Chapter 10: The Name That Should Not Exist
Optimus Prime did not leave Iacon.
That was the first thing Soundwave corrected.
The supply line had opened under force, and every projection expected the new Autobot commander to exploit it. A breach became a front. A front became pressure. Pressure became movement.
But Optimus did not push outward.
He opened the road.
Then he stayed.
Iacon changed around him.
Not quickly. Not cleanly. The capital did not suddenly become unified because one mech had spoken a new name across a battlefield. Ultra Magnus still held the northern wall with rigid discipline. Springer still moved his forces from point to point like pressure valves inside a failing machine. Prowl remained difficult to see directly, visible mostly through the sudden absence of wasted motion. Ironhide appeared beside Optimus in reports from the routes that mattered most.
But the fragments were beginning to face the same direction.
Soundwave watched it happen through stolen signals and intercepted relays, through the shape of convoy movement, through the reduced delay between commands that had once contradicted each other.
Inside Iacon, civilians used the word before the military did.
Savior.
The savior of the eastern line.
The Prime who opened the road.
The one who came back when Iacon had begun to starve.
Soundwave stored every variation. Language mattered. Repetition built symbols, and Optimus Prime had been present for one battle before Iacon began turning him into one.
That was dangerous.
The war room in Praxis was quieter than it should have been when the command structure gathered. The main projection showed Iacon at the center, bright and stubborn, surrounded by every line Megatron had tried to close around it. Decepticon territory had widened across the map in every direction except through the capital itself.
Megatron stood before it with his arms folded behind him.
Shockwave worked at the left console, silent beneath the slow movement of triple-changer reports and energon expenditure models. Starscream stood near the aerial map, red optics fixed on Iacon’s sky. Onslaught waited beside the ground-force projection. Scrapper had bridge and transit overlays open, but even he was looking more at Iacon than at the structures around it.
Soundwave stood at the communications array and let the room move through him.
Megatron did not see himself as ruling alone.
Soundwave knew that.
Shockwave advised feasibility. Starscream commanded the air and spoke when the sky made a plan wasteful. Onslaught gave ground-force realities without ornament. Scrapper understood what could be built, broken, and repaired afterward.
Megatron listened.
Then Megatron decided.
To him, that was command with counsel.
To those outside the room, it looked like one will consuming every other voice.
Soundwave understood both interpretations.
“Report,” Megatron said.
Soundwave let Iacon’s eastern route expand across the projection.
“The supply breach remains active. The road is contested, but functional. Autobot convoy success has increased since Optimus Prime’s emergence. Civilian morale inside Iacon is rising. External resistance cells have begun referencing him as a central authority.”
Megatron’s optics sharpened at the name.
“Optimus Prime.”
He said it like an insult.
Not fear.
Outrage.
Soundwave brought the figure into the projection. Red and blue armor. Larger frame. Stronger build. Not the archivist who had stood unarmed on the road five years earlier.
“No prewar record exists under that designation,” Soundwave said. “No Senate military file. No police registration. No caste assignment. No prior battlefield history.”
Starscream’s wings shifted.
“Mechs do not appear from nowhere.”
“No.”
Shockwave’s optic lifted from his console.
“They can be rebuilt.”
The silence that followed was thin and sharp.
Soundwave had considered the possibility from the moment Optimus spoke, but consideration was not proof. He split the projection, setting Orion Pax beside Optimus Prime.
The difference was immediate.
Orion had been smaller, lighter, built for record halls and archive corridors. Optimus was broader, armored, balanced like a battlefield commander. His signal architecture was different. His energy signature had changed. His voice carried a new structural resonance.
Too much had changed.
And yet—
Soundwave let the comparison play.
Orion stepping in front of Prowl and Ironhide.
Optimus stepping in front of the convoy.
Orion standing between Megatron and a closed road.
Optimus standing between Decepticon fire and Iacon’s supply line.
Different frames.
Different signatures.
Same choice.
Megatron stared at the projection.
“The archivist is dead.”
“Presumed terminated,” Soundwave corrected.
Megatron’s optics cut toward him.
Soundwave remained still.
“His signal collapsed. His frame was removed by unknown means. No confirmed remains were recovered.”
“You believe this Prime is Orion.”
“I do not possess sufficient evidence.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Soundwave held the pause only as long as accuracy required.
“Behavioral overlap exists.”
Starscream looked from one image to the other.
“His signature is wrong.”
“Affirmative.”
