The Shadow Falls
POV: High Admiral Kael Varn
Trexais Prime had never seen war.
Not truly.
For all its towering defence spires, for all its orbital cannons and planetary shield grids, it had been a symbol — not a battlefield. The capital of the Galactic Council's military legacy. A monument to their imagined permanence.
Now?
Now the sky was broken.
From the observation platform beneath the central Citadel, High Admiral Kael Varn stood still as the world burned above him. Dozens of defense satellites flared to life, spinning to adjust angle as mass-driver rounds and solar lances fired into the void. Warning glyphs scrolled across his interface overlay. Hundreds of ships in orbit. Thousands more emerging from behind the outer moons. The Decepticon Armada was here.
"Signal dispersion complete. Sector 6 has no viable fallback."
"Outer Ring reporting breaches. The Caelorian pickets are gone."
"We've… lost orbital visual on the Eclipse."
"Sir, incoming pods detected — not Decepticon."
That last line pulled him from his trance.
"Pods?"
The officer nodded, hesitant. "Council signature. Survivors. Small craft, older make — barely slipped in before the shield lattice locked, we speculate it's the survivors."
Varn narrowed his eyes.
"Bring them in."
Location: Trexais Prime – Triage Bay Omega
POV: Tarnac
Lower Halls – Triage Bay Omega
The doors hissed open to chaos.
Crackling wiring. Medics yelling over shouts. Plasma burns, cauterised armour. The stench of ozone and Energon filled the bay.
Three figures stumbled in, escorted by a pair of security drones. One limped, missing half a leg brace. Another had one optic shattered and leaking fluid. The third walked tall — silent, cold, watching everything.
Tarnac.
He said nothing as a medic rushed to scan him. He pulled his arm away when they reached for his helm.
"Leave it," he growled.
The medic paused, then moved on.
Council officers stepped in behind them.
"You're the Nightmare's Prize survivors?"
"We are," Tarnac said simply.
"You're being reassigned. Defense perimeter. Fortification Echo-Zeta. Take your gear and move. Now."
Tarnac didn't object.
He took the weapons they offered — a plasma repeater, wrist-pulse blade, explosive charges — and nodded. His men followed. But not out of loyalty. Not anymore.
They walked in silence through the maze of fortified hallways. As tremors from orbital detonations shook the walls, Tarnac glanced upward through a fractured viewport.
The skies were on fire.
Location: Trexais Prime – Sector C9 Transitway
POV: Tarnac
We did what we were paid to do.
Every one of ours is dead. Mercenary command? Gone. Nightmare's Prize? Gone. Lockdown? Slagged.
And what does the Council offer now? Orders? Defenceless cities? Empty promises?
He looked up again as another Decepticon vessel pierced the clouds like a spear of night. And the sky erupts into a shower of explosions and fire.
Should've gone to Cybertron. Should've backed Galvatron when we had the chance.
Backing a dead empire is a fool's wager.
But not today. Today… we make it right.
He turned to his men, voice low.
"We're not dying here. You with me?"
They nodded — not as soldiers, but as survivors.
POV: Lord Galvatron
Location: The Decimator – Command Spire
Trexais Prime hung in orbit like a gem poised for conquest—fragile, luminous, and utterly unaware it was moments from shattering.
Its planetary shield lattice flickered faintly in the vacuum, strained to the brink beneath a precise bombardment from the Decepticon Armada. Hundreds of orbital defence platforms returned fire in increasingly desperate bursts.
Their targeting systems were failing, their fire control degrading, and critical relays rupturing one by one. From the observation decks of the Decimator, the planet resembled a dying beast—ancient, proud, and now haemorrhaging plasma from a dozen orbital wounds. What once embodied Galactic supremacy now stood as a monument to hubris. And I had come to collect the final debt.
Yet aboard the Decimator, silence reigned.
I stood motionless at the summit of the Command Spire, a platform enshrined in a cathedral of violet-lit holo-screens, cascading data streams, and tactical overlays. The projected globe of Trexais rotated slowly before me, encircled by warnings, damage indicators, and the sigils of the Empire. The war outside was apocalyptic—metal and fire tearing across the void—but within this chamber, there was only stillness.
I neither spoke nor moved. I watched.
My optics pulsed with violet light—suffused with dark energy, resonating like the whispers of distant storms. Their reflection held the image of a burning world.
The command doors parted with a hiss of pressurised air.
"Lord Galvatron," came Thunderblast's voice over the comms from her flagship. Her tone was crisp, militaristic, yet reverent. "Orbital squadrons are fully deployed. Shall we initiate the breach?"
I did not respond immediately. Timing was everything. Symbolism was sacred at this moment it was needed.
I lifted my servo slowly, extending it toward the planet—not as a general giving orders, but as a sovereign claiming his inheritance.
"Let this world stand," I declared, voice deep and unwavering, reverberating through every bridge loudspeaker and encrypted Decepticon command channel, "as a monument to their lies."
Descending the dais, I allowed my voice to rise with regal power.
