Back to Square One
By: Lexon135
Authors note: I don't own Transformers or the song "Under her spell". I'm looking for a Beta reader also so if you are interested e-mail me. I'm not sure how long this story will be at the moment. I guess it kind of depends on how inspired I am. I have the entire plot worked out so I'm not anticipating any writers block. Please read and review it makes me happy.
It was a sunny day like many days in tranquility. Sam and Miles were at the lake having actually been invited to one of the schools parties. Sam had no doubt that his new found scrap of popularity came from dating his class' future prom queen, Mikaela Banes. That, and perhaps the fact that Sam was now in possession of the coolest car in the school. It had taken a little bit of convincing that it was a gift from his rich uncle instead of a car stolen from some rich doctor.
"Hey Sam you should get in the water" yelled Mikaela. She got beckoned to Sam with her finger. He watched the water drop from her hair and slide down her body. She was HOT.
Sam walked to the water's edge leaving Miles because he knew he would be perfectly content with the hot dogs that were almost done. He put a foot in the water and for once it was about the right temperature. He slid the rest of his leg into the water and then followed by jumping in. He swam over to Mikaela who was conveniently by herself. "So I'm in the water" said Sam
"Yes, I can see that" replied Mikaela. "Now come closer so I can give you a kiss"
Sam said a brief prayer thanking God. He closed his eyes and went in closer … splash
Mikaela laughed. She had totally burned Sam. "Oh you think that's cool?" said Sam "That is definitely not cool. You know what…" Mikaela quickly gave him a kiss on the cheek and Sam was quiet.
BumbleBee laughed his aft off, only on the inside of course, he regretted not recording it to hold as blackmail but sometimes that was just the way the cookie crumbled.
"Look!" yelled a girl pointing at the sky. Everyone turned to see a meteor heading towards the outskirts of town. Sam and Mikaela gave each other a grim look. They understood all too well how much trouble this could mean.
Optimus and Ratchet had the benefit of being outside of the town. They were making smalltalk to pass the time. The destruction of the All Spark had impacted the two of them the most as they fully understood that it meant their race was extinct. Bumblebee and Ironhide both had distractions in the form of humans. Ratchet and Optimus were devoid of any new cultural experiences. Optimus sometimes thought that receiving transmissions from Bumblebee and Ironhide made it worse.
Suddenly Ratchet yelled "Look Up Optimus!". The Autobot leader complied and to his amazement he saw a comet.
"Ratchet is it Autobot or Decepticon?" demanded Optimus. Ratchet being a medic had infinitely better scanners.
"I don't think that it's either" said Ratchet "Though I am getting a strange signal from it. The actual size of the comet wouldn't allow whatever it is to be much bigger than Frenzy even if it was a cybertronian"
Optimus' hopes dropped again. "Monitor it anyways. Just in case"
"O.K. Honey I'll be back as soon as I can" said Will. He couldn't blame his wife for being clingy after the incident in Qatar.
She kissed him on the cheek "Remember don't forget to get the tomatoes. I hear they're really good this time of year"
Will laughed and got into his GMC topkick. He watched his wife going back into the house. He checked his pockets but couldn't find the key. He must have left it in the house. The car roared to life despite the missing key. "Thanks Ironhide"
Ironhide didn't speak much but once he started talking he could converse for quite a while. The radio kicked in moments later
-so tell me what I'm gonna do
now that she's got me under her spell
so tell me what I'm gonna say…
"Ha Ha Ironhide very funny" said a thoroughly unamused Will. He began to drive noting that the wheel would force his hands to turn to avoid even the smallest potholes. "So how are you?" asked Will to be polite
"good" said Ironhide.
"Anything new?" asked Will
"Nope"
"How is everyone else?"
"Fine"
"Did you upgrade your guns?"
"Yes I did! I exchanged some accuracy for power by taking out the shock to put more reflectors in my laser increasing its focus and overall…"
Worked every time. Will listened to the autobot for quite some time until he stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. "What's wrong" he asked Ironhide.
"Apparently a meteor of some sort is falling from the sky. Ratchet and Prime are on their communicators right now. It's about the size to harbor a cybertronian the size of frenzy perhaps and it is giving off a weird signal. We don't know if this is something from our planet or not"
Will tensed. He had realized that cube small enough to hold in his arms had started a war between the two alien factions. He was uneasy about the thought that something from the cybertronian's home could possibly land on earth.
"I have a bad feeling about this" said Will
The comet landed in the outskirts of tranquility. It glowed multiple colors and emitted light and a slight humming noise. Two kids had discovered it before the Autobots were on the scene. "Whoa Mark what do you think it is?" asked one boy to the other.