“Frame is wrong.”
“Affirmative.”
“Voice?”
“Altered.”
Starscream’s optics narrowed.
“But he stands the same.”
Soundwave filed the phrasing.
Correct.
Megatron’s hands tightened behind his back.
“A Prime,” he said, quieter now. “He calls himself a Prime.”
No one answered.
Sentinel Prime had died beneath Megatron’s cannon in the relay yard. The title should have ended there, or at least remained broken long enough for Iacon to collapse under its own uncertainty.
Instead, another Prime had stepped out of absence.
No record.
No origin.
No permission.
A Prime from nowhere.
Starscream broke the silence.
“He needs to be eliminated quickly.”
Megatron turned toward him.
Starscream did not retreat from the attention.
“He opened one road and they are already calling him savior. Leave him standing long enough and he becomes more useful than any wall Iacon has.”
Onslaught’s voice came low from the ground-force display.
“Symbols hold lines longer than orders.”
Shockwave’s optic returned to the projection.
“Resistance cohesion has increased since his emergence. Continued existence will reduce projected siege effectiveness.”
Different reasons.
Same conclusion.
Megatron’s anger sharpened into decision.
“He will be dealt with.”
Soundwave recorded the alignment. Starscream saw the political and aerial danger. Onslaught saw morale hardening into military value. Shockwave saw the numbers bending around a new center. Megatron saw insult.
Soundwave saw a variable that had vanished from his reach and returned wearing command.
That made Optimus more than a target.
It made him a contradiction.
Megatron stepped closer to the projection.
“Open a channel.”
Soundwave turned slightly.
“To Iacon?”
“To him.”
The room stilled again.
Starscream’s wings drew tighter. Shockwave’s optic brightened by a fraction. Onslaught did not move, but his attention fixed on Megatron completely.
Soundwave began building the channel before the silence settled.
Not public.
Not broad.
Not something Iacon could turn into spectacle.
He routed the contact through dead Senate maintenance lines, obsolete relay fragments, and one abandoned tower whose existence had never entered current Autobot records. Iacon’s outer shell resisted. Soundwave did not force it. He used what the Senate had left buried beneath its own inefficiency.
Old systems remembered old permissions.
A narrow line opened.
Clean enough.
Private enough.
“Channel established,” Soundwave said.
Megatron faced the projection.
“Put him through.”
For three seconds, Iacon gave them nothing.
Then the signal connected.
The image arrived fractured by shielding. Hard bands of distortion cut across the projection, hiding the chamber behind Optimus and stripping the feed of useful location detail. No architecture. No personnel. No route data.
Careful.
Optimus Prime stood within the broken image and looked directly into the channel.
“Megatron.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm for a new commander facing the mech who had killed Sentinel.
Megatron’s optics narrowed.
“You wear a title that does not belong to you.”
“Titles are given meaning by what we do with them.”
“I killed Sentinel Prime.”
“I know.”
“Then you know what that title means when used against me.”
Optimus held his gaze.
“I know what it meant when Sentinel used it.”
The room tightened around the words.
Megatron took one step closer to the projection.
“Who are you?”
Optimus answered without hesitation.
“Orion Pax.”
Nothing moved.
Soundwave held the channel steady as the entire room reacted in silence.
Megatron’s systems spiked first. Starscream’s posture sharpened. Shockwave’s data stream paused for less than a second before resuming at higher density. Onslaught’s gaze shifted once toward Soundwave, as if confirmation could be pulled from stillness alone.
Megatron’s voice dropped.
“Impossible.”
“I was rebuilt.”
“By whom?”
Optimus did not answer.
Soundwave searched the silence behind the channel and found nothing. No reflected signal. No hidden route. No trace of the shielded source that had removed Orion from the road.
Protected.
Still.
Optimus continued.
“You left me in the road.”
“You stood against me.”
“I stood for the right to refuse you.”
Megatron’s expression hardened.
“You stood with armed Autobots during wartime.”
“I stood where your order became force.”
Megatron’s optics burned brighter.
“My order feeds cities. Protects workers. Breaks the Senate chains you claim to despise.”
“And replaces them with yours.”
Starscream shifted slightly, but said nothing.
Soundwave tracked Megatron’s rising energy output.
Controlled.
Angry.
Outraged.
Not unstable.
“You know nothing of chains,” Megatron said. “You read records. I lived them.”
Optimus did not look away.
“I read enough records to know every revolution believes its chains are different when it starts forging them.”