"The Galactic Council declared us extinct. They claimed Cybertron was shattered, its people leaderless. They consigned the war to their archives, reduced our struggle to a fading footnote."
The bridge crew turned. Some knelt. Others simply stood in silence, captivated—not by command, but by conviction.
"But we endured. We rebuilt. In silence, in the darkness we were reforged. From the Great Betrayer's ashes, we forged purpose. And now—now, we have returned."
I raised both of my arms.
"Today, we end the illusion of peace. Today, we crush their final fantasy of control. Cybertron reclaims its rightful dominion—not as a forgotten relic—but as the masters of the Universe."
The deck beneath my pedes trembled as the siege cannon roared to life, coils lighting the chamber with a pulsing blue that threw my silhouette like a deity summoned from myth.
"Decepticons—transform…"
A beat. Stillness. Anticipation.
"...and RISE UP!."
The Armada obeyed.
From the Decimator's dorsal bays, hundreds of assault frigates launched in synchronised formations. Behind them surged phalanxes of drop-pod clusters, trailing violet plasma across space. Thunderblast's elite Seekers led the formation, their contrails spinning in tight diamond formations as they pierced the upper atmosphere.
The secondary displays activated. Drachen's Prime Battle Machine battalions mobilized in real-time. Thousands of drop-pods armed and locked. Titan deployment corridors yawned open. Every subsystem of the war machine harmonized with a single intent: domination and conquest.
"Status on Necroplex?" I asked, still watching the globe.
Shockwave's voice answered through the encrypted command relay from the Echelon Scientific Citadel.
"Necroplex remains stable. Core reanimation fully engaged. Combat efficiency reads at 142%. Deployment parameters nominal."
"Proceed."
I turned.
The crew parted like the red sea did for Moses.
Ahead lay the command nexus—a raised plate of alloy engraved with the Decepticon insignia, pulsing in rhythm with the ship's heartcore a recently new addition used for moments like this.
I placed my servo upon it.
The Decimator answered. Lights dimmed. Conduits surged. The ship bent to my will.
"Thunderblast," I said, every syllable a decree. "Commence the attack."
"With pleasure, my liege," came her reply, smooth and certain.
The siege cannon aligned—one final calibration.
Locked.
The Decimator seemed to inhale.
And then—it fired.
POV: Tarnac
Location: Trexais Prime – Defense Spire Theta-7, Inner Control Deck
The corridors reeked of scorched wiring and desperation — the scent of failing relays, smoke-charred buildings, and leaking fuel clinging to the alloy walls like a bad omen.
Tarnac advanced through the reinforced passageways with his squad flanking close. Their steps were purposeful but silent. No chatter. No hesitation. Around them, Council personnel scrambled to reroute power, issue last-ditch commands, and interpret data that no longer made sense. Too many systems were down. Too many uplinks severed.
Perfect.
Every movement was rehearsed. Tarnac had memorised the patrol rotations three Mega-Cycles ago. It took less than two hundred klikks to reach the uplink chamber. Two guards stood at its blast-shielded door. Loyal. Alert. Still clinging to protocol like it meant something.
Tarnac didn't slow down, and with no hesitation.
He raised his plasma repeater and fired two clean bursts. One tore through the neck of the first guard; the second cleaved straight through the chest of the other before he could reach his comm. They crumpled in unison — silent, lifeless heaps.
"Room secure," hissed one of his squadmates, already sweeping the corners.
"Seal it," Tarnac said. "Now."
The blast door slammed shut, locking with a hydraulic hiss. The interior buzzed with flickering holoscreens, backup generator hum, and coolant leaks. Sparks danced along a cracked junction box in the ceiling. The control deck had clearly taken indirect fire earlier, but the uplink terminal was still active, for now.
Crater, their slicer, moved to the central interface. He deployed the virus module — a compact hexagonal shard encoded with a Decepticon logic-bomb drawn from pre-Great War archives. It clamped onto the uplink like a leech.
Energy flared.
Data cascaded. Encryption protocols collapsed under the strain of alien code. Systems that had held for thousands of stellar cycles unravelled in a matter of moments.
"Uploading... eighty-seven percent," Crate said, fingers flying across his toolboard. "Shield harmonics are fracturing. Anti-air systems dropping to seventy percent sync. We're creating holes."
Tarnac stood still, optics fixed on the screen. Red glyphs and scrambled overlays flickered across the display — a planetary defense schematic bleeding out.
"You sure about this?" one of the younger squadmates asked, shifting uneasily. "What if this doesn't matter? What if we don't make it offworld?"
Tarnac didn't flinch. His voice was a rasp of dry confidence.
"We already lost," he said. "Lockdown's gone. Every one of ours was vaporised while the Council held meetings about jurisdiction."
He glanced up.
"We're not a part of any faction. We're soldiers for hire. This is how we become assets again."
He laid his servo on the control array. It was warm, trembling beneath the surging pressure of failing systems.
"Let someone else be the symbol. We're the knife in the power coupling."
The virus reached full deployment.
The lights flickered. Emergency klaxons abruptly died. Gun turrets fell offline. Flak towers stalled mid-rotation. The shield lattice frayed visibly across the feed. One node exploded entirely.
