Within Reach

Under the torment of azure electrical arcs, the mechanical dinosaurs in Lockdown's collection room soon lacked even the strength to keep roaring.

Lockdown watched it all expressionlessly, yet inwardly he was deeply satisfied.

Few in the universe knew of Lockdown's origins, and he had always called himself a wanderer with no fixed home.

But Lockdown was not truly a wanderer. Like the Decepticons and Autobots, he too came from Cybertron.

When he was born, Cybertron was still under the rule of the Elder Council.

It was the most glorious age of Cybertronian civilization, and also its most rotten.

The Cybertronians had once driven out the Quintessons through revolution, liberating countless enslaved people and abolishing the gladiatorial arenas for a time.

Unfortunately, the preservation of the noble system planted the AllSpark for the enslavement and revolution that followed.

Like Megatron, Lockdown had once been a slave who emerged from the gladiatorial arenas.

It was only that he had not been as fortunate as Megatron, who had a powerful teacher—The Fallen—who, though evil, taught him many things.

Nor did he have a political ally like Sentinel Prime, who had schemed against him countless times, only to be stabbed by Megatron in the end.

In Lockdown's darkest memories, he seemed to have been born in some filthy, chaotic modification workshop.

Lockdown did not know where he had come from. He only knew that from the moment he was born, he had arrived in hell.

At a gladiatorial arena run by some Cybertronian noble, he was trained as a slave gladiator, struggling to survive almost from the very beginning of his life.

Slave gladiators in the arena were born to entertain others.

In those memories Lockdown was unwilling to recall, he had been made to fight Predacons almost from shortly after his birth. Again