Mark laughed assuming he knew everything having graduated high school before the summer. "It's obviously an electromagnetic field" said Mark "You'd know that if you were in high school, John" said the older brother to his sibling.
"Sorry" said the younger brother. "Do you think we should go tell some people?"
"Of course not! We have to stay here and take the credit for it"
All of a sudden the energy from the comet lashed out and attached itself to the older brother. His body began fidgeting on the ground. His younger brother recognized it as electric shock. Finally after all was done the comet was simply a rock and his brother stood up. His brother's motions were fluid and bore an unearthly grace.
"Are you okay Mark?!" asked John. His brother's face was deathly pale.
"Begone and do not bother me you pathetic excuse for a life form" said Mark. Mark began to walk towards the town.
"Brother wait up! Let me go with you!" cried the younger sibling
"I'll fulfill your last request" said the boy's elder brother with a smile and he reached put a hand on the boy's head. Instantaneously the boy felt like he was being drained. A black tunnel began to close in on his vision.
What was once Mark dropped his brother's corpse into the field uncaringly. He had better things to do, though he did enjoy the snack.
Two hours later the autobots Ratchet and Optimus Prime had found the comet. "My initial scans do not detect high levels of radiation thought they do find trace levels of energon"
"interesting" said Prime. "We should probably leave to avoid scientists that may be on their search for the meteorite. Take a sample and lets roll out"
Optimus turned to see a human lying on the ground. "Emergency Ratchet" said Prime through radio message " We failed to detect human presence"
Ratchet turned quickly and saw the human lying on the ground "Prime I'm not getting any lifesigns from his body… he's dead and I think we may be in a bit of trouble"
Barricade was driving quite pointlessly through Tranquility. He really had no need to leave the town as there was quite literally nothing for him to do anywhere. He had removed certain things that gave himself away as a decepticon and though he was loathe to do so he painted over his motto "to punish and enslave"
He currently sat in one of his favorite places, the outside of Tranquility High. He loved to come here and plan to burn the building and to make the humans suffer for what they had done. They had taken away his chance at another life. It was true that Megatron wanted complete dominence over evey sentient being but that certaintly did not mean every decepticon did. Originally Barricade simply wanted cybertron back and was willing to pay any cost; including the sacrifice of another people's planet if necessary. He had done so many horrible and desensitizing things to try and reach his goal but it was all for a cause.
Now that cause was gone and all that was left was a lifestyle of death and destruction and hatred towards those that ruined his dream. The humans and the autobots would pay.
"You!" said a voice coming from behind Barricade. Barricade was sure his hologram was off and that it appeared that there were no humans inside of him. "Cybertronian I am speaking to you!" demanded the voice.
The voice belonged to a human male. With a quick hack into the police network he was able to identify the human as Mark Mitciv. He should not be aware of a cybertronian's true nature. "Insolent fleshbag what do you want!" demanded the robot still in vehicle mode. There were bystanders nearby but fortunately the two had been speaking softly enough that they had not been observed.
"You will not address me as a human you worthless walking trashcan!" whispered the boy loudly. Barricade's sensors immediately sensed a high level of energy manifesting from within the boy. The energy reached out as if it had a mind of it's own and jumped into Barricade causing him excruciating pain.
"What.. do you w-want" said Barricade stuttering. His vocal processors had been damaged in the attack and he suspected that the intention was to stop the mech from screaming.
"I demand that your kind give me the All Spark now!" said the boy. "It is about time it returned to its creators"
"What are you talking about?" asked Barricade. He was completely shocked. "Are you Primus?"
"Don't put me so low" responded the boy sending out another energy lash "we created him as well. But don't worry, he outlived his usefulness so we scrapped him"
Barricade was in awe and in fear. If what this boy said was true then he may very well be talking to one of the most powerful being if not the most powerful being in the universe. "I'm sorry but the All Spark has been destroyed" said Barricade. He feared being struck again by whatever powerful energy the being that stood before him possessed.
"Tell me what happened to it" demanded the boy
"There was a war between two factions known as the Autobots and the Decepticons and the result of the war was that the All Spark was destroyed by being pushed into the spark of Megatron, leader of the decepticons, causing a reaction that destroyed both him and the All Spark"
The being thought for a minute and Barricade did likewise. If this being's race had created the All Spark could they create another? Could there possibly be another Cybertron?
"Were there any fragments?" asked the being after careful consideration.
"I was not at the scene of the All Spark's destruction" said Barricade "Only Samuel Witwicky and Optimus Prime were there"
"Very well" said the boy "You have now outlived your usefulness so make peace with this world, wasteland that it is". The boy reached out his hand and began to drain Barricade's energy
"Why?" asked Barricade "What was the point of my existence?"
