Okay, I let this one slide a little too long. I'll keep this quick, here's the next chapter of lessons learned. A brief history of the War and Fall of Cybertron. FYI this Chapter takes place right before the events of chapter 25 of Beast Wars Prime.

Arcee gathered her notes for her lesson. Today she was going to be going over the highlights of the war for Cybertron. There were some things that she knew that had been hinted at, and others that would take her students by surprise. She was also mildly annoyed with Ultra Magnus. She'd wanted to check if there were any subjects from her notes that were still top secret and he kept giving her the brush off.

Looking up, she saw the Maximals enter and join the Camians and June who'd arrived a few minutes earlier. Thankfully they didn't seem too exhausted from their training.

"Welcome back. Now before we begin, does anyone have any questions about our last lessons?" She asked out of habit. Seeing Nauticas' hand in the air she called on her.

"How did Cybertron become so bad that it had to be abandoned. I mean, the war couldn't have gone that badly." She asked.

Arcee closed her optics and nodded her head. "The war played a huge part of it, but the biggest problem was caused by Megatron." She explained. "I think I better start from where we left off."

She opened her optics and surveyed the room. "A scant few days after Optimus was named Prime and Megatron severed ties with him, the Decepticons launched a series of coordinated attacks to strike at both the upper castes, and the senate."

Arcee activated the hologram projector to show a group shot of the senate. A second click blacked out all but a half dozen of the senators, including Shockwave. "Several groups of Decepticons around the planet launched a purge of the senate. Most of whom were dragged from their homes before being brutally executed. The few that survived are the ones who told us the full scope of their wrongdoing."

The screen changed again. This time it was what looked like an amusement park that was now burning and crumbling. "Another group swarmed the park Six Lasers over Cybertron." This caused a snort from both Jack and Vince.

"Sorry." Jack explained earnestly as he realized the others were staring at them. "But after the lesson, you might want to look up Earth amusement parks." He finished, thinking about Six Flags in Pheonix when he'd gone there with his mom as a kid.

Arcee shook her head. "I'll consider it, but the amusement park had long been a preserve for the elite for so long it became a status symbol. Destroying it was a way for Megatron to show that nowhere was safe."

Clearing her throat, Arcee continued. "The third attack was also a way to secure a base of operations. While Kaon was the Decepticon capitol, Megatron still feared that Vigilem would turn against them should he awaken. So, he detonated and explosive within the titan, snuffing his spark and depriving us of a potential ally."

"You mean he killed a titan? Just on a hunch?" Velocity was aghast. On Caminus, the titans were every bit as revered and worshiped as the thirteen primes. To kill one would be considered sacrilege.

"Unfortunately, yes." Arcee admitted. "However, the final attack ended up being the prelude of things to come."

Arcee looked at the class. "The last attack was at the Altihex casino. This was chosen because Sentinel Prime was attending a comedy performance there that night. He had believed himself to be untouchable. So, you can imagine his surprise when his lead bodyguard led him right to Megatron."

"Who was his bodyguard?" Raf asked. Arcee clicked the image again, causing the hologram to change to a very familiar looking mech, causing the original three Maximals and June to do a double take.

"Are you kidding me?" Miko exclaimed. "That was Starscream?"

Arcee nodded. "From what we've learned afterwards, he'd been toying with the idea of joining the Decepticons for a while. Something that night convinced him to follow through with it and hand deliver Sentinel to them. Unfortunately, with him went most of the air corps which were responsible for most of planet security."

"Which would've left Cybertron open to the Decepticons no matter how the chip fell, that's brilliant!" Lightbright exclaimed. Arcee and the class gave her a deadpan look. "And horrible, that's really bad." She backpedaled.

Shaking her head, Arcee continued. "And that is why the war was largely lopsided for most of its duration." She continued. "The Autobots were only able to hold onto the city of Iacon as well as Kalis, which supplied power for the Autobot war effort, while the Decepticons took control of most of the planet."

"During this time." She continued with a quick check of her notes. "The well of all sparks would produce the final generation of native Cybertronians. The majority of these young sparklings would join the Autobots, but the few that joined the Decepticons spurred Megatron into action."

Taking a breath, Arcee continued. "Megatron attempted to capture the well of all sparks. This would have enabled him to have an endless supply of new troops under his control. In the end, a young scout from that generation assisted Optimus in launching the Allspark into space by acting as a distraction."

Arcee bowed her head again. "In his fury at Bumblebees' role in the plan, he crushed bees' voice box." She added, thankful that Bee had let her share that with the now horrified class.

"Bee." Raf whispered. He felt terrible for his adoptive brother.

"Another well-known battle in the war was the battle of Sherma bridge." Arcee continued, hoping to get her students off of Bumblebees' depressing condition. "It was the first time Optimus Prime and Megatron faced off as enemies, and this one, we actually have video of."

With that the hologram projector switched to a video of a younger Optimus and Megatron trading blows with an orange energy axe and a purple energy mace respectively. "This battle was so stirring, that combatants from both sides stopped to watch the two fighting. Sadly, their bout ended in a draw as a random shot began to collapse the bridge."

Checking her notes again, Arcee continued. "The war came to a head however, when Megatron forced Starscream to reveal what he'd been guarding on Trypticon station. He'd overseen security for the satellite since before the war and Megatron knew it. He was desperate for a new advantage." She explained at the class's confused looks.

"What were they guarding?" June asked.

"Dark Energon." Arcee answered simply. This immediately got a rise out of the Camiens.

