New story! Whoohoo! Enjoy.
Chapter One: Dark Prophesy
A dome of endless blue skies stretched overhead. Not a single cloud was visible on the horizon in any which direction. Cheetor's jet engines purred as he banked left into a warm air current and climbed higher into the air. The land scrolled past several hundred feet below him. The greens, tans and browns of rocky hills and shrub-filled valleys made an earthy mosaic of colors. Everything within a fifty mile radius was visible to the young explorer. Buoyed the warmth of the sun on his back, the refreshing whip of wind in his face and invigorating thrill of zooming through the air at high speeds, Cheetor let himself become caught up in the moment and executed a perfect barrel roll - complete with a small whoop of delight at the weightless sensation he got in his fuel tank.
"Cheetor," a disapproving voice called out over the roar of the wind. "I don't think now is the time to be playing. Optimus sent us on a mission. We should be focusing on our assignment."
Cheetor leveled out and slowed down to fall into formation beside his companion, Silverbolt. He had the decency to give the fuzor a chastised grin. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry. I just got a little carried away."
"No apologies necessary," Silverbolt assured. "It is, after all, a beautiful day. We would be remiss not to appreciate the planet's natural beauty."
"Do you really think we're going to find a spaceship out here?" Cheetor asked with a sideways glance at the other flier. They'd been flying for almost an hour and were within less than a hundred miles of the continent's southern coast. Cheetor had never been this far south before, but he'd seen topographical scans of this part of Earth's main landmass and knew there were little to no resources in the area or any geographic landmarks that might prove stategic in the Maximals' ongoing fight against Megatron.
"Maybe," Silverbolt shrugged. "Dinobot said she saw a small spacecraft break through the atmosphere and disappear in this direction."
"You don't think she might have just seen a stasis pod?"
Silverbolt shrugged. "Perhaps. But I doubt it. Since joining the Maximals, I've come to trust Dinobot's observations implicitly. If she says she saw a spacecraft, then that is what I believe she saw."
"I guess…" Cheetor mumbled under his breath, unconvinced.
"You do not seem excited at the possibly of finally being rescued and returning to Cybertron," Silverbolt observed.
The young racer heaved a heavy sigh. He didn't quite know how to explain what he was feeling right now. "I do want to go home, Silverbolt. It's just that something doesn't feel right about this. I mean, we've been stuck on this planet for almost two years now. If Cybertron had sent out someone to look for us they should have gotten here not long after we crashed. Why've they only found us now? I don't think that ship - if it even was a ship - is here to rescue us. Who even knows if it was Maximal? It could be a Predacon ship with some more of Megatron's goons. Plus the Axalon's scanners didn't even pick up a recognizable Cybertronian signal. All the scanners could tell us was that Dinobot saw something come through the atmosphere and go in this direction. What if what she saw was some kind of weapon that was sent here by those aliens that tried to kill all of us with that quantum surge last year? I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up as kitty litter by some group of planet-experimenting aliens!"
"I suppose an alien weapon is always a possibility," Silverbolt humored him with a light-heartened grin. It was obvious by the fuzor's expression that he thought Cheetor was victim of an overactive imagination. The transmetal cheetah bit his glossa from childishly snapping at Silverbolt not to joke about such things. He doubted yelling was going to give his concerns much weight in the fuzor's eyes. Beating his wings harder as the two of them were buffeted by a strong headwind, Silverbolt glanced over at Cheetor. "Like you said, Dinobot might have been mistaken and at the very least seen a stasis pod. That could mean the addition of another crewmate to our ranks."
"I suppose…" Cheetor mumbled, still unconvinced. He had a niggling feeling in the bottom of his fuel tank that told him it wasn't a stasis pod Dinobot had seen despite his earlier speculations of the possibility. That niggling feeling was telling him whatever he and Silverbolt were searching for was going to have a bigger impact on the Beast Wars than just a new addition to the crew. Whatever it was that'd arrived on planet Earth was something more important than that…
The two continued for several minutes of unbroken silence. Below them, the rocky land had begun to flatten and become more grassy the closer they came to the coast. Far ahead of them Cheetor swore he could see the first hint of the ocean shimmering like a mirage in the distance. Like a thin strip of crushed glass sprinkled along the horizon, distance waves glistened in the sunlight.
