(Sorry for the delay with this chapter, I got caught up catching up in a few of my classes. Hope this one being a bit longer makes up for it. 'Till all are one.)
Chapter 5:
1;
"Blessed is he who bears the weight of leadership and stands true in spite of it. It is he who defends those who follow him, and who guides their path. And the path should always lead home."
Optimus Prime recognized the passage and its origin in the Covenant of Primus. It was a quote from the Thirteenth Prime, the unnamed savior of Cybertron against Unicron, the first to open the Matrix and cast out evil. It was one of the lesser debated quotes in the Covenant, very few historians, philosophers, or priests bothering to try and analyze it because when compared to other quotes, it's rather self explanatory, with the exception of course, of its last sentence.
Optimus raised his head and saw the dark world around him, illuminated by far off panels of orange light. Directly in front of him stood the silhouette of a figure, features entirely covered by a blinding light pulsing both from and into him. It was the figure who had read off the passage.
"Optimus Prime," the figure said to him simply, addressing him with a deep and powerful, albeit wise voice.
"I fear you have me at a disadvantage, friend," Optimus responded.
"My brother was very fond of that quote," the figure said. "I believe it was his favorite of mine throughout the years. He always loved to record statements like it."
Optimus slowly got to his feet, feeling the weakness in his legs as he did, although not being entirely sure as to why.
"So then you are him?" Optimus said, for once genuinely amazed and shocked. "The Thirteenth Prime? One of Primus's very truest sons? Slayer of the Great Destroyer?"
"It is I, yes," the Thirteenth Prime responded. "I understand that the Covenant doesn't recognize me by my true name, and I would prefer for it to remain private, even between us brothers, fellow Prime. You may simply call me Thirteen if you wish."
Optimus glanced around himself, trying to think of what else written inside of the Covenant this might correspond to, but found nothing within his recollection.
"What is this place?" he asked the much older bot.
"It is the land between universes and dimensions, between life and death itself," Thirteen responded. "We call it Limbo. You are here because you have sustained critical damage to your person. I have come to give you the option to be welcomed into the Allspark, or to allow you the chance to complete challenges and return to your Autobots."
It all came flashing back to Prime at that moment, fighting with Megatron on the Ark, and eventually losing, a blast from the Decepticon's fusion cannon tearing apart his chest, and then Deadlock appearing seemingly from nowhere to blow a hole through his own leader's own chest.
"If you truly are my brother, and you truly understand what is happening to my Autobots," Optimus responded, a new sense of strength developing, "then you know I cannot leave them now. What challenges must I face to return to them?"
2;
As many Autobots as possible were packed into the Ark's bridge, the rest of them just outside trying to fend off the Decepticons trying to get inside, Starscream leading them. Trailbreaker was able to generate shields which were keeping them at bay for the moment, but even in his best condition he could only hold it for so long, and he had been quite injured during the invasion, a chunk in his lower torso ripped off to reveal sparking circuits and flowing energon now pouring down his leg onto the ground.
On his way down through the halls, Ironhide got in contact with Prowl (Jazz had enough responsibilities at the moment without Ironhide bothering him), who explained the situation, and had Trailbreaker prepared to help Ironhide get Prime through to the best of his ability. Now it was a matter of hoping that Trailbreaker had the strength to have two force fields going at once in his condition, which was seriously in question.
He finally got to the point where he could see a Seeker up ahead who he recognized as Thundercracker, whose arms were raised, null rays on each firing rapidly at an unseen enemy. Ironhide kept charging regardless, despite knowing that in a moment the Decepticon would hear his footsteps and turn to fire on him.
"You ready Trailbreaker?" Ironhide asked over coms.
"When you are," Trailbreaker responded, grunting as he did. "Forcefield's going up as soon as I see you. Just go ahead and run into the wall that's already up when I put one up around you."
"Got it, buddy," Ironhide said, starting to grunt himself now. This is what old age does to a bot, he supposed.
