Rise of The Paragons (Discontinued)

1-Shadelift

It seems like the apocalypse always begin with a completely normal, almost perfect day.  Isn't that always the case with human media?

Don't even ask how I know. My friend's sire really enjoyed human horror films for some reason.

In any case, looks like I'm the protagonist of this insane tale. And I'm sure as the PITS going to survive until the very end.

Greetings to all who are seeing this transmission. My designation is Shadelift. I'm the bot who almost burned Cybertron down. On accident of course. It wasn't my decision for there to be an enormous hunt for anyone supporting the Autobot cause that came SO CLOSE to driving free thinkers to extinction.

Really I'm telling the tale from the completely wrong place. When you broadcast a story, you ALWAYS start at the very beginning. I hope your creators taught you that as well. 

Are you ready to listen? Okay, then I'll start at the summons from the Council.

I was in prison at the time. Again, don't ask why. I don't even know why. I didn't commit a serious enough crime to be placed in a Council prison! All I did was steal some Energon, and I've been doing that for seventeen years. Ever since the first war ended.

Context? Okay, fine.

I don't have any family, or anyone that would take me in. My sire is in exile. My carrier is offline and has been for a very long time. My friend Nightlight would have welcomed me, but his sire refused to have anything to do with me. So I have survived on my own...until now, I suppose.

Back to the story.

I awoke from a fitful recharge to a pair of guards opening my cell. That was strange in itself. No one ever opened my cell. In fact, the guards hardly even looked at me when bringing Energon. Most of them had red optics, which made sense. Former Decepticons would either resent me or become scared of me. 

These two new guards seemed different. I wasn't even sure they were guards at all anymore. They had the unpolished look that I'd seen on mercenaries passing through. One had blue optics which was almost more surprising, as most mercenaries had yellow, orange or red optics. He was gray and silver with two streaks of blue running down each arm. Tires jutted out from the sides of his peds, making it clear that he was an automobile type. It now seemed appropriate that his optics were blue, for his expression was cold as the mountains of ice contained upon the planet Earth.

The other had red optics. He was bulkier than the first and his faceplates displayed that same cold apathy. Where the first mercenary's optics gleamed with barely controlled rage, this one's glowed with a calm intelligence that scared me a lot more. I could feel that if he had been given any sort of chance, he would have risen to become a top lieutenant in my sire's army. His paint job was a dark blue and he had two large fins on the sides of his helm. He came storming into my cell and pulled me upright. "You've been summoned to appear before the Council." he told me, his expression now one of the uttermost disgust. "I'd really suggest you keeps your audio receptors open for what they have to say. It could very well get the bounty off your sorry frame."

Seeing as how there was absolutely no way out of here, I allowed myself to be marched towards the cell door, where the first mercenary was still waiting. He couldn't seem to wipe the maniacal grin off his faceplates, but that grin did not reach his optics at all. He said "I know we're going to enjoy a decent show with this recruitment thing, but I still don't understand why Cyclonus won't just have the sparkling killed already. Doesn't really seem...in character, right Turbine?"

I decided that this mech was an afthole. And the other mercenary, Turbine, seemed to think that as well.

He whacked his partner upside the head with the hilt of his ax. This meant he had to take a servo off of me, and I definitely would have made a break for it if I hadn't got distracted. Be glad I didn't, because this story would have turned out extremely different. And probably in a way that no one would like. What distracted me was the prisoner in the cell across the hall.