Cheetor's excitement for finally getting a chance to see the planet's immense ocean, however, was short lived. For as he and Silverbolt sped closer to the coast he happened to notice two small figures appear several miles ahead of them, traveling in the same direction as them. It didn't take much effort to identify them.
"Uh oh…" he growled. "Looks like the Preds also detected that object Dinobot saw and sent Terrorsaur and Waspinator to retrieve it."
Silverbolt frowned and transformed to his bi-pedal form mid-air without even slowing down. "Seeing as how Optimus ordered us to do so first, we cannot allow that to happen. If it really is a stasis pod we're looking for we cannot let the Predacons get to it first."
"You said it!" Cheetor called. "Let's show these two clowns they're not the only ones out here."
Kicking both their flight systems into overdrive, Cheetor and Silverbolt cut through the air. The ground below was nothing but a blur of greenish brown. Wind whistled across their audios. Within moments, Terrorsaur and Waspinator were within several hundred feet of them.
"I'll go left!" Cheetor called over the roar of wind to Silverbolt. "You go right! We'll come at them from two sides!"
Silverbolt nodded and banked hard to the right. The two Predacons were now less than a hundred feet ahead, both of them in beast-mode. Neither of them showed any sign that they'd detected Cheetor and Silverbolt's approach. Cheetor grinned and swung left in a wide looping curve. Silverbolt was coming around on the two Predacons' other side.
"Hey, uglies!" Cheetor yelled as he and Silverbolt converged on their unsuspecting prey. "You two looking for something out here?"
Terrorsaur and Waspinator both visibly startled at the sound of his voice - Waspinator going so far as to let out a frightened warble.
"Maximals!" Terrorsaur screeched. "Terrorsaur, terro-!"
Unfortunately, the pteranodon didn't even get a chance to begin his transformation before a well-aimed missile from Silverbolt exploded against his back and sent him spiraling down out of the sky. Waspinator followed him half a second later when Cheetor physically body slammed into the insect. Tucking his limbs close to his body, Cheetor dive-bombed through the air after the two. Silverbolt followed. Fifty feet above the ground the two Predacons finally recovered their bearings and managed to level out. With quick commands they transformed and almost immediately had their weapons out and aimed at the two Maximals.
"Evasive maneuvers!" Cheetor shouted as a barrage of laserfire sliced through the air towards them. One shot came so close to hitting him Cheetor actually felt the sizzling heat of the blast graze his right shoulder. Spinning away in a barrel roll, the racer returned fire with the laser cannon on his back. Terrorsaur and Waspinator both ducked to the sides, narrowly missing the blasts. Ground and sky quickly became a chaotic kaleidoscope of green, brown and blue. Laserfire and missiles zipped back and forth through the air without either side gaining any noticeable upper hand.
"That spacecraft is ours!" Terrorsaur called over a particularly loud explosion. "Megatron ordered us to retrieve it!"
"It's ourzz!" Waspinator buzzed in agreement. "We saw it firzzt!"
"Yea right," Cheetor growled, firing several more shots towards the two. "If that's a Maximal ship, we're using it to go back to Cybertron with!"
Terrorsaur gave a screechy laugh that made the younger Maximal's audios fill with back feed. "You're going to have to beat us to it first!"
"I don't think so," a new voice called out. "That ship is private property."
Cheetor, Silverbolt, Waspinator and Terrorsaur all froze and looked up just as a new set of jet engines became audible over the rush of the wind and a compact teal and gold figure dive-bombed through the air towards the two Predacons. Cheetor was just able to make out what appeared to be transmetal wing-like appendages and a forked whip-like tail before the figure slammed into Waspinator, which sent the insect spiraling through the air, warbling pitifully. Terrorsaur didn't even get a chance to put up any kind of defense before a wild barrage of laserfire exploded from the ground up towards him.
"Ah!" he screamed as the airspace immediately around him became a virtual firing range. One blast clipped his arm, singing his armor black. "Waspinator, retreat! Retreat! There's too many of them!" With a throaty cry, the flier transformed to beast-mode and sped away as fast as his wings could propel him. Waspinator didn't need to be told twice and shot away after him, his wings beating so fast their papery hum was still audible from several hundred feet away. Within minutes, the two shrank into the distance before finally becoming lost to sight.