Above them, the sky pulsed — a flicker, then another — as orbital lattice sensors blinded for twelve-point-eight klikks. Static bled violet across the holos.
"Signal dampening complete," Crate confirmed. "Orbital targeting is blind. We bought them a corridor."
"Something big is coming through," another whispered, watching the scanners blink violently.
Tarnac didn't look up.
"Time it right, and no one will even trace it back."
Then the tower groaned — ferrosteel bending under external shockwaves.
"Bruticus just hit something," Crate added. "Atmospheric signature shows a mass spike. Looks like a tower just collapsed."
"Good," Tarnac muttered. "That should mask the spike from the breach."
Another tremor. Dust fell from the ceiling.
"Time to go."
They moved fast, slipping through a secondary egress tunnel hidden behind a decompressor chamber. Tarnac glanced once more at the terminal, now sparking wildly.
And then, they were gone — ghosts in the machine. A mercenary cell turned saboteur, their deeds buried under the fire and ash of a war too large for names.
If anyone discovered the breach logs later, all they would find were corrupted packets and scrambled timestamps lost during the 3.2 mega-cycle blackout.
POV: Thunderblast
Location: Trexais Prime – Upper Thermosphere / Orbital Defence Lattice
Thunderblast's frame screamed through the upper atmosphere like a blade tearing silk — sleek, lethal, and impossibly fast.
She led the charge at terminal velocity, violet trails flaring behind her, wings shimmering with re-entry heat and friction-glow. The air rippled around her hull, forming miniature shock waves as her velocity pushed the edge of atmospheric coherence. Behind her, three full squadrons of elite Seekers mirrored her descent with razor-edged precision — each phalanx of sixteen locked into synchronised formations shaped like ancient glyphs of war. This wasn't just a dive. It was a declaration.
Below them, Trexais erupted with fury.
The planet's orbital defence lattice was no passive relic — it screamed to life with aggressive intent. Dozens of automated turrets, surface-embedded lances, and flak platforms rotated to track them. High-altitude plasma bursts and rail-sabot rounds tore open the sky. Tower-mounted lance arrays stitched the heavens with spirals of energy. The upper thermosphere became a killing field — but Thunderblast only grinned.
"This is what passes for resistance?" she said, a spark of delight flickering in her tone.
She corkscrewed left, flipping through an overlapping spread of kinetic fire. Sonic bursts rippled behind her. Sensors screamed, but she never lost stride. Her afterburners surged, casting counter-distortion waves that blinded the targeting systems of a trio of interceptors.
Two were vaporised by flak meant for her. The third flickered off the radar, cleaved in half by Blaze, her wing-second, who tore through it in a spiralling manoeuvre laced with plasma flare.
"Targeting grid disrupted," Blaze called out. "Primary lattice generator ahead. They're re-routing energy, but not fast enough."
Thunderblast narrowed her optics. Her HUD triangulated the core shield generators across the upper orbital shell. Dozens of interconnected points. She didn't need to destroy them all. She just needed one perfect breach.
"Crack it open," she ordered, voice sharp and smooth as a plasma scalpel. "Drachen's coming in fast."
Her primary wing deployed seeker missiles, streaks of violet fire splitting through the sky. Each was explosive-tipped and calibrated to overload lattice harmonics. The first wave impacted hard — three support pylons ruptured violently. The lattice shimmered... then buckled.
Thunderblast's HUD flared green.
"Confirmed breach — twelve klicks wide. Fragile at the edges. Not stable."
"Good," she muttered. "That's all we need."
She toggled fleet-wide comms.
"All wings — burn and spiral! Break their eyes!"
The sky erupted in violet trails as the Seekers scattered. Their manoeuvring was chaotic only on the surface — beneath the surface, it was calculated disruption. Each trajectory curved in a way designed to confuse enemy targeting arrays. Engines screamed as they wove through plasma nets, redirecting fire, masking the breach.
Council gunships scrambled upward. Interceptors poured from atmospheric bunkers. The skies darkened with crossfire.
But Thunderblast didn't slow.
She dove deeper, weaving between towers of heat and flame. Around her, the chaos became an aria of war. Laser pulses traced lines past her wings. Flak detonations illuminated the clouds below. She moved like wind wrapped in lightning — a blur of grace and devastation.
Every manoeuvre was an expression. Every strike, a statement.
This wasn't just her battlefield. It was her stage to prove her devotion to her Lord no her Master.
And then, the atmosphere cracked.
A thunderclap of pressure sounded.
Thunderblast's optics flicked left. She felt the change before she saw it. The air pressure. The sonic distortion. The tremor in the clouds.
The Combaticons entered the fray.
The Combaticons surged into formation behind her, but beside her. Their paths synchronised. In mid-air, she heard Onslaught say, "Combaticons, combine into Bruticus." They transformed. Mechanical limbs rotated and locked. Frames twisted and fused. Energy conduits surged with life.
Bruticus was born.
Five warriors, one big body sounds like a fun time.
