Judgement
The blue-green glow of the space bridge portal retreated to the edges of Prima’s vision as he stepped out onto the circular observation deck of the Chronon. Behind him, the portal crackled as Megatronus and Quintus Prime also emerged from its gate. With a hiss, it dissipated, the bridge of frayed spacetime and extradimensional energy connecting the Chronon to Cybertron unraveling with it. A canvas of pale white light crept in from ahead to fill the darkness the portal left behind, and Prima looked up at its source.
The Benzuli Expanse. The anomalous halo of asteroids, ice, and stardust that churned around a silvery disk of light- a thinning in the barrier between this universe and the rest, Vector Prime had tried to explain. He was here now, at the edge of the deck, just within the atmospheric shield enveloping the Chronon- without it, the wall-less observation deck would be exposed to vacuum. Vector’s design choices for the Chronon had never bothered Prima before (it was his ship, after all), but at this moment he now felt exposed, vulnerable. The Firstborn’s gaze held upon the Expanse- or rather, what loomed in front of it, before the Chronon.
It hung in the void before Benzuli’s event horizon, tilted at an odd angle relative to the Chronon, like a sliver of obsidian tossed carelessly out into space. A spire of black metal silhouetted against the glow of the Expanse; long and jagged, with mushroom-like lumps of hull plating bulging out from its length. Between these sloping protrusions ran thick clumps of cabling, studded with pinpricks of crimson light- like bloody parodies of the silver-white stars that dotted the void around them. Unmoving, it hovered before the Primes, those red lights staring down at them like hundreds of tiny eyes.
“What… is it?” Prima found himself asking, his voice barely above a whisper. He had stopped walking, staring wide-eyed at the object, overcome with curiosity and unease.
“What I’ve brought you here to see,” Vector answered, facing him. Though younger that Prima, his voice sounded far older than the Firstborn’s. Ancient, almost. Prima looks down at his gold-armored friend, seeing that he was accompanied by fellow Primes Optimus and Alpha Trion, with the latter’s minicon companion, Beta Maxx, close by. Trion frowned into the pages of The Covenant of Primus, while Optimus gazed up at the spire, his face unreadable.
“Obviously,” Megatronus growls from Prima’s right. “But what is it, Vector?”
The Guardian of Space and time shook his head, looking down at the grey metal beneath his feet. “I don’t know,” he admits.
“I have looked through every timeline within my reach,” he says, drawing Rhisling. “Onyx has gazed across thousands more with his mask, and yet we have found nothing like it in any past or present.”
“Likewise, I have yet to find anything within The Covenant’s pages,” Alpha Trion adds, his sagely voice weighed with the same uneasy feeling that pressed against Prima’s spark. Prima casts another upward glance at the object, unable to escape the uncomfortable feeling that those red lights really were looking down at him, studying him as he and the other Primes studied it.
Megatronus stepped forward, joining Vector at the edge of the observation deck. He surveyed the black spire, scanning for weapons, engines, a bridge; targets to attack. He saw nothing. The spire was entirely alien to him, ominous and unknowable. The only thing worse to him than an enemy you knew you couldn’t defeat was one whose capabilities you didn’t- couldn’t- know. It made you unable to anticipate its actions, plan around its weaknesses.
“Let’s not be too hasty, Megatronus,” Beta Maxx cautioned the Dark Warrior, reading his thoughts. “It hasn’t shown any signs of hostility since it appeared.”
“And how long has it been here?” inquired Megatronus, keeping his gaze upon the spire, staring down its beady, unblinking eyes. “Have any of you attempted to make contact with it at all? Vector, I trust you’ve scanned-”
“Of course, I have,” Vector interrupted, scowling at the Dark Warrior. “It’s subtly warping the very fabric of this reality around itself, baffling the Chronon’s scanners.”
“It appeared almost six standard days ago,” Beta Maxx said, in answer to Megatronus’s first question. “Through the Expanse. The Chronon picked up the spacial-temporal rippling created from its arrival; the warping Vector just mentioned could be a side-effect of whatever method it used to travel through from… wherever it is it came from.”
Megatronus frowned, looking down at Vector and Beta- the uncertainty in the latter’s voice was troubling. They were all in the dark, even Beta Maxx and Alpha Trion, whose business it was to be in the know.
“So it is a visitor…” Quintus remarked quietly, drifting out from Prima’s left. Copper tassels and metallic ribbons floated gently around his frail form as he hovered above the deck, his hands clasped together.
“Or an invader,” Megatronus retorts. “This warping could be an unintended consequence of its approach, yes; or a deliberate masking of its nature and intent.”
“Megatronus, please,” Prima spoke up, walking forward to place a hand on the Dark Warrior’s shoulder. “You are right to be cautious, but let us not look for a battle where, perhaps, there does not have to be one.”
“I agree,” Quintus said with a nod of his head. “We should further endeavor to establish a dialogue with this entity; learn its intentions before simply assuming the worst.”
“And if our worst assumptions are confirmed?” asked Alpha Trion, closing The Covenant and attaching it to his hip. He looked at Prima, directing the question to him, the de facto leader of their fellowship. Prima felt Trion, Beta and Vector’s unease within himself, along with Megatronus’s wariness and Quintus’s curiosity. The only one he couldn’t discern was Optimus; the youngest of the Thirteen had remained silent, staring up at the black spire the whole time the rest of them had been talking. Prima relied on all his comrades’ input, and he often sought Optimus’s judgement to weigh against his own.
“What do you think, Optimus?” he asked.
Optimus turned his eyes away from the spire, and faced Prima and the rest. His expression was grim.
“Megatronus may be right,” he said gravely. “I can feel its gaze upon us now, poring over our weapons and this ship. It is studying us, as a predator does its prey.”
Prima gave a solemn nod. How Optimus knew this, like he knew so many other things, he suspected he may never know himself. But his judgement was always sound. Prima’s decision was made.
“Quintus,” he said, "you and Megatronus will return with me to Cybertron. I will dispatch Maximo to try and communicate with this… thing. Megatronus, I would like you to prepare a fleet- take whatever measures you deem appropriate, but do not act without my approval.
“I ask that you three remain here,” Prima continued, speaking to Vector, Alpha Trion, and Beta Maxx. “Continue your efforts. Optimus, you may do as you please.”
“Then I will remain aboard the Chronon,” Optimus replied with a nod. “Perhaps the light of the Matrix can illuminate this mystery.”
“Perhaps, indeed,” Prima agreed.
“We killed Unicron, and his heralds” boasted Megatronus. “Should this visitor show itself to be an enemy, we will make short work of it.”
With that, he and Quintus began to follow Prima as he turned around to re-open the space bridge. Silence fell across the observation deck as the Primes combed through timelines and libraries once again. Optimus looked back up at the black spire, the glow from the Benzuli Expanse washing across its sides.
“I fear Unicron may have only been the beginning,” he mutters, staring into the eyes of the invader, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were staring right back.
Hope you enjoyed that one. Constructive criticism is not only appreciated, but requested.