Introduction: The events in this chapter happen in between Many Voices and Revolution. The two scenes aren't connected at all, I just stuck them together because they were kind of short on their own.

Mirage stepped from the transport onto the familiar balcony. Unlike his tower, this one was occupied by several noblemechs, each owning an entire floor or two, or three in a few cases. He'd grown up just one tower over from this one, in a similar situation. It had been his creator's creator's decision to bequeath the family mod to him that had given him the right to his own private tower.

The balcony door opened, and a servant let him in with a deep bow.

"Milord," he said. "You are expected. Please follow me."

Mirage had almost decided to show up invisible, but he knew that would defeat the purpose. It was important to be seen visiting his old friend, because of his own recent actions. It was a statement, and would make an enormous stir. He smiled slightly at the posters, plaques, and medals hanging from the walls as he walked through the tower. This place sparked a good portion of the rumors around Translucentia Heights, with the vast majority of the aristocracy denouncing its occupant for his fraternization with the common classes. In his own way, though, he was one of the most popular and well-known among them.

The servant stopped when they reached the largest sitting room, and stepped to the side, bowing Mirage in.

Mirage walked through the door with a suffering sigh. "Your decorations are as tasteless as usual."

"Almost as tasteless as my choice in house guests," Blurr said with a grin. "And not half as tasteless as yours, apparently. Please, sit down."

Mirage sat on the small couch opposite his friend. "My decorations or my choice in house guests?"

"What do you think?" Blurr said. "Primus, 'Raj, what are you doing?"

Mirage reached for a small cube of energon sitting on the table between them. He took it and stared into it, thoughtfully.

"I'm supposed to be the rebellious one," Blurr said. "Is it really true you invited the entire rebellion into your tower?"

"Well, the leadership, at least," Mirage said. "Though they've had a lot of visitors lately, now they're trying to decide what to do next."

Blurr shook his helm. "Why?" he said. "I have to know. And don't make something up, I know you generally play by the rules, and you can't have been that bored."

Mirage smiled slightly. "Maybe I just saw what everyone else is too busy to notice."

"What?"

"Think about it," Mirage said. "Who do I have in my tower?"

"A bunch of glitched revolutionaries."

"Who do I have in my tower, Blurr?"

Blurr frowned. "You have… Optimus Prime."

"The Prime. The first Prime in the past forty vorns owes me a life debt for taking him in."

Blurr seemed to think about it. Then shook his helm. "There's no way you'd have been able to predict that—he wasn't a Prime when you brought them to your tower. We're still friends, right? Can't you just tell me the truth?"

"You're no fun," Mirage said. "How do you know this isn't some sort of sneaky political gamble?"

Blurr crossed his arms. "Just tell me."

Mirage sighed. "It does seem unlike me, doesn't it? I ran into a couple of them a while back at a party. They had managed to sneak in, and were asking for monetary donations. I thought it was quite bold of them—being a rebellion group—to ask for credit from mecha who are supported by the current government. So I did some research, and was even more surprised. As far as I could find, they were just a librarian, an escaped slave, and a handful of Academy students. But they'd been successfully standing up to the Council. And so I kept an optic on them, and when enforcement tried to arrest them at their base and they went into hiding… I saw an opportunity to get my pede in the door."

"I'm… still confused."

"Changes are coming. In fact, they're already here. Everyone else in these towers thinks they're safe, but they're all wrong. We are vastly outnumbered, and credit is a symbol that can lose its meaning. If we want to weather whatever's coming, we're going to need allies among the future leaders of Cybertron."

Blurr stared at him.

"I haven't just allowed them to live in my home, I've allied with them."

"But Mirage…" Blurr said. "This could ruin you."

"Ruin me?" Mirage said. "Of course. I have no doubt that it will. I'm sure I'll be the laughingstock of the Heights once everyone realizes that I'm going to continue to let Optimus and his mecha stay in my tower. But I see something in them and their cause—something I can't afford to ignore."

Blurr watched silently, and Mirage stared into his still full cube of energon for a moment, trying to put words to the feeling. He wasn't sure exactly how to describe it.

He looked up. "Blurr, do you remember when we were mechlings, pretending to be spies, sneaking around the towers, playing war, fighting villains."