Thunderblast pulled her wings wide, slowing her fall to watch the colossus form.
"Council command tower — visual lock confirmed," Bruticus declared, voice low and thunderous.
Thunderblast's response came like a smirk wrapped in sound.
"Destroy it."
Bruticus dove. The clouds parted like a hot A Council tower, armed with flak shields and orbital sync beacons, met him with a barrage. It didn't matter. He hit the tower with the force of a meteor, cleaving through reinforced plating and detonating the structure's core from within. Flames licked the sky.
Thunderblast banked upward, wings flaring like solar crescents. Her frame cut a perfect arc across the skyline as she climbed.
Below, the breach they had made widened, torn apart by energy distortion and debris fallout.
And through it, like divine judgment, Drachen's drop-pods fell.
Thousands of them — gleaming, red-hot coffins of steel and vengeance.
The invasion had begun.
POV: Drachen
Location: Trexais Prime – Drop Zone Epsilon, Outer Spire Bastion
The descent commenced in silence.
As my pod streaked through the upper thermosphere, the outer plating glowed white-hot under atmospheric friction. Ablative shielding sloughed away in burning sheets, exposing reinforced alloy beneath. Violet flames streamed across the viewport. Below, Trexais Prime bristled with desperate defence—its outer towers lanced skyward with weapons fire. But their timing was off, coordination erratic. They were faltering.
Within the pod, I stood anchored and motionless.
Every shift in gravity, every flicker of magnetic stress, was logged and processed. I plotted descent vectors, mapped optimal impact sites, and evaluated blast dispersion zones. Resistance was not a possibility. It was an equation I had already solved.
Surrounding me fell dozens more drop-pods—sleek, angular, black. Prime Battle Machines. Once Vehicons. Now, evolution refined.
I had watched their creation. I had bled for their schematics. They were not just war machines—they were my successors. Each one bore hints of my framework. My code. My failures turned into strength.
We were not soldiers. We were legacy.
Directive One: Breach. Directive Two: Neutralise. Directive Three: Establish ground control.
"Outer ring resistance is fragmented," came Straxus's voice. "They're rerouting energy to the gamma quadrant."
"They'll collapse before they finish," I replied. "Impact in twenty kliks. Move on, breach flash."
"Understood."
The pod's restraints released. Internal heat surged. Plates shrieked. My optics narrowed.
Three.
Two.
One.
Impact.
My pod struck Defence Sector Theta like a meteor.
The ferrocrete cratered beneath me. Barricades shattered. Soldiers fell. I emerged from the wreckage in a single movement. My claws extended. A stunned trooper raised a weapon—I struck before he breathed.
Around me, PBMs deployed in formation. Their drop-pods split open in sequence. No orders were issued. They knew their roles.
I opened a wide-band channel.
"You are no longer mere Vehicons. You are the Future."
Silence.
"We will not be remembered. But they will know we were here."
"Advance. Burn resistance. Shatter them"
Transmission ended.
Mortars screamed from the western towers. Eleven turrets locked onto me. I walked forward.
A shell exploded metres away. Concrete evaporated. My shields held. I didn't slow. I lifted my gauntlet. A gravitic pulse ruptured the closest turret.
"Phase One: Suppression."
The PBMs surged.
No war cries. Just precision.
Barricades fell. Turrets caved. Ion bursts lit the street. Council troops buckled and fled. I redirected two squads to collapse the flanks, pre-empting a fallback route. Predictive models are updated in real-time.
This was not war. This was pest control.
POV: Straxus
Location: Trexais Prime – Upper District Ridge, Sector Gamma
The ridge fractured under my treads.
Ash and vapour painted the skyline. The Council had turned every corridor into a killzone—mines, turrets, concealed flak. We cleared them all.
I led the Ironclads through collapsed archways and steaming rubble. Thermal scans showed fleeing signatures overlapping. Panic.
Radeon stepped forward, aimed, and deleted a balcony emplacement. No command needed.
"CivSec and Voidguard in the same grid," I muttered. "Desperate."
A runner charged with a fusion pack.
"Radeon."
He fired. Nothing remained.
I opened comms.
"Gamma flank secured. No structured resistance. Advancing."
A flak dome imploded in the distance.
Let it burn.
POV: Blaze
Location: Trexais Prime – Upper Atmosphere, Theta-4
Altitude: 1,900 kliks. Drag: negligible.
Below, fire climbed every spire.
We spiralled downward in silence, our contrails cutting glyphs through the air. Tower after tower blinked out. I counted eight.
"Final node marked. Engaging."
A flash. One less.
"Airspace Theta-4 is clean."
Beneath us, PBMs sliced through resistance. I levelled out.
"Pattern Vermilion. Loop and cut again."
They obeyed.
The sky was ours.
Straxus emerged at the ridge.
"Flank breached. Minimal resistance."
To the east, Blaze's squad carved a spiral through the clouds.
Enemy cohesion fell forty-six percent in thirty klicks.
Acceptable.
I signalled an advance.
We reached the relay chamber. Sealed.
"Phase Two: Breach."
Claw charged. I struck.
