Written by DBX
I'm supposed to be the emissary to the Matrix. I've been given the task of guiding the Autobots to saving Cybertron, yet the Matrix hasn't told me everything I need to know. DinobotX and Nightwolf returned from a recon mission with news that shook us all to the core. Destron had been funding experiments to make Cybertronians totally organic like Noble/Savage, but these experiments had a terrible price. Everyone who had undergone the treatments had died. We had already seen the evidence, a cemetery filled with Cybertronians. All of them died under mysterious circumstances, but now we knew what those circumstances were. Why didn't the Matrix tell me? If I had known, maybe we could have saved some of them. I knew there were other things the Matrix wasn't telling me, things about Cybertron, things about Destron, things about the other Autobots....things about myself. I wanted answers, but maybe I wasn't being given answers because I was searching too hard for them.We all resolved to prevent any more deaths and the only way we could do that was to stop Destron. I wasn't going to wait for any more signs from the Matrix, we had to act. Orion Prime called us to a meeting at our camp to discuss infiltrating the Citadel. Nightwolf offered his expertise because we knew that with only five Autobots, we couldn't stage a frontal assault. After some deliberation, we decided that the tunnels underground were the only good way in without attracting too much attention. Our purpose was to sneak in, gather information, and take Destron and the council into custody. With the council being held by us, their followers were less likely to attack us, buying us time to gather the evidence we needed to rally the people against Destron. We weren't sure if the rest of the council was behind the experiments, but if Destron was a member of it he would have a hard time keeping something like that a secret.
After making our way through the tunnels, we got to the main floor of the Citadel,
"Nightwolf, scout ahead. Let us know when it's clear." Prime said. Nightwolf nodded transforming to beast mode and turning on his cloak. The cloak sent an electrical current through his shell, that current reacted with a metal in his exterior armor and allowed it to refract light. It only worked in his beast mode and if he moved too quickly he became partially visible. He walked out into the open hallway. The other four of us waited for him to give the word,
"The council chamber is through the central hallway. Once we get close to the chamber we'll be in the open and vulnerable to attack." Prime said.
"Then we'll move fast." Ballistic said.
"Okay, all clear." Nightwolf said materializing in front of us and transforming back to robot mode.
"Move out, quickly but quietly." Prime said. The halls of the Citadel looked like the ancient ruins of a temple. Plants grew all over the stone walls, some of them causing minor cracks. Unfortunately walking across the techno-organic metal floor made noise. If a guard got too close to us, we might be heard. We spoke quietly,
"Do you think this will work?" DinobotX asked me.
"I don't think we have any other choice, if this doesn't work we may not have any hope." I said.
"That's what I was afraid of."
"It's going to work guys, quit being so negative." Nightwolf said.
We got to the door of the Council chamber, DinobotX opened the door and in the process tripped the alarm,
"Get inside now!" Prime said. We rushed through the door and close it behind us. In the hallway we heard guards beginning to mobilize. DinobotX used his optic beam to weld the door shut,
"Where's the Council?" Ballistic asked. We all turned our attention from the door and looked around the room, all of the chairs were empty.
"It's the middle of the day, they should be in session." Nightwolf said.
"They knew we were coming." I said.
"Who tipped them off?!"
"We don't know that it was a spy. They may have saw us when we went into the tunnels or there may have been someone that spotted us on our way in." Ballistic said.
"Or someone ratted us out." Nightwolf continued.
"I don't believe that. I trust all of you." Prime said, "I don't want to hear any more about this either, we have to find a way out of here." we started looking around the room for a way out, a maintenance tunnel, anything. I started scanning the room using the powers I had been given by the Matrix, it was a type of precognition. My vision became shades of blue as I looked around the room. Then I saw a rectangular object that glowed white in the blue field. It was a door. I turned off my scanner and walked over to the wall the door had been on. There was a small panel to the side, I opened it to find a keypad,
"There's a secret door, but it's locked." I said. Ballistic transformed into vehicle mode and charged up his main cannon. He fired at the wall blowing the door open,
"Unlocked." Ballistic said.