A moment of intense silence followed in the wake of the Predacons' retreat.
"What just happened?" Cheetor murmured in a daze to his companion. Silverbolt could only shake his head in mutual confusion.
Without a single word to them, the teal and gold figure that'd come to their rescue cut his engines and dropped down out of the sky to the ground several dozen feet below.
Cheetor glanced at Silverbolt. "Should we follow him?"
"He did come to our aide which leads me to believe he is not an enemy," the fuzor said. "Plus, his sudden appearance would suggest he might be from the spaceship we detected."
Cheetor gave a reluctant nod and with Silverbolt beside him dropped out of the sky after their mysterious rescuer. The stranger had already transformed to his bi-pedal form by the time Cheetor and Silverbolt alighted on the ground in an open area of grass. A thin grove of trees and shrubs stood not far away from them to the right. As he transformed to his own robot-form, Cheetor took a moment to study the newcomer.
The mech was shorter than the average Maximal, but his stocky build gave him an intimidating aura. After seeing the way he'd body-slammed Waspinator, Cheetor doubted he was any kind of pushover in battle. Two wing-like appendages framed either side of the mech like shields. Both of them bore a Maximal insignia. A facemask hid the entire lower portion of his face from view. It was only as Cheetor continued to stare at the newcomer that he realized the mech's beast-mode was some kind of marine animal - most likely a sting ray or something of the like. It made sense. If he'd been aboard the ship they'd detected he'd probably landed somewhere near the ocean, making the chances of him scanning a land-based life form less likely.
"Thanks for helping us out back there," Cheetor greeted with a hospitable smile. "We appreciate it. Terrorsaur and Waspinator usually aren't that difficult to deal with, but they can be a nuisance."
"Don't thank me," the mech growled in a decidedly unwelcome voice. "I wouldn't have bothered rescuing you two if I didn't think that would have raised the odds of those Predacons finding my ship."
Cheetor and Silverbolt exchanged glances out of the corner of their optics. Neither had to guess what the other was thinking. This mech was definitely not the friendliest bot to ever land on planet Earth.
"You can thank me though!" a different voice called behind them.
Cheetor and Silverbolt spun around towards the woods where a new figure had appeared at its edge. Cheetor blinked in surprise. The second newcomer was a young mech, probably only a few decades older than himself. His protoform was a dark blue with bright silver armor. Dark red optics stood out sharply against his blue and silver color scheme.
"Yinz guys okay?" he called as he strode towards them. "It looked like you were having trouble with those two, so me and Depthcharge decided to lend a hand. I would've done more, but seeing as how I can't fly the most I could do was offer some heavy ground fire."
Cheetor stared in stunned silence. It wasn't just the second mech's sudden appearance that prevented him from returning the other's friendly greeting, but his looks. There was something unnervingly familiar about the mech. Cheetor felt like he should know who this bot was but for the life in him couldn't place him. Dark blue stripes that appeared almost black in the sunlight ran down the mech's arms and legs. His helm wrapped tightly around either side of his face, but that did little to hide the defined edges of the mech's facial plates. His optics were a startling crimson hue that seemed to look deep into whatever it was he was looking at. A large plume of stiffly bristled, dark blue feathers ran down the top of his helm in a style that reminded Cheetor of some ancient Terran culture. The mech was taller than his gruff companion. In fact, he was taller than anyone else there. Cheetor had to tilt his head back slightly to be able to meet the other mech's optics.
"We thank you for your help," Silverbolt gratefully nodded. Cheetor could tell the fuzor also found the younger mech familiar and was trying to place him. "Allow me to introduce us. I am Silverbolt, and this is my companion Cheetor."
"Oh, we know," the younger mech said, waving his hand in the air as though shooing away their introductions like he would a fly. He smiled at the two with a playful grin. "We already know all about you and the rest of the Axalon's crew."
Cheetor's carburetor skipped several revolutions. He stared at the two strangers suspiciously. "How do you know about us? Did you two come from stasis pods that had all the crew's information encoded in them?"