The wall collapsed. No defenders. I stepped inside.
"Chamber secured. Link established."
Then the sky shifted—heavy and real.
Necroplex descended.
He had once been Metroplex, the last Titan of Cybertron. Now, reborn through The Creator's will, reforged with purpose. His fall tore the sky apart. Atmospheric shields collapsed around him. His voice echoed on all channels:
"Necroplex heeds the call of Lord Galvatron."
Impact. The shockwave collapsed three sectors.
Two others followed: Omega-class titans. One remade from Omega Supreme's corpse, purged of Dark Energon. The other, shaped from Trypticon's schematics, stalked like a fortress on four legs.
They landed with synchronised destruction. One crushed a shipyard. The other was a mountain fortress.
Trexais convulsed.
I climbed a broken bridge, optics scanning fire-choked skies.
Then came the Eclipse.
The Council's dreadnought broke through orbit, eclipsing the sun. Clouds swirled around its mass. Gravity rippled.
It fired.
The Decimator answered.
A singular plasma lance pierced orbit. It punched through the Eclipse, then the sky, then the crust.
Trexais screamed.
Fault lines tore across continents. Magma ruptured. Cities folded. Mountains collapsed. The atmosphere shook.
A kinetic wave reached me in 1.2 kliks.
I was thrown back, colliding with a wall, shattering stone and steel.
My HUD blinked. Armour hissed. I rose.
Before me, the world burned.
I opened a channel.
"This is Commander Drachen. Sector Theta secure. Prepare for the final wave."
The Decepticons advanced once more.
POV: High Admiral Kael Varn
Location: Orbit above Trexais Prime — Council Superdreadnought Eclipse
Every outer line had fallen.
I hadn't expected to see the sky again so soon. Less than one hour ago, I was still on the surface of Trexais Prime, stationed at the Council High Command Spire in Karthan Ridge. When the breach reports reached us — when the Titans fell and the palace defence grid went dark — I knew it was over.
I requested orbital extraction before the inner ring collapsed. A strike craft arrived with a single escort, cutting through the chaos long enough to pull me from the command shelter and blast skyward. We lost three ships trying to get through the ascent corridor. Only one made it — mine.
I emerged from the atmosphere in silence, the flames of the planet still licking the hull as we cleared the breach in the orbital shield. And there she was — the Eclipse. My ship. My command. She took me in without ceremony.
I hadn't even sat down before I gave the order to engage.
I stood on the command bridge of the Eclipse, the flagship I had served on for more than an hour, and that terrified me more than I wished to admit, surrounded by fractured hololiths and comms channels flooded with static and screams. My eyes followed the cascading collapse on the tactical displays: ships blinked out one after the other, ground garrisons overwhelmed, orbital nodes falling silent. What little came through was panic-the last words of doomed commanders, the shrieking tones of ruptured networks, and the finality of death.
Above the dying world, space had become an inferno.
The Decepticon Armada was not merely deployed — it was fully committed. What we faced was not a raid, not a probing assault. This was a total mobilisation of Galvatron's entire fleet: a spear-point of brutalist dreadnoughts, precision frigates, re-engineered monstrosities, and siege platforms modified for planetary extermination.
And at its core — the Decimator.
The Armada surged forward in a spearhead formation, its vanguard already engaging our outer ring. Swarms of missiles crossed the void in screaming arcs. Kinetic penetrators battered our shields. Flak webs bloomed in layered synchrony, vaporising drone waves with mechanical precision.
In orbit, our defences rallied what remained of the Council defence fleet — disciplined lines of cruiser squadrons, perimeter stations, and long-range skirmishers, all locked into defensive spheres above the planet's equator. Fort Aegis and Helion Array, our final planetary bastions, fired repeated lance strikes into the heart of the oncoming force.
The Eclipse led us — not merely a warship, but a fortress in motion. Three kilometres of hardened alloy, housing layered shield capacitors, forward lance arrays, and enough firepower to pulverise a moon. It was meant to be a symbol of unity and endurance.
Then the rest of the Armada emerged.
Behind the Decimator, the second echelon advanced — Phase-class barges, Warp-breaker carriers, and the dread hulks Oblivion's Fang and Mercy Denied, vessels we believed destroyed during the Great War. They had returned. Reforged. Reclaimed.
And with them, the void became carnage.
Shields collapsed under orchestrated barrages. Sonic tremors resonated through space as mass accelerators tore past our flanks. Interceptor units manoeuvred in triple-layered formations, trying to intercept seeker swarms and missile clusters. Ion trails painted the dark in violent hues of purple and gold.
Stormfang, one of their cruisers, punched through our outer cordon, ramming Helion Platform and detonating its primary deck. The resulting shock wave shattered three adjacent pylons.
All around the Eclipse, our ships were burning.
The Gale's Honour cracked open under sustained fire from Oblivion's Fang. Its reactor core ruptured, engulfing her in a sphere of fire. Vanguard's Mercy took a pincer strike from Decepticon flak-frigates, its spinal plating torn apart before its bridge collapsed inward. Escape pods jettisoned like fleeing birds from a dying beast.
