And here is where I thoroughly mangle Cybertronian history to make it suit my own tastes.

Enjoy, review, and correct mistakes.

Chapter 4:

The Great Artifact was silent for a long moment and just when Optimus was about to retract his query, it answered.

When Primus first took his planetary form and began to split his spark to create the Cybertronian precursors, he recognized that his children would need a leader. He wanted that leader to have direct access to his processor so that he could monitor his children and provide his own wisdom and insight to the chosen one. Thus the Oracle Computer was devised. It worked moderately well for the first few Primes, but then the Destroyer came. It ravaged Primus' body and there was little that he could do to stop the rampage. If Primus transformed to fight the Destroyer then his children would perish, but if he remained in planetmode the Dark One would consume his children anyway. Just before it was too late he realized a solution. The Destroyer was pure darkness, and he was pure light. Light always overcomes the darkness, so if he could somehow infuse the other with himself then his children might yet be saved. So, he very carefully began to make micro-transformations to shift the location of his spark chamber until it was exposed through the damaged portion of his frame. Primus opened his spark chamber and allowed his light to spill out into the Great Beast's hungry maw. It burned the Destroyer and forced it to retreat, lest it be completely overcome. The Dark One warped away to nurse its wounds, but Primus knew it would eventually return for revenge. So, the planetformer activated his mighty engines and fled to a lesser known portion of space. He finally came to rest in orbit around a pair of binary stars that would give light and energon to his people while he recovered. His healing would take millennia of centivorns and would require him to go into stasis. This trouble Primus greatly, for he would be unable to provide his people with protection during that time, nor would he be capable of conversing with the Prime. To cover this vulnerability he used the last of his strength to create a powerful datacrystal, into which he copied all of his considerable stores of knowledge and wisdom. Lastly, he poured as much of his spark's power as he could spare into the device against the possibility that the Destroyer might track him down before his recovery was complete. The device was given to the Prime with instructions that it was to be carried next to the chosen one's spark, and when the current Prime's reign came to an end the device would be presented to the people for the selection of the new leader. The crystal was sentient and equipped with recognition algorithms that enable it to find the next Prime spark. With his last gift given, Primus bid his children a safe functioning and shut down into healing stasis.

The Matrix paused for a klik to gather its thoughts for the rest of its narrative when it noticed that its bearer had fallen into recharge. It pulsed in amusement and remembered that its guardian had experienced a long orn. The Great Artifact felt badly for having kept its Prime awake for so long and resolved to ensure Optimus recharged undisturbed for the remainder of the dark-cycle.

_-*-_..._-*-_..._-*-_

Dissever was both a blessing and a curse. He was helpful, willing to do anything that was asked of him, and he had enough patience to deal with the monotonous bouts of pad-pushing. The problem was the mech's organizational skills. It was not that he was disorganized, on the contrary, Dissever was over-organized. The Urayan was obsessed with keeping everything in its place, perfectly sorted, and completely straight, right angles preferred. This was not a problem within Prowl's office since the Praxian had a penchant for neatness anyway, but once they left the office for a series of important meetings it became apparent how extensively the obsession could reach.

The first meeting was with the renovations team. It was part of the tradition to change the interior layout of the Decagon Palace. Most of the stately old building would remain unchanged, but the personal chambers and private study would be given a new look to complement their Prime. Sentinel Prime's tastes had been rather eccentric, with every room bearing a background of dark blue and gold with contrasts light blue and white. He had preferred that scheme because it gave him the capacity to literally fade into the background and reappear at will. However, those shades clashed terribly with the new Prime's colors and therefore had to be altered.

It was the renovations team's responsibility to present several possible solutions which Prowl could in turn submit for approval or modification. Like many construction presentations the conference table was covered in haphazardly scattered blueprints, infopads, and other relevant documents. To the outsider, like Dissever, it appeared random, disorganized, but in reality the architects knew exactly where everything was. Prowl knew that designers of any kind favored this type of 'organization' and was able to ignore it as a peculiarity of the species. Dissever on the other servo, froze as soon as he entered the doorway. His entire frame twitched and shuddered for a klik before he got himself under control. Prowl noted his subordinate's reaction, but since the Urayan seemed to get over it quickly, he dismissed it in favor of more important matters.