"Of course," Blurr said.

"Is that something you're still interested in?"

Blurr shook his helm. "Are you—"

"I am as serious as I have ever been," Mirage said. "Megatron took a large percentage of the common following to Kaon. He'll make war there, and if he's not stopped quickly, he'll spread that war elsewhere. We can sit here and wait in our towers for that war to come to us, or we can do something about it. It won't be as easy or fun as stealing energon treats, but it will have a lot more impact on the world."

Blurr looked down.

"There's a depth to this cause, a reality," Mirage said. "A chance to make a difference, not just a social statement."

Mirage waited a few astroseconds, watching Blurr process that thought.

Then he spoke again. "My coming here in broad ornlight to visit you is going to make big ripples in the rumor pool. I'll be denounced, questioned, examined, and theorized about. It's all part of the game, where they try to figure out how I'm going to spin things to my advantage and whether that's going to work. But this isn't just a social call, Blurr. I don't just want to openly reinstate our friendship. We could use your help."

"My help?" Blurr said. "In the rebellion?"

Mirage nodded once.

"This is a lot to take in," Blurr said. "I'll… I'll have to think about that."

"Think as long as you need," Mirage said, sat back, and sipped his energon. "I've said what I came to say. How are you doing? I presume you won whatever your most recent race was."

"You presume correctly," Blurr said. "I presume you weren't in the audience?"

"Not this time," Mirage said. "I've been busy of late, entertaining house guests."

"You certainly have," Blurr said, shaking his helm. "I… really will have to think about that. What is he like? The new Prime, I mean."

Mirage set his cube of energon down. "Would you like to meet him?"

It was past regular opening time, but Maccadam had decided to keep his doors shut this orn. He didn't know when or whether everyone was going to show up, or how long their meeting would be, but he didn't want any patrons or employees underpede.

He went and stood by the back door—they had decided that arriving discretely would be best.

Prima and Solus came first and Maccadam let them in.

"Welcome," he said. "It's been too long."

Prima nodded grimly, but Solus pushed past him and embraced Maccadam.

"Far too long, brother," she said, then released him, wearing a troubled frown on her faceplate.

"Do you know if everyone's coming?" Maccadam asked.

"No," Prima said. "Onyx is not coming. And Nexus is otherwise engaged."

"And we don't know about Vector, but we shouldn't wait for him," Solus added.

Something in the wording of that bothered him. "Onyx isn't… why?"

"We'll talk when everyone else is here," Solus said, and from her voice he could tell that whatever was keeping Onyx away was very bad news.

"All right," Maccadam said. "Feel free to go up to the lower hall. I'll wait here for everyone else."

Prima nodded again, and the two of them passed him and climbed the stairs.

They had been out scouring the galaxy for Megatronus. The Fallen had escaped his most recent imprisonment a while back because they hadn't been careful enough about keeping him alive. His spark could be anywhere.

The others trickled in over the next several breems. Onyx, Vector, and Nexus didn't show, just like Prima and Solus had said, so Maccadam followed an abnormally quiet and abnormally late Logos up the stairs.

Silence fell as the two of them sat at the large table Maccadam had set up.

"Is this everyone?" Micronus said. "We're all supposed to be here. Where are the other three? Couldn't be bothered to show up, eh?"

"I'm surprised you bothered," Logos snapped. "I don't think I've seen or heard from you for about twenty thousand vorns."

"Brothers," Prima said sternly.

"Come on," Maccadam said. "We haven't seen each other for ages and the first thing we do is start arguing? You're both better than this."

"We have a lot to discuss," Alpha Trion said. "And I feel as if I'm out of the loop. Do we know where the other three are?"

"Nexus is watching Unicron's planet," Solus said. "It's developed life again."

"Pit, not again." Micronus said.

"Well, we'd probably better chuck another rock at it." Amalgamous leaned back in his chair, stretching.

"And risk waking Unicron with Primus the way he is right now?" Logos said.

Maccadam leaned forward. "Don't even think about it. I'm not going to stand for another genocide."

"It wasn't technically genocide," Amalgamous said. "Besides, Primus told us we could—"

"We do not have time for this argument," Prima cut him off.