From Trexais Prime, the sky itself burned.
Then the second wave hit.
Decepticon boarding frigates launched in high-velocity arcs. Some drove directly into our hulls, breaching armour with plasma drills and disgorging squads of shock troopers. Others latched onto orbital stations with harpoons and mag-lock claws, forcing their way in with breaching charges and rupturing decks before we could respond.
Explosions riddled the orbital ring. Plasma fire erupted from ruptured hangars. Atmospheric seals failed, venting our crews to space. Defence lines snapped in half.
Fort Aegis ruptured after a squadron of Phase-rams breached its lower bulkhead. Helion Array — once a symbol of orbital command — was silenced by a precision strike from the Iron Requital, its targeting core burned out in a single stroke.
From the inner reserve, I deployed our final reinforcements — tri-wing cruisers, beam frigates, and the battleship Diligence Unyielding. They advanced in wedge formations, unleashing overlapping salvo cones designed to break the Armada's cohesion.
But the Armada did not break.
Oblivion's Fang obliterated our flank with a lateral barrage of heavy rail-guns, severing the Path of Stars mid-ship and rupturing its escorts. Mercy Denied fired a wave of adaptive AI missiles, each one shifting trajectory mid-flight to slip past countermeasures and strike our reactors directly.
This was no longer a battle.
It was a purge.
Then I saw it.
Galvatron's flagship — the Decimator.
It did not move like a vessel. It glided like a blade, sharp and inevitable. Its hull shimmered with dark alloy, pulsing with crimson-violet veined circuits. Each movement of its superstructure whispered of cold finality.
"They're closing in," my tactical officer reported. "The Decimator's core output has spiked. They're preparing to fire."
I clenched my jaw.
"Then we fire first."
Our primary lance array locked onto the Decimator. Coordinates fed directly from the command core.
"Fire."
A spear of energy erupted from the Eclipse, carving across the void. The bridge rocked with the recoil. My eyes followed the beam.
"Direct impact," the officer confirmed. "Hull breach confirmed on forward section."
But it was already too late.
This was it. The last act. The Council's final illusion of control.
I straightened, drawing in one last breath of sterile bridge air.
"Galvatron may shatter us," I said quietly, yet loud enough for the command deck to hear, "but history will remember who stood against this tyrant."
There was a beat of silence.
And in that silence, across the crackling embers of the dying bridge.
But no matter how much the High Admiral wished, History is written by the victors.
POV: Galvatron
Location: The Decimator — Command Spire
I stood at the heart of the storm.
The Council's lance struck us across the prow. Sparks burst from overloaded terminals. Reinforced plating shuddered, but the ship endured. Lights dimmed for a moment, then stabilised. Reports came in.
"Minor hull breach, starboard spinal plating," Admiral Decimus announced. "Auto-seal initiated. No reactor compromise."
I remained motionless. Victory was already decided years ago.
"Lord Galvatron," Captain Valdrek said from below, "siege cannon at full charge. Firing solution locked."
I raised my hand.
"Fire."
The Decimator did not answer.
It roared.
The Omega Siege Cannon discharged — a stream of concentrated stellar plasma, bright as a nova, burning so fiercely the viewport shielded itself in tinted saturation. The entire ship vibrated with the energy unleashed.
The beam struck the Eclipse mid-section.
Armour evaporated. Bulkheads folded. The dreadnought tore open along its spine. Internal decks were consumed by fire and pressure. Reactors exploded in staggered sequences. The Council's greatest vessel split apart, detonating in a plume of light.
The beam pushed on.
It plunged into Trexais Prime.
Atmosphere vaporised. Crust fractured. The planet cried out.
Magma geysers burst skyward. Plates collapsed. Entire cities fell into the fire beneath. Mountains cracked. The planet's own structure began to shatter.
On the bridge, cheers erupted. Officers saluted. The weight of inevitability had shifted.
I turned toward the central holo-table and activated the internal command link.
"Prepare for my descent," I said, then paused.
"And summon my companions. It is time for their official debut."
POV: Brother-Captain of the Companions (Vox Ultima)
Location: The Decimator — Inner Armoury Vault
We moved in silence — not out of ignorance, but reverence.
The corridor lights above cast long shadows across our alcoves, the flickering strobes dancing off black and gold plating. I stood at the centre of the vault, helm in hand, sensors syncing with the ship's internal feed. Diagnostic glyphs streamed across my HUD before vanishing into readiness.
The signal had reached us.
I turned first. The others followed. Helms locked down. Chest cores flared to life. The thrum of grav-flight units rising from cold standby echoed through the vault like ancient war drums. Stabiliser fins extended. Power cores surged.
Our descent packs had been refined by Shockwave himself, but no one aboard this ship called them that. To us, they were simply our wings — our means to answer Him.
We were not warriors.
We were the Companions of our Lord.
We formed into line. No voice gave orders. None were needed. There were no officers among us. Only the chain of devotion. Only memory and oath.
I opened the vox.
We spoke together, as one:
Litany of the Companions.
What is your duty?
