Author's Note: This is the most active plot bunny I've had in a long time, which explains the speed of this update. Don't get your hopes up that all my updates will be this fast. Real life has a distinct tendency to get in the way. Sometimes more than one bunny pops up for a single fic, which leaves me with even more stuff to sort out. Le sigh...

Disclaimer: The characters of Ultra Rodimus Prime and Ultimus belong to me. Transformers in general belongs to somebody else.

Awakening

Chapter 1 - Discovery

Cybertron, present day...

For once, the office was quiet.

For the last uncounted number of hours, the heavily-secured office of the Autobot commander, the Matrix-bearer, had echoed with the sound of computer keys clicking, datapads clacking against each other, a chair protesting its occupant's weight every time he shifted position, a stylus moving over datascreens, and the snoring of a cyber-wolf, as well as the sound of the office's owner humming absently to himself. Now the humming had fallen silent, and the cyber-wolf's snores had subsided.

Ultra Rodimus Prime, bearer of the Matrix of Leadership, leader of the Autobots and current commander of the Transformer homeworld Cybertron, sat behind his massive desk, elbows on its surface, staring at nothing in particular, thinking. Tapping the end of his pen against his lower lip, he pondered the current state of his faction and his homeworld. The autobots were once again in control of Cybertron, but the planet was a wreck. So much had been destroyed. Once-proud cities lay in ruins, the libraries and academies levelled, the surface torn and warped. Cybertron had been drained of energy by the long, vicious wars. Rebuilding was going to take a very long time.

Most of the datapads piled on the young Prime's desk dealt with the damage reports and the efforts to clear the debris. Ruined buildings were being demolished and melted down for the material to make new structures. Energon cubes were being brought from Earth via shuttle, as well as from a small station closer to the sun, that turned solar energy into energon. It wouldn't even register as a speck against the power depletion Cybertron had suffered. The planet would be eons healing itself.

There were some upsides, though. The clearing of the debris was uncovering ancient structures that had been covered over by later construction. Some of the ruins they were finding dated back to before Transformer history even began. The science teams were in their element, finding out everything they could about their lost past. Some of them had been wondering what might lurk in the bowels of the metal world, honeycombed with passages and tunnels. Ultra Rodimus was reluctant to send teams down there, knowing the state of those tunnels. And knowing how heavily booby-trapped most of them had been.

A whuff in his ear startled the grey mech out of his thoughts. Turning his head, he looked at the creature on his shoulder. "Am I getting too depressing for you?" he asked wryly, snorting at the yip he got in response. Reaching up, he scratched under the jaw of the turbo-fox lounging on his shoulders. "At least you're not stealing my pen this time..."

The door-chime went off. Ultra Rodimus blinked at his office door for a moment before calling for whoever it was to enter.

Perceptor stepped in, glancing around to make sure he wasn't interrupting anything. Seeing no one but his leader up to his elbows in paperwork, pet cyber-wolf curled up asleep on some rugs by the wall and turbo-fox doing her best impression of a collar, the microscope eased into the office, approaching the massive desk to stand in front of his Prime.

Ultra Rodimus dropped his pen onto the desk, stretching until his joints popped audibly and his chair squealed a protest. Leaning back, he gazed up at the scientist. "You've just saved me from drowning in a bottomless sea of paperwork, at least for the time being. But I thought you were out working on the ruins near where Vos used to be, or the Stargate terminus. What brings you back to Iacon?"

"A new discovery," the scientist replied, handing over a datapad. Ultra Rodimus took it, lifting a silver eyebrow in a silent question. Shifting, the microscope elaborated. "The team doing some work in the Badlands found signs of ancient activity there, and decided to take a closer look. What they found was an underground complex built between the levels of Cybertron's outer crust and the first layer of tunnels. A hidden facility that's been there, undisturbed, for Primus only knows how long. It's older than most of the ruins we've been finding."
"Where is it, exactly?" the young Prime asked, looking over the data in the datapad.

The red and blue scientist listed the coordinates. A moment later Ultra Rodimus dropped the datapad with a startled grunt, grasping at his chestplate. The Matrix had begun to pulse, sending waves of energy through his circuits. He hadn't felt it do anything like that before. Something or someone within the artifact wanted him to go out there, to whatever facility the team had found.

Perceptor eyed his commander uncertainly. He knew that the Matrix did communicate with its bearer, but he'd never witnessed anything like this before. Usually the grey mech's communion with the Matrix was more like a state of deep meditation. The scientist had never personally seen the Matrix reacting quite this strongly before.

