Chapter 1 ~ "Through the gaping hole we go…"

A light shined over a table, two sat up in chairs on opposite sides. Two deck of cards laid upon the table, one face upward the other faced down; there was a grunt and fingers twiddled, suddenly placing a card in the face-up pile. The one who sat on the opposite end grinned. "Rummy..."

The other growled. "No it's not!"

"Oh please Prime..." His blue hand pointed to the pile. "Three of the same card, same number, same color: that is clearly Rummy."

Optimus Prime gritted his teeth, damnit he was right. With that he threw his cards up in the air, defeated at the sight of Megatron's grin. "You cheated..." Prime said with crossed arms, his mouth holding a defeated frown that was exposed to the world before him. Prime no longer wore his mask, better to hide his identity since he KNEW very well that no one has ever seen him without his mask. What did he do with it? The answer was simple, because it was currently hiding Megatron's large grin.

The Decepticon leader himself shuffled his deck of cards. "Shall we play again?" He flipped the cards in his blue hands. Purple, black, dark green and grey had changed to blue, silver, and a much lighter green. After his little 'sacrifice' to Unicron, Megatron had gone through some changes; when Prime had finally found him with Scavenger and Sideswipe he was already upgraded.

Optimus made a face. "No. We've been at this for 2 hours! I'm getting kind of bored... Besides you cheat, " he stood up from the table.

Megatron frowned under his new mask, and put the cards away in the table's drawer. He watched as Prime made his way from the table to the couch, which sat in front of a large holo-screen. They were currently in the living room of their ship, "The Guardian" which they had found in a junkyard outside approximately four years ago. They had fixed it, painted it, and called it their own.

Optimus turned on the screen, flipping through the channels and finding nothing to watch. He shut it off and tilted his head back, letting out a groan of boredom, "We have been flying through space for a week now and not a single planet...I'm starting to go crazy. "

Megatron shrugged his shoulders. "Well you wanted to go after the largest bounty and that just so happens to be many light-years away..." His tone had changed, a little more settled and polite but then again he was still the same ol' Megatron. The door to the room had swished open and Scavenger walked in with his grand-old pipe in his mouth, he looked at the two "supposedly dead" leaders.

"I take it the card game finally came to an end?" Scavenger took a puff at his pipe and blew a smoke.

"Megatron was cheating so I stopped," Optimus groaned from the couch. "What I wouldn't give for a pretty femme right now..."

And there it was, Megatron wasn't the only one who had changed somewhat over the past five years since the war ended. Optimus was a bit more blunt and upbeat, no longer being the leader he was also more laid-back. And aside from not wearing his mask anymore, his armor was still blue, silver, and a dark grey from when he left the bowels of Unicron. Yet he was able to get his original golden optics back through some upgrading.

Scavenger rolled his eyes. "Typical Prime..." he puffed out a smoke and his comn beeped; it was Sideswipe.

"What? I haven't had a good come in 6 months! Can you blame me?" Optimus grumbled while Scavenger answered his comnlink.

"Uh sir... I might need your help here, we're headed into an asteroid field," Sideswipe said over his comm. Sideswipe hadn't changed much since the war ended, he was currently taking training from Scavenger since he wasn't able to finish during the war. He was still curious, still the klutz, and still the ever-shy SideSwipe. But all in all, he was the same lovable Autobot rookie from back then.

Scavenger growled. "Well I'm not the one who flies the ship Swipes..." he directed his channel to Prime's comnlink.

"Oh sorry Scavenger... wrong comnlink." Sideswipe quickly changed the channels to Prime's link. Sideswipe; being who he was, had been trying to stay on the older mech's good side. Training with Scavenger and making simple mistakes was one thing; pissing him off was another.

Optimus opened his comlink. "Put it on level 4 Sideswipe, you know this ship can pretty much fly itself. The computer will do the rest," Optimus commanded.

"Roger that Optimus, " Sideswipe responded before closing the link.