"There is no point to your existence. You are merely expendable pawns in a much greater game"
Barricade never heard his reply. He had been offlined at a moments notice and the world moved on. Nobody gave Mark Mitciv a second glance.
"Bumblebee tell us what's going on" demanded Sam. "We are best friends and we don't keep secrets". Sam looked so sad and innocent but Bumblebee knew it was all an act to get what he wanted. Still... they were best friends
"It appears that meteor from earlier has landed and that they found the corpse of a teenage human nearby. They haven't found any sign of weapons usage or physical bludgeoning but both Prime and Ratchet are nervous."
Sam was silent for a minute. A human death meant probably only one thing. Decepticons.
"I don't believe it!" yelled Ironhide over his radio. He was talking to the other autobots but he had turned on his speakers because he felt Will was privy to their conversations. " Take a look at this!" said Ironhide.
Will could only assume that he had sent the autobots some data. "This is… most disturbing" responded Optimus after a moment of silence "We must get to the site of the second meteor before any humans do. Too many humans have already died because of us and I will not allow any more"
Optimus and Ratchet had immediately scanned the meteorite after Ironhide detected it. They were headed in the direction but their ETA showed that the meteorite would land 5 minutes before they could get there. There was a silence between the two. Ratchet knew that Optimus was a sensitive bot and was worrying frantically over what might happen in those 5 minutes they weren't there. Finally he got the nerve to speak up "You know it isn't your fault" said Ratchet
"It is my fault!" said Optimus "There are so many things I could have done. I could have created a machine to detect meteorites and scan them at a longer distance. I could have at least asked the secretary of defense, Mr. Keller, to keep an eye on all of the incoming meteors. I could have…"
"Be quiet Prime!" yelled Ratchet, a little surprised at himself. "We all could have done things better but we all know that out of all of us you try the hardest and we all get a little concerned that one day you are simply going to worry yourself to short circuiting. What has happened has happened as regrettable as it is and focusing on our losses won't help us in the future"
Prime was silent for a moment as the two drove a little over a mile "Yes, Ratchet, you're right. Thank you; I needed that"
The two rode on. They saw it enter the earth's atmosphere and silently agreed to pick up the pace.
Kritz stirred. He had been awakened by some form of primitive signal. He noticed he was still in descent. "Maybe it can help me find the All Spark" he thought as he conscentrated on changing his form of energy. He matched the kind of radiation being given off and he followed it to the source.
"Sir we are getting some weird kind of static" said the copilot waking up the pilot.
"What do you mean?" asked the pilot groggily. It didn't take his ears too long to hear he noise. It sounded like the feedback on his son's guitar. "I think we are receiving our own signal too strongly. Turn off all the signals we are emitting and simply receive them"
To the copilot's amazement it worked. Suddenly a pink and blue bolt of static shot out from the controls and flew into the business class section of the airplane. A scream was heard and the copilot rushed into the area.
A flight attendant was now attending a boy who looked like he could be in college. "It just flew INTO my computer!" said the boy
"I'm sorry sir, we are experiencing electrical difficulties. Does your computer still work?"
The boy flipped up the top and the screen came up. Everything appeared to be normal.
"Yeah I guess so"
"That's good" said the flight attendant with a smile. She was glad to avoid a lawsuit.
Kritz quickly had gone through every file the computer had ever seen. He had learned the written form of a language called English. He had also learned that he might want to be more subtle.
He projected himself out using what the humans called "Wi-Fi" and after exiting the plane he changed forms again increasing his speed as he made his way back to the meteor.
"At least there are no corpses" said Ratchet to a very upset Prime. He knew that the leader was probably imagining some rampant decepticons going through town and killing people. "Let's leave. We have a sample"
All at once there was a burst of light and before the two was a creature made of purple and blue energy. They received a message from their radios "Hello"
"Hello" responded Ratchet. He was unsure what this thing was. He had never seen anything like it.
"Please stop scanning me" said a message to Ratchet
"I'm sorry" said Ratchet "It's a habit"
"I wish to know where the All Spark is" said the being. Kritz secretly wanted nothing more than to drain the information out of the two, but he had a promise. He would at least try to get along with the 'primitive lifeforms'.
"The All Spark has been destroyed"
"Whether or not it is entirely physically intact is irrelevant. Are there any pieces or fragments larger than .437 of a percent left I can recreate the entire thing". Sheesh it was like these cybertronians were trying to make things difficult. Still he had a promise and he wasn't going to break it over something as trivial as the cybertronians obvious lack of being able to communicate rapidly. On his home planet it was not uncommon for people to have lengthy conversations on things such as politics and philosophy in less than a second.
