn his own set of oratorical skills. Megatron could not always be allowed to speak for him, or for his ideas about the movement they were spearheading together.

The central settlement of Polyhex looked out from the flank of the ancient fortress of Darkmount. A plume of magma rose from Cybertron's interior here, creating what the locals knew as the Upper Pool, in a caldera around which the bulk of Darkmount had been built. Once that fortress had protected the natural smelter from the primitive life forms spun off from the initial creation of the Cybertronians. These malformed vehicles of dying Sparks clustered around the molten Lower Pool until they were destroyed and their bits of Spark returned to the Well of AllSparks. Now the Darkmount fortifications were a ruin—albeit an inhabited one, which clustered around the Upper Pool—and the Lower Pool was the focus of a small settlement of artisan manufacturers. They used its endless heat to fuel their works, which in turn adorned the living spaces of the higher castes.

Farther from the smelting pools, some of the more adventurous high-caste Cybertronians built their dwelling places on the opposite side of the valley from Darkmount. These were the lovers of art, the dilettantes, the socialites who drew the admiration of other socialites by living in remote areas and rocketing in alt-form from party to party in Cybertron's great cities.

In between them and the fortress itself, at the head of the valley, was the city of Polyhex. The bomb that went off there destroyed a cliff face that collapsed in a slow-motion cascade into the Lower Pool, carrying a number of outrageous homes with it. The casualties were few, but of prominent castes. Among them was the renowned artist Chromatron, who died in the middle of creating a projection model of Megatron, whose face he had seen for the first time on a Grid feed the day before.

Megatron watched Orion Pax go. "Brother," he said, knowing Orion Pax could not hear. "You must understand that I did not wish this. The world looks different from the bottom of the pits than it does from the stacks in the Hall of Records."

Behind him, Soundwave and Shockwave stood silently until the great door of the pyramid had boomed shut behind Orion Pax. Then Soundwave said, "Should I have him followed?"

Stanix was one of the radial nodes in the great architecture of information that Cybertronians had for gigacycles called the Grid. Feeding from the central servers and the great pool of data at the Hall of Records in Iacon, each node served as a backup and distribution point for communications that did not need approval or routing through the central processors.

The node itself was built into a crenellated ridge at the eastern edge of the city of Stanix itself. Above it sat the forbidding Fort Scyk, a training site for the Council militias and local civil-defense regiments. It was at Fort Scyk where the first generals of the militia had conceived of the idea of formalizing the castes.

And it was at Fort Scyk where a bomb destroyed the headquarters of the current militia magistrate. His name was Gauntlet. He took pride in the history of the site, and in the history of the militias of Stanix. He was a believer in caste and had never considered a life outside the military caste into which he had been channeled the moment he emerged from the Well of AllSparks.

Gauntlet had observed the initial classified communications from Iacon about this Megatron character. He was one more low-caste malcontent looking to disrupt a system that had served Cybertron well since time immemorial. That was Gauntlet's firm opinion. He was waiting for the Council to reach the same conclusion and to take direct action against the cesspool of crime that Kaon and the Badlands were becoming.

He looked forward to taking part in those actions. Gauntlet's singular regret in his existence thus far was that he had never seen large-scale combat.

The bomb, carried by an anonymous Minicon, detonated just below the parade-ground reviewing stand on Field Rho, in the northwest comer of Fort Scyk. It blew that comer of the fort out and down the side of the ridge. Its electromagnetic pulse caused cascading failures in the Grid node located inside the ridge itself.

One hundred and eighty-three Cybertronians were killed by the explosion, the collapse, or EMP damage to their processing systems. Among them was Gauntlet.

Alpha Trion watched fires bloom across the face of Cybertron. The sight brought him near to despair. He had seen it before. He had fought in a war on Cybertron, a war that pitted brother against brother and threatened the fabric of the planet and the universe.

Now, it seemed, another such war was at hand.

A screen carrying a feed from Uraya displayed another iteration of what he was seeing across the planet. Wreckage, scattered and damaged bodies. Over the feed played an anonymized voice claiming responsibility for the attacks.

ON BEHALF OF THE LOW-CASTE, THE FORGOTTEN, THE DOWNTRODDEN. NOW WE TREAD ON YOU.

Orion Pax roared across the Badlands, exhilaration warring in his heart with a sense of foreboding that he could not ignore.

Once we set events in motion, they will not always unfold according to our plans. But what exactly were Megatron's plans?

Don't think like that, he told himself. Megatron knows how to do things his way. Orion Pax knew another way. The two of them together would achieve great things. Today was a misstep, a mistake. Necessary? Orion

Pax did not want to think so. But the undeniable lesson of the day was that Megatron was right about one thing:

Many Cybertronians, for the first time since they had awakened next to the Well of AllSparks, were just now realizing that their lives did not have to be the way they had always been.

He arrived in Iacon and returned to his proto-form while still in motion, hitting the street running in front of the Hall of Records. Alpha Trion was waiting for him just inside the door to the data-harvesting area.

"I need advice," Orion Pax said.

Alpha Trion nodded. "You need more than that." They went inside.