The Monster of Kaon (Transformers Si): Chapter 53

I walked alongside the energy being that all Cybertronians, including me, called out life-giver.

The literal god of our race.

But my concentration was not on Primus. Rather, it was on the current strangeness of my situation.

It felt weird to be in an organic body after such a long time. The weakness and inefficiency of it, and the absence of absolute control over myself that I had gotten so used to.

Even weirder was walking through the exact recreation of my human home, heading straight for where I remember the kitchen being, a memory that surprised me, given how many eons had passed since I remembered the more mundane details of my human life.

“The spark rarely forgets, Armorbite, no matter the time. But then again, it speaks of how much you care about this memory, this place, that your spark would remember it even after such a long time.”

“…..My human mother built this place brick by brick with her hard-earned income despite being a single parent. She sacrificed everything for my sake, to raise me into a man that she could be proud of.”

I could not help but run my finger over the dining table, lost in the many happy memories this place held for my human side.

“She loved to cook, and I loved to cook for her.”

“A place of strong love. Indeed, that would do it.”

“…..Why here? Primus? Why this place and this form?”

Somehow, despite being a humanoid form made of energy, I could clearly tell what kind of emotion he was feeling.

Maybe he was projecting his emotions outward?

“I chose this place simply because I believed it would provide you with the most relaxing and stable anchor to keep you centered throughout our conversation.”

I felt the sympathy and sorrow he conveyed as he spoke his next words.

“After all, you had very few places like this, places filled with love, on Cybertron. And what little places that you did have are now forever tainted by a war brought on by the idiocy of one of my sons and the mishandled emotions of your own children.”

What was left unsaid but still conveyed by his emotions was how much he blamed himself for the actions of Alpha Trion.

That is something that I cannot stand.

“Primus, I will be frank with you. You have no part in everything that has happened. In fact, I will go as far as to say that the blame lies solely on Alpha Trion. From what I learned, he was the one who created the fake Matrix of Leadership, which directly resulted in Nova’s ascension as a Prime, and the creation of a dynasty of fake Primes that continued until Sentinel Prime. If anything, you helped a lot by keeping the real Matrix out of the reach of those unworthy of it.”

“Then, shall I also say that you have no sins to account for? That all the acts committed by Megatron, the Decepticons, Fortress, and even the ill throughout actions of the Last Prime are not yours to bear simply because you took them under your wing?”

“That is different. As a teacher, it is my failure when the students go astray-“

“Then, isn’t it my failure as a parent when my son does something stupid?”

This guy-!

Primus simply chuckled at my fuming expression (which was much more expressive based on what I saw in the mirror nearby, given that a Cybertronian’s faceplate does not allow such a depth of visual emotions comparatively)

“Anyways, I did not bring you here to discuss our failures or imagined sins, Armorbite. Although I can indulge you if you wish to speak about it further. But something tells me that you are in a hurry.”

“Yeah. I need to restore your body, my planet, back to life before I go off to search for that bastard Sentinel’s worms.”

“I see. Then, let me put those worries to rest. Your theory was right. Sentinel, the Fake Prime, is already dead. The parasite that you killed personally was the last of them.”

Somehow, despite my distrusting nature, I immediately felt relief flood my mind at those words, trusting our god without hesitation.

Is this what it feels like to truly believe in someone or something?

“If he is truly gone, then I have a few questions that I have been searching for answers to ever since I came online on Cybertron. If you would indulge me-?”

Primus once again chuckled at my questioning tone before sitting down on one of the chairs, motioning me to do the same.

For a divine being, he is being quite polite and expressive.

“That is because I am your god, Armorbite. No matter your origin or the source of your Spark, you are one of my children. A child of Cybertron. And I would rather let the Chaos Bringer take the universe than exert any kind of authority over any of you simply because I gave birth to you all.”

Yeah, he is definitely Primus. There is no doubt about it.

With a sigh, I sat down on the chair opposite him and began asking the very first question that I had since I was born here.

“Do you know how I ended up here? As a Cybertronian, I mean. As you already know, I used to be a human but then, one day, I was suddenly Armorbite.”

“Starting with quite the tricky question, huh? Very well. Let me show you.”

With a wave of his hand, our surroundings shifted. Our chairs were still there, and so was the table between us, but the house was gone.

Instead, we now floated in a void of nothingness illuminated by a colossal blue star that continuously emitted particles.

No, not particles. Sparks.

The blue star was releasing newborn sparks while also taking in deceased sparks into itself.

I knew this information instinctively, just like I knew what the blue star was.

Primus himself, or rather, his true form within his physical core.

A being of pure energy. A being of creation and life.

Then, the void suddenly lit up as a fissure of something appeared and disappeared in a matter of a single second.

But, before it disappeared, it left behind a speck of energy. It looked similar to the Sparks going into and coming out of Primus, but I could tell that it was fundamentally different.