To serve the will of our Lord.
What is His will?
That we endure. That we conquer. That we do not fail.
What is silence?
Obedience unspoken.
What is death?
Unimportant, if He still breathes.
What is pain?
Purpose, purified.
What is your oath?
I serve not because I am commanded.
I kneel not because He is a god.
I kneel because He is Lord Galvatron.
Lord of Cybertron.
Ruler of a Thousand Worlds.
Then the gates opened.
We stepped forward — as one.
We had been summoned.
And now we would answer.
The Companions stepped forward — each one silent, each one armed, and all of them ready.
POV: Galvatron
Location: The Decimator — Drop Hangar Bay One
The order had been given.
The hangar bay opened before me in a wash of vapour and firelight. The scent of ionised metal and burnt ozone clung to the walls, thick and acrid. I stepped forward, slow and measured, my cloak brushing against the deck plating like smoke drifting off a pyre. Crew members dropped to one knee. They did not bow in ceremony — they knelt because they understood what was coming.
I passed them without acknowledgement. My focus was on the one who waited.
Predaking.
He stirred from his perch like an overgrown cat given the form of a Dragon — all heat and breath and latent violence. His wings stretched and folded, showering sparks across the deck. As I neared, his great head turned toward me, golden optics burning low.
He nudged my shoulder gently. The rumble that followed was not a roar — it was softer, closer to a purr.
I placed a hand against the plating of his snout.
"Are you ready to show off?" I asked.
His wings flared in response, tail swishing with anticipation.
He crouched low, inviting me onto his back. I climbed the mounting grooves as his stabilisers hissed open. Behind us, the Companions assembled in silence, each entering their own launch cradle.
No words.
They were already prepared.
I sat atop the living engine of destruction beneath me, watching the gantry doors begin to part.
Flame and cloud greeted us.
I drew my sword—let none say otherwise. It ignited instantly, casting a deep orange glow like molten magma along its length. I held it high, letting its light shine against the rising heat around us, then swept it down in a deliberate arc.
Predaking leapt forward with a triumphant roar, wings snapping wide as we surged into the storm. Behind us, my Companions followed—silent, disciplined, falling like spears from the heavens.
"Begin descent."
POV: Omniscient – Surface Reactions
Location: Trexais Prime – Central Defence Sector.
The sky tore asunder once more.
Through the fire-choked clouds, a shape burst forth — not a drop-pod or ship, but a silhouette aflame with velocity and presence. Wings of shadow and heat. A roar that split the air. Predaking.
He descended like a God.
The soldiers on the wall looked up, their weapons forgotten. Some froze. Others screamed warnings. A few simply stared, paralysed by the sheer weight of what they were seeing.
Far above them, across multiple Decepticon warships, sensor drones and surveillance arrays zoomed and focused. Every flagship, from Oblivion's Fang to the Mercy Denied, recorded his descent. Even from orbit, Galvatron's image was unmistakable. Streams of light trailed him and his companions through the clouds.
On the bridge of the Decimator, monitors displayed the footage in real time.
Drachen stood behind the viewing dais of his command centre, optics following every frame as the footage streamed down from the orbital drones. Not a word passed his lips. His internal temperature was steady, but somewhere beneath the alloy, something shifted.
It was admiration.
Not for the destruction, nor even the spectacle — but for the sheer, unshakable inevitability of it. This was power uncompromised. Authority made manifest. As Galvatron stood atop Predaking, sword raised, Drachen did bow.
Not because he was ordered.
But because that was his Creator. His father.
The gesture was instinctive, silent. A moment of rare and personal reverence.
And somewhere, buried beneath layers of protocol and processing, a stray thought flickered across Drachen's mind — soft, almost sheepish:
I want to do that too.
From the heavens, fire rained. Accompanying the beast were black and gold meteors — precise, silent, and impossibly fast. The Companions.
They fell into a circle of devastation.
The first to land impaled a Council defender mid-shout. The second shattered the reinforced guard post. The third disarmed an emplacement with a single, clean sweep of his glaive.
One by one, they hit the earth like verdicts.
Predaking landed in the centre. The impact cracked the street and collapsed a half-buried command bunker. His claws tore through ferrocrete. He roared again — and fire belched from his maw, incinerating the nearest anti-aircraft tower.
Atop him stood a figure of molten authority.
Galvatron.
His sword gleamed. His armour shimmered. Smoke curled around him like it knew its place.
And for a brief moment, a grin broke his stillness.
"...Amazing. I should do this more often."
He stepped down.
POV: Galvatron
Location: Surface of Trexais Prime – Outer Ruins
The fire hadn't stopped. The screams had only faded beneath the thunder of engines and the rhythm of boots hitting scorched stone.
I turned to face the defenders—well, what remained of them.
Their line was fraying. A few still stood tall, weapons clenched in trembling hands. Some barked orders. Others simply backed away, fear etched into every movement. One fell to his knees, muttering prayers I did not care to hear.
It would not matter.
I lifted my sword, its edge glowing like fresh-forged iron. The ash around me swirled, stirred by the weight of what was to come.
