Written by DBX
I thought I would never see it again, the place where I was created. I had only been there a month earlier, it hadn't changed much. We thought it was sealed off but Rhinox, Ballistic and DinobotX found an underground transport track that connected the lab to a storage facility. We didn't have much to go on. We knew that one of the members of the Tripredacus Council had funded some kind of experiment or research that had to do with the lab. Something about it involved salvaging a lot of circuitry from the scrap yards. It may have been to build a weapon. The Matrix had sent us there but it didn't say why. If there really was a weapon we could be there either to make use of it, or to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands by destroying it.Nightwolf and I got to the lab an hour after being contacted by Rhinox. The others were waiting for us, they hadn't started searching the lab yet. When we got there, DinobotX was sitting against a wall with his head lowered.
"Weird that we're back here again." Nightwolf said.
"With the events of late we should have predicted this." Ballistic said, "So where do we start?"
"Look around for anything that's suspicious. Especially Predacon insignias or a Tripredacus insignia." I said.
"Something that says 'Top Secret' on it might also be a clue." Nightwolf remarked.
"Thanks." I said rolling my eyes.
"Just trying to be of help."
"Speaking of helping, this isn't exactly my area of expertise." Ballistic said, "I'll return to base."
"Good idea, we can't leave it unguarded." I said.
"X, I know you were having some trouble earlier. Why don't you come too?" Ballistic said.
"No, I have to stay." DinobotX said standing up.
"Alright. Be careful guys."
Some of the lab was demolished because of the cave-ins we had caused the last time we were there. Rhinox and Nightwolf were checking some room that Rhinox had found before while DinobotX and I searched the area near the tracks. Like usual, he wasn't saying much so it surprised me when he made a sudden announcement,
"I don't trust myself." I stopped walking and looked at him questioningly, "Earlier when we were making our way through the tunnel, my memories were coming to me, worse than normal. I'm afraid I may be losing touch with reality.""You're afraid that something like what happened in Iacon could happen again?"
"I totally lost control. I saw myself in a full-fledged war, I wasn't thinking. But now I'm seeing things that are much worse."
"Like what?"
"I'm seeing hundreds of Cybertronians...the ones that aren't here anymore. They're looking at me like I don't belong here, or with them. And they keep asking me the same question. They want to know why I'm not dead." I wasn't sure what to tell him.
"Sometimes war survivors feel that they shouldn't have survived when their comrades died. Maybe your memories are surfacing and you're remembering things from the war against Megatron."
"I thought that's what it might be...but this is different." he was really bothered by this. It was becoming clear that we might have to help him regain his memories soon before he lost control completely. Then Rhinox walked into the room,
"We may have found something. You should come look at this."
Rhinox explained that when he was in the lab before, he found a hidden door but wasn't able to open it. Walking into the room we saw Nightwolf trying to hotwire the lock on the door. He had taken a plate off of the wall trying to find the controls,
"This is the strangest door. No keypad, no locks, no way to open it." Nightwolf said, "If I can cause an overload I might be able to force it open.""I hear something." DinobotX said, "There's something inside there."
"This might be what we're looking for." I said, "Open it." Nightwolf continued working on the door but couldn't find the locking mechanism,.
"How did they open this thing?!" he said in frustration. DinobotX was becoming increasingly agitated. He was holding his head and appeared to be in pain. This is what he was talking about before. I was going to try to calm him down but before I could say anything he transformed to raptor mode and leapt at the door yelling out a battle cry. He started slashing at the door with his claws and kicking it. Now the door was damaged and dented in. DinobotX finally stopped and stepped away,
"Sorry, I-...." he didn't know how to explain so he just stepped aside.
"Well, he may have found a way in." Nightwolf said, "Someone want to finish this for him?" Rhinox nodded, his fists started glowing with power then he pointed them at the door sending off a blast of energy that leveled the door.
"So that's how they opened it. I bet it cost a lot every time they wanted to close it again." Nightwolf said sarcastically.
The room we were now in was small and filled with computers, lab tables and equipment. At the back of the room was a large metal case with a glass front. The glass was shattered.
"Looks like somebody trashed this place." Rhinox said. Nightwolf examined the metal case,
"Wow, this thing looks like a coffin." then he realized what it was, "...or a stasis pod. Were they building a Transformer?"
"It makes sense. If the Maximals were building the next generation Cybertronian, I'm sure the Predacons would want to build their own." Rhinox said.
"You hear that Prime? You've got a cousin." Nightwolf said. Then he looked at the case again, "Guys, this glass was broken from the inside. Whatever trashed this lab came from in here."
"Then the experiment may not have been finished." I said, "But if it came online it could still be out there."
"I wonder which side it's on." Rhinox commented. DinobotX continued walking around the room like we did, looking for clues. At the moment it looked like his memory flashes had subsided. At the corner of the room there was a hole in the wall, where the bot had escaped most likely.
"Why did they salvage all of that scrap metal? This equipment is brand new, it's not like they were short on funds. Couldn't they have just started from scratch?" Nightwolf said. Then he saw something on one of the computer terminals, claw marks. He glanced down at the broken door that was laying on the floor, and then back at the terminal. Then with a shocked look on his face he looked directly at DinobotX.