The war room went very still.
Megatron’s cannon hand flexed once.
Soundwave prepared to cut the channel if ordered.
Megatron did not order it.
“You call yourself Prime,” Megatron said. “You hide behind a dead title and stolen authority.”
“I did not choose it to honor Sentinel.”
“Then why?”
Optimus’s optics held steady through the distortion.
“Because the Autobots needed more than survival. They needed a promise.”
Megatron’s mouth curved without warmth.
“And you are that promise?”
“No,” Optimus said. “Freedom is.”
The word settled through the channel like a new front opening.
Soundwave recorded it.
Megatron stared at him.
Then, very quietly:
“You should have stayed dead.”
Optimus did not flinch.
“You should have remembered why you began.”
The channel cut.
Not from Soundwave.
From Iacon.
Soundwave traced the disconnect instantly, but it folded into shielding before it could become a path.
No location.
No return route.
No breach.
Optimus had spoken and vanished behind Iacon’s walls as completely as Orion had vanished from the road five years before.
Megatron turned from the projection.
The anger in him had shape now.
Direction.
“Prepare the offensive.”
Starscream answered first.
“Air command will be ready.”
Onslaught straightened.
“Ground forces will move.”
Shockwave looked back toward the expenditure models still running beside the triple-changer files.
“There is another factor.”
Megatron turned sharply.
Shockwave did not react to the force of the attention.
“Energon expenditure across active fronts now exceeds refinement recovery by twelve percent. Not critical in immediate terms. Unsustainable if current escalation continues indefinitely.”
Soundwave had already seen the numbers.
He had hoped to delay their relevance.
Optimus had ended that possibility.
Megatron stared at Iacon.
The capital held.
The Autobots had a Prime.
The war had a new center.
“Then we end it before it lasts indefinitely,” Megatron said.
Soundwave opened the offensive planning grid.
Across Cybertron, Decepticon forces began receiving new readiness orders. Seeker wings shifted from patrol rotations into assault preparation. Ground units moved toward staging zones. Shockwave’s triple-changer reports rose in priority. Octane testing accelerated. Astrotrain conceptual files unlocked.
Energon allocations tightened.
Medical reserves moved forward.
Iacon brightened on the projection.
No longer merely surrounded.
Targeted.
For five years, Orion Pax had been absence.
Now Optimus Prime was signal.
A center.
A contradiction.
A threat.
And as Megatron’s command moved toward massive offensive action, Soundwave began building every map he would need to break him.
The order moved faster than rumor.
Prepare the offensive.
Soundwave carried it through Decepticon territory in layers, not as a single declaration. A single declaration created noise. Layers created movement.
Seeker patrols shifted first.
To most observers, nothing changed. Wings still crossed the upper lanes above Praxis, Polyhex, Kaon, and the outer approaches to Iacon. Patrols still turned at the same towers. Trines still vanished into clouded corridors and returned on schedule.
But Soundwave saw the pattern change.
Patrol became readiness.
Readiness became staging.
Staging became pressure.
Starscream altered the sky without making the shift obvious. High-altitude reconnaissance expanded above Iacon’s outer defenses. Strike wings rotated closer to fuel points. Damaged units were removed from active patrol and replaced before anyone outside command could mark the gaps. Scout patterns widened, not toward conquest routes, but toward anti-air towers, supply yards, and hidden approach lanes.
Starscream did not need to announce that he had understood Megatron’s order.
The sky had already answered.
On the ground, Onslaught began moving forces into place with the same severe efficiency he brought to every operation. Units that had held satellite cities for cycles were replaced by occupation garrisons and pulled quietly toward staging zones. Heavy assault teams moved under industrial cover. Weapons platforms were broken down, transported, and reassembled behind ridgelines facing Iacon’s outer territories.
No celebration.
No speeches.
Preparation.
Scrapper’s teams followed behind the movement, reinforcing roads that could carry heavy loads and weakening the ones Iacon might try to use in counterattack. His work rarely looked like warfare until something collapsed exactly when needed. Bridges were measured. Transport lanes were graded. Old Senate drainage systems were opened and mapped for possible movement below the main roads.
Shockwave’s requests came next.
More precise.
More expensive.
Octane testing required expanded fuel-handling simulations. Triple-changer transition strain required reinforced diagnostic chambers. Blitzwing’s field deployment data needed comparison against longer-duration transformation sequences.
And Astrotrain—
Soundwave paused on the file when it unlocked fully.