The younger mech pursed his lips together on one side of his mouth and squinted his optics up at the sky as though trying to decide how best to explain. Cheetor couldn't explain why, but the expressive twist of facial plates made him less apprehensive towards the newcomer.
"Not exactly…" the younger stranger hummed.
"We are from Cybertron," the other mech - Depthcharge, Cheetor was sure he'd heard the younger one call him - interjected.
Cheetor instantly perked up. "You mean they really did send someone to look for us? We're saved! We can finally go back home!"
The younger mech with the plume of feathers made another face - this one a bit more squeamish as though he was reluctant to burst the other's moment of happiness. "Not exactly…" he said.
Cheetor instantly sobered and stared at the two. His spark sunk with disappointment. He hadn't felt this disappointed since the Maximal's first and last attempt to leave the planet almost a year and a half before.
"If you're not from any stasis pods and you weren't sent here to rescue us by the High Council, then how did you get here and how do you know who we are?" Silverbolt asked.
"We're not from the same timeline as you," Depthcharge replied. His deep voice rumbled the warm air. "We've come to this place from a timeline almost seventy years in the future of when the Axalon left Cybertron to explore this sector of the galaxy."
Cheetor and Silverbolt exchanged confused glances.
"You mean you're from the future? I mean, even farther in the future than we are?" Cheetor said.
"That's what I just said," Depthcharge growled.
"If you aren't here to rescue us, then why did you come to this time?" Silverbolt asked.
The blue mech winced as though he'd been dreading this question. "That's going to take some time to explain. It'd be better if we explained everything all at once with the rest of the crew. I'm sure everyone's going to have a lot of questions and I really don't want to have to answer them twice."
"I suppose that sounds reasonable," Silverbolt nodded. "I will comm Optimus to know what he thinks about the matter." Out of the corner of his optic, the fuzor cast Cheetor another look. Cheetor silently returned it. This entire situation was becoming stranger and stranger with each passing moment. His processor was literally abuzz with curiosity about these mysterious newcomers from the future.
"So what are your names?" he asked. He gave the blue mech a pointed look. He was still trying to figure out why he looked so familiar.
"Oh!" the younger stranger startled. "Sorry, my bad. I almost forgot. This-" he gestured towards the shorter, disgruntled mech beside him "-is Depthcharge. And I'm…" He trailed off with a noticeable pause as though unsure how his answer would be received by Cheetor and Silverbolt. "…Switchblade."
For a moment neither Cheetor or Silverbolt reacted except to stare in stunned silence at the blue mech. At first Cheetor couldn't quite make the mech's reply compute. But as the words were converted to processed code, Cheetor suddenly became even more aware of the mech's unsettlingly familiar features. His face. His optics. His coloring. His knowledge of them and supposedly the rest of the crew. His frame. His build. His entire being suddenly became eerily similar to the Maximal crew's best fighter and her son.
Cheetor's jaw dropped as everything suddenly snapped together in his head like puzzle pieces. His optics widened to the size of dinner plates. "Oh my god."
"Primus…" Silverbolt murmured. He looked just as taken aback by this revelation as Cheetor. "Is this for real?"
"As real as real can get," Switchblade - the adult son of Dinobot and Rattrap from the future - affirmed. He smiled as though truly amused by their incredulous looks of shock.
Moving as if in a daze, Silverbolt reached one hand up to the side of helm and tapped his comm-link line open. "Silverbolt to Axalon. Come in. Over."
"Axalon here," Rhinox's voice hissed over the line. "Have you found the spacecraft yet?"
"Yes," Silverbolt numbly replied. "But you're never going to believe who was inside it…"
Rattrap sat at one of the monitor stations on the far side of the bridge, staring at the two newcomers Cheetor and Silverbolt had brought back to base in stunned silence. The two mechs stood in the middle of the room near the holo-table. Optimus stood across from them with his arms crossed in front of his chest and a thoughtful look on his face. The entire Maximal crew was gathered there. Not a single crewmember was missing. After Silverbolt's message to base saying who he and Cheetor had met, no one had wanted to miss this meeting.