"Dark ener-, the blood of Unicron?" Velocity interrupted again. First killing a titan, now dabbling with the blood of the devil?

"Yes, he used it to empower himself to superhuman levels. Not to mention the rest of his forces." Arcee explained. "However, he learned that once it was gone anyone who wasn't strong enough to handle the withdrawal symptoms would die. To counter this, he planned to infect Cybertron itself via the plasma energy chamber."

"For all Megatrons' faults, you can't deny he knows his strategy." Lightbright spoke. "He'd simultaneously empower his soldiers while starving his enemies." Noticing all the looks she was getting, Lightbright nervously giggled and silently vowed to keep quiet.

"To retrieve the chamber." Arcee continued. "He sought out the code keys of power and justice. Together they would reveal the location of the chamber. In the end, he retrieved the key of power from the old senate building where it had been hidden, and the key of justice from inside Sentinel Prime after executing him. "

Arcee smirked. "However, the location of the plasma energy chamber turned out to be a problem. When the two keys were activated, they activated Omega Supreme, guardian of Paradon, the crystal city." The hologram changed to a silver red and gold bot the size of a combiner with an orange visor.

"Realizing the situation." Arcee continued. "Omega Supreme attempted to fly the chamber off world. However, Starscream led his dark energon empowered seekers in an attack that knocked him out of the sky."

Arcee smiled at her class's shocked looks. "Omega was tough though, once he crashed back at the crystal city, he transformed and held off both Megatrons' enhanced troops and Devastator who'd been called in as backup. Unfortunately, Megatron entered the fray and nearly killed the guardian, only sparing him because the chamber was in his chest."

"Holy, crap." Allison uttered astonished. Just how strong was Megatron to take down a bot that sized single handedly.

"Indeed." Arcee agreed. "Ratchet was barely able to save Omega and Megatron had used the chamber to infect the core of the planet. Bringing Trypticon station to a lower geosynchronous orbit, they began harvesting dark energon to empower all their troops. From there he ordered an all-out assault on Iacon."

Taking another look at her notes, Arcee continued. "Desperate to stop both the infection and the Decepticons, Optimus called out to Iacon, and from its' center, the titan Metroplex rose again." The hologram changed to show the titan from her previous lesson.

"Furious at the death of his twin and the damage done to the planet by the Decepticons, Metroplex attacked the oncoming horde with a vengeance on par with the titans' fight against the Sharkticons. The battle ended when Metroplex shot Trypticon out of the sky." Arcee explained. "This gave Optimus and a small group of bots the time they needed to journey to the core and remove the source of the dark energon infection."

Arcee took a breath. "Upon returning to the surface, Optimus ordered a planet wide evacuation of Cybertron. While the source of the infection was gone, the damage was done. To try and accelerate the planets' healing process, Metroplex merged his spark with the core, sacrificing himself in the process."

"Foreseeing this." Arcee began again. "Alpha Trion had begun construction of the largest ship known in Cybertronian history, the Ark." The hologram changed from Metroplex to a colossal golden ship that dwarfed the buildings in the background.

"A handful of other ships were launched with the Ark." Nautica added. "The Lost Light was one such vessel." She explained. The three had found this out after joining its' crew.

"Correct." Arcee answered. "The planet wouldn't be able to sustain much life as it healed, there was also the fact that some wildlife had also been infected with the dark energon. So as much of a gamble as the evacuation was, the other options were poison, mauling, starvation, or madness."

"So death, death, death, death, or death. Personally, I'd take the death that has a ride in a spaceship first." Miko joked. The rest of the class couldn't help chuckling a bit.

Arcee snorted. Jazz had said something similar. "Well, Megatron wasn't finished just yet." She continued. "From where Trypticon crashed, the station transformed into a bipedal form akin to a pseudo titan."

The hologram changed again into a large black and purple dinosaur with an orange hatch on its' snout.

"Woah!"

"Yikes!"

"Gojira!"

"With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound."

Smirking at their reactions, Arcee continued. "Trypticon began to rampage towards Iacon. Fortunately, Omega Supreme had recovered enough to defend Iacon alongside several groups of Autobots who'd elected to stay on Cybertron." She explained, thinking of the Dinobots.

Taking one more look at her notes, Arcee decided to finish her lesson. "The plan from the get-go was to fly the Ark through one of the few remaining space bridges around Cybertron. Seeing the Ark take off, Megatron had Trypticon transform into a Nemesis class star cruiser." The hologram switched to a very familiar looking ship.

"Wait, so the cons are flying in a robo-kaiju?" Miko interrupted. "And we were inside it? Awesome!"

Arcee shook her head at Mikos' antics and continued. "Megatron followed the Ark through the spacebridge. However, the space bridge malfunctioned as the two ships passed through, spitting them out in an uncharted sector of space far away from each other."

She looked at the class. "The Arks' computer, Teletraan-1 reactivated and locked onto the Allsparks' signal, setting the Ark and its crew on a mission to-" A loud racket from the surface cut her off.

"What the pit?" She asked, looking up. "Class dismissed." With that she took off towards the lift, June and the Maximals hot on her tail. Going up the lift, they went to the lab hangar, not knowing that what they'd find there would lead to new Maximals, and a new student.

A/N- You know, for being about the same continuity, there's some disparity between the Prime cartoon, The Covenant of Primus and Transformers Exodus. Then there's the personal and IDW elements I'm trying to blend in. Hopefully it was cohesive. I only have one more chapter planned for this story, and I plan to post it before I post the next part of Beast Wars Prime. Having said that.

Next Lesson-Exiles and arrival on Earth.