Chapter Text
When the broadcast exposing Sentinel’s falsehoods swept through Iacon, for the bots who had been online long enough to remember the original Thirteen Primes, something suddenly clicked. Sentinel claimed the original Thirteen had fallen, that he had been made a Prime, but there was always something missing from him, a quality that all the other Primes had.
Sure, power thrummed from his core, it permeated the air around him and lended him gravitas, but there wasn’t the same weight to his very presence. There wasn’t some subtle thing about him that made bots instinctively bring their plating close to their protoform, and their struts tighten in anticipation.
It suddenly made sense, why Sentinel felt lesser, felt more approachable than any Prime that came before him.
The original Thirteen Primes had tried their best to be friendly and personable. They had attempted many methods to bring themselves and the populace they were ruler and guardian of closer together, to break down the barriers between Primes and regular cybertronians. They personally traveled across the planet to meet bots, held radio broadcasts where they would speak to any who called in, and they even went so far as to allow the commercialization of their visages.
However even then, commodities turned into idols for worship, because no bot could ever forget that the Primes, the true Primes, were demigods among bots.
It made perfect sense that Sentinel was a false prophet, a false Prime. A regular bot like anyone else, but one that pillaged and desecrated the corpse of a demigod in order to make that power his own.
A t-cog does not define a transformer, and even less so a Prime.
True Primes were unsettling, in a way no regular bot can perfectly mimic. True Primes appeared as if they were any other cybertronian, as close as they could get, but in truth they were anything but. When pushed past the limits of their more limited forms, their true natures would be revealed. Nigh indescribable, ever changing, monstrous beings of organic metal, of which a single one could decimate an entire fleet of titan class warships.
If pushed, True Primes were terrifying forces to be reckoned with, with powers that were like myth and legend to the bots born under Sentinel’s rule.
It was no surprise that the Quintessons would target the Primes first and foremost in their quest to conquer and drain Cybertron. If the Primes fell, then a great tactical advantage of the Cybertronians would be lost, and the rest of Cybertron would fall soon after.
Cybertron had fallen, and they had all lived ignorant of it.
It made perfect, horrifying sense, that the Primes would only fall if they were betrayed, betrayed by one they thought would never betray them.
The Primes were so unlike regular bots, but the one thing that was never in doubt was how the Primes loved all their brethren dearly. What else could it be?
Vorn after vorn, they and their populace had risked frame and spark for each other. How could they have foreseen that the Principal Primal Aide, one so close to them, one who would have been privy to their secrets, would betray them for their enemy?
On the very day Sentinel was ousted as a liar, and a fraud, history was to become present, myth was to become reality.
Thousands of bots saw as the false angel fell from his tower, tackled by a gunmetal grey bot many recognized as D-16, one of the two cogless miners from the Iacon 5000.
Except… he was cogless no more. He was larger, he was armed, and he had the power to change the world.
The two bots shot through Iacon city, and landed on the altar to the Well of Allsparks. Thousands upon thousands of helms were turned towards the Well. This stunning series of events was recorded and streamed across the city, the number of optics watching accumulating by the second.
They watched as D-16 attempted to execute the traitor. They watched as the other miner from the race, the red and blue one, Orion Pax, stopped him.
Two bots, who in the race, had worked together like a well oiled machine, who stuck with each other through trial and tribulation, who had to have meant so much to each other, now argued.
D-16 pushed Orion aside, and aimed his cannon at Sentinel. At the last possible moment, Orion tried to stop him again, and then the blast went through him. An accident.
They watched as Orion Pax, shot straight through the chassis, so close to the spark chamber, tumbled over the edge, towards the chasm of the Well, only to be caught by D-16.
Then, D-16 let Orion Pax fall. Orion Pax had to have died, right then and there.
All in Iacon were watching now.
They watched as D-16 brutally tore through Sentinel’s tracker-bots. They cheered as D-16 tore apart the false Prime. It was less than what the traitor deserved.
Sentinel’s frame faded as he died, in the way that all bots frame’s did upon offlining, in the way a Prime’s frame would not.
Iaconites recoiled in horror as D-16 tore the t-cog of a demigod out from Sentinel’s Chassis. He raised the glowing purple cog up high. His servos, his frame, it was drenched in energon. D-16 was terrifying.
“The Age of Primes has ended! No more false prophets. Follow me, and you will never again be deceived! RISE UP!” D-16 bellowed, and the crowd before him chanted fervently.
“I will lead us all into the future.”
D-16 exchanged his cog for that of Megatronus’. His frame grew larger, more fortified, a machine made for destruction.
“I. Am. MEGATRON!”
The newly re-named Megatron turned to the monuments to Sentinel, to his lies, to the false idols built all around this sacred place.