Ironhide saw as Thundercracker slowly turned his head to eventually see him charging, Optimus Prime's horrifically damaged body in his arms, and couldn't help but chuckle at the surprise on the Decepticon's face. Ironhide screamed an incomprehensible battle cry, which startled Thundercracker into action, his arms raising towards Ironhide and firing a few purple bolts towards him. Half a second before the first bolt hit him, orange shields formed around Ironhide, forcefields courtesy of Trailbreaker protecting him from the Seeker. Seeing the bolts absorbed uselessly into the orange barriers, Thundercracker dived out of Ironhide's way, allowing him to easily keep barreling forward towards the pre-existing wall that was defending the rest of the Autobot infantry.
3;
"You have fought nobly throughout all these years, Optimus Prime," Thirteen said, looking down at the successor to his lineage. "The rest of us Primes have developed a very deep respect for you. Understand before you make your final decision that if you decide that you are ready, you shall be welcomed with open arms."
"Like I said, my Autobots need me," Optimus responded without a hint of hesitation. "I must return by any means necessary."
"I know," Thirteen responded. "The Primes insisted that I make that very clear, but I told them that you would refuse regardless. You're right. Megatron must be stopped, no matter the cost."
The location of the burning yellow strips around them began to shift, passing away to the side while Thirteen and Optimus's locations remained relative to each other. In a few moments, they were standing just beyond what looked like a horrific storm of black and purple energy, bolds of magenta light flashing out in all directions. After a few moments of staring into it, Optimus began to see a face amongst the shadowy clouds that comprised it.
"What is it?" Optimus asked, albeit never taking his eyes away from the monster.
"We aren't sure," Thirteen responded, "but we know it isn't of our universe, and may very well be even older than any of us. How it has managed to get here, and what it wants are still questions yet to be answered. What we do know is that it arrived at the location of a relevant item to us that it is imperative that we get back. That's where you come in."
"You want me to retrieve the item for you?"
"That's correct," Thirteen's voice was now filled with a sort of mournful, tiredness, as if realizing how frightening the odds against them really were for the first time. "You will have to enter the storm itself, make your way through the harsh winds through whatever means you can, find the relic, and the moment that you touch it, I will be able to reach through our connection in the Matrix, and at least in this dimension, take the Key from you. You'll then be given a final chance to return to the Ark and save your crew."
"I have many questions."
"I understand, but we are quite short on time," Thirteen said, Optimus taking a moment to try and make out any of his features, but still could not. "The Primes have every intention of answering each question that you might have in time, but right now we need you, as do every Autobot aboard your ship, and I regret to inform you of this Optimus, but your body is very quickly withering away. If you don't move fast, you'll die long before you can be released from this place."
4;
Prime was safe in Ratchet's new makeshift medibay, laid out on a stretcher beside Bluestreak, Grapple, and Cosmos. The only bots not accounted for by that point were the Dynobots, Jetfire, and Gears, although it was a safe bet to say that they were in all likelihood either unconscious at some other point in what remained of the ship, or had their coms damaged at some point during the battle, and were engaged with a smaller group of Decepticons. Jazz didn't have much time to worry about them at the moment though. He was occupied instead with trying to keep the 'cons from overflowing into the bridge and killing their wounded without anyone being able to stop them. Trailbreaker was still holding the shield, letting the Decepticons exhaust themselves a bit, but could only keep it up for so long, and not fighting back against an enemy isn't known as the best strategic move one can make.
Ratchet had purposefully made himself completely unconcerned with the battle outside, instead trying to tend to Prime, but after a few minutes was the first to notice the very sign that told him exactly how bad of condition Optimus was in. Up to the knuckles, his fingers had turned to a gray as opposed to their typical blue, and the same could be said for his feet and lower legs. Ratchet was never a superstitious bot, but he knew the legend that when a Prime dies, their body turns to gray. He needed to work fast and he needed to work now.
5;
Skywarp held Megatron in his arms, looking down at his leader from within the backend of the Ark, a small, dark closet encovering them in shadows. Skywarp was shocked to see the great tyrant's red optics flash to life again for a moment, looking up at him.
"Starscream… is that you…?" Megatron asked weakly, a hand reaching out towards Skywarp's head.