Larger frame.
Heavier mass tolerance.
Transport potential beyond individual combat.
Not merely triple-mode versatility.
Logistical transformation.
A weapon, yes.
But also a solution to distance.
Shockwave was already thinking beyond the next battle.
So was Soundwave.
He routed the file into priority review.
Megatron would want results quickly.
Shockwave would provide them as soon as logic allowed.
Starscream would question flight integration.
Onslaught would ask when it could carry troops.
Scrapper would ask what infrastructure it required.
Soundwave already opened subfiles for all of them.
The offensive did not yet exist on the field.
Inside Soundwave’s network, it was already moving.
But beneath the preparations, Optimus Prime altered Iacon faster than expected.
Not outwardly.
Not at first.
The Autobots did not surge from the gates. They did not attempt to retake every route at once. There was no reckless charge, no symbolic counterstroke meant only to prove confidence.
That was more concerning.
Optimus remained inside Iacon and worked.
Soundwave watched the effects accumulate.
Old command delays shortened. Conflicting patrol patterns resolved. Ultra Magnus’s wall defense integrated with Springer’s mobile response routes instead of overlapping them. Prowl’s logistical patterns became sharper, no longer merely efficient but coordinated with a wider whole. Ironhide appeared beside newly reinforced corridors, training units that had previously acted only as local defense.
Autobot traffic changed.
Not in content.
In rhythm.
Before Optimus, Iacon’s communications had been defensive and layered with hesitation. Commands repeated. Units asked for confirmation from separate authorities. Patrols delayed when authority overlapped.
After Optimus, the hesitation began disappearing.
Not all at once.
But steadily.
One cycle.
Then another.
Then another.
Soundwave recorded the trend with increasing priority.
Optimus Prime did not command like Sentinel.
Sentinel had driven force through rank.
Optimus drew alignment through belief.
That was harder to disrupt.
Rank could be severed.
Belief spread through damaged channels, civilian whispers, recovered supply lines, and the quiet decision of tired soldiers to stand one more cycle because someone had told them the fight still meant something.
That made him dangerous in ways Sentinel had not been.
Megatron knew part of it.
Soundwave suspected he did not yet know all.
The first strategic council after the direct channel ended met in Praxis again, but the room no longer felt like the captured Senate hall it had once been. Decepticon systems had overtaken it fully now. The old symbols still existed in fragments along the walls, but they had become background beneath active command architecture.
Megatron entered already moving.
“Status.”
Soundwave brought Iacon into the main projection.
“Autobot defensive cohesion improving. Supply breach remains active intermittently. Optimus Prime has not left Iacon since direct contact. Civilian references to him increasing. Military command references remain formal but more frequent.”
Starscream looked across the projection.
“He’s letting them come to him.”
“Confirmed.”
“He knows stepping out too soon makes him easier to isolate.”
“Likely.”
Starscream’s mouth tightened.
“I dislike him already.”
Megatron’s optics shifted toward him.
Starscream did not soften the statement.
“He is not wasting what he has. That makes him more dangerous than a glory-seeker.”
Onslaught studied the ground map.
“He will have to move eventually.”
“Yes,” Soundwave said. “But not before Iacon can move with him.”
Shockwave spoke from the side console.
“Projected timeline for Autobot reorganization under Optimus Prime: approximately one stellar cycle before effective coordinated counteroffensive capability.”
Megatron stared at the map.
“One year.”
“Approximate,” Shockwave said.
“Too long,” Starscream said.
Megatron’s gaze remained fixed on Iacon.
“Then we move before that.”
Soundwave opened the offensive plan.
The projection changed from siege to assault preparation. Outer defense towers. Supply gates. Reinforced walls. Anti-air nets. Buried relay routes. Civilian sectors. Military staging yards. Every layer unfolded at once.
The room absorbed the scale.
Iacon would not be Praxis.
It would not be Vos.
It would not be a relay station trap.
The capital was prepared, populated, fortified, and now inspired.
Megatron’s expression hardened.
“All fronts.”
Shockwave’s optic brightened faintly.
“Resource strain increases under that model.”
“Then allocate what is required.”
“Allocation does not create refinement capacity.”
The words were flat.
Precise.
The room stilled.
Megatron turned.
Shockwave continued without hesitation.
“Energon expenditure exceeds refinement recovery by twelve percent and rising. A massive offensive can be sustained in immediate terms. Prolonged escalation cannot continue indefinitely without expanded supply, reduced consumption, or increased production.”
