The battle had been raging for about five minutes. A shuttle bound for Autobot City, filled to the brim with Autobot commanding officers and Optimus Prime himself, had been boarded by a Decepticon attack fleet, manned by Megatron. At this moment, Megatron was busy dueling with Prime. The two were knocking each other around above the cargo hold, inflicting minor wounds with their specialized Energon weapons. Megatron, spiked ball 'n chain in hand, was trying desperately to knock Prime out as his forces fell around him. At last, one of his swings connected, with more inflicted damage than Megatron had thought. Optimus' chest was completely shredded, and an odd ball with two handles fell, bounced off of a catwalk, and fell to the floor of the cargo hold, thirty feet below. "The Matrix!" Megatron howled. Optimus lay on the catwalk, unmoving. Without thinking, Megatron jumped down to grab the talisman. The floor shook with his impact, and a crate fell from a stack. Four protoforms bounced out. One landed on top of the Matrix, and a bright, blue light blinded all in the range of sight. An unearthly scream rose from the inside of the protoform. It grew, expanding to about three times its normal height. Its head turned to Megatron, still blank. Its body began to morph, changing to a shape more like his- and as all of this happened, Megatron, the mighty Decepticon leader, began to degrade. As his arm, burned to its core, fell off, the protoform grabbed his neck, and, without a word, tore out his spark. Out of every joint in its body came little tentacle-like cords, eagerly lapping up Energon that leaked from his chest. "How... dare... you..." he said, his voice trailing off as he died. As his dark grey body clanged to the floor, the Protoform looked up, and spied Optimus, who was crawling out of the area. Silently, it dashed to the wall, and began to crawl up its side, like a horrific robotic spider. It came to the ceiling, and dropped directly on top of the Autobot leader. "what manner of creature are-" he whispered, and then he was dead, his spark in the hand of the Protoform. "PrOto-PRiME" it said in a screeching yet raspy voice, as it modified its body to accommodate for new, Optimus-like features. And so it began. It tore through the shuttle, killing without mercy, and annihilating all in its path, absorbing appearances and powers. At last, the only remaining Cybertronian on the ship was Bumblebee, who crawled to the radios. "Help- it's a protoform-" he said, and then he was silenced, as the Proto-Prime had stuck a blade through his throat. The shuttle, without a pilot of any experience, crashed about a mile from Autobot City. The Proto-Prime climbed out, and walked the rest of the way, nudged on by a 3-D mapping system it absorbed from inside of the shuttle. It was Kup who found it first; he was killed instantly, before he could even process what he had seen. A few hours passed, and an Autobot patrol followed the path of carnage through the mountains. Hot Rod: beheaded. Springer: shot to death with his own weapon. Ultra Magnus: ripped to shreds. The patrol found the Proto-Prime later; they were dismembered. One of them survived, however, and ran back to the city; however, the Proto-Prime followed him. During a three-day long carnage like the universe has never again seen, it slaughtered half of the city's inhabitants, growing more and more powerful.