“Burn it down! All of it!”
Megatron fired wildly, without a care for the bots below as the rubble came crashing down.
He had pillaged a corpse, to take the power of a demigod for himself. His eyes burnt red, with rage. What was this if not madness driven by vengeance, but most of all, grief.
“All hail Megatron!” Starscream shouted.
The High Guard joined in with relish, finally given the chance to tear at everything Sentinel had built. Destruction rained down as Iaconians fled for their lives.
A pink bot caught Megatron’s cannon arm.
“Stop it! This is just senseless violence!”
“I won’t stop, not until every last one of his followers is dead!”
A yellow bot then joined in on the fight. Iacon burned, and many bots fled the scene.
And then, Cybertron rumbled. The ground shook beneath their pedes.
The darkest parts of the Well glowed as it had not in 50 cycles. An audial piercing screech built and built. Then something as large as the chasm of the Well itself burst out. With it came a tidal wave of energon, soaking the entire monument and all the bots within the vicinity.
The bots who remembered recognized this feeling in their struts. The bots who had never borne witness were frozen in awe as the blurry mass of something folded in on itself too rapidly for optics to process. Then it landed on the altar of the Well with a resounding boom.
Stunned silence fell over the city.
The entity before Megatron was double Megatron’s size from pede to helm, and that wasn’t even taking into account the large, sleek, yet disgusting organic protrusions bursting from it’s left side. The side where Megatron’s cannon had destroyed Orion’s chassis, and damaged Orions’ helm.
Megatron recoiled in horror. He would always know Orion, he would recognize Orion, always, even if his frame was completely reformatted… but this?
The thing with Orion’s frame rose to its pedes and stared at Megatron with dead, empty, supernova bright optics. The smile on his face stretched the plates too wide, showing a horrifying array of dentae. In its right servo, an axe formed of pure energon hummed ominously.
From the bot that D-16 had let fall, a true Prime had been born… but this angel of vengeance was late, because Sentinel was already dead.
The axe transformed into a servo, and with a series of sickening squelches and crunches, the protrusions (wings) folded in on themselves unnaturally, in a way that defied conservation of matter. The metal of plating and armour formed around the matter, and there he was:
Orion, but larger, polished and shiny, and without a single scratch on him… or at least it looked like Orion. Everyone had glimpsed what that red, blue, and chrome plating hid beneath.
With the wings and other matter tucked neatly away, the Matrix was now visible, proudly shining from behind the window of his chassis.
“Primus gave YOU the Matrix?” Megatron seethed.
His voice boomed in the dead silence as the whole of Iacon held their breath.
An overwhelming wave of sorrow washed over all the bots near the Well. It was so immense that a couple bots were brought to their knees. Against his will, more tears streamed down from Megatron’s optics, but he grit his dentae and glared, refusing to feel the raw hurt and confusion the Prime’s field.
The Prime stared imploringly into Megatron’s optics, but the blue was wrong. It wasn’t soft, mischievously affectionate, energon blue. It was too bright, too piercing, as if they saw right through him.
“We could have built the future together,” The Prime murmured.
The words sounded in the audials of bots all the way at the edges of the sacred monument.
“I’ll build it myself, after I tear down EVERYONE, IN. MY. WAY!”
Megatron roared as he charged, shoving down the sorrow in his spark, the sorrow that threatened to become weakness.
He would not let it.
The Prime’s battle mask came up with a click, and he let Megatron come.
It was no contest, Megatron quickly realized. He fought with all his fury, all his might, while the Prime calmly caught or deflected his every blow.
The Prime moved with unnatural smoothness, bending in ways that would have been painful - no - impossible for regular bots. It would have twisted their protoforms, wreaked havoc on their struts and joints, but to the Prime did it so quickly, so unflinchingly, it had to be instinctual.
Megatron couldn’t land a single hit, despite the obnoxious size of his target. He transformed out his cannon, fired a barrage of blasts that the Prime absorbed with his energon axe.
Starscream, Shockwave, and Soundwave jumped in, their bullets and missiles targeted towards the Prime. Immediately, the Prime shoved Megatron off of the roof of the monument.
Megatron managed to grab onto the ledge, and pull himself back up. By then, Optimus had already dispatched the three most prominent members of the High Guard.
The Prime was going easy on him, Megatron realized. Not only that, the Prime was handling him in the fight, taking care not to hurt him.
It only enraged Megatron further.
All this power, but the Prime was still weak in his spark. Megatron wanted to blast a new hole in the Prime’s chassis.
Megatron brought out all his cannons, but before he could even fire, the Prime had closed the distance and ripped the cannons from each of Megatron’s arms.