"And we can't interfere," Alpha Trion put in. "Cybertron is linked with Unicron's planet. We cannot avoid interaction with his dustborn, or his eventual awakening. It is in the Covenant. Don't worry, Alchemist, no one's going to kill off Unicron's developing life this time."

"Nexus is monitoring the situation there," Prima repeated. "And will continue to do so."

"Where are Onyx and Vector, though?" Quintus asked. "Wasn't it Onyx's turn to keep an optic on him?"

"Onyx is dead," Logos said quietly.

"Oh," Quintus raised an optic ridge. "That's unfortunate. Was he killed too recently to have been brought back?"

"We found him just a short while ago," Prima said. "But it appeared that he had been offline for quite some time. Vorns perhaps."

Silence fell. Offline for vorns? That wasn't possible—he would have shown up again. Maccadam stared at Logos, who was looking down at the table with a grim expression.

"But…" Quintus said.

"Primus didn't bring him back," Liege Maximo said. "He's abandoned us to permanently offline like the mortals."

"Don't accuse him of abandoning us," Alpha Trion said. "We don't know why—"

"What about Vector?" Maccadam cut in, not wanting to let that argument start.

"We have no idea where he is," Prima said. "And we haven't been able to contact him. He could be dead as well."

Silence fell.

"What could possibly have killed Vector, though?" Quintus said. "Even Megatronus could never kill Vector."

"We don't know," Prima said.

"Speaking of Megatronus, though," Solus said. "I'm assuming no one was able to find him."

There was a general shaking of helms.

"Has there been any sign of him here?" she asked.

"Not to my knowledge," Alpha Trion said. "Then again, I don't get out much."

"I haven't heard anything either," Maccadam said.

"What about that gladiator who's trying to conquer Kaon?" Amalgamous said. "He calls himself Megatronus."

"That is definitely not our Megatronus," Maccadam put in.

"He fights kind of like him," Amalgamous said.

"No," Maccadam said. "I've seen some of his pit battles. He fights like he was trained by Yoketron… where is that mech by the way? Isn't he supposed to be training Orion?"

"He is shirking his duties," Alpha Trion said. "But he will return now that Optimus has been designated a Prime. My only worry is that we're already too late. Something isn't right with Primus."

Prima nodded. "Do you think it would be good to visit the core?"

"Yes," Alpha Trion said.

"Why haven't you?"

The archivist shrugged uncomfortably.

"I guess we're scared," Maccadam spoke for his brother. "We're not sure what we'll find, and we're not sure we want to know. What if he's… I don't know, dying or something."

"He can't be," Quintus said.

"Oh, shut up," Micronus said. "Onyx is dead, Vector's missing, and Unicron's planet's got life on it again. I wouldn't be surprised by anything at this point."

"Micronus, would it kill you to be polite?" Quintus said.

"It might," Micronus crossed his arms. "Onyx is polite, and he gets killed all the time."

"How dare you!" Logos said. "Our brother is offline, possibly permanently."

Amalgamous snorted. "Calm down, Logos. This'll sort itself out, like it always does."

"Not necessarily," Alpha Trion said. "Have you not been paying attention? The last Prime has been appointed. We have come almost to the brink of Primus's foresight. He did not know the exact outcome of the coming war, only that he would not be able to guide us through it, which is why he gave us the final prophecies in the Covenant."

"You and your book," Micronus rolled his optics.

"The very existence of our world depends on ensuring that things play out according to Primus's plan," Alpha Trion said. "Do not mock it."

"Enough argument," Prima said. "We cannot afford to be contentious."

Everyone fell silent.

Maccadam thought that might be too much to ask. In the early times they had been able to work together, but now there was an eons-long history of hard feelings. He wished Onyx were here to help keep things calm. The mech was the greatest peacemaker in the history of the planet.

And now he was offline. Maccadam had been looking forward to seeing him.

The reality of what Logos and Liege had said started to sink in.

They might never see Onyx again.

"We must make decisions," Prima said. "I believe it is imperative that we prevent Megatronus from meddling during this crucial time. We should continue our search for him."

"We should look for Vector," Logos said. "If we find Vector, and he's still online, he can tell us where Megatronus is."