After a moment, the insistent pulsing subsided. Ultra Rodimus waited for a long moment, then dropped his pen onto the dest and stood up. His pet 'fox shifted on his shoulders, poking her nose at his neck curiously. He rubbed her ears, then walked around the desk, nudging Lightfoot. The cyber-wolf woke with a snort, blinking owlishly up at his master before yawning, stretching, and climbing to all fours.

"The Matrix is insisting that I go have a look for myself," the Prime explained, answering the unspoken question on Perceptor's face. "And it is insisting quite forcefully. I'm guessing there's something there that it, or someone within it, wants me to see."

The scientist nodded, his curiosity plain to see. All of the science team badly wanted to get a look at the Matrix and its relationship with its current bearer; never in Cybertron's known history had it been so active or interactive. Ultra Rodimus had been ducking various mechs, not wanting to become a long-term science experiment and knowing the Matrix would rather avoid that fate as well.

Skyfire waited outside of Autobase's gates, in his jet mode. Ultra Rodimus ran his hand along the side of the Valkyrie as he walked to the open hatch, Skyfire flicking his wings at his commander.

"You're really going to be amazed," the big jet said conversationally as he launched, turning in the direction of the hidden complex. "I've never seen anything like this place?"

"Has a way in been found?" Ultra Rodimus moved over to one of the viewports, looking over the ravaged landscape of the Badlands. The long-ago explosion that had created the Great Rift and blown Cybertron out of its orbit had melted entire cities to nothing but half-slagged ruins or eerily-smoothed plains, closer to the massive gap in the planet. Off to one side the Prime could see the lights of the Stargate building.

"When Perceptor and I came in to report, the excavation team had located what they thought was the entrance," Skyfire replied. "The explosion that flattened the cities buried the complex pretty thoroughly. Looks like it was built to withstand one Pit of a pounding, though. We only found it because a chink in its armor shell is letting us detect a working power source inside it."

Large lighting units had been set up around the excavation site. The Transformers could work perfectly well in the dark; mere darkness was no problem to their sophisticated optical systems. Light just made it easier to keep track of things. Metal slag had been piled well away from the site to prevent it falling back into the cleared area. Quickmix wasn't far from the slag piles, perched in his cement truck form and surrounded by a swarm of mechs, like worker bees around their queen. The mixer had clearly chosen not to waste the excavated material; he was melting and mixing alloys in his drum.

"Down there." Perceptor pointed.

A large cone-shaped hole had been dug out, widest at surface level. Several mechs were gathered at the bottom, clearly poking at something. They looked up as Skyfire circled overhead.

The white Valkyrie settled as close to the hole as he could get without falling in. Mechs swarmed around him briefly as he opened the hatch, allowing his passengers to dismbark. Perceptor had to run to keep up with his commander's long stride as the grey Prime made his way to the hole, choosing to slide down the sloping side rather than use the ramp cut into one side. The scientists moved aside for him as he approached them, revealing a slightly scorched wall and the wreck of a door, blown open long ago. It had been hidden behind a mass of fallen debris.

In its compartment, behind the young Prime's heavy armor, the Matrix trembled with horror.

"The Matrix knows this place," the young Prime murmured, getting odd looks from the other Autobots. "There is something here it wants found."

"We haven't gone inside yet." Someone handed Ultra Rodimus a handlight. "Only just found the door."

Frowning, the young Prime peered into the darkness. Then he activated the handlight, stepping through the wrecked entrance into a place where no mech had walked in Primus only knew how long. The bright glow of the light he held swept through the large chamber beyond the entrance, and what it revealed made the Matrix cringe as much as a crystal orb could with shock. Ultra Rodimus froze in place, his optics widening. The other mechs couldn't see past him, but they could see him, and from his body language they could tell he was both shocked and horrified by what he was seeing.

It took a long moment for the grey mech to throw off his shock and unfreeze his limbs. Turning, he looked back outside, expression grim.

"Get some lights in here," he ordered.

"Sir!" Mechs scattered to obey.

Ultra Rodimus watched for a moment, then turned back to the scene filling the chamber. "What the slag happened here?"

Tbc...

Kinda went off the rails at the end there... I think my plot bunnies are messing with my head. The next chapter should be up fairly quickly as well, so pardon the cliffhanger.

Darth Krande: They knew Prima was plotting something to save them, but most of them weren't sure exactly what. He was winging it for a while, and it took time to get as many gladiators as he could rounded up. Some probably knew, but most didn't.

Evil Bunnies Inc: ^_^ Glad you liked it!