"Decepticons," I called, voice even, yet heavy with finality.
"We end this. With me."
The Companions surged forward, a wall of precision and purpose. No cry. No rage. Only movement—perfect and absolute.
Predaking leapt past me, wings spread like a banner of annihilation. His roar shattered the remaining windows, and his landing collapsed a fractured wall the defenders had tried to rally behind.
Then, behind us, the true judgment walked.
Necroplex rose from the smoke like a continent made sentient. His eyes burned violet. With every step, the earth groaned beneath his weight. On either flank, the Omega-class titans stomped into view, weapons glowing, their cannons already charging for the next obliteration.
The defenders, at last, opened fire.
Their shots struck Predaking's scales and bounced harmlessly off my Companions' armour. Plasma hissed and deflected. Rockets launched—and were caught mid-air by Necroplex's shielding.
I pointed forward, sword raised, the sky burning overhead.
We charged.
The End of the Council
The final battle was not merely a siege. It was an extinction.
In the last Mega-Cycle of resistance, Trexais Prime burned from orbit to core. Council defence sectors shattered. Their reinforcements never arrived. Their armadas died in silence.
As the Titans marched across the broken surface and Galvatron descended through fire, the remnants of the Galactic Council tried to retreat into their bunkers beneath the capital's final stronghold. It did not matter.
They were found.
High Arbiter Delan. High Admiral Varn. Hive Sovereign X'Kaleth. General Draakon. Each taken — some fighting, some begging, some already broken.
Drachen led the purges. No ceremony. No hesitation.
In the central plaza, once the beating heart of Council diplomacy, they were brought to kneel before a recording obelisk. The verdict was announced by the Companions — not as judges, but as heralds.
Galvatron passed the sentence.
For crimes of genocide, suppression, and cowardice. For defying Cybertron's rebirth. For delaying the inevitable.
Each council member was executed publicly. The footage was broadcast to every former Council world. There would be no debate. No denial.
The Galactic Council — an empire of policy, treaties, and compromise — died in the dirt, beneath the eyes of a rising empire.
Then came the silence.
POV: Galvatron
Location: Trexais Prime – Outer Bastion Ruins, Victory Plateau
The wind howled across the shattered skyline, carrying with it the scent of ash, melted steel, and victory.
I stood among the ruins — battle-worn, my armour slightly scorched, servos strained, and frame only slightly damaged by my badass entry into the battle. Note to self: next time, stick the landing with 20% less dramatic flare and upgrade coating on my frame. At my side, Drachen stood silent, his own plating scuffed and cracked, a single gouge along his forearm still smoking faintly.
He glanced at me, helm tilted, optics narrowed. "That was excessive," he said.
"I thought it was impressive," I replied, tilting my head with mock seriousness.
"Predaking howled before you hit the ground."
"He's a creature of taste," I countered.
We shared a rare moment of stillness. Not silence, not exactly — but the quiet that follows victory, where even machines breathe in relief.
Then, without warning, Predaking lunged from behind the rubble.
He tackled me — full wingspan, a purring growl mixed with molten joy — and knocked me flat against a slab of slagged armour. I grunted, laughed, and shoved his snout as he nudged me with feral affection, talons clicking playfully at my shoulders.
"Alright, alright," I said, brushing dust from my helm. "Yes, yes, you did a good job. You did well, too and wow, what have I fed you way as much as a mountain."
It let out a pleased rumble, tail flicking like a smug feline.
We climbed the fractured spire at the edge of what had once been the Council's command sector. Below us, the remnants of the Council's bastion lay smouldering, strewn with debris and extinguished banners.
Together, we raised the Decepticon flag.
The fabric unfurled with defiant grace, its symbol catching the light of a dying sun. Above us, the red sky flickered with the last embers of orbital fire. The flagpole locked into place — embedded not in concrete, but in the remains of a command relay tower.
I turned, facing the scattered cameras and broadcast drones now realigning from orbit. This was no longer a battle. It was a legacy.
"This," I said aloud, voice low but clear, "is the monument of the Empire."
"When I began this journey Cycles ago, I never imagined I'd stand here, master and lord of the known galaxy. But I did not conquer alone. Every warrior who bled with me, who rose with me, who followed when others faltered — this is your triumph."
I paced slowly before the flag.
"This world shall remain as it is — a scar of history. Trexais will become a training ground, a war memorial, and a reminder of our might."
I gestured behind me, to the ruins, to the cracked horizon.
"Casualties: two thousand. Enemy: trillions. We shall round it up for the archives and bump the number up on our sides for some documentaries Shockwave wants me to do."
I looked to the sky, then to the nearest broadcast feed. The channel opened. All frequencies.
"This is final transmission — let it be known across the stars."
"I am Lord Galvatron, ruler of the New Decepticon Empire. Let the record show: Cybertron has taken its rightful place among the stars. We now stand at the strongest point in our history. From our lowest at the height of the Great War, saved from the Great Betrayals lies we stand as the masters of this Universe."
The flag caught the wind and snapped outward.
The silence that followed was absolute.