"It seems to me like we should be focusing on trying to get Primus to speak to us," Quintus said. "Surely he can tell us where Vector and Megatronus are."

"Like I said," Liege growled. "Primus either doesn't care, or isn't capable of speaking anymore. None of us have heard from him for decavorns."

Maccadam bowed his helm, barely listening as his brothers and sister argued about what to do, and who should go where, and whether they should be looking for Vector, and how they should try to track Megatronus down.

He didn't want to leave his establishment. He felt as if, with all of the things that were about to happen, the mecha of the city-state needed this place as a constant—as somewhere they felt safe, somewhere they could go to pretend that nothing had changed and to talk openly with each other.

He didn't want to leave, but they'd probably ask him to help search the galaxy for Megatronus… no, that didn't make sense.

He leaned over and nudged Logos, who also seemed to have given up on the conversation.

Logos looked at him with a bit of a sad smile.

"Why are we looking for Megatronus out in the galaxy again?" Maccadam said.

Logos sighed, pouting slightly. "Because Prima doesn't listen to me."

"Right," Maccadam said, then stood. "Hey!"

The table quieted, and several of his siblings shot annoyed glares at him.

"Are we at war?"

"What?" Amalgamous asked.

Maccadam slammed his fists on the table with a bang. "I said are we at war?"

"With each other?" Quintus asked.

"No!" Maccadam said. "With this situation! Is this a family squabble, or are we fighting against something external?"

Everyone looked at each other.

"Well," Alpha Trion said, "Vector has gone missing, the final chapters of the Covenant are fast-approaching, Megatronus is on the loose somewhere, and Primus has stopped talking to us. I'd say that warrants a war of some sort."

"Alright!" Maccadam said. "We're at war. Is everyone in agreement?"

"Alchemist, you've lost it," Amalgamous yawned.

"No, I think he's onto something," Liege said.

"If we're at war," Maccadam said. "Then we need to act like it. We aren't taking this seriously enough."

"We've been alive too long to take things seriously," Amalgamous said.

"You of all mecha shouldn't preach to us about taking things seriously," Micronus grumbled.

"I'm trying to take it seriously," Quintus put in.

"Will you make your point Alchemist?" Solus asked. "You obviously have one."

"If this situation is serious, we need to be focusing on what's most important, and doing what Primus created us for. Like, for example, maybe we should let the tactician develop our strategy instead of just arguing about who wants to do what."

Everyone looked at Logos.

Prima sighed. "Do you have something to say, Logos?"

"Besides complaining about Onyx being dead," Micronus put in.

Logos ignored him. "Chasing after Megatronus is no longer an effective use of our time and resources," he said. "We need to be monitoring for him here. If he's going to cause trouble, he's either going to cause it here, or on Unicron's planet, and it'll be easier for him to sneak in if we're wandering around aimlessly, looking for him."

"He might be here already," Solus said.

Prima nodded. "Sound reasoning."

"We found Onyx's frame, but not Vector's," Logos said. "Since it was Onyx's turn to keep Vec company, they were probably together when Onyx was killed, but Vector didn't let us know, and we haven't been able to find him or contact him, so he's either dead or incapacitated. Discovering the answer to where he is and what happened to him is extremely pressing. I doubt that Megatronus could have fought them both off, even at his strongest so something else must have happened. We'll have to hope that Primus can tell us, but if he can't, we need to look for Vector."

"So we need mecha monitoring Cyberton, monitoring Unicron's planet, and searching for Vector," Solus surmised.

"Alpha Trion and Alchemist, you have responsibilities here," Logos said.

"True," Alpha Trion said. "I can't leave, I still have to keep an optic on the Iacon High Council."

"Alchemist runs a bar," Amalgamous said. "I wouldn't exactly call that a responsibility."

"Like you do anything," Micronus griped.

"And where exactly have you been the past ten thousand vorns?" Amalgamous folded his arms. "Napping in subspace?"

"Let's let Logos finish," Prima said. "Who do you think should go where?"

