The entire transcript contained only those few cryptic lines of dialogue, leaving everything else completely blank. It looked incomplete, like a small fragment torn from a larger record. The information was incredibly brief, and it didn't even identify the council members speaking. It was a far cry from a comprehensive historical archive.
Skygnaw knew a bit about the High Council. They were once the supreme governing body of Cybertron, made up of the most experienced and powerful warriors on the planet. Their word carried absolute weight across the world, and their influence over society was immense.
"This must have been recorded right before the civil war broke out," Skygnaw thought to himself.
The High Council was still in power, the Decepticons were newly formed, and Megatron was actively rallying his followers. All these clues pointed to a meeting held on the very eve of the war. As for what happened next, the fact that the logs ended abruptly at the thirteenth session spoke for itself. There was never a fourteenth meeting.
Thirteen was a fascinating number. Skygnaw skimmed through the logs of the first twelve meetings, but they were mostly dry, routine matters. The council members spent their time debating planetary development or deciding how to punish a rogue warrior who had broken city laws. It felt strangely familiar to him. It seemed that no matter how advanced a civilization became, it could never escape the trap of bureaucracy.
He closed the transcript and kept scrolling. For an interstellar empire as advanced as Cybertron, he expected their historical records to feature holographic videos or images. Oddly enough, almost everything was preserved as written text.
"Using ancient Cybertronian glyphs probably kept the data secure," he realized. Anyone could decipher a basic visual image, making it easy for outsiders to steal state secrets. But the complex alien script kept their history safe from prying eyes.
Skygnaw also noticed that a lot of the technical data matched the files he had stolen from Sentinel Prime's flagship. It made perfect sense. As the former leader of the Autobots, Sentinel wouldn't have left the capital's grand archives untouched before his departure. A planned evacuation was entirely different from a frantic retreat.
---
He spent the next hour parsing the remaining files, the quiet tapping of his fingers echoing through the grand hall. But whether it was due to the devastation of the civil war or the mysterious conflicts that predated it, most of the records only went back ten thousand years, right to the dawn of the High Council's rule. Anything older was practically nonexistent.
"That doesn't make sense," Skygnaw muttered, a slight frown touching his face.
Cybertron hadn't experienced a total regime change that would warrant burning the old world's history, yet it looked exactly like a new dynasty wiping out the tracks of the previous era. The grand archives felt a bit overrated.
Still, he did find a few ancient references to Earth. The logs confirmed that long after The Fallen's time, various Cybertronian expeditions had visited the blue planet, continuing right up until ancient human history.
Skygnaw couldn't help but wonder what kind of magnet Earth possessed to draw so many generations of his race across the stars. It had practically become a second home to them.
---
He closed the terminal and began walking through the vault. His three goals had turned up absolutely nothing, leaving him empty-handed. Even though he felt a twinge of disappointment, especially regarding the Matrix, he was patient enough to accept the setback without losing his temper.
The layout of the archives was simple. The upper three levels consisted of massive research halls, while the basement held a single, massive room: the Spark Chamber. Shockwave had mentioned earlier that the AllSpark was once kept down there, which immediately sparked his curiosity.
The chamber hadn't just served as a vault; it was a dedicated research laboratory. Cybertronian scientists weren't driven by a sense of sacred awe regarding their origin; they wanted to dissect it, understand it, and ultimately control it.
Hearing Shockwave speak of those mad scientists reminded Skygnaw of Sector 7's old experiments on Earth. The humans had built a specialized energy grid to channel the AllSpark's radiation, bringing common electronic appliances to life as aggressive Decepticons. If primitive humans could master the artifact in a few decades, the Cybertronians had undoubtedly unlocked far deeper secrets over thousands of years.
Skygnaw suspected that the source code he used to upgrade his own armor had been developed by those ancient researchers, only to be monopolized by warlords like Megatron and Optimus once resources grew scarce.
---
He descended into the lower level. The Spark Chamber was a colossal underground vault. Because the true, full form of the AllSpark stood over a hundred meters tall, the ceiling of this basement was higher than all three upper floors combined.
The architectural style matched the rest of the facility, featuring the same cold, silver-white metal walls. But because the room had been abandoned for eons, a heavy layer of dust coated every surface, and many of the old consoles had rusted into useless junk. In a world starved of energy, maintaining an empty basement was a waste of resources.
Yet, the massive pile of weapons and crates stacked along the perimeter caught Skygnaw by surprise. The vault didn't look like a laboratory anymore; it looked like a massive military armory.
He ran a hand over a heavy laser cannon that was nearly as large as his own frame, spotting a faded Autobot insignia stamped onto the chassis. It made sense. Iacon was the final stronghold to fall during the war, serving as the Autobots' ultimate fortress. Using the central archive's deep vaults to stockpile heavy munitions was standard defensive protocol.
"The Autobots must have lost the capital before they could deploy these weapons," Skygnaw murmured, looking at the endless rows of crates. Most of the gear was heavily rusted, and it was doubtful if the cannons could even fire a single round.
---
He walked past the armory toward the center of the chamber. A massive analysis rig stood in the middle of the floor, built to scan the AllSpark itself. Skygnaw ignored the machine and stepped up to the primary control console.
The terminal was completely dead, starved of planetary power. He tapped a few keys, but the screen remained dark. Skygnaw shook his head. It seemed his luck had completely run out today.
He should have anticipated this before coming down here. Asking Shockwave to reroute power to an abandoned basement would take too long, and doing so during a critical military campaign might tip off the Autobot spies.
Just as he turned to leave, a specific button on the console caught his eye.
The button was completely pristine, free of dust, and showed a high level of physical wear. On a terminal buried under a thick layer of grey grime, it stood out like a beacon.
Skygnaw paused. Operating on the principle that it was better to check a false lead than to miss a secret, he reached out and pressed it.
*Rumble...*
The heavy grinding of metal gears echoed through the silence, and the floor began to shudder. Skygnaw immediately went on high alert, his hand dropping toward his weapon as he prepared to shift into his assault mode and blast his way out. He wondered if he had accidentally tripped a defense turret or a hidden self-destruct sequence.
But the panic was short-lived. The massive analysis machine slowly rotated on its tracks, shifting into a new position before the grinding noise died down.
Skygnaw let out a quiet breath. The button was simply a mechanical release to adjust the rig. He took a final look around the empty room and turned toward the exit.
He reached the threshold of the heavy vault doors, about to take a step out, when he suddenly froze.
Wait. Something was wrong.
This basement had been abandoned for thousands of years. Why would a useless mechanical button be completely free of dust and heavily worn down?
Skygnaw narrowed his optics. He turned back around, his gaze locking onto the center of the room.
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