Megatron fell, clutching his arms in pain. He looked up and saw that the Prime had crushed the cannons into chunks of scrap metal. The pieces clattered to the ground, useless now.
All this power, and the Prime only disarmed him. Discounting the cannons, Megatron had little more than a few dents in his armor.
Megatron gasped in exertion, meanwhile the Prime wasn’t even winded as his gaze and his field roved over Megatron.
He looked more like a statue than a living being. Both his field and gaze were cold, probing, assessing. Ever present, suffocating, but ultimately empty of any emotion.
Megatron’s frame betrayed him as his energon lines went cold, and his plating trembled. He could be offlined. His instincts told him that this thing that looked like Orion, but was not Orion, would not hesitate in tearing out his spark.
Except, Megatron couldn’t make himself move. Perhaps some part of him knew he couldn’t escape if the Prime truly put his mind to it.
Then the Prime was on one knee, crouched over to be eye level with Megatron. The Prime sighed, and his battle mask retracted.
“You… betrayed me.”
A burst of rage, confusion, and so much pain exploded in the Prime’s field, before it was all quickly tucked away into something unreadable to Megatron.
The Prime slowly extended a servo, holding it out, and Megatron stared incredulously.
“But, despite that, I believe we can still build a future together. Please, Megatron.”
On the Prime’s face was a small, hopeful smile. That smile was Orion’s, it was Orion’s face, but the eyes still glowed all too brightly, like he was staring at a cold star in the void of space rather than the optics of the bot that had been his home.
The smile fell as Megatron scowled, and tore his gaze away. With great effort, Megatron brought himself to his pedes.
“Don’t do this,” The Prime said softly. “Don’t become like Sentinel. Don’t become another destroyer of our world.”
Megatron’s helm snapped towards the Prime.
He ignored the pain of his sparking wires, as he stood defiantly before the Prime.
“I saved everyone. I was the one who stopped Sentinel. I will defend us all from any threat. Even- no, ESPECIALLY if it is you.”
It was all resentment and venom.
If Sentinel could take down THIRTEEN Primes, albeit with the help of the Quintessons, then that meant that as powerful as Primes were, they were far from invincible.
The Prime’s mask immediately snapped back in place, and his frame went completely, deathly still.
“Go.” The Prime said, voice trembling.
Nobody moved.
“LEAVE!” The Prime screeched, roared, and cried in a thousand voices at once. His field lashed out and smothered every bot in the city. The altar roof cracked and collapsed inward.
He shouted so forcefully that Megatron couldn’t help but flee. Megatron ran, transformed into his tank mode, then sped away towards the opening to the subterranean city.
The Prime then turned his teary, burning gaze on each and every bot who had joined Megatron in his destructive rampage. They too fled, following Megatron up, out of the city.
Most of them were of the High Guard, and some Iaconian citizens were among them.
The Prime watched until the last of the bots vanished into the distance, and then lowered his helm.
Elita One and Bee approached him warily, the Prime didn’t scream, but pain reverberated and echoed in the sparks of all bots within his vicinity.
The Prime ran a servo over his face, and then turned to Elita with his mask down. The pain abated, and there was a warmth to his field at the sight of both Elita and Bee. A light rain compared to a raging hurricane. He smiled, a tad bit forced.
“A new beginning for cybertron.”
Elita felt like a deer caught in the jaws of a turbofox… but then as she studied those faceplates,she realized those optics were familiar. Despite his altered frame, it was the same Orion Pax, and right now, Orion needed a friend.
“And a new leader,” Elita said, tentatively smiling back.
“Yes about that…” Orion said, grinning lightly. “I could use help from a bot who is better than me in every way.”
“Who me? Oh, I don’t know…” Elita smirked. “I have a pretty sweet gig working in waste management.”
“Well, Captain, how about Second in Command?”
Elita jolted, her finials flicking straight up in surprise.
“I- Second in command?”
“Yeah.”
“You better not be trying to shove all the work of running Cybertron onto my shoulders, Pax,” Elita said, elbowing the Prime.
“Of course not,” Orion laughed, “I’m going to need you by my side. Both of you,” he said, turning his gaze to Bee.
Bee’s finials perked up, and his face brightened in a large smile.
“This is the best day of my life! I get to stay with you guys!!”
Bee brought both Elita and Orion into a surprisingly tight hug. Then Bee let them go, and gasped.
“Does this mean I’m working for the government?!”
“I am the government now, aren't I?” Orion said, amusement fading, and resolve taking its place.
Orion straightened, and then walked towards the edge of the platform. The Matrix in his chest began glowing and pulsing.
His chest plates opened and the Matrix floated into his waiting servos.
He raises the mythical artifact high. If there were any remaining doubts that he was a chosen child of Primus, what happened next swept those doubts away.
