Chapter Text
The Start… the Peace… the Silence… Before the War
This is the story of a spark that passed through time, through starfields, through the fragile balance of things. It did not begin on Earth or in our little solar neighborhood. It began on the chrome-breathed world of Cybertron, in a place of libraries and marble spires, markets and machine-forges — in the city of Iacon, where the archives keep memory like a religion.
Dawn of the Last Peaceful Light
From the vantage of the archivist’s tower, the dawn looked like a promise: the kind that tastes both of oil and old paper. Orion Pax—quiet, meticulous, hand steady when it came to restoring brittle relics—liked the way the early light mapped the runes of Iacon’s oldest tablets. He kept a journal in neat loops and small, precise script; it comforted him to record the tiny certainties of the day.
Weeks had passed since his long conversations with a powerful, charismatic gladiator from Kaon—one who argued with fire about remaking Cybertron’s politics. Megatronus had ideas about leadership, about justice as he saw it: direct, absolute. Orion had listened and, at night, he wrote notes and questions, balancing sympathy with caution. He had also spoken with Ratchet in the medbay; the medic’s warnings were soft but steady: power changes optics, and a bot corrupted by ambition could do harm that ink could not fix.
One morning, mid-entry—
"AHH! My lesson!"
Orion closed his journal, garbled the quill in his hand, and shifted into his vehicle form. The streets of Iacon blurred by as he made his way toward the lecture hall, thinking of Alpha Trion’s patient voice and the neatness of authority.
He almost bumped into Alpha Trion at the lecture entrance. The elder's optics were cool and disappointed in a way that made Orion’s hands go colder.
"Sorry about that, mister—" Orion began, then stilled as Alpha Trion’s tone settled him. The master interjected with a simple, almost weary practicality.
"Orion, it is okay. The lesson has been canceled."
Orion’s breath—an internal cog whirr—stuttered. "Wait. It’s canceled? Why?" he asked, before the implication built behind his optics.
Alpha Trion’s gaze softened for a second and then sharpened. "A friend of yours tried to force the council to make him a Prime," he said. "The guards dealt with him. He spoke your name." The old archivist felt a pinch of heat that was not shame but something close: discovery. The truth was a thin blade that sometimes cut easier than a lie.
Orion stammered, then admitted, "We were talking—Megatronus and I—about making changes. A just structure. Treating the driven and the shackled fairly." He meant it. He believed it.
Alpha Trion considered this, then said words Orion had not expected: "Despite your good spark, Pax, Megatronus is not Prime material. Perhaps you will have more luck." The implication knifed into him; the council’s eyes were wide, seeking a leader with integrity. Orion’s heart quickened at the thought, and in the still of that moment the possibility planted itself like an ember.
Shortly after Orion confronted Megatronus about his public outburst—an encounter that frayed in argument—Orion’s name came to the council by way of recommendation and circumstance. Within hours, the ceremonies that anointed a Prime took place. The journals would later call it sudden. To Orion it felt like falling awake: the weight of symbol and responsibility setting over his shoulders. He took the title and the name as if stepping into a mantle that smelled of old bronze and new expectation.
The Dawn Before the Fall
Only hours after the new Prime's first decrees, the first blows were struck. What had been talk and politics mutated into hosts and banners. The great Autobot / Decepticon war bloomed—fast, ugly, and personal. Optimus Prime formed squads, craftily marshalled the ideals of a new government into shields and orders. Megatron, driven by a vision that had become a blackened obsession, rallied his own ranks. Cybertron, once a place of quiet routines interlaced with culture, became the stomp-and-spark of battlefields.
The Fall of Two Sparks
Years shortened and stretched into a brutal ledger. Four cycles of combat later, many sparks had gone dim. Alpha Trion, whose wisdom had shaped a generation, was among those ripped from the world. Even so, there was one breathing pause: Megatron grew ill—whatever sickness bent his metal and muffled his roar—and for a little while the planet sighed.
During that fragile ceasefire, Optimus slipped away with his conjunx, Elita One, to a quiet corner of Iacon. They were no longer commanders in that moment, only two sparks trying to be something softer for each other. The city’s ancient stones caught their laughter like rain, and hope, brittle as it was, warmed their optics.
But the ceasefire was cracked with a precision none expected. Corro— a Predacon-leaning Decepticon scout tattooed in black plating, magenta optics and a red filigree—appeared like a predator in bright day. He overthrew the pair with cold, theatrical violence. Corro restrained Optimus and forced the Prime to watch as Elita’s spark was torn.
What's wrong, Optimus? Corro taunted, his voice like spilled gravel, Not like the pretty spark you've loved this long? Don't worry. It'll be gone soon.
He crushed the spark between callous servos and tossed Elita’s husk aside like an afterthought. Corro's laughter was a blade. "Ta-ta," he sang as he left. Optimus fell apart with the sound of a machine unbolting at the seams. He gathered Elita’s shell with trembling hands and called Ratchet, whose ground bridge was the only thing that could possibly hold the rawness together.
The wound left by that day ran deep, not only because Elita’s life ended but because the violence had been performed in a way that spoke of savage intent: a message, a mockery of love and leadership, a cruelty that rewired trust. It became one of those stories the soldiers told in low voices when they thought the youngest could not hear.
Once the ceasefire folded back into war, more horrors followed. Arcee was captured by a pair of Decepticon sadists—Arachnid and Corro working in tandem. They dragged Tailgate, a partner in arms though not romantically bound, before her and forced her to watch as his circuits were broken and his frame scrapped apart. When Arcee returned to base she spoke little. Silence has its own weight; it stores images that whirr in the dark of a spark’s memory.
The New Recruit and the Conjunx Trio
Time kept a terrible time. Eighteen years from the rattling start of open war, the ranks shuffled, the young grew older, and new faces arrived. One of them called himself Toxin. He was new enough to be called a recruit and old enough in his bearing to be taken as something more; he had a storm in his limbs and an odd tenderness that hummed under his plating.
Toxin fit oddly into the damaged mosaic of Team Prime. He was rough where others polished themselves, quick to laugh with Jazz, and reckless enough to make Bulkhead shake his head. Bumblebee—ever earnest and bright—found himself smitten, not with the idea of heroics but with the warmth beneath Toxin’s guarded jokes. Arcee watched him with a sharpened patience that softened in private. So it was, with a mixture of bewilderment and something like affection, that the base watched a wedding form: not traditional, not expected, but quiet and intense, binding three sparks whose seams matched in peculiar ways.
Jazz wrote in his logs with the blunt enthusiasm only he possessed:
"It's been 18 years since the start of the war. Corro vanished. A new Autobot recruit says his name is Toxin. He's really nice. Arcee and Bulkhead seem close, and Bumblebee totally has a crush on him."
He followed with another entry, equally breathless:
"Seems like Tox, Arcee, and Bee just got married last week. We don't ask questions. But that rookie? Tox? He mowed through a whole squad of Decepticons solo!"
Bumblebee’s Log (excerpt)
Optimus put Tox on a special mission. We're cornered here, the Decepticons press us back to the edge. Tox is out scouting for another planet. I keep the comms open, the hope small and warm like a pocket of warmth in winter. I keep thinking: please come back. Please—
Arcee’s Entry (raw, untitled)
YOU glitch! You just left us! Optimus is making us go to a place called "Ear-th?" or something. I just… I just hope you’re okay, Tox. Please don't leave me like Tailgate. Please.
____END OF THE PROLOGUE____