Chương 54: LOG-048.

"Targeting systems all report accurate alignment, commander. Ready to fire on your order." I stood in the center of the bridge, staring down at the section of ruined city far, far below me. Already, the planet was beginning to show signs of life. Beneath the surface at least. Optimus' efforts had been proven fruitful when several shifts were detected originating from Cybertron's core, along with ancient parts of the world itself beginning to come back online.

The patch of ground the city of Tarn had been founded upon was healing, at a practically glacial pace to be certain, but it was healing. That of course still left the detritus that coated its upper surface like a stubborn layer of filth. Anything of value had already been stripped by the Insecticon scavenger teams I'd deployed, including what had been left of my lab. Finding the old hover skiff I'd cobbled together still intact had been an amusing surprise, at the very least.

Indomina in particular had been happy to know our old ride had survived our absence, and had presumably taken it to show off the makeshift vehicle to her many, many siblings. But alas, now all that was left was no longer needed at best, or outright dangerous at worst. Like the mega swarm of scraplets I knew to be lurking somewhere within the depths of the ruined city.

"Commander?" Turning my helm to face the Vehicon, I silently noted down the mech's green markings. He was on the track for a promotion soon, mostly due to his initiative in suggesting that we carefully dedicate some of the energon we still had into powering the Nemesis' weapons systems and eradicating some of the larger obstacles we'd be facing when it came time to finally begin setting down proper infrastructure.

After all, if we managed to flatten this particular area, we'd have ample space to start setting up defensive emplacements, something I was certain would prove useful thanks to Soundwave's fucking signal. I didn't feel very bitter, but I was certain the emotion would be more prevalent had I not effectively shrugged it aside using Shadowplay.

"Mm." Nodding to myself, I focused back on the Vehicon and stored the plan for setting up some future defenses into my long-term memory unit for later perusal, before speaking up.

"Open fire, ensure nothing survives." With a swift nod back, the Decepticon turned to his station, him and several other soldiers working rapidly to unleash veritable Hell on the surface of Tarn.

"By your command." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Seconds passed, and then the very space around the ship was being shaken as an onslaught of titanic crimson energy bolts began to slam down into the city below. Already, collapsed buildings were destroyed even further, right down to their foundations. Small spots that likely still had undiscovered pools of energon, preserved corpses and the like, ignited.

Their secondary explosions were all the warning call the scraplets needed. The tiny terrors began to rise from their various nests like wandering tendrils of some gargantuan beast, searching for the source of all the racket. Hundreds of thousands of the creatures died in less than a minute as some of the ship's guns were turned on them, decimating the swarm in droves. I took a moment to savour the sight, even allowing a small bit of satisfation to slip past the shadowplay barrier before turning away.

Waving a servo, I began to make my way towards the bridge's exit, dipping my helm slightly.

"Keep firing until it's relatively flat, focus on endurance rather than outright power. Once we find a viable source of energon, I want this site ready for construction efforts. We'll forge our first citadel in Tarn, then we'll move on to the rest of the great cities." A chorus of affirmatives answered my orders, right before the doors swished closed behind my back. Stopping just a few feet away, I took the chance to look through my comm list. Ah, there.

"Indomina."

"Sire?" I paused for a moment, helm tilting to the side. She'd been calling me that far more often as of late. The idea that I was some sort of father figure to her and the rest of the Predacons had seemingly taken root in all of their processors, for whatever reason.... Oh well, whatever made them happy. Though familial loyalty wasn't exactly what I'd been aiming for when I'd first created the lot, it would likely work just as well. I just hoped they wouldn't end up disappointed later down the line.

"Prepare an away-team. I intend to journey down to Cybertron's core."

"It will be done swiftly, Sire." As I slowly made my way over to the section of the ship containing our groundbridge generator, I finally decided that Skyquake's corpse would just have to wait a little while longer. As much as I wanted to continue digging into the mech's innards to see if something could be done about defying death and bringing him back, far more urgent matters needed my supervision. I'd finally gotten Zero's long range report, after all.... A Commander. The thought... unsettled me.

We'd fought a Commander. A crippled, bound, raving lunatic of one that lacked practically everything that made him so dangerous, but a Commander nonetheless. And we'd needed everything to do so. They were an outside context problem, according to my small collection of human memories. Transformers as a franchise had no relation to Planetary Annihilation, as far as I had been aware. Which meant... what, exactly? That we had been invaded by another universe? That history as I knew it didn't fit quite as it should?

Lots of questions, and very few answers. Though one particular thought process continued to bounce around in my mind. One that prompted me to contact Soundwave to subtly prepare the Nemesis for another bombardment, if necessary. Unicron, Chaos Bringer and destroyer of worlds, brother of Primus, had been a Progenitor made Commander. Or he at least possessed the frame of one, hidden deep within his core. If our equivalent to the Devil came from such origins, what about our God? I trusted Optimus to revive our world.

I trusted him to lead our people. I trusted him to do many, many things. Said trust did not include dealing with multi-universal threats to all existence without having adequate information about them. Whether Primus was dead, sleeping or just sitting around and waiting, I would do my damned best to gain the answers I sought from the ancient Cybertronian deity. Even if attempting to do so in the first place could be considered a massive gamble.

"Status of internal nanolathe systems." [NANOLATHE SYSTEM STATUS: ONLINE.] According to all known texts and legends, and according to both sets of my memories, Primus was our ultimate creator. The original being. He enacted the genesis of our kind, and could quite well be considered the first Cybertronian to ever exist. So long as one assumed he was even a Cybertronian at all.... One way or another, I'd find out soon enough.