Megatron walked through the halls of the Nemesis. Intent on finding his chief medic. The warlord had a plan in mind and he needed Knockout in on it.
He had this idea for said plan forcefully implanted into his processor ever since the appearance of the Forge, the subsequent beatdowns because of it, and that femme who claimed to be Solus Prime (who he regretfully saved) siding with the Autobots. The idea that he had taken a while to come to terms with. The very same idea that made him burn in rage at even merely acknowledging it. And what was that idea?
The idea that the Decepticons are losing the war.
It's simple, really. Optimus Prime now had two powerful assets to help him in the war and those assets had proven time and time again - when it came to the Forge, at least - that their strength is greater than whatever Megatron had to offer as a counter. That was enough of a reason to consider that, for once in multiple millenia, the warlord's victory was not as bright as he had hoped.
And in comes the plan brought forth from that idea. Megatron remembered a detail about the coffin that the self acclaimed Solus Prime had come from. How the material it was made from was created using compacted subatomic matter. If he can harness that material and merge it into the dark energon he had secretly kept in storage… would it be possible to increase his power to match even the power the Relics of the Primes have?
Megatron's musings were stopped when he looked towards the doors to his right. To his left was the medbay, while the other was Knockout's office. He decided to take a look at the office before checking the medbay. The red medic might be doing that foolish test on his polish or whatever nonsense he had the time to spend on.
—-
"Lord Megatron! I have been told that you were arriving in my office. What brings you here today?" Knockout asked as he walked his way towards his leader after setting aside the dismembered Vehicon corpse. The two of them were inside the room adjacent to the medbay that Knockout had commandeered as his private office for… unsavoury experiments as well as the Cybertronian equivalent of paperwork.
"The Ununtrium coffin and its lid. Do you still have it?" the medic heard from his leader as he looked up to meet his gaze.
"Well, yes of course. I had it locked inside the storage vault a few sectors below the ship. Do you have anything in mind to need such a thing?" Knockout asked curiously as he hastily followed Megatron who turned around and walked out of the office the moment the medic mentioned where the coffin was.
"The scales of the war have been tipped towards the Autobots' favour. With the Forge and that femme at Optimus Prime's disposal," Megatron growled at the mention of Solus before continuing, "our advantage of flight has been equalled. If not bested. I need something that can rival the power of the Primes. Be it a weapon or armour. I do not care."
"And you believe that the Ununtrium we have in storage could meet your needs of newfound power?" Knockout summarised. A brief grunt of affirmation is what he got in return.
"Very well, my liege. I shall request the assistance of Breakdown for the grunt work, an eighth of Airachnid's energon excavation crew to suit my needs (as well as additional hands for random things that might come to my attention), and Dreadwing's intel on the Relic hunt because of the chance that there might be something that can help me construct the weapon and armour you need." Knockout listed out as he looked on towards the door that led to the storage room. He watched as the doors swiftly made way for the two Decepticons and immediately walked faster to lead Megatron to the place where he put the coffin.
"Ah, there it is." Knockout said as he saw the object and patted it on the top side. He was about to call the Decepticon warlord to tell him that the coffin was found when the medic turned around and saw Megatron unlocking the secured section of the storage room.
Knockout widened his eyes in surprise when he realised that the section his leader was unlocking had the remaining Dark Energon in store.
"Oh dear… and here I thought that I would never see that purple glint ever again." Knockout murmured to himself as Megatron approached him with a large chunk of the horrid stuff.
"I want you to merge this into the Ununtrium. It will suffice in making it stronger." Megatron briefly said before dropping the Dark Energon on top of the coffin's lid. The warlord then left the medic to his own devices. His purpose being there was already fulfilled.
"Haahhh…." Knockout sighed as he pushed a finger towards the comms at the side of his head.
"I need seven drones to help me carry this coffin and Dark Energon to the medbay. No, no, this isn't out of a foolish whim, Airachnid. Lord Megatron requested it. Yes, yes, I'll send them back once I'm done with them. Love you too, sweetie."
Knockout grinned as he cut off an infuriated Airachnid. Oh, how nice it was to mess with bots sometimes without getting slammed into a wall and having his paint scratched up.
Now, how is he going to go about this project?
—-
Jasper Base… hours later…
"...After the last battle of Iacon, Optimus decided that it was time to leave Cybertron. He left a few of the Wreckers and his chief officer, Ultra Magnus, to protect any of the remaining stragglers who had no chance of getting off the planet. We do not know what became of them, all we know is that they have left for some habitable star system out there." Ratchet finished. Closing the main console after concluding his long tale of the true history of Cybertron.
He started from the 'death' of Solus Prime and moved on to the Reign of the remaining Primes. Then he went to the disappearance of Prima and Alchemist Prime, the Quintesson wars, the Golden age, the era of Sentinel and the Caste system, the rise of Optimus and Megatron, and ending with the most recent account in the Great War. Ratchet had drawn from his memories of what Alpha Trion told him about the period of the 13 and his life as a young'un who lived during the invasion of Quintesson and the periods after to give Solus a more personal and fleshed out history that left no important details.
It's kind of hard to leave the needed-to-know bits when you've lived in the epicentre of all the events you've talked about.
"...How did my Father die?" Solus asked quietly. She was standing as straight as a rod the whole time she digested the story told to her. She was enraged that the war she had found herself in was so destructive and so horrible that it caused Primus to shut down. But the question remained.
Why did Primus shut down?
"..." Ratchet grimaced at that. It was a sensitive topic to him since he saw firsthand the effects of Primus' shut down on the surface of the planet. It was horrifying to see most if not all of the hospitals he had set up fall into dysfunction. Causing a lot of his patients to die since most of them were either on life support or plugged up to some energon fuel line to fill them up after getting shot. The ones who fell in the latter category lasted only hours after that ordeal.
He can still remember the stain of energon left in his hands as he buried the dead.
"Is there something wrong?" Solus asked apprehensively. She chalked up the pain and anguish in Ratchet's optics as a sign that what she was about to hear was in no means good at all.
"No, not at all. I was… reminiscing old memories. According to what Optimus had told me, Megatron had somehow gained access to a material called Dark Energon-" Ratchet started but was abruptly cut off by Solus.
"IMPOSSIBLE! The blood of Unicron couldn't have existed then, my brothers and I ensured it." Solus roared. Her hands clenched as her eyes ablaze. It took a calm hand from Arcee and Ratchet to set her straight.
"I understand that you did all that you could to destroy all of it." Ratchet said slowly in a slow and gentle manner. "But the fact remained that there was a significant amount locked inside a space station commanded by a seeker named Starscream. He let Megatron take it in exchange for making him second in command of all the Decepticons. And after that, Megatron descended to the core and infected it with the vile substance. Optimus arrived shortly after, successfully purging the Dark Energon from the core. But he was too late. The infection had damaged the core. Causing it to shut down so that it can heal itself. Primus will not awaken until many millions of years have passed."
"...I need to leave." Solus said briefly. She had learned a lot today. But, hearing this was too much for her. She did not even register transforming into her alt mode and flying out of the base through the main entrance. She didn't remember flying so high and so far, that the desert landscape turned into forest greenery.
All she remembered was her Forge glowing a light blue before her grief, her agony, her anguish, her rage, and her despair finally claiming what was left of her conscience.
The Forest turned to dust that night.