"I don't believe that any fragments that large exist" said Optimus. Ratchet knew instantly that Optimus was lying. Optimus had returned to the rest of the group holding a fragment significantly larger. He had told ratchet he pulled it out of Megatron's spark chamber himself.
"I see" said Kritz "Perhaps I can do a more thorough examination of the all sparks demise and find a fragment myself. How was it destroyed?"
"It was pushed into ,the decepticon leader, Megatron's chest." Optimus wasn't sure he should be telling all this to this unknown being "What do you plan on doing with it anyways"
"I don't see how that is your concern" said Kritz. How dare one of these inferior beings question him.
"It has been our concern since your people began invading this planet. Your people have been killing the humans to whom we are guardians"
Kritz sighed "This is most unfortunate. It appears I am too late then"
"What do you mean" asked Ratchet.
"I mean that my brother has beaten me here and by now has probably in the process of extorting the information from this planet's inhabitants. This is not good"
"Yes he has already claimed at least one victim" said Optimus grimly. "Why do you both want the All Spark so much?" He was considering giving up the fragment.
"Prime you can't seriously be…"
"Seriously be what?" asked Kritz "I hope you understand that as a being of energy I can intercept all communication as long as its frequency is intact. I hope you also understand that every second you don't tell me something more of this planet's… things die. Tell me what you know"
"No!" yelled Optimus "First you tell us what you are and why you need the All Spark"
Kritz wanted nothing more than to suck them dry. It would be so much easier if he just took what he needed. His mother had better been right when she told him he would understand someday why he needed to treat all beings as equals. "Very well" he said careful to hide the frustration in his voice. "I come from a galaxy lightyears away. My people are currently at war with another galaxy. I cannot translate into earth terms what the races names are but I will tell you that my people are all energy based and the other faction is not unlike this planet's species organic based. They instigated this war by taking 3 of our planets and so we fought back after negotiations. Unfortunately they discovered technology that allows them to imprison my people and harvest their energy. Being living energy we cannot truly die, we simply go into a state where we gather more energy and then reawake millions of years later. I myself am in this state however my mother transplanted sufficient energy to stay in a functional state as you see me now. So to sum it all up we are being eternally tortured"
"You still haven't explained what you want the All Spark for" said Prime
"Forgive me, I now realize that my speech pattern didn't follow my thought pattern. I was thinking multiple sentences at once. My people have divided into two groups; those that want to use the All Spark to animate an army that is more resistant to the weapons they have developed against us while the other wants to use its power to create solely a living defense system. I represent the faction that wants to use its power to create the defense system while my brother wishes to not only drive off our attackers and free our people, but to take control of a significant number of their planets as compensation."
Optimus and Ratchet didn't know what to think. They were overwhelmed by the idea of more species out there, a possibility to recreate the All Spark, and the threat of a war they might get dragged into if the All Spark was recreated.
"Would you mind not listening in on a transmission I send out and also the responses?" asked Optimus
Kritz nodded his head though he was loath to be let out in the dark. He would have to restrain himself from deciphering the transmission as it would undoubtedly pass through him.
"By the way what is your name?" asked Ratchet. He figured he should at least ask.
"You can call me Kritz" responded the purple and blue figure of energy.
"This is Optimus. We have a situation. Apparently the two meteors that have crash landed do contain alien life forms. They are unlike any we have ever seen before being composed of energy. Ratchet and myself have encountered one of these beings. He has told us that he and the other being both want the All Spark and we are led to believe they have the power to mend it"
Everyone receiving the message froze. The All Spark could mean that their species was not doomed. It also could attract decepticons from space if they ever found out about it. Will in particular froze "Ironhide is there a way I could convince you that fixing the All Spark is not a good idea"
Ironhide burst into anger "The All Spark is the only chance of resurrecting Jazz and all the other Autobots who have fallen throughout the years" said Ironhide angrily. He had unbeknownst to Will projected their conversation to everyone.
"Do you even have that technology assuming it is possible?" asked Will
Ironhide seethed. He knew deep down that his friend was right and he tried to calm himself " I suppose not. But without a war anymore we have plenty of time to research and…"
"The decepticons will not leave this planet alone if they hear the All Spark has been remade" said Ratchet calmly.
"What do they need to remake it?" asked Ironhide
"They need the fragment I have. They aren't aware I possess it right now and I'm not sure it is the best decision to tell them about it just yet"
"Bumblebee what are your thoughts?" asked Ratchet "you've been awfully quiet"
No response
"Bumblebee…?" asked Ratchet. He scanned his GPS but there was no blip where Bumblebee had been.
"I fear for the worst" said Optimus. He had no idea how right he was.