“One day, out of nowhere, your soul appeared within my very core. Despite what it may look like, it was quite clear to me that it was not the actions of something intentional. If I had to guess, I would say it was sheer accident that ended with your soul within my domain.”

“However, once it did arrive here, I had a choice to make.”

I continued watching as the speck, my soul, continued pulsing in the void. A steady beat. But I could tell that the speck was slowly fading, running out of whatever energy it contained within itself.

“My Core, my very self, is something that no ordinary soul can withstand. A hostile environment for anything that is not a Spark.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me, Armorbite, have you ever wondered why our species is so different compared to the rest of the mechanical life found commonly across the universe? Have you ever wondered why we are so much more powerful, so much closer to organic life despite being mechanical beings? Why are we such a paradoxical existence?”

“Has your child, Windblade, ever wondered why my son’s lenses show her the Sparks of her fellow bots as balls of energy while the souls of organics appear as strangely nebulous forms of energy?”

I stayed silent, knowing that Primus was going somewhere with this line of questioning, while still watching the scene in front of us.

The blue star pulsed with pure energy, drawing in my human soul towards it and enveloping it within its protective energy, keeping it from fading away in the hostile environment.

However, as Primus protected my human soul, I also saw how he was slowly molding it into something else, something new.

Like an artisan who found a damaged clay sculpture and decided to recreate it into a new form, he manipulated eldritch energies to slowly morph my human soul into something that I would recognize anywhere, thanks to how familiar I am with it.

My Spark. The very spark that beats within my Spark Chamber.

“You see, when my brother and I first came into existence, the universe was already there. Granted, it was not as teeming with life and celestial bodies as it is now, but it was still there.”

“However, what little life did exist in those times was nothing more than animals, organisms that cannot even be called sentient, much less sapient. Creatures that live extremely short lives and live in a way that is a complete waste of the universe’s energy.”

I felt his nostalgia as he lost himself in those memories.

“A lot of things happened after that, but the thing that is relevant to this discussion is that I was concerned with how, shall we say, weak, the souls of organic beings were. They were small, weak, and easy to break. I did not want that for my children.”

“That is why I decided that instead of creating a race of machines and granting them sapience, I would do something else. I would mold their bodies from my very essence, that which you call Cybermatter. They would share the lifeblood of my physical form, Energon, as their source of energy and existence. And finally, their ‘souls’ would be fragments of my own.”

Somehow, I could tell that he was grinning happily as he spoke his next words.

“Sparks, as we call them. Created from fragments of my own core, my very existence.”

“That is why I call all Cybertronians my children. Because you all are literally born from my very existence, my core.”

Then, he became serious as we continued watching the scene where the metamorphosis of my spark was complete.

“However, because I made the Sparks of our people so strong, so ‘weightier’ in a metaphysical sense, the environment where they are birthed and merged back into myself after their deaths is not a place where a regular mortal soul can survive.”

“That is why I said I had a choice to make. Either expel your soul out of my core, back into the cosmos, where it would probably wander for eternity and beyond without a purpose, or mold it into the spark of one of my children, giving it a new life on my planet as one of my children.”

Once again, he grinned at me as the scene faded, but not before I saw my newborn spark shoot out along with other newborn sparks, probably headed towards the Well of Sparks.

“As you can see, I chose the latter. That is how you came to be, Armorbite.”

“…That is a lot to take in. But, I have to ask. If you created Cybertronians in such a way, then what use is the Allspark? And the Well of Sparks? And what is the corrupting energy around your core that I saw?”

“The Allspark acts as a conduit for my power. As beings of pure energy, my brother and I needed physical forms to interact with the material universe. But after we gained physical forms, we realized that our true power was severely limited in these material bodies of ours, not to mention the fact that the finer control of our powers was beyond our reach now.”

“For Unicron, it did not matter much since he never intended to use his powers in an efficient or intricate way. But to me, it was a detriment since uncontrollable power meant that it would be nearly impossible for me to create anything.”

“That is why I created the Allspark as a conduit as well as a vessel to store my excess power. It allows me to control my power in an intricate manner and also powers my body, Cybertron, allowing me to focus more on creating life.”

“As for the Well of Sparks, it was the place from which the Thirteen were born, so I decided to make use of it as the place from which new Cybertronians would be born. Of course, my other children, the Titans, copied this idea and did their own thing when they left to establish Cybertronian colonies, but that is a different topic altogether.”

With a shake of his head, he turned back to me.

“Anyways, that is the true purpose of the Allspark and the Well of Sparks. And before you ask, the Matrix of Leadership does not play any fundamental part in the existence of our species. It is just another conduit, albeit a mere fraction compared to the Allspark, and a collection of all the wisdom and knowledge accumulated from its bearers.”

“And, as for the corruptive substance? That would be the Chaos Bringer’s lifeblood, Dark Energon. Just like Energon is my lifeblood.”