"Oh man......." he said, "It was you..." X's expression was blank but he looked around the room briefly in a daze.
"It was." he answered.
None of us knew what to say, DinobotX had been searching for his origin this whole time, and now we had found it. Nightwolf was the first to break the silence,
"It doesn't make sense though. How could X have all of these memories if he was just built like Prime was?"
"X are you remembering any of this?" I asked. DinobotX looked like he was in a trance,
"They kept me here, locked away. I had to leave." he said. Rhinox walked over to a computer terminal and used his energy to bring it back to life,
"I'll see if there's anything I can find about the experiment." Rhinox said.
"So what does all of this mean? Is DBX a Predacon or what?" Nightwolf asked.
"He's an Autobot." I answered. Nightwolf understood and stopped talking about it.
"I was built by Predacons...but I am not a Predacon." DinobotX said, "I'm an Autobot...a Decepticon...a Maximal...a Predacon. I'm all and none."
"Oh, now it makes perfect sense. What?!" Nightwolf said.
"He's right." Rhinox said having finally found some information, "It all makes sense now. The secret lab, the experiments, the missing circuitry. DinobotX was created from the parts of other Transformers."
"Like Frankenstein's monster?" Nightwolf asked.
"In a sense. His shell was created out of an alloy the Predacons discovered a few years ago. When the war with Megatron started they decided to finish the project as quickly as possible. Salvaging circuitry became much easier with the increasing deaths."
"That's why he has so many conflicting memories. He must have memory chips from hundreds, maybe even thousands of other bots." I said.
"The Predacons were planning on using him to destroy Megatron, with the memories of other Transformers, he also had their combat experience. Combined with his weaponry and the strength of the alloy they used for his exostructure he could have made a difference in the war." Rhinox said.
"Well what happened? I mean, obviously X didn't fight in the war." Nightwolf said.
After some more searching, Rhinox found the answer,
"They needed a spark, they couldn't get by without one. So again, they took from one of the dying soldiers." Rhinox said. DinobotX stood there silently, taking it all in. He was learning as much as we were, "They found a spark, a soldier who had been in a battle against tank drones. He had taken heavy damage, even suffered an EMP surge. By the time they brought the spark back here it was almost extinguished. They took extreme measures to keep it from going offline."
"What did they do?" Nightwolf asked.
"The spark is still on the verge of being extinguished. Something in the body is keeping it alive."
"A zombie spark."
"That's a crude metaphor but pretty accurate." Rhinox said, "Shortly after the spark was integrated into the body the experiment was shut down and his programming was never completed."
"That's why I can't decipher between what memories are mine and what memories aren't. The programming would have corrected that." DinobotX said finally speaking.
"Do you remember how or when you escaped?" I asked him.
"No, I just remember waking up not far from here."
"He was never meant to be brought online. The experiment was shut down and everyone working on it left the planet during the evacuation."
"These guys were on a transport like I was." Nightwolf said.
"Maybe the Reformatting brought him online." I said.
"Possibly." Rhinox said, "But I think I know why I confused him for a Trans-Tech. The alloy that makes up his exostructure is the same as the one that's used in ours. The Matrix knew that metal couldn't be affected by reformatting so it used it when it changed all of us."
"Is there anything else about the experiment?" I asked.
"No, there aren't many details." Rhinox said, "But I think we've learned a lot."
"More than I wanted to know." DinobotX said walking to the hole he had made in the wall when he first escaped the lab. Then he left.
"Shouldn't someone go after him?" Nightwolf said.
"Give him a minute." I said.
Rhinox turned the computer off after downloading some data and we started to go the direction DinobotX had gone.
"It must be rough finding out something like that." Nightwolf said, "All this time he's been trying to figure out his past and now he learns it was all a lie."
"Then we need to do what we can to help him." I said. When we walked through the opening we heard gunfire from down the tunnel. Running in that direction I saw DinobotX holding his own against a group of Maximals.
"Don't these guys ever give up?!" Nightwolf said. I transformed to tank mode and fired a concussion grenade at the Maximals knocking them to the ground. Nightwolf and Rhinox started firing preventing them from getting back up. When it looked like they were ready to retreat, we stopped firing letting them go. DinobotX was still fighting a Maximal in hand-to-hand combat. X gained the upper hand and slammed the Maximal against the wall holding his wrist blades to the Maximal's throat. For a moment I thought he was going to kill the Maximal, but instead X just lowered his arm and let go of the Maximal.
"Leave. Now." he said. The Maximal hesitated looking at all of us, then he ran down the tunnel and disappeared.
"Are you okay?" I asked DinobotX.
"I'm fine. Now that I know the truth, I have more control over these memories. But it still doesn't mean I'm comfortable with them."
We decided to leave the way we had gone to avoid running into the Maximals again. None of us said a word on the way back to base, I guess we were all thinking about what we had learned. The Matrix had sent us there so that DinobotX could learn about his past. I don't think he got the answers he wanted, he may not have wanted this, but it's what he got. The past may always haunt him but now he has a better understanding of why. We need everyone to be levelheaded when the time comes to save Cybertron. Something in my spark is telling me that it's going to happen soon.