"No, Megatron, my master," Skywarp replied, shocked for a moment, but understanding how two bots identical outside of their paint job could be confused. "It is I, Skywarp. I rescued you, but I think we're about to go through this planet's atmosphere."
"What of Prime, Skywarp?" Megatron asked, a bit of strength and energy not before present coming out now.
"Prime? I… I don't know, master," Skywarp said, a bit surprised with the amount of interest Megatron had in the Autobot leader at a time like this when a hole was in his chest.
After a few moments of what seemed like great effort for the gladiator, Megatron fell limp in Skywarp's arms once more, and for a time, Skywarp was absolutely sure that the Decepticon leader was dead.
6;
Thirteen was gone. Gone behind Optimus as the swirling darkness ahead began to seemingly consume him into itself. He blasted through the first cloud in alt mode, but was forced to lower his speed as the winds smashed into him. He felt a single crack form across his windshield. He was afraid, he admitted to himself, and would've been willing to admit to others. He feared not the idea that the monster would kill him, but instead the chaos that the monster could inflict upon first this world, and then his own. Whatever it was, it was utterly terrifying.
The dark cloud suddenly disappeared from all around him, instead leaving him driving through what could only be described as the likes of Iacon, a golden city ages before being ruined by its inhabitants' savage civil war. Prime quickly broke to a halt and transformed, looking around in confusion and surprise. He had suffered hallucinations for various reasons before, but never quite this real.
" Optimus!" called a voice from behind him, filled with horrible distress.
He quickly turned, a sense of mild anxiety not because of the exclamation but because the voice itself was horribly familiar. When he did, he was faced with the horrible truth that it was in fact who he thought it was. Dion was standing there in front of him, a look of terrible stress across his face.
"We can't hold them off any longer, they're brea-" Dion's chest suddenly exploded in a ball of blazing fire, and Optimus recognized the silver figure standing a few meters behind him, smoking fusion cannon pointed at the corpse now slowly falling.
As a basic reflex, Optimus's hand transformed into a pure orange axe. He took a step forward, but then stopped. This wasn't happening, nor had it ever before. Dion hadn't died in Iacon, nor had he by the hands of Megatron. Dion had died from a shot from Shockwave during the Abominus Purge in Tiger Pax. This was an illusion.
"What in the name of Primus are you?" Optimus asked sternly, his axe pulling back into his arm as he looked at the Megatron imitation in front of him.
"What?" Megatron asked in a voice by no means his own. "Does this one not suit you? Perhaps this will better fit what I'm looking for."
The world changed around him, shifting instead to a dark cavern, the body, not of Dion, but of Hot Rod lying in front of him, a small hole blasted from his torso right around the area of the Transformation Cog, and a trickle of purple fluid pooling out from his mouth. Prime looked around quickly from side to side, horrified at the sight.
" DAMN YOU!" he called out, suddenly enraged that whatever the hell this thing was dared to show him this. " FACE ME WITH COURAGE YOU PIECE OF SLAG!"
"Ah, that's better," the mysterious entity's voice spoke from a location that Prime guessed was really everywhere or perhaps nowhere simultaneously. "This one is particularly fascinating to me, mainly because… well, you really could've saved him Pri-"
" YOU ARE WITHOUT THE RIGHT TO SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!" he screamed again, losing any sort of control at this point. "Hot Rod was a brave soldier. The embodiment of everything that I believed Cybertron could be. You disgrace his memory by showing him this way."
For a moment Prime was back in Blaster City, pinned down with Jazz at his right and a number of other bots all around him, a swarm of Decepticons coming up on them quickly, firing through their cover. There was no getting out of that situation, no fighting back when you're that outnumbered. Prime had transmitted to Iacon, but was sure that reinforcements couldn't make it across the planet in time to help them out, especially with their groundbridge long since destroyed.