Dinobot stood close beside him with their son perched in the crook of one arm against her chest. Although the warrioress was outwardly calm, Rattrap could feel a roiling storm of emotions coming from her through their sparkbond. The emotions came so quickly it was difficult to accurately decipher them before his sparkmate's feelings morphed once again into something else. Through their bond he felt excitement, curiosity, confusion, anxiety and wariness. Maybe it was because of Dinobot's distrustful nature towards almost everything, but suspicion and doubt were the strongest emotions he felt coming from her. She warily eyed the two newcomers through narrowed optics. He could feel her skepticism that they weren't really who they said they were. Rattrap wasn't sure what he himself felt about everything just yet because of the barrage of emotions coming from Dinobot's side of their bond, but he couldn't deny he shared some of the warrioress's doubts - along with what appeared to be half of the crew. More than a few of the other Maximals scattered around the edges of the room stared at the two newcomers in open curiosity and lingering disbelief.
It was a rather difficult story to swallow, after all. From what little he'd overheard Silverbolt say over the comm-link, these two were supposedly from a future Cybertron just like them, but from a time almost seventy years after the Axalon had left on its exploratory mission to the far reaches of the galaxy. And to top that off one of them was saying he was his and Dinobot's own son!
Almost unconsciously, Rattrap glanced at the tiny sparkling perched in his sparkmate's arms and then towards the younger of the two mechs Cheetor and Silverbolt had brought back to base. Although a large dose of skepticism remained Rattrap had to admit the mech's looks certainly gave his claim some validity.
Obviously an infantry model, the mech looked like a younger, less bulky version of Dinobot when she'd still been masquerading as a male. Unlike Dinobot's mech disguise, though, his frame was more compact and less intimidating. His face bore many of Dinobot's distinctive features, but those features were noticeably less harsh than the warrioress's as though some genetic trait had smoothed them down and made them softer in appearance, especially around his optics and nose. The mech was tall. Rattrap estimated he was only an inch or two shorter than Dinobot, who was the tallest of their group. The bristly plume of feathers running down the top of his helm, however, hid the deficiency and actually made him appear taller than he really was. Glancing between his infant son and the mech, Rattrap was also forced to recognize the similarities of their coloring and markings. Nor could he ignore the eight inch raptor claws curving up from the insteps of both the younger mech's feet or the taloned tips of his fingers. It was obvious the mech's beast-mode was some kind of small, carnivorous dinosaur. And Rattrap was willing to bet any amount of money that that dinosaur was a velociraptor…
On the other side of the room Optimus gave a delicate cough into the side of his hand. The room instantly grew silent. Everyone's attention was riveted on the two figures, especially the one claiming to be Rattrap and Dinobot's son, Switchblade.
Ever the diplomat, Optimus nodded his head to each of the mechs in turn. "Welcome to the crew of the Axalon." He turned to the older of the two and looked the bot up and down. "Depthcharge, it's been awhile. You're the last bot-" Optimus paused and cast the other mech with him a quick glance out of the corner of his optic. "Scratch that. Second to the last bot I ever expected to see here on planet Earth."
"You've got that right, Primal," Depthcharge agreed, his body language openly hostile towards the transmetal gorilla. "But I didn't come here to exchange pleasantries with you or the rest of your crew. I was sent here on a mission."
No more than a few minutes into their meeting and Rattrap already knew he wasn't going to like this teal and gold mech much. His attitude rubbed his circuits the wrong way.
"Wait a minute. You actually know this guy, Optimus?" Cheetor said from the other side of the bridge.
Optimus nodded. "Yes. It's been awhile, but I first met Depthcharge when I went to High Council and received my orders to become captain of the Axalon and lead this exploration. He's head of security for the space colony Omicron."
"Was head of security," Depthcharge sourly pointed out. He sent Optimus a withering glare. "It's been almost seventy-five years since Omicron was destroyed and the one responsible allowed to live."
"That's kind of why we're here," the other mech with the feathered crest interjected.
Optimus's attention was instantly shifted to the other mech. "Ah, yes… Switchblade."
"Switch if you don't mind," the younger mech corrected. "I always feel like I'm going to get yelled at when people use my full name. My mom's the only one who calls me Switchblade, and usually when I screw something up." Out of the corner of his optic he glanced at Dinobot.