There was a large tunnel with a downward slope going almost two stories underground. It opened into an immense room with a stone platform in the center,
"Wow, what is this place? Some kind of temple?" Nightwolf asked.
"I have a bad feeling about this." DinobotX said. Then in a flash of light, a bright ring appeared in front of us, its center looked almost like liquid,
"The Oracle!" I said.
"The Oracle? It's real?" Ballistic said, "I thought Destron was just crazy."
"No, the Oracle is very real." I said, "I have a feeling Destron and the council are just pawns in this game."
"What is the Oracle?" DinobotX asked.
"If the Matrix knows, it hasn't told me. The only thing I know is that it's old, it predates the first Cybertronian War but there was never any mention of it until a hundred years ago when reports started surfacing about people who had seen it for themselves. Then Optimus Primal and my other friends found it, that's when they were reformatted beginning the Techno-Organic War." I said. I walked up to the Oracle, I had spoken with it once before as Tankor, it recognized my spark,
"Tankor, you have returned." it said, "Do you again crave power?"
"I'm here to restore Cybertron." I said, "You've tainted it!"
"Then your goals are no different than when last we met. I never got the chance to thank you for the role you played in trying to transform the planet."
"What are you talking about?!" I demanded.
"Surely you realize by now that it was not you who controlled me, but I who controlled you. You and Megatron used the Key to Vector Sigma as I knew you would. Of course Primal received a similar vision, the use of the Plasma Energy Chamber and the Key to Vector Sigma caused a reaction just as I had predicted, but something unexpected occurred. The reaction was unstable, and the planet was nearly destroyed. I had to use Primal to correct the damage and thus, only one being was affected by the total organic reformatting."
"Megatron...it turned him into Noble." I said realizing what the Oracle had been planning all along,
"It became necessary to find other means, something that would hold the planet together while the organic reformatting took place. That's why the planet was reformatted into the techno-organic state you see now."
It all made sense now, the Oracle was behind the whole thing. Everything that happened during the Techno-Organic war was the Oracle's plan.
"Rhinox is all of this true?" Prime asked.
"Yes, during my time as Tankor I wanted to believe I was the one pulling the strings, but the truth was that I was just another puppet."
"Why is the Oracle telling all of this now?" Ballistic asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" a voice behind us said. We turned around, there was Destron walking across the platform towards us, "You're being told all of this because you wont leave here alive." Prime stepped forward to face Destron,
"Why?! Why are you taking so many lives?! Isn't it enough that Cybertron has already seen so many wars, so many deaths?! Now you want to add to that!" Prime said. He was more than a little upset, but at least he was passionate about the cause.
"They did not die in vain, rather they have become part of the plan." the Oracle said, "With their power, I can bring Cybertron into a new age." I knew then why I couldn't sense the sparks of the ones who had died in the experiments, the Matrix wasn't hiding them from my view, the Matrix didn't even realize they were dead. The Oracle had absorbed the sparks into its being.
"You wont let them die......" I said in disbelief, "Even in death you wont let them escape you?! You've become worse than Megatron ever was!"
"We are only trying to move Cybertron closer to its destiny! You are trying to slow down the progress but it's a futile effort. Look at you all. A thief, a soldier, a prototype, a bot who has no identity, and a former Vehicon. You really believe you can stop us?"
"The Matrix will guide us to a way of defeating you." I said.
"And what makes you believe that?" Destron asked
"I was sent by the Matrix, I'm its emissary."
"You're not an emissary! I speak for the Matrix! Not you!"
"The Matrix speaks for itself!"
"Then you will be its martyr." Destron said preparing to attack.
