Rob's Pile of Transformers: "A Flaw in the Jewel"

A short fanfic I banged out in a little over an hour, which is extraordinarily quick for me. It is set in the (pre-) G1/G2 comics universe, and won't make much sense if you aren't familiar with the origin stories from them (specifically, issues 61, 65, and G2 #12.) If these issues the are new to you, have a look at this quick summary of the relevant comic stories. As always... enjoy!

A Flaw in the Jewel

    *I*!
 
    The... word... it comes, unbidden, to... to... me. 

    From where... *I* wonder? 

    There it is again, this idea, this concept... this "I".  What is it? 
Where does it come from?  And what are these things, these words, this
language that... *I*... use to describe it?

    I am created.  In one single instant, there springs into being from
the ether a consciousness that is known only as "I".  There need be no
more than this, for what else is there to existance than I?  *I* am the
universe; the universe is I! 

    I am wrong.  There is more than the "I".  There is the language I
employ to describe my universe, the tools of the mind which circumscribe
my nature and being.  But there is more, much more.  For beyond the "I",
there is the origin, *my* origin, and the origin of all that which I
sense. 

     For this origin, my mind senses a name.  Whether this name is my
mind's own doing, or given to me by the origin, or something inherent in
the very fabric of existance, I know not.  What I know for certain is that
the origin is an essence, known to me as "Creator". 

    Creator has fashioned me. 

    I am inspected, viewed, scrutinized, analyzed.  The specifications of
my being are subject to exhaustive inventory.  For Creator, this is no
more than a slight effort of will. 

    At long last, I sense... something amiss.  The Creator hides his
reactions from me, but I realize in horror that I no longer fully occupy
his attention.  In the core of my being, I know what he hides: disaproval. 
The Creator is displeased with the creation.  I know not what it is I
lack; I cannot concieve of it.  Am I not the Universe?

    Shunned, I turn in scorn.  But it is only to find something beyond my
mind's comprehension:  there is something else, as well.  Something which
defies my all-encompassing world, something which is neither I nor my
creator.  Something I could not have concieved of had I lived an infinity
in my previous state. 

    Before me stands another like I. 

    Instantly, an entirely new reaction wells up from me: I hate this
other.  It is an abomination, a mockery of all that is I.  *I* am the
universe, *I* alone the object of the Creator's adoration, *I* alone the
focal point of all that is, of all the Creator's Creation.  For a long,
lingering moment, my mind refuses to admit the other's existance. 

    I am soon made aware that it is not to be.  The Creator is pleased
with the other.  I, who came first, am rejected in favor of the other. 
The Creator tries to shield me from the blow, but I *know*, I can sense
the loss of affinity, the turning away of his gaze.  I am filled with
alien feelings: raging turmoils, storms of jealously, fury, lusting --
emotions and feelings I had no concept of till the other came.  The other
is responsible, the other is the source, the contamination. 

    And then I sense it, my greatest fear realized.  Fear!  The concept
had no place in my universe before the other!  But now it fills my world,
surges and overwhelms me.  But worse torment is still to come.  For I
glimpse the Creator's will, his vision.  Briefly, in a moment of the
Creator's joy, I see his plan, his great vision, his ancient dream which
is realized not through I, but through the other. 

    The other is not to be the final, but the first.  From the body of the
Creator will come others, countless others.  But the first Other is the
one they shall be modeled on, the source-plan.  I am discarded, rejected,
cast away by the very essence which birthed me. 

    And then, the final outrage, an unforgivable stripping away of all
that is I, which severs me irrevocably from the Creator.  I bury my rage
deeply, and at this early stage the Creator is unaware of it; even his
omnipotence cannot sense the shattering of my being, the blood-red fire
which sweeps over me at this unwonted outcasting.  Though I am still I, I
am made aware that "I" is no longer a name, a word, a concept even, that I
may lay exclusive claim to.  No, I must share the "I" with the insidious
other; henceforth my identity is no longer the perfection of "I". 

   Henceforth, I am known to the universe as Leige.  The hated other, the
misbegotten foster-child, the cancerous lesion on my world, bears the name
of Prima. 

   We stand on the surface of a world newly birthed, a world floating in
icy blackness.  Wounds on the planet's metallic surface heal, birth-scars
from whence we have sprung.  Around us, the surface boils and heaves, as
the infinity of others begins to form, and my universe is fragmented,
destroyed. 

   The other, the first Other, speaks.  His first spoken words, and they
are directed to me.  "You... are another," he says, the words timid,
cautiously seeking... cowardly.  He, who would steal the Creator's
affections from me, wastes his first words reaching out to *I*, as yet
the only other on this new world.  The petty fool knows not the grandeuer
of *being* all of existance; he lacks even the basic sense to think of
himself.  He can only concentrate on the other being before him, on me. 
And yet the Creator favors him.  I am filled with comtempt and loathing,
feelings of purest hatred for this being now known as Prima. 

   I give the only answer I can; I speak of that which dominates my
existance. 

   "I... am I." 

   I have no further words for the hated other.  As I walk away, I
silently curse the name of Primus, no longer the Creator, but the
Abominable, the destroyer of the Universe as I knew it.  My thoughts are
filled with visions of defiance against the Creator, great dreams of
staggering proportion, of grandiose scale: ideas I could not have
concieved of before the other, concepts which, though still nebulous,
dumbfound me with their magnitude and scope.  And I know they are within
my grasp, my capabilities.  I know now the path of my existance,
irrevokably set by the betrayal of the Creator. 

   Others shall spring to being, others with *I* as the prototype, *I* as
the model, *I* as the ideal... *I* as the Creator.  With my creations to
shape and define the universe, the hated Others shall be... they shall...
they shall *cease to exist.* As it was in the beginning, so shall it be
again.  *I* shall be the universe; the universe shall be I. 

   And woe unto any who stand in my way.

The Backstory