The architects took the Praxian around the table explaining the different choices and Dissever followed behind him occasionally reaching out to straighten an arrangement of datapads. After a few moments to observe that the Urayan was not causing trouble with his 'fixing', Prowl focused more fully upon the designers who were now motioning to holographic renderings on the far wall.

One of the architects, a cranemech designated Grapple, turned to reach for a specific blueprint to illustrate the advantages to what was obviously his favorite design, only, it was not there. His muttering and increasingly frantic search soon drew the attention of the others and one of his associates finally put forth the query. "What's wrong Grapple?"

The goldenrod-plated mech looked up and, with a worried glance towards the very attentive SIC, whispered. "The blueprint is gone! I know I placed it on this section of the table because I remember thinking I wanted it handy for the visual display."

The two other builders huffed at this unnecessary delay and began to help search. Both were sure it was only misplaced and that Grapple had simply overlooked it. As they looked however, it became obvious that not only was Grapple right, but all of the datapads were out of order, with many missing entirely. The three architects had spent a full joor arranging their data before the meeting for maximum convenience and knew that blueprints did not just move of their own accord, so how did this happen? They begged their host for a few kliks to correctly rearrange their presentation, but Prowl was not listening.

Prowl was watching Dissever become more and more agitated with every pad the designers moved. The revelation came to him that this situation was most likely his subordinate's doing and he moved to address the issue before the builders went into a true panic or his potentiate into a tidying frenzy. "Dissever, how did you arrange the datapads?"

The architects looked up in horror at the round-about declaration that this had been done on purpose. The Urayan on the other servo, looked pleased and proud that his work was being acknowledged. "Well sir, I sorted all the datapads into three sections: blueprints and schematics; supply lists and financial quotes; and miscellaneous datawork. Then, within each section I broke them down by subcategory, and by date of creation within the subcategory. Lastly, I arranged each date set by size, smallest to largest."

The builders looked at the table to see that he was correct, which only made it more horrible since many components of the individual plans had been constructed on completely separate dates and each presentation possessed data across the 'categories'. The five viable plans and twelve possible variations were now inextricably mixed together, and it would take joors, if not orns, to sort back out. Grapple began to hyperventilate at the atrocity that had been perpetrated against his beautiful plans. His associates, recognizing the classic signs of a master architect going into conniptions, attempted to calm him down.

Grapple passed out.

_-*-_..._-*-_..._-*-_

After calling a medic for the indisposed builder, and assuring the renovations team that would reschedule the meeting, Prowl left for his next appointment.

His next destination was the Armory for a retirement inspection. The elderly Weapons Master had decided he was tired of surviving Primes and chosen to retire. Kup was rumored to have been a sparkling during the end of the Quintessonian occupation and his fighting prowess, which was not dimmed at all by his age, was so reknowned that he had a standing offer at the WarAcademy to be a servo-to-servo combat instructor if he ever left the service of the Prime.

The old mech was waiting for them at the entrance chomping on his signature stogie. The doctors had prescribed him a series of mineral additives to maintain his frame integrity as he aged, unfortunately, they tasted like slag. And poorly melted slag at that. To fix that, the green-plated ruster had gotten someone, somewhere to build him that stogie and aerosolize his additives in little cartridges that could be smoked in the cigar-like device.

Kup nodded at Prowl, and gave Dissever a once-over, then led them inside. It… was not what they were expecting. Kup usually ran a very tight ship, and whilst he was a lenient task-master most of the time, he expected all of his subordinates to tow the line when it came to orderliness and cleanliness. The current state of the Armory was neither. The gun lockers with their once neat rows of rifles and blasters were knocked askew and the guns themselves had fallen out in a deadly imitation of pick-up-sticks; the typically pristine stacks of bombs and missiles were strewn across the entire area; and the bins of grenades were knocked over, spilling their fragile contents everywhere.

Prowl stared at the mess, then glanced back at Dissever… the Urayan looked to be in shock. The SIC turned to the Weapons Master, perplexed that anyone was being permitted to see the Armory in such disarray and hoping that his trainee's cleaning frenzy could be staved off for a few more kliks.