Prime got closer to Destron and the two of them ran at each other preparing for hand to hand combat. Immediately they got into a grapple and neither seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Prime kicked Destron in the leg causing him to falter and nearly fall to the ground. Destron then shot a blast of fire from his palm that Prime blocked. Prime's gattling guns rose to his shoulders and he fired but Destron's tough dragon skin prevented him from taking too much damage. They were equally matched in strength and power. The rest of us watched letting Prime handle the fight, in the meantime the Oracle began to glow and used some kind of beam of energy on us. The light surrounded us but it didn't do anything to the four of us,
"This is impossible." the Oracle said, "Even without a true organic element, I should be able to reformat you."
"The Matrix thought of that ahead of time! You can't reformat us!" Nightwolf boasted.
"Then I will resort to other means." the Oracle said. It showed an image of the Guard trying to batter down the door of the Council chamber. Then it flashed to an image of the bounty hunters Shadowclaw and Razor. The two of them looked like they were walking closer to us, then they stepped out of the Oracle. The Oracle had teleported them to us.
"Technological scum! You wont get away this time!" Razor said. They attacked us hoping they would again have the advantage but we had seen them fight before and we were better prepared. DinobotX transformed to beast mode and quickly attacked. In beast mode he could run in speeds nearing seventy miles per hour. He attacked Shadowclaw with his claws and then struck with his tail sending her crashing into Razor. Ballistic and Nightwolf opened up with their firepower raining down hard on the two. After a very short fight, they retreated back into the Oracle,
"Is it my imagination, or was that too easy?" Nightwolf said. Prime fired a missile volley at Destron, again the explosions did little to damage him but they pushed him off the side of the platform and into the depths below. Before we could plan our next move, Destron flew out of the pit now in beast mode. He flew low over our heads shooting flames from his mouth. Prime transformed to his air defender mode and resumed the fight with Destron in the air. Before long, the Guard appeared at the entrance to the room. We were now trapped between the Guard and the Oracle. I charged up to fire at them, before I could though everything started moving in slow motion. Then images flashed in my mind at a rapid pace showing me what we had to do. It was a vision from the Matrix. The Oracle must have sensed this too because it immediately spoke up,
"The Matrix deceives you. There is nothing there but death." it said to me. I ignored the Oracle and turned to the others,
"We have to go down!" I shouted. Ballistic looked at the edge of the platform,
"Down as in down into that bottomless pit?!" he asked.
"We don't have any other option!" DinobotX said. The four of us ran to the edge and leapt off the platform falling down into the pit below.
We fell almost nearly a mile into the pit before we saw the ground, we were approaching it fast. Prime then shot past us still in air defender mode, he then tried moving at the same speed we were attempting to get under us and stop our fall. Unfortunately he wasn't large enough, only Nightwolf and DinobotX were able to get on. That left Ballistic and myself. I concentrated my energy trying to create a force field around us both. It was just in time as we slammed into the ground below.
"Ouch." Ballistic said getting up, "Thanks for the force field, I don't think I would like to have tried that without one." Prime landed beside us and the other two leapt off allowing Prime to transform to robot mode,
"Everyone alright?" he asked.
"We're fine. But where are we?" Ballistic asked.
Prime looked ahead and saw the old city in the distance, "Iacon." he said.
I was wrong about my visions. The Matrix wasn't hiding things from me, I had to learn on my own. Although our plan to infiltrate the Citadel had failed, we had now reached Iacon, where the Matrix had wanted us to go. Our mission hadn't been completely unsuccessful, we now had valuable information. The Oracle was behind all of this, not Destron and not the Council. I knew the Oracle considered us a threat now, we couldn't be reformatted, we couldn't be controlled and we couldn't easily be destroyed. Iacon, the ancient city where so many battles had been fought. I wasn't told why we were here, I had to learn that on my own. I didn't mind though, when Megatron, Optimus or I had been given answers, we had nearly destroyed the planet. I preferred an education now because that education would one day lead to my redemption.