Megatron went to the kitchen that overlooked the living and pulled out a bottle of high-grade; still had the addiction for it unfortunately. He pulled off his mask and opened the bottle, walking over to the couch and plopped down next to Prime, "We still have those Porno-vids you bought Prime?"

"I didn't buy those and you know it!" Optimus growled, waving a finger at the con's face. Megatron still teased him about those holo-vids, they got on the ship somehow and the former Decepticon leader instantly thought Prime was finally showing his true colors. "And I told you, one high-grade bottle every three days. It's been two," Prime added, crossing his arms.

Megatron was making movements with his lips, mocking Prime's voice with an irritating whiney gibberish. He went to take another sip at the bottle when the ship lurched forward and shook violently, sending his bottle of high-grade to the ground. Megatron mentally cried "NOOO!" and frowned; he looked at Prime who looked at him and they both looked up towards the ceiling screaming, "SIIDES!!"

"SORRY! "

Another violent shake, Scavenger growled turning on his comn, "Sideswipe get this ship in gear or so help me I will smack the living hell out of your ass!"

"Would you stop with that spanking nonsense?" Megatron picked up the spilt bottle of high-grade, "I already have sympathy for the poor boy."

"That wasn't me I swear!" Sideswipe hollered over the comnlink; he had maneuvered around the asteroid field, "Stupid…useless…giant rocks!" The younger mech grumbled, then grinned, as he was able to get the ship clear of the asteroids. "Got it guys!" SideSwipe was beginning to steer the ship into open space when he felt the gravity shake. He looked around, suddenly hearing the alarms and buttons go off and making the control panel flicker with lights. He frowned deeply when he looked at the scanners; he gazed at the screen worriedly.

The ship shook violently, SideSwipe's attention drawn to the holo-vid when it popped up, showing the readings of a strong energy force. A very familiar, strong energy force, "AHHHH! ITS A BLACK HOLE!!!! WE'RE BEING SUCKED IN!!!" His voice screamed over the intercom of the ship.

Prime had practically shot up to the Control deck and took over the pilot's chair that Sideswipe had been sitting in. Megatron and Scavenger had joined them; Scavenger holding onto Sideswipe as the ship shook again, "Swipes! Take the defense controls!" And the small bot did as he was told. Megatron sat himself next to Prime in the seat that controlled most of the rocket and main grappler systems of the ship.

The black hole they were entering was HUGE, the size of Unicron himself. It crackled lightning and was sucking in asteroids the size of large vessels and cities; Megatron was hanging onto the controls as Prime was trying to fly their way out of range of the black hole.

No such luck…

Sideswipe was holding onto the controls tightly, practically on the verge of panicking when the ship was shaking uncontrollably.

Scavenger was sitting at his place across from Sideswipe; he reached over and held onto the young bot's shoulder, "Stay strong kid, we'll get through this..." He looked over at Prime whom couldn't seem to get the ship to turn around.

Megatron was having trouble as well, "The systems aren't responding!" he fell over the controls when the ship rocked and lurched forward. The vessel was shaking so horribly that Prime couldn't hold onto the controls; another violent shake and Prime's head was sent into the control panel. The last thing he saw before blacking out was the sight of the black hole's gaping mouth swallowing them whole. There were screams, cries, and then suddenly, everything went dark...


Sideswipe groaned, his optics glowing as they came online to the sight of the control panels flickering and darkness looming over the Control deck. He quickly scrambled up, looking around frantically; everyone else was still out. This didn't make any sense, shouldn't they be dead?

Sideswipe walked over to the window, they were still drifting through space. The control panel that flickered showed no alerts of damage, no coordinates, no reference to any nearby planets. Where were they? Sideswipe was about to take a few taps at the controls when suddenly feeling a hand grasping his shoulder. His optics widened and he let out a long, high-pitched scream.

