The wounded and chained Optimus Prime is brought aboard Nemesis, flagship of Onyx Prime... or rather, the flagship of Shockwave, who now stands revealed as the true face beneath Onyx's armor. Surrounded by Shockwave's beast legions and Liege Maximo, Optimus demands to know how the 'bot he once thought of as his friend has returned from the dead. Shockwave is only too happy to tell the story...

Flashback: In his last confrontation with Optimus Prime, in what had seemed to be the final moments of his life, the emotions that had been reawakened in Shockwave—long lost thanks to the shadowplay perpetrated upon him by Senator Proteus millions of years prior—led him to an epiphany: ambition directed only by cold logic has limitations. Shockwave believed his moment of clarity had come too late, as he was then consumed by the singularity created by the collapse of his chronal drive... but rather than die, he found himself flung twelve million years through time, into Cybertron's prehistoric past. Wandering the wilderness for years, he eventually stumbled upon a small nomadic tribe of mostly animal Transformers, led by a shepherd named Onyx. His knowledge of history immediately allowing him to realize who and what he was seeing, Shockwave killed Onyx on the spot. The animals scattered, but one non-bestial 'bot did not: this bold one, Shockwave named "Megatronus".

Taking Onyx's identity as his own, fashioning an armor from the shepherd's remains that disguised his true face, Shockwave became Onyx Prime, gathering the scattered animals and building them into warriors. No longer did Shockwave have to rely on either logic or emotion to guide his actions; everything he did, he did because the history he had spent his life studying told him he had already done it. He unleashed Megatronus on the planet, sending him to carve his way through the scattered tribes, positioning him as a threat that would convince the other Primes and their tribes to come together and build Cybertronian civilization. Shockwave's foreknowledge meant that he knew the civilization they would build was doomed, but as a scientist, he could use it as a "test model" in hopes of discerning why Cybertronians always inevitably seem to fall to war with one another.

Continuing to ensure that history unfolded as recorded, Shockwave urged Prima to begin a plan of expansion, spreading the "enlightenment" of Cybertron to other worlds. Accompanied by Omega Supreme and his Omega Sentinels, "Onyx" and Megatronus set forth on the first expedition to leave Cybertron since the Knights of Cybertron, with Alpha Trion at their side to record their deeds. They were met with resistance by the inhabitants of the first planet they landed upon, and conflict resulted; thus did the rest of the universe learn of, and learn to fear, Cybertron.

Prima blamed Megatronus for the mission's failure, and Liege Maximo—acting on Shockwave's instructions—stoked Megatronus's resentment, leading him to turn on Prima. Solus Prime came to Prima's rescue, but was slain by Megatronus in the process, impaled on the very Star Saber sword she had created. Megatronus fled into space, but Liege Maximo was captured by his fellow Primes and—at Shockwave's suggestion—imprisoned within his Titan, Vigilem, and exiled from the planet. Prima and "Onyx" then set off aboard Prima's Titan Emissary to hunt down Megatronus, locating him on the planet Tsiehshi. History would claim that Prima and Megatronus slew one another in a final battle... but this was merely the story that Shockwave told Alpha Trion upon his return. In truth, Megatronus killed Prima, and was then slain in turn by Shockwave, his usefulness to the once and future Decepticon at an end. Emissary took Prima's body to the stars, but Shockwave ensured that he would crash on some far-off world. Thus did the age of Primes end...

Present: ...and thus does Shockwave's story come to a close, but he explains that there is yet more for Optimus Prime to learn. A darkness

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