Then, suddenly, the shooting stopped. Optimus had peeked out over the top of their cover, no more than a patch of debris, and saw just three bots standing there, one with a pair of swords, another with a bow and arrow, and the third with a sniper rifle, and who was just arriving at the scene. Arcee, Hot Rod, and Pipes. Three great bots who were all that was left of any sort of Autobot resistance in Blaster City, fighting back against Macabre's rulership of the town. He had walked up to them, shook their hands, introduced himself, and suddenly he had three new bots that meant the world to him.
Arcee had joined Ultra Magnus a few years later when he went out into the universe to try and defend other worlds from Decepticon conquest, Pipes became missing in action not long after, and Hot Rod was promoted to a captain in the Autobot infantry. He had gone with Prime into that very same city a good twenty years after they first met there with every intention of finally liberating it, freeing it from Decepticon control after oh so long. Mission failed.
The majority of their several dozen bot party was killed off within six hours of entering the city limits, and the half dozen left took refuge in a destroyed, blown down building, discovering a cave system just beneath it. When they encountered a party of 'cons located in those tunnels, they lost the rest of the crew save for the two of them. In the end, they found another exit, just the two of them, made their charge, defeated the fifteen grunts stationed outside, and then, after all of it was said and done, a single shot blew through Hot Rod's Transformation Cog from what must've been three miles away. There was no saving him.
What really ate Prime up, what made it just so much worse, was that whatever scumbag Decepticon had pulled that trigger, could've just as easily shot a hole through his own chassis. Hot Rod never needed to die. Better yet, if Prime had spotted the sniper, and he could've if he'd been paying better attention, they both could've made it to the point where they sat on the Ark together.
"All of this, and for what?" the Voice asked. "Some idea that by winning this war that you can build a better world? What really is the difference between you and this Megatron?"
Optimus was silent, knowing that he had asked himself the very same question since the war's very beginning.
"What truly makes this war anything other than two power hungry bots fighting for control of a broken world?"
"Hot Rod."
"What did you say?" the Voice asked, seemingly caught a bit off guard.
"Hot Rod is the difference," Optimus said. "Dion was the difference. Jazz is the difference. Bumblebee is the difference. Megatron fights for control, for the ability to craft the world just as he wants it to be. I fight for them. Hot Rod fought for them. I'm a general in a war, a leader meant for nothing more than killing off an enemy. Hot Rod wasn't meant for that. He was the one really meant to unite us."
The truth was, Optimus realized that he meant every word that he was speaking. Optimus was never meant to unify Cybertron, if anything he was only ever meant to stop Megatron from tearing them apart. And even then… an endless war didn't seem like a success on that front.
"Whatever happened to us?"
The world was different again, now a silver room with dozens of screens and keyboards all around, Cybertronian writing describing the world's propaganda filled history. And the voice was Megatron's.
Orion Pax turned around to face his brother, knowing full well that none of this was real, but not being able to help himself from saying the very same thing he had then.
"Maybe that's a question you should ask yourself, Megatron," Pax responded. "Or a question that you ought to ask one of the psychopaths you had planted on the roof across from the Senate building."
"You dare speak to me in that tone!?" Megatron responded, stomping his foot hard into the floor beneath him.
"Brother, I-"
" Brother no more!"
That was the last time they spoke together before the war truly broke out, before the death of Sentinel, the quest for the Matrix, the fall of a third of the entire planet to Megatron in a matter of days.
There was a day, what seemed like an infinite amount of time ago, when Optimus had ran into a burning building, fought through thirty different Decepticons, undoubtedly killing some, and leaving others to burn in the flames, and had run back out again with Hot Rod in his arms, chassis broken and burnt, and a simple, singular thought had run through his mind: "This one's special." The frightening part of that was that at the moment when Pax had first seen one of Megatron's speeches he had thought the very same thing. And yet, look at everything that had come of him.
7;
At the same moment that the brothers lost consciousness behind the controls of the Ark, not being able to stay awake as the pressure of the bridge increased to dangerous levels, Trailbreaker's forcefield gave out, his body finally toppling over due greatly in part to the giant gash in his side. The Decepticons moved in, firing rapidly, and without mercy.