Scavenger could feel his audio receptors blow, "Damnit kid! Shut up!" he shook the bot a bit then settled him on a chair. The old mech looked around and found Prime and Megatron out cold; he groaned, scratching his head while walking over he nudged at Prime, "Optimus... wake up!"

There was a low groan emanating from the blue and silver Autobot, "Oh... my head... " He rubbed his audios, sitting up in his seat, "…who screamed like a girl?"

Scavenger grumbled, "Who do you think?"

Prime snickered, seeing SideSwipe glare up to his mentor as he got up from his seat to nudge Megatron awake. The older Decepticon groaned, lifting his head that had been lying back against the seat. He rubbed the back of his head, powering up his optics slowly and looking around, "Where…where are we?"

"Not so sure…" SideSwipe answered suddenly, "I think we passed a planet not too long ago." He looked back at the window, "And I don't think that was any ordinary black hole…" SideSwipe narrowed his optics, "If I remember correctly, whatever goes into a black hole ends up as scrap. And since we're not scrap…" he looked back at Scavenger.

The older mech narrowed his optics, "Then it wasn't a black hole…" he said, "It was a worm hole…"

Megatron's vision was slightly blurred when he sat up; he spotted a planet in which they were entering ever so closely. He blinked, and blinked again, "Wha…?" he squinted his optics and found the planet to be blue, green...with white puffy stuff around it. He was sure he'd seen a planet like that before...realization suddenly dawned on him square in the face and his optics snapped to the size of saucers, "Its....EARTH??"

Sideswipe had practically jumped in the sudden outburst of Megatron's voice, stumbling over his own footing before landing on the cold metal floor.

"Earth?" Optimus blinked, optics wide in disbelief, "Well I'll be doggone…" He sat down slowly back onto the chair; he sighed, "Thank you Primus for Earth…"

Scavenger sat into the computer's control chair, scanning the vitals of the ship. He frowned deeply at the results of the scans, "We're going to have to make a quick stop, this ship lost a lot of fuel when we went through that black hole," he tapped at the keyboard, pulling up a few docking stations, "We can refuel and gather our supplies if we keep the ship at a steady speed." The old mech looked down to Prime, "Care to do the honors?"

"Why me?" Prime had practically whined, "I don't feel like it…"

Scavenger smacked his own forehead, "PILOT THE SHIP YOU IDIOT!!"

Optimus grumbled, sitting in the pilot's chair and starting up the controls. A few moments later, they were currently flying into Earth's atmosphere. Sideswipe sat at the communications controls and was trying to gain contact with the tower as Scavenger was looking for a good place to dock.

"Hmm..." Scavenger narrowed his optics, "This is strange I don't see any docks down there..."

"Yeah I don't either… " Optimus narrowed his optics, looking around on the surface of the Earth through the window. "There's suppose to be a city right here…" he blinked, surveying the area suspiciously, "…guys, I don't think this is the earth we know...there are no traces of Cybertronian life anywhere, not even a trace of scrap metal on this planet..."

Optimus maneuvered the ship, searching for any signs of Cybertronian built cities on the Earth's surface. So far, no such luck...They had reached Japan where one of the capital Cybertronian cities were supposed to be held, what they found was plain old Japan.

Sideswipe grumbled, "I'm not tracing any Control towers guys…" he flipped a few switches to move the scanner up and down the area, "I don't think this is Earth…Well at least the Earth we know…we definitely went through a wormhole 'cause this could be a completely different universe..."

Scavenger had lit a new pipe earlier and was now smoking it slowly; he frowned deeply after having looked over the data of the scans. "We should camouflage the ship," he said, blowing a smoke, "just until we can get some answers on what's going on here..." He looked over at Sideswipe, who nodded, and he turned around to the control panel, tapping a few keys and flipping a few switches. There was a slight movement in gears and soon the ship was being covered in colors, morphing and fusing into its background. Prime set the ship on a silent drift, allowing them to glide over the ocean before landing into the ocean that was located next Tokyo without being noticed nor heard.