Ok, what!?

How the hell did something as mythical as Dark Energon get all the way to Primus’s core-?

“Your sparkling, Megatron, brought an artificial version of it to me, in hopes of threatening me to relinquish Sentinel’s spark over to him. Of course, given that he was unworthy of communicating with me, I gave him no response. So he followed through with his threat and poisoned the core with artificial Dark Energon.”

Fuck!!

“…Sorry.”

“Hahaha! Like I said. I don’t hold you accountable for something out of your control. Truthfully, I don’t blame Megatron either. I know better than to judge a bot who is too lost in grief and induced insanity for things that he did.”

You may not care, but I do!

I thought I raised that idiot better than this. Better than taking out his anger and loss on others.

Primus must have sensed my thoughts again since he simply chuckled with amusement.

“Despite everything that has happened, I must say that you and your kin have truly created wonders of your own. I mean, artificial Dark Energon? Who would have even thought that a purely physical species like you could ever manage to reverse engineer the essence of energy beings like my brother and me? Not to mention how you and Shockwave managed to reverse engineer Energon, and in some cases, even enhanced it beyond its original state.”

This time, I felt embarrassed at his genuine praise.

“Well, the colonies were running out of Energon, so we had to do something to ease their burden. Not to mention that we never knew the true origins of Energon, only that it flows throughout Cybertron and is found in a crystalline form naturally.”

“Again, a very impressive feat. Something that the Thirteen Primes would not have even imagined back in the days they were alive. Solus Prime could have created something like that with ease, that is true. But she had the help of the Creation Lathe and the Forge, both of which were artifacts that she was born with, just like you ‘outliers’ are born with your powers. So you must know how impressive it is to achieve what you and your companions did without the help of such ‘Deus Ex Machina’ as you call it.”

“Wait, are you saying you don’t know how those artifacts work either?”

Somehow, the grin that I knew he was sporting was not comforting.

“Nope. Just like I don’t know how the outlier powers work. But that is the joy of creating and discovery, isn’t it? The not knowing?”

“No, it is not! Randomly experimenting with things and seeing what happens is not how you go about discovering things! Oh Primus! To think I am more mature than our god-!”

“Don’t be so dramatic! It isn’t that bad. Especially compared to how I accidentally created the Predacons when I was trying to create a hardy race of foot soldiers for the Thirteen.”

“….Yup, our species is screwed.”

“Hey!”

I do not know how long I spent with Primus like this, talking about this and that, seeking answers to questions that have long since plagued me but went unanswered despite my best efforts.

It was only when I was completely satisfied did I finally stopped, but not before asking the final question.

“So, what now? I mean, with the Allspark back here. You can probably get rid of the Dark Energon’s taint easily enough, right? Then, what else is left aside from reviving Cybertron? Because if that is all, then I have children that I need to reprimand and bring back home while also putting out whatever diplomatic fires that they have set on Earth during my absence.”

Primus gave me an amused look despite how our forms started fading, indicating that it was time for me to leave.

“If you are willing, I have a task for you, Armorbite. One that will take you to the children on Earth.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“While Cybertron will indeed become a life-bearing world again with the Allspark returned and the Well of Sparks reenergized, its native lifeforms have already been wiped out completely. With enough time, I can generate enough energy to bring them back, but it will take thousands of years.”

“I am guessing you have an alternative which involves whatever task you have for me?”

He raised his hand and placed his index finger on my forehead, transferring knowledge that sent waves of alarm within my mind.

“I see. So that is what you want me to do.”

“Indeed. My son sent the Omega Keys to Earth in hopes that the Last Prime would find them and revive Cybertron. But now that Cybertron is already revived, the Omega Lock can be used for a different purpose. If you can bring the keys here and fire the Omega Lock into my Core by mounting it onto a ship, I will have enough energy to bring back all the native life at once.”

“Hm, very well. I accept this task. But I expect payment for it.”

“Hahaha! Of course. Would it suffice to make you a Prime?”

“Hell no! I will never be a Prime!”

His amusement at my words only fuelled my annoyance.

“But you are already a Prime in all but name. Anyways, what do you want?”

“….I just want your help. I have a plan to modify myself with the Forge, especially now that it is completely reenergized with its uses no longer limited for now, but I lack the knowledge necessary to make my idea into reality. I need your help to fill the gaps in that knowledge.”

Just like he had done until now, he looked into my mind and saw my plan, making him go quiet at the scope of it all.

“…I see. Your idea is indeed ingenious and would turn you into an unrivalled existence, capable of feats that no one before you, and probably no one after you, will be able to match. However, there are also dangers associated with doing something like that. Are you sure about this?”

“I am.”

“Then, we have a deal.”

With that, I lost consciousness again, but not before I felt a final wave of annoyance at what he called me in my fading moments.

“Fortress Maximus Prime. It would have been quite the mouthful if you officially became a Prime, no?”