The Monster of Kaon (Transformers Si): Chapter 24

I placed Silverbolt within the small pool of Cybermatter I created within the Unitex-1’s medical bay, or what remains of it anyway.

It was sheer luck that this ship had enough resources to create this pool that was barely large enough to place a single average-sized bot within it.

As for the extremely large quantities of Energon required to replace my Synthetic Energon in the recipe, I found some in the hidden stashes of the pirates throughout the ship.

The rest, I siphoned off from my prisoner.

Turning from Silverbolt’s body, I watched what remained of Famine stare at me with pure terror, just like most of my enemies throughout my early life.

Just like the many Quintessons that I captured and tortured for information during that war all those eons ago.

“So, are you ready to tell me where Fortress is hiding?”

“L-Lord Maximus! Please believe me! I don’t know where he is ! he never tells us his location and only contacts us through holographic communications.”

With my power, I kept a close eye on his systems, specifically, his emotional matrix and logic circuits, looking for any signs of deceit.

Signs that I found immediately when his emotional matrix fluctuated a little while he spoke, along with abnormal activity in the logic circuits, specifically the ones pertaining to language interpretation.

Normally, when a bot speaks from memory, the memory interpretation section of its brain module fluctuates.

The only time their language interpretation module fluctuates instead of their memory interpretation section is when the bot in question is lying.

I silently walked towards him and casually shoved my hand into his torso, ripping out his T-cog with a simple tug.

The screams of pain that he let out were music to my ears and made me feel glee, something that disgusted me to my very core.

It is times like this, where I am reminded of the casual cruelty I used to commit during my time in the Quintesson war, that I feel hatred for myself more than anyone else.

Maybe Emissary and Amalgamous were right. Maybe I am truly as dark as those monsters of a Prime, Liege Maximo, and Megatronus Prime.

Shaking my head to get rid of those thoughts, I continued my onslaught against Famine.

Slowly and painfully, I pulled out his Energon circulatory system’s connections, one by one. Just like what Sentinel’s forces did to me back when I was Armorbite.

As someone who experienced that pain, I knew that this pirate would break sooner or later.

And break he did as he finally caved in by the time I pulled out just twenty of the twenty-thousand Energon circulatory tubes present in the body of an average Cybertronian.

“This is your final chance, Famine-“

“CYBERTRON!! HE IS ON CYBERTRON!! HE IS HIDING OUT IN THE RUST SEA IN AN OLD BASE FROM BEFORE THE GREAT WAR!! PLEASE SPARE ME!! I’ll DO ANYTHING!! Oh Primus! Please spare me!!”

…….That was easy.

Although, it does not bode well that my clone is hiding out on Cybertron, where, presumably, a lot of Golden Age tech is scattered about without any wielders or owners.

I need to get to Cybertron as quickly as possible.

But what about the Allspark? Its trail is already very cold, and if I delay it even more, the chances of it being lost forever are very high.

Between the last relic left from one of my closest friend being defiled by the hands of someone unworthy of it and the fate of my entire species, what do I choose?

Suddenly, I heard the distinct whine of a Pathblaster being charged up, making me jump to the side, which turned out to be futile since the blast was not aimed at me.

I watched as the ball of energy drilled straight into Famine’s spark chamber and killed the pirate instantly.

“Sometimes, it feels as if there is no difference between you and that maniac Prowl. Especially when you lock down your emotional matrix like that and behave as if we are still at war.”

I suppressed the emotional turmoil within me and turned to the speaker.

“I see that the sub-par Cybermatter worked well enough. It is good to see you again, Silverbolt.’

“I am glad to see you as well, Lord Armorbite.”

“It’s Maximus now. I am no longer that leader of the Programming Cast.”

“I’ve heard, just as I’ve heard about the war that took place between your followers on Cybertron. However, to me, you will always be the Lord who gave a Beastformer like me the opportunity to graduate from the Cybertronian Institute of Officers through your various connections and helped me become a high-ranking captain of the Cybertronian navy.”

Silverbolt has always been like this. A bot that sees the world in Black and White, sticking closely to his code of honor and never allowing shades of grey to exist in his morality.

A crippling weakness in my view, but to each their own, and I have no right to judge him when he was never officially a student of mine.

That being said, just like any other sentient being, his morality is not infallible. There have been many incidents in his past when he had reluctantly turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed by those he cares for.

Just like what Blackarachnia talked about. An incident where she committed some kind of atrocity that forced Silverbolt to leave her on Eukaris and move to Cybertron.

Just like the many times he reluctantly held his blade when Prowl committed various monstrous acts in the name of the Primes and their councils.

Just like now, where he witnessed me perform the cruel acts of torture for the sake of information.

The silence between us stretched on for some time before Silverbolt moved back and started draining the Cybermatter into a container.

“What do you plan to do with that?”

“I will fix the computing systems and the main drives of my ship with this. After that, I will follow wherever you go.”

“…..It will be dangerous. Probably fatal.”

His grin made me think back to the Final days of the golden age when a far younger and much more lively Silverbolt first walked into my residence within the City of Iacon.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, old man. Just like those old days when we searched the universe for your imaginary threat, discovering all sorts of strange worlds and entities.”

Those good old days, those moments spent with my loved ones, those days where I was but a carefree bot roaming the galaxy.

Will those days ever come back? I wonder.