Chapter 1: Arrival

Optimus Prime awoke in a daze, as his formerly lifeless blue glass eyes flickered and lit up, emitting a soft glow, followed by the inevitable curiosity of where he was as he observed his surroundings. He saw trees, dirt, grass, and rocks. This was an open forest-like area, much like the ones he'd experienced on Earth. But unless his optics were damaged, the colors were wrong—the plant life, especially the grass, was bluish with only a hint of green here and there, while the soil looked like various shades of charcoal grey instead of brown, as were the trunks of trees. All this below a lavender sky. This wasn't a sunset changing the colors of the atmosphere where one might see lavender among other colors—it was the middle of the afternoon and the sky was completely lavender, pale lavender near the horizon which gradually became a darker shade, almost purple, as it reached upward.

As if to confirm his suspicions, a large chrome-plated dragonfly whizzed past his head, and he realized that this couldn't be Earth, unless he had damaged more than his optics.

Acknowledging his stiff joints with a slight grunt, he slowly rose to his feet and stretched as he waited for his memory banks to access the events that had caused him to be in this strange place.

The Space Bridge.

There had been a battle at Cybertron's end of the Space Bridge, a "short cut" between Earth and Cybertron created by Decepticon technology as a means to conveniently transport energon cubes to the Transformers' home planet of Cybertron from their temporary base on Earth. Energon cubes were made from Earth's energy, stolen and condensed to a transportable size. It was a race that had continued for thousands of years to see which side would restore their dying planet, and gain the upper hand in the war. Despite the Autobots' efforts to create an alliance with the people of Earth in hopes to gain their aide, the Deceptions were winning.

In this last battle, the Autobots had tried to intercept a particularly large shipment of energon by reaching the Decepticons' base on Cybertron before the shipment had arrived. A battle had ensued and quickly lost control.

Remembering the details of this battle once it had reached its climax was nearly impossible—it was mostly a flurry of clashing metal and laser fire—but there was one event that Prime remembered with almost perfect clarity, because he saw it as a turning point, almost before it had been fully played out. He was locked in a struggle with Megatron, leader of the Decepticons, and a flash of light at the corner of his eye made him look over Megatron's shoulder at the Decepticons' computer—it had been hit repeatedly by misfire, and it was beginning to buzz and send sparks everywhere, threatening to explode. He remembered seeing Shockwave moving away from the computer—apparently he was having similar thoughts as Prime—until an Autobot, Brawn, came charging at the Decepticon and yelling some kind of threat.

"Brawn! No!" Prime had yelled, as he shoved Megatron out of the way and made a dash toward the scene.

In his mind's eye, everything moved in slow motion, as Brawn plowed into Shockwave and slammed him into the Decepticons' computer, causing a blinding explosion that sent several Autobots and Decepticons into the Space Bridge.

Perhaps the computer's malfunction had caused the Space Bridge to send them somewhere other than Earth. "But where?" Prime wondered.

The first logical action would be to try to make contact with his fellow Autobots, so he took out his communicator and pushed the middle red button below the screen—the signal beacon—and waited for several minutes.

So far, no response.

He was beginning to wonder if the communicator had been damaged in the explosion, when it suddenly came to life as he heard the frantic voice of one of his comrades: "Bumblebee to Optimus Prime! Come in!"

"I read you, Bumblebee," Prime responded pleasantly. It was good to hear a familiar voice—unfortunately it was the voice of one of the other Autobots who was a victim of the Space Bridge malfunction instead of someone from the Autobot base. "Where are you?"

"Pretty close, actually", the small yellow Autobot responded, more calmly now. "I got your signal so I'm on my way." A short pause. "But, Prime … where are we?"

Prime observed his surroundings one last time before conceding to what he knew all along. "I honestly have no idea."

- - -

Bumblebee arrived, shortly followed by four more familiar faces: Ironhide, Brawn, Jazz, and Perceptor. Everyone who was by the Space Bridge during the explosion was present and accounted for.

Optimus Prime looked around at his men, and his eyes narrowed slightly as a subtle and brief indication of a hidden smile. "Well, it's good to see that you all made it out of there in one piece." He looked at Perceptor, "So, Perceptor, what have you observed?"

The Autobot scientist responded, "This is most peculiar. Every rock, every plant, and even the soil itself is infused with metal. I've found traces of Chromium, Electrum, and especially Niobium and Zinc, which would explain the bluish tint this foliage possesses. But, as far as I can tell, it's completely organic. Not only that, but if not for this planet's metallic properties, I would have thought we were on Earth." He sounded oddly enthusiastic, despite the circumstances, which was not unusual for him.

"This ain't gettin' us outta here any faster," Ironhide mumbled.

Prime folded his arms and looked thoughtful. "Since contacting headquarters seems impossible at the moment, our best bet is to explore the territory and find out what our hosts are like. Best case scenario, this is a peaceful planet that will at least lend us materials to build a shuttle."

"And the worst case?" Brawn said apprehensively.

Prime shook his head slowly. "Let's just hope we won't have to worry about that." He paused, and noticed some sparse footprints that became increasingly denser as they progressed, indicating that they were leading to a more high-traffic area, most likely out of the forest. The footprints themselves looked almost humanoid, but closer in size to Transformer feet. Prime nodded toward them, "We'll start by following those footprints."

The footprints led to more footprints, which led to a road of sorts.

"No paved roads?" Jazz remarked gloomily, "You gotta wonder how advanced these dudes are."

Bumblebee replied, "Well, it looks like they're advanced enough to have the same kind of shoes that humans wear. Look, there's no impression of toes or anything—the soles must be pretty solid. Maybe that means they have similar technology in other areas?" This would have sounded odd coming from almost any other Autobot, but Bumblebee was the closest to their human friends and had observed quite a lot about their culture and mannerisms during the Autobots' stay on Earth.

Perceptor joined in. "But notice that these feet aren't shaped quite like human feet. They're wider in the front and less pointed at the toe, and the heel area looks very narrow."

"Who cares about that?" Ironhide snapped, becoming increasingly annoyed at Perceptor's knack for useless observations. "What we wanna know is whether they have the technology to help get us home."

"Yeah," Brawn added, impatiently. "No paved roads means no vehicles. All the charity in the universe won't do us any good if these people don't even have what we need in the first place."

"Don't be so certain," Perceptor responded, "This could simply be a rural area where vehicles aren't needed."

"Perceptor's right," Prime said, a little disheartened by the fact that most of the group was already thinking so negatively. "Worrying about what is out there isn't constructive—let's find out what we're dealing with before we start fearing the worst."

The other Autobots muttered various responses of agreement before falling silent.

Secretly, Prime couldn't help but feel slightly hypocritical, as he simply couldn't stop worrying about the worst-case scenario himself. It was different when they landed on Earth—they had a huge space shuttle to use as a base, and Teletran 1 as a vast encyclopedia of everything that the satellite Sky Spy discovered. Not to mention that there were a lot more of them stranded on Earth. In this case, going home was really the least of their worries—what would they use for sustenance once they became low on power? And there was also shelter to consider, as even metal wouldn't be able to withstand the full force of the elements for too long of a period. But he did his best to push these thoughts away. As he had just told his men, it was the here and now that must be focused on.