Now, Kup was an adept reader of 'doorwing' and an even better reader of 'Prowl's Optic Ridge', so he answered the unspoken question without verbal prompting. "Well lads, this 'ere is a prime example o' what 'appens when ya inspections manager decides to quit. The li'le mech 'as been un'appy 'ere fer vorns but I could never get 'im transferred somewhere where 'e'd be 'appy."

The black and white doorwinger gazed out upon the mess with a deceptively passive countenance. "I see. What effect will this have on your intent to retire?"

"Well youngin', I s'pose it means I canna retire. Least not till I find a new inspections manager."

"Acknowledged. I will have the datawork held back from final processing until you do. Since it would be pointless to perform the review while the Armory is in this condition we shall postpone it until after the new manager is acquired. Doing so will give me the added benefit of analyzing the proficiency of the new mech."

Kup nodded his assent and pulled a long puff on his stogie. Prowl vented slightly in resignation, this was not turning out to be a productive orn, and turned to let Dissever know they were leaving.

The Urayan was gone.

The rather conspicuous sound of Kup's vents stalling and trying to restart alerted the SIC to the location of his errant potentiate. While Prowl and Kup had been distracted in conversation Dissever had apparently reached his breaking point and made a mad dash for the colossal mess to joyfully begin straightening it out.

As it turned out, the purple and blue mech was very… very… VERY good at organizing and cleaning weapons. He had already replaced two rifles back into the cases and they shone with the obvious care he had lavished upon them. Dissever was currently inspecting a third with a rag in hand to remove any debris.

Prowl's doorwings gave a tiny, almost imperceptible flutter of hope as he returned his attention to the green elder. "Master Kup, it has come to my attention that Dissever will not be a good fit for Administrative Assistant. However, as you can see, his ability to attend to detail is unparalleled. Would you be interested in interviewing him for your own empty slot?"

Kup grinned.

_-*-_..._-*-_..._-*-_

When Prowl left the Armory it was with a light spark. Dissever was joyfully ensconced in the midst of the chaos gleefully setting it to rights and Kup was free of the torture house that High Command had become. No one had ever dared mess with the Weapons Specialist directly, not even Sentinel Prime had been that bold, but neither did they leave him alone. There were many methods of cruelty that did not involve physicality after all. Therefore, Prowl was happy. Kup had been a sort of mentor to him and the old mech's relief was the Praxian's joy.

Regrettably though, this meant the SIC was out of a successor, again. His doorwings drooped minutely. Oh well, on to the next candidate.

_-*-_..._-*-_..._-*-_

It was orn's end again and Optimus found himself in the meditation chamber once more. He was becoming convinced that it would be simpler for him to move his berth in here for recharge given how often the Matrix pulled him in for a chat. Although, this dark-cycle's visitation was being initiated by Optimus, not the Artifact.

He had come out of recharge that light-cycle to the horrific realization that he had fallen into defrag on the ancient knowledge keeper and had immediately attempted to apologize. The Matrix had been silent. It had remained that way throughout the entire orn too. Now, the greatly terrified bearer was going to try to placate his symbiote one more time. Optimus quieted himself and focused in on the Primal Burden. He waited, hoping it would acknowledge him.

16DarkMidnight80: thank you for the encouragement. You are right about this being the hard road, it is very difficult to give them the backstory I envision and still keep them on the path to their true selves. I do not believe that anyone starts off with the personality they end with, every encounter of our life shapes who we are and molds how we see the world. In my own experience, the emotionless-ish nature that Prowl embodies is typically a response to some sort of trauma. Now, I know that some people have naturally stoic natures, but Prowl takes this to an extreme, why? And, leadership like Optimus possess can have natural roots, but his wisdom and peaceful center can only be obtained by experience. Thus, this story was born. Eventually they will become our beloved mechs but for now they remain virtual train wrecks. Thanks again, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story.

Lair of the Twisted Muses: I had hoped to answer your question about the Priima in this chapter, but the muse said no. Therefore, the answer will be next chapter. I hope you continue reading to find out.