The entirety of Cybertron hummed, bots could feel the planet shifting under their pedes as energon pooled up from within the Well of Allsparks, and spilled out into the city, filling the fountains.
From the well of Allsparks, concentrated pulses of energon shot out, flying in all directions throughout Iacon, and embedded themselves into the chests of cogless transformers.
Orion’s hold on the Matrix trembled, the last pulses of energon exited the Well. The Matrix flew back into his chassis, and Orion collapsed onto his knees.
“Orion!”
Elita and Bee rushed to his side, their fields full of concern. Orion’s plating rippled as something threatened to burst through his armor from within.
Orion curled in on himself as his energon lines pulsed, and his venting became erratic. Then, as soon as it started, it was over. His plating settled, and his venting evened out, and he let out a sigh of relief.
“Pax what happened?!” Elita demanded.
“Orion! Are you okay?!”
“I’ll be fine,” Orion said, a little breathless. “It needed to be done.”
Below them, formerly cogless bots admired their new forms, the forms they had always been meant to have. Joyous laughter sounded, as for the first time, they did the most natural thing in the world.
It was a miracle. The birthright of all the children of Primus was restored at last.
Elita glanced down at her colleagues as they bumbled around, half transformed, before finally attaining their vehicle modes, and going faster than they ever could before, some of them even taking to the air. Then she turned back to Optimus.
“Answer my question, Pax,” Elita said sternly.
“I overexerted myself a little,” Optimus replied. “This form… it’s hard to remain shaped like a bot.”
Orion laughed despairingly.
“You’d think that being created as a bot, and living as a bot for nearly 50 cycles would make it easier, but it’s not… and I… I really don’t want to lose my shape. I’d make everyone more afraid than they’ll already, inevitably be.”
“So, if you tire yourself out, you’ll become-“
“That super big thing with a whole ton of feathers right?!” Bee shouted.
“What?” Elita said, cycling her optics twice. “Feathers?”
“Yeah! Feathers! Ooo! Can I touch them? I read they were supposed to be really soft!” Bee said, excitedly hopping from pedes to pede.
“Yes, and yes,” Orion said.
Elita flicked Orion in the helm as Bee cheered.
“You shouldn’t have done all of them all at once!” Elita said. “It wouldn’t kill you if you restored half of the population’s cogs, rested, and then the other half’s, now would it?!”
“A little exhaustion is worth it…it’s only right that I return what Sentinel had stolen from them,” Orion said, reaching up for Elita.
Elita sighed, took his hand, and helped Orion up.
“Besides, we’re going to need everyone at their full potential,” Orion said, “because with Sentinel gone-“
“The Quintessons,” Elita said, the realization dawning. “We have a war to finish, don’t we?”
“All right!” Bee shouted, snapping on his battle mask and activating the blades in his forearms. “Who’s ready to kick some Quintesson aft!”
Orion stood tall and cleared his voice box with a crackle of static. The crowd went silent, and listened.
“Today we stand here together, as ONE. We all have the power to transform, to become who we are destined to be, to right wrongs, to make our world better…”
Orion’s voice carried across the crowd, and every bot could hear him clearly, no matter how far from the Well.
“Because here, freedom and autonomy are the rights of all sentient beings. We are Autobots: autonomous, free thinking, masters of our own destinies!”
Whoops of agreement came from the crowd. Orion jumped down from the top of the monument, to stand among the bots. Elita and Bee followed, firmly beside him.
“I ask you all, not as a Prime, but as a fellow Cybertronian, if you would join me in the fight against the Quintessons, who for the last 50 cycles, have siphoned away our energon, and ruled over our planet. Would you join me in liberating Cybertron from Quintesson rule?”
Orion held out a servo to the crowd and the Autobots roared in affirmation as they crowded around him, Elita, and Bee.
“We’re with you Pax.” Prowl.
“Freedom for Cybertron!” Arcee and Sideswipe.
“The Quints won’t know what hit ‘em!” Ironhide.
“Seriously mech, when did you get so eloquent?” Jazz.
“I thank you, all of you, with the whole of my spark,” Orion said.
Despite the quick, drastic changes to what he was, he was beyond grateful that so many of his friends, so many bots, would be willing to follow him, support him, and place their faith in him.
He would not let them down, not if he could help it.
“There is much we need to do.”
In the coming cycles the Autobots cleared the rubble, took down the monuments to Sentinel’s rule, and then rebuilt and restructured their city for the coming conflict.
Once the Central Communications Tower was repaired, a broadcast was directed up towards the surface, and beyond, into the stars.
“This message is a warning to all Quintessons. If you dare return to Cybertron, the Autobots will be waiting.
I, Optimus Prime, will be waiting.”