Starscream glanced toward Soundwave.
Soundwave did not move.
He had already run the same projections.
Shockwave was correct.
Not critical.
Not yet.
But the line had crossed.
The war was beginning to consume faster than conquered territory could feed it.
Megatron stepped closer to the projection.
“Then we make the offensive decisive.”
“That is one solution,” Shockwave said.
“One?”
“Increased production is another. Reduced simultaneous fronts is a third. Strategic delay is a fourth.”
Megatron’s optics narrowed.
“Delay gives Prime time.”
“Yes.”
Shockwave did not argue.
He presented consequence.
Soundwave watched Megatron process it.
This was why Megatron believed he had counsel. Shockwave could give him alternatives without challenging his authority. Starscream could tell him the sky would become waste if misused. Onslaught could warn him where ground lines would break. Scrapper could show him what could be recovered after destruction.
They spoke.
Megatron decided.
But Orion’s question echoed beneath the structure now, whether Megatron heard it or not.
Who decided which counsel mattered?
Soundwave stored the thought and did not let it alter his output.
Megatron’s decision came quickly.
“We proceed.”
No one questioned it.
Starscream moved first.
“Then I want tower suppression before ground advance. Not after. If Iacon’s anti-air net stays active when the main wings move, we bleed before we reach the walls.”
“Granted,” Megatron said.
Onslaught added, “Ground forces need staggered lanes. All-front pressure does not mean all units advance in a single wave.”
“Prepare them.”
Scrapper shifted the lower map.
“The southeastern wall has old support faults. Not enough to collapse from outside, but enough to widen a breach if hit after internal vibration.”
Shockwave’s optic turned toward him.
“Frequency?”
Scrapper sent the data.
Shockwave reviewed it.
“Possible. Devastator could exploit it.”
The room changed at the name.
Devastator had not led since Sentinel’s weapon split him apart.
Megatron looked toward Shockwave.
“Countermeasure status.”
“Partial. Sentinel’s weapon profile is understood. Replication risk remains unknown. If Iacon possesses another resonance weapon, Devastator exposure carries risk.”
Starscream’s wings shifted.
“Do not put him first.”
The room went still again.
Megatron looked at him.
Starscream did not flinch.
“Use him where the breach is already committed. Not as bait. Not as the first thing they see. If they have another weapon, make them reveal it against something less valuable.”
Soundwave processed.
Correct.
Shockwave added, “Tactically sound.”
Megatron’s gaze moved from Starscream to Shockwave, then to the map.
“Devastator remains secondary until the breach opens.”
Starscream inclined his head once.
No triumph.
No satisfaction.
Only command moving correctly.
Soundwave marked it.
Starscream’s insight was no longer simply tolerated.
It altered plans.
That would matter later.
The meeting continued until Iacon became layered with red.
Strike points.
False pressure zones.
Seeker altitude lanes.
Ground staging routes.
Possible Devastator deployment angles.
Triple-changer test insertion points.
Medical reserves.
Fallback corridors.
Soundwave stitched them together in silence.
Every order passed through him.
Every disagreement became adjustment.
Every adjustment became structure.
Outside the command hall, the war continued to move.
Inside Iacon, Optimus continued to gather it against them.
The first broadcast came three cycles later.
Not from Decepticon channels.
From Iacon.
It did not reach all of Cybertron. Iacon’s walls and Decepticon interference prevented that. But it reached enough—outer districts, contested towers, resistance relays, hidden receivers Soundwave had allowed to remain open for observation.
Optimus Prime spoke from inside the capital.
No image.
Only voice.
“This city stands because those within it choose to stand together. Not because we agree on every path. Not because we have no fear. But because no one has the right to decide that freedom is conditional on obedience.”
Soundwave listened.
Megatron listened.
Every command-level Decepticon channel captured the transmission as it spread across the fractured relay web.
Optimus continued.
“The Senate failed Cybertron. Sentinel failed Cybertron. But replacing one unquestioned authority with another does not make us free. It only changes whose command we fear.”
Starscream looked toward Megatron.
Megatron did not move.
Optimus’s voice held steady.
“To those beyond Iacon who still resist, endure. To those who cannot fight, survive. To those who can carry supplies, carry them. To those who can protect the weak, protect them. We are not finished.”
The signal faded before Soundwave could trace its origin.
Again.
Shielded.
Layered.
Gone.
Megatron remained silent for several seconds.