8;
"Only the greatest strength, only the strongest of wills, only the purest of the Primes, the blessed children of Primus almighty, can truly destroy darkness. Fight, Optimus. Fight."
At the sound of Thirteen's voice, Optimus was reminded of his true mission, he remembered why he was here, and he remembered what he had to do to get back to the Ark. His ax was drawn out of his arm, and it slashed in a circle around him. The world of Iacon in the past disappeared, breaking apart like fragments of glass. He transformed back to truck mode and plowed forward, back in the direction he had come, guided by a divine sense of purpose.
"NO!" the Voice screamed out all around him. " YOU CANNOT TAKE IT FROM ME! I'M NOT FINISHED WITH EITHER OF YOU!"
Blasts of lightning struck down around him, narrowly missing his body. A light began to light his path from up ahead, and Optimus was certain that it was what he was looking for.
9;
Skywarp watched as the huge Autobot vessel smashed down into the side of the even larger mountain, tearing away chunks of earth as it did. When it finally stopped, he warped back inside, Megatron still in his arms.
He appeared within the ship, standing in a golden hallway turned to a dark yellow by ash and dirt. Skywarp began to jog through the hallway, looking for the medical center, which he was sure had been lost relatively early on, taken over by the Decepticons when trying to get away from Subsection C, ejected from the rest of the vessel. He found it without much difficulty, set Megatron down on the recharge slab, and began to type information into the automated computer system. After a minute of clicking various different buttons, a claw stretched down from the ceiling with some sort of medical tool on its edge and began to reconstruct Megatron's torso.
As this happened, Skywarp couldn't help but utter seven simple words: "Megatron, my leader, we are alive again."
10;
After a few hours of dragging various Decepticons into the medibay (every Cybertronian of either faction was knocked unconscious when the ship crashed), the entirety of their still living forces stood together, gathered behind Megatron, Starscream, and Soundwave, standing in a row beside each other, gazing down at the many Autobot bodies also scattered across the ship's bridge.
Megatron couldn't help but look down on Prime, now fallen off of the stretcher, the very place that Megatron had placed him with a single shot from his fusion cannon, and remained uncertain of whether or not he should actually finish the job. Logically, there was no other option than to shoot him right now, finish him off forever, and claim victory in the Cybertronian Civil War in the name of the Decepticons, but… he simply couldn't bring himself to do so.
"Shall we finish them, Lord Megatron?" Starscream asked him from his right, placing a sharp pointed finger against his chin as he did so.
"They are already finished, Starscream," Megatron said, turning away from the many Autobots and walking towards where he knew Airlock A was located. "Shooting them now is as much a waste as shooting any other pile of scrap."
Starscream gave a disappointed grunt, and after a moment turned and walked a few steps behind Megatron and Soundwave, clearly upset with the decision that was made. Of course, only Megatron, and not the likes of Starscream or Soundwave had noticed the graying of Prime's limbs. As disappointing as Megatron found it that this was how it all ended, he knew of the legends that as Primes died they turned to gray, and that this really was the war's final day, or at least its final true day. All that was left was to squash Elita-1's pitiful resistance and then track down the rest of the Autobots across the galaxy, and finish them. Without Prime, they were truly nothing.
11;
Blasts of lightning composed of more energy than entire earth storms combined smashed around Optimus, twice now actually striking him and throwing him cascading to the side and having to stop for a few moments, but each time, he began moving again. The golden image began to take shape, the shape of what appeared to be a key.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" the Voice continued to cry out in rage.
Optimus transformed back to robot mode, and propelled himself off the ground, still thinking not only of Hot Rod, but of Thirteen as well. He owed it to both of them to reach out his right arm, and just as the strongest bolt of lighting in history reached an inch of his back, touch his fingers against what he now realized was undoubtedly a golden key.
The second he did, he was entirely encompassed in blackness, and heard Thirteen's simple words: "Thank you."
Optimus Prime awoke to the graying of his body receding quickly, and the bodies of his Autobots all around him. The Decepticons were gone, but he quickly got to work repairing his comrades.
The Autobots and Decepticons' war on earth had, at long last, begun.