Logos nodded. "Prima and Solus, you should stay here on Cybertron, keeping an optic out for Megatronus. Alpha Trion and Alchemist can also stay here and look for him. They both have information networks, but on very different frequencies. Between the four of you, you should be able to keep the planet safe from him. Liege, I'd like you to go and help Nexus watch over Unicron's planet. Keep optics on all sides of it. We don't want Megatronus making contact with the Chaos Bringer, especially right now. Someone should visit the core, and see if we can get Primus to tell us what happened to Vector, but if we can't, then Quintus, Micronus, Amalgamous, and I can split up and search the galaxy for any sign of him."

Amalgamous sighed. "I'm tired of wandering around the galaxy. Do you realize just how much empty fragging space there is out there? With nothing in it?"

"Amalgamous," Prima said. "We've had plenty of time to relax. Too much, perhaps. This has caught us somewhat unprepared, and we need to work hard to catch up with the unfolding events."

Amalgamous rolled his optics.

"Logos's plan is a solid one," Prima said. "Are there any objections?"

Silence fell, though several mecha didn't look happy about it.

"So who's going to visit the core?" Solus asked.

"I will," Prima said, standing.

"I'll go with you," Quintus put in, and got up as well.

"Hey," Maccadam said. "We all just got here, we should probably discuss things…"

"What more is there to discuss?" Micronus said. "I'm going to get a head start looking for Vector."

"Wait." Prima said. "We will visit the core and be back shortly to bring news of Primus's current state. He may be able to tell us where Vector is. Stay here until we return."

They left.

Silence fell again.

"So," Maccadam said. If he didn't start up a conversation, then no one would. "Anyone have any new stories? Anything interesting happen? Logos? Mal?"

"You probably have more interesting stories than the rest of us put together," Amalgamous said. "Since you actually interact with things besides space debris and the occasional large ball of rock."

"Are Unicron's dustborn sentient yet?"

"You should have asked Quintus that. He goes on and on and on about it, and I haven't got a clue what he's talking about."

"It's strange coming back here," Logos said. "After all the time I've been away. Keeping Vector company and then looking for Megatronus. I apologize for not coming to visit, Mac."

"That's all right. So you were watching Vector before it was Onyx's turn?"

"Yes. He was doing very well, actually."

Amalgamous snorted. "No more talk about merging timelines and rewriting the universe and escaping from… what was it again? No, escaping to reality, whatever that means?"

"Don't poke fun at him," Logos glared across the table. "We left him alone for too long after Liege's rebellion."

"So it's our fault now that he went crazy?" Amalgamous said.

"You aren't even in the rotation," Logos said.

"You didn't want me in the rotation."

"Because you don't care about anyone. You'd just wander off and leave him alone again."

"Mal, Logos," Maccadam said. "Please."

"Give it up," Micronus said. "Idiots won't ever stop arguing. Comm. me when Prima comes back." He winked out of existence.

"You're so sensitive," Amalgamous said, leaning back in his chair and putting his pedes up on the table. "Don't get offended so easily, mech."

"Sensitive?" Logos said through gritted denta.

"Hey!" Solus said. "If you two can't be civil to each other, then shut up."

"Or what?" Amalgamous asked with a smirk.

Liege leaned forward. "Or I'll smash that annoying grin off of your faceplate. Let's just talk about something else while we wait."

Silence fell again.

"Are we really… nearing the end of the world?" Logos wondered.

"Maybe," Maccadam said. "It's been a long time in coming. But the signs are here. There are two champions now, like the Covenant predicts."

"It's just another war," Liege crossed his arms. "We've weathered plenty of those before, and we'll weather this one, even if Primus won't help us, even if Vector and Onyx are gone."

Maccadam hoped so.

Notes:

1. Yeah... my version of the original 13 is... a family. With drama. So much drama and squabbling. I mean, they can be very solemn and official when occasion dictates. But they're all very... unique people too. If you'll recall, Alpha Trion literally knocked Smokescreen out, shoved an ancient artifact inside of him and stuck him in an escape pod once. He can be kind of crazy, even in canon. There's canon drama too. Liege went off the deep end at one point, not to mention the original Megatronus betrayed them all.

2. Also, yes, they killed the dinosaurs. It's their fault we can't ride T-Rexes. T-Rex's? T-Rexs? Idk how to spell that I don't think it's a real word.

3. Can you tell I'm tired? Too much school. Projects. Essays. Finals. Bleh