Rattrap felt Dinobot stiffen beside him. A wave of indefinable emotions coursed across their sparkbond and crashed against the back of his sparkchamber. Her optics narrowed to two thin slits of red. Stepping closer to the one claiming to be her son, the warrioress glared at him. "I don't believe you. The story that you are my son is preposterous! There's no way you're really him." Unconsciously, her grip on the sparkling in her arms tightened.
"Why?" Switchblade calmly asked, as though used to the warrioress's hostile stubbornness. "Why's it preposterous that I traveled back in time from a timeline only seventy years in the future of when you and dad did the exact same thing? It's the same as, like, two people going to the same place from two different starting points. We just happened to met in the same place at the same destination."
Dinobot's optics narrowed, her expression tightening. "We have no proof you really are who you say." She shifted the sparkling in her arms and clutched him closer her breastplate. "How do we know you are not some agent sent here by Megatron or some other enemy agency to infiltrate our crew."
Switchblade actually laughed. "You really think someone would go to that much trouble to cook up some elaborate story of your son coming back from the future just to get inside the Axalon to spy? Aw, man, I wish! That'd be an awesome subplot for some late-night drama, but ironically is completely true in this case." Becoming serious, the young mech looked deep into Dinobot's optics. "I know it's totally crazy but I really am Switchblade, mom. I really am your son."
Dinobot's hostility softened. Rattrap felt a pulse of uncertainty and hesitant thrill pulse across their sparkbond. But a thread of doubt still remained. "I still demand some kind of proof of your identity," she said. "I will not feel comfortable until I am sure."
Switchblade shrugged as if he'd already been anticipating such a test. "Well, besides my devilish good looks which everyone says I inherited from you-" he said with a teasing smile "-I also happen to have this." Tilting his head back, he pointed to a place just below his jaw on the right side of his throat. Everyone in the room leaned closer. Even from a distance Rattrap could see the delicate silvery line of scar tissue Switchblade was pointing at. "That's from when Talon snuck onboard the Axalon and held me hostage as a sparkling. Since I was too small to go into a CR chamber at the time, I never got it properly repaired and ended up with this scar."
"Primus," Airazor breathed in awe. "He has the exact same scar Switch does. He even knew we couldn't put him in a CR chamber."
The looks exchanged between the gathered group of Maximals now was one of growing astonishment. Rattrap couldn't deny his own thrill of shock upon seeing the silvery scar.
But one amongst them was still not completely convinced.
"A scar like that could be easily faked," Dinobot snorted. "Such a mark cannot be used as definitive proof of one's identity."
Rolling his optics, Switchblade gave Dinobot an exasperated look. "I had a feeling it'd come down to this." Without missing a beat, he fluidly switched languages and began to speak in a harsh, guttural tongue. The hard consonant and long vowel sounds echoed off the bridge's metal walls and reverberated through the room. It took Rattrap several spark-pulses to recognize the language as spoken Predacon. From his sparkmate Rattrap felt a near crippling wave of shock course across their bond.
Dinobot froze, her optics two perfect circles of red, and stared at the mech. "How do you know Predacon?" she demanded in a shaky voice.
Switchblade shrugged. "You taught me. I learned it, like, the same time I learned Common Tongue."
"But why…" the proud warrioress seemed momentarily at a loss for words. "Why did you say that?"
Switch shrugged again. "I don't know. It means nothing to me. But right before I left Cybertron to come here you told me to say that in case you didn't believe who I was."
Dinobot numbly bobbed her head as though too dazed to do anything else. "So I would," she murmured as if to herself. "I doubt anything less would have given me the sufficient evidence I would need to believe such a story…" In her arms, Switchblade - the younger self of the grown mech in front of them - chirruped and squirmed. The warrioress distractedly patted his back to shush him.
Taking advantage of the lull created by Switchblade and Dinobot's mysterious exchange, Optimus stepped closer to Switch and Depthcharge. "Why exactly are you two here? Obviously it must be something of great importance or you wouldn't have risked making such a dangerous trip."
Depthcharge cast Optimus a scathing glare. "We're here to clean up the mess you left after the Beast Wars ended, and to prevent a horrible catastrophe that will cost millions of innocent people their lives both on modern Earth and present-day Cybertron."
Nervous glances were exchanged between the Axalon's crewmembers. Rattrap glanced at Dinobot who also looked back at him. Despite her stoic