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TRANSFORMERS:
by
Hi
I'm Ian Brazee-Cannon
enjoy
Prax Omega stumbled from the
wreckage of what had just been a warehouse. He caught himself on
an area of wall that was still standing. All around him lay the remains
of his allies and enemies. The shock of what had just happened over
took him.
Through out the existence
of the Transformers there had been wars. The two main faction, no
matter what they called themselves, were always engaged in battle somewhere.
Autobots verses Decepticons, Maximals against the Predacons and then the
Vehicons. Every few centuries the wars would find a way to begin
anew, and yet it was still the same fight that had been fought for eons.
Prax was a loyal Defender.
They had evolved from the Maximals, although that name had not been used
in centuries. The Defenders had been at war with the Mightacons,
having evolved from the Predacons in the same manner.
Prax had risen through the
ranks and became one of the youngest field commanders. Now it looked
as though he was the last Defender. Possibly the last Transformer
from the looks of things.
Grand Maxicon, the leader
of the Mightacons, had led an all out attack against the Defender's base.
No one knew that he had prepared a group of quantum bombs to devastate
Cybertron during the battle. The release of such energies would start
to tear the planet apart in just a few cycles.
Prax had been lucky and ended
up trapped in the lowest level of the Defender's base. He was still
unsure how he had ended up there.
"Prime," a harsh voice yelled
from somewhere in the vast field of the dead. "I know you are here somewhere
Prime. Show yourself, we have a lot to catch up on."
Prax quickly ducked behind
the ruined wall. As he peeked out to see who was coming a surprised
gasp left his mouth. The gray, foreboding form of Grand Maxicon in
his hover tank mode was coming ever nearer.
Prax found a functioning rifle
and jumped from his shelter.
"Die, you plague upon our
kind," Prax yelled as he took to the sky. He fired non-stop at the
menacing form of Maxicon. The laser blasts bounced of Maxicon's heavy
armor.
"There you are Prime," Maxicon
laughed. "And here I thought you could do better than that. Oh, but
you do not have the Matrix yet. I saw Quintal Paxium's body just
laying there as lifeless as the rest. We should go retrieve the Matrix
from him."
Without another word Maxicon
turned and headed back the way he had come. Prax transformed into
his hover car mode. He quickly flew after Maxicon, a streak of red
across the sky.
Prax caught up to Maxicon as
he stood over the charred body of Quintal Paxium, who had been the leader
of the Defenders for some time. Paxium had been a stalwart and hardy
leader. He had earned his place among the great leaders of old.
Yet here he now lay, lifeless and ruined.
"You monster!" Prax
yelled as he transformed into his cyber-bear mode and pushed Maxicon to
the ground. "How many had to die for you to achieve this hollow victory?"
Maxicon jumped up, throwing
Prax to the ground. The Mightacon's leader looked at the young Defender
and laughed.
"You are no match for me right
now, Prime."
Maxicon turned back to Paxium
and kneeled down before his fallen enemy. With several movements
from Maxicon, Paxium's chest plate opened. The strong glow of the
Matrix of Leadership overwhelmed the dark battleground.
"Here is you past, and your
future," Maxicon said, as he step away.
Prax switched to robot mode,
got to his feet and walked over to Paxium's body. He looked at Maxicon
and then to the glowing Matrix.
"What do you gain from this?"
"I could just kill you
now. I could have let you die with the rest of them. But there
would have been no satisfaction in that."
Prax kneeled down, pulled
the Matrix from Paxium's chest and turned back to Maxicon.
"Come now Prime, you should
know what to do by now."
"Why do you keep calling me
that? I'm not a Prime unit. We have not seen a Prime Unit for
some time now."
"Once you open the Matrix
you will understand."
"Rodimus was the chosen, only
he could open the Matrix."
"Once it had been used to
destroy Unicron, it was changed. It is sentient after all.
Over the centuries since it has adapted to new uses, most of which revolve
around you. What are you afraid will happen?"
Prax placed his hand in the
proper slots of the Matrix. He turned to look Maxicon straight in
the eyes.
"How do you know all this?"
"You told me in our last lifetime."
Puzzled by the comment Prax
shook his head and then turned back to the Matrix. He gently started
to pull the sides apart. He was surprised with the ease in which
the Matrix was opening.
Prax let his mouth fall open
as the globe of the Matrix hovered above him. He was at a lose for
words as the power of the orb beated down on him.
"What is happening?"
"You are being reborn once
more, Optimus Prime," Maxicon laughed.
The small form of Prax seemed
to melt away. In its' place a larger form was taking shape.
As the energies subsided the mighty red, blue and silver body of Optimus
Prime emerged.
"Gone back to your classic
body I see," Maxicon remarked. "Maybe I should do the same." Maxicon
took a device from his back and pressed a button. Electric energy
filled the air as rays of raw energon shot out to engulf Maxicon. In a
scream of joy and pain Grand Maxicon fell to the ground. The sounds
of metal being torn apart filled the air now.
As the smoke cleared the cold
gray form that stood before Optimus Prime was no longer that of the Mightacon
commander.
"Hello Megatron," Prime said,
in a cold voice.
"Here we are again, Prime.
Life after life, face to face, ready for battle. Our sparks get reborn
every so often, so that we can fight the same battles over and over. I
have often wondered what Primus was thinking when he played such a cruel
jokes on us." Megatron laughed, but was disappointed when the silent figure
of Prime made no reply.
"We are two sides of the same
coin, Prime. Reborn to take our place as each other's opposite. The
great War, The Beast Wars, The Biorginic Purge, the Quantum War... the
list goes on. How many lives have we lived now? How many of
them do you remember? I lose track around seventy. They all
just start to merge together at that point."
Prime remained silent as he
kneeled before the lifeless body of Paxium. He started to take the
fallen Defender's body in his arms.
"Most of the time we did not
even know who we really were. Even when we would take our true names.
Do you remember the Beast Wars. I was arrogant enough to take my
own name because I believed that it would make other's fear me. I
had no idea in that life that it was my true name. It was the merger
of my reborn spark with my original spark that led to me remembering who
I was in my next life, you know."
Prime stood and looked around
at the devastation. The surface of the planet was scarred and covered
with dead transformers.
"How may Cybertrons have we
fought on now, Prime? Five? Six? We seem to have a bad habit of destroying
them, don't we. How many beings in the universe can say they were
in such competition with Unicron? And yet somehow, Cybertron is always
reborn, same as us."
Prime started to walk away
from Megatron, still showing no sign that he was listening.
"Leaving so soon? We
have yet to have one of our famous battles to the death. I have done
my part by destroying Cybertron, now you must vow to avenge all the innocents
I have murdered in my heartless need for power. Then we fight until
we both fall to the ground, dead at each other's hands."
Prime continued in his trek
through the dead bodies.
"Listen to me Prime, I will
not be ignored."
Megatron fired his plasma
cannon. The blast hit at Prime's feet. For a moment the Autobot
Leader froze, then continued on his way.
"I remember the first time
I killed you. I had told you it was all over. You replied 'Never'.
I am now surprised at how right you were."
Megatron flew into Prime's
back, throwing them both to the ground.
"Have you learned nothing
from all these lifetimes, Prime?"
Prime got to his feet and
looked down at Megatron. The Deception Leader smiled.
"Come now, Prime. You
know we have no choice but to play our parts in this cosmic comedy."
Prime turned to pick Paxium
back up.
Megatron pulled up a large
metal bar, stood up and hit Prime in the back. Prime fell to the ground.
"Why won't you fight back?"
Prime got back to his feet
and looked Megatron in the eyes. He said nothing.
"Damn you, Prime. You can
not change the rules this late in the game. We must fight."
A sudden quake threw both
of them to the ground once more. Piles of ruined building materials
were thrown through the air as an earthquake started to rip the ground
they had been standing on.
When the smoke cleared Prime
got back to his feet. He quickly found the body of Paxium and continued
in the direction he had been trying to go in.
Megatron tried to get up to
follow, but found himself trapped in the rubble, his plasma cannon lost
in the clutter. He watched as Prime slowly walked away.
"It can not end like this,
Prime. We need to fight. Do not leave me here. You must
play your role."
Prime turned and looked back
at Megatron.
"You understand don't you,
Prime? No matter how many lifetimes you live, no matter how much
pain you suffer, there is that annoying do-gooder still dominating your
program. You will not leave me here to suffer. It is in your
most basic programing to help other lifeforms, no matter who they are.
you can not just leave me to die slowly."
"We will all be dead soon
thanks to your quantum bombs," Prime replied, in an emotionless voice.
"Your sufferiung will not last long." He then returned to his walking.
Megatron began to laugh.
He laughed louder than he ever remembered laughing before, in any of his
lives.
"I will see you next lifetime,
Optimus Prime."
One of the