Then he said, “Increase interference.”
Soundwave did.
Across the network, Decepticon counter-signals rose, burying fragments of the broadcast where they could, corrupting repeats, flooding open relays with occupation directives and supply notices.
But the words had already moved.
Not everywhere.
Enough.
That was the problem with symbols.
They did not require complete transmission to survive.
Starscream finally spoke.
“He is buying time.”
“Yes,” Soundwave said.
“He is good at it.”
Megatron turned sharply.
Starscream met his gaze.
“That is not admiration. It is assessment.”
Megatron held the look for a moment, then turned back to Iacon.
“Then we deny him time.”
Shockwave’s work accelerated.
Octane entered active testing before the next cycle ended.
Unlike Blitzwing, Octane was not designed primarily for direct combat shock. His value lay in fuel logistics and field endurance. Triple-changing for him meant movement, storage, and supply flexibility. Ground transport. Air transport. Robot functionality for defense and repair.
A battlefield did not only need weapons.
It needed fuel to keep weapons firing.
Soundwave reviewed the first Octane reports with interest.
Fuel handling systems: promising.
Transition strain: moderate.
Aerial stability: acceptable.
Ground transport efficiency: high.
Combat aggression: lower than Blitzwing.
Operational value: significant.
Megatron approved continued testing.
Shockwave moved immediately to the next stage.
Astrotrain remained conceptual for the moment, but his files grew denser every cycle. Larger. Stronger. More complex. A triple-changer not simply for combat or fuel, but transport at scale.
If successful, he would alter the war’s reach.
Soundwave understood the implications before most of command did.
So did Shockwave.
Possibly Megatron.
Starscream would understand the moment flight tests began.
The offensive planning continued.
But now every plan carried Optimus inside it.
Not as a location.
As resistance behavior.
A unit held longer than projected.
Optimus effect.
A convoy moved with fewer wasted transmissions.
Optimus effect.
A civilian district refused Decepticon terms but evacuated noncombatants before armed resistance began.
Optimus effect.
Autobot signals that once fractured under pressure now delayed, bent, and reformed.
Optimus effect.
Soundwave hated imprecise categories.
He used this one anyway.
Until better data existed.
One cycle before the offensive staging deadline, Megatron stood alone with Soundwave before the Iacon projection.
Not truly alone.
No command chamber ever was, not with Soundwave present.
But the others had gone to execute their parts.
Starscream to the sky.
Shockwave to the labs.
Onslaught to the ground staging zones.
Scrapper to the breach models.
Megatron watched Iacon in silence.
“You still cannot trace him.”
It was not a question.
“No.”
“Orion.”
“Optimus Prime.”
Megatron’s optics shifted toward him.
Soundwave clarified.
“Designation active. Prior designation unresolved.”
Megatron’s mouth tightened.
“He said he was Orion.”
“Yes.”
“You doubt him?”
“I lack proof.”
Megatron looked back at the projection.
“I do not.”
Soundwave processed that.
Megatron believed because Optimus had chosen the confession as a weapon. Because it struck exactly where Orion had stood before him in the road. Because no random Prime could have known how to use that argument with such precision.
Megatron believed because he was angry.
Soundwave did not have that luxury.
“I will continue investigation.”
“You will find who rebuilt him.”
“Yes.”
“And where.”
“Yes.”
Megatron leaned closer to the map.
“I killed Sentinel. I broke the Senate. I took their cities. And now an archivist returns wearing a title I buried.”
Soundwave remained silent.
Megatron’s optics burned.
“He thinks he is the answer.”
The map of Iacon brightened beneath them as another supply route flickered active for less than a minute before Decepticon interference closed it again.
Megatron’s hand closed over the edge of the projection table.
“Then I will show him what answer Cybertron has already chosen.”
Soundwave did not respond.
He sent the final offensive readiness order instead.
Across Decepticon territory, the machine began to move.
Seeker wings lifted into assault formations.
Ground columns advanced from staging areas.
Triple-changer test units were placed on standby.
Medical teams moved behind the first wave.
Energon reserves opened under restricted command authority.
Devastator’s deployment status changed from withheld to conditional.
Iacon stood bright at the center of the projection.
Fortified.
Hungry.
Inspired.
For five years, the war had wrapped around it.
Now the ring tightened for impact.
Soundwave watched every signal align.
The offensive was ready.
Optimus Prime had given the Autobots a center.
Megatron would answer with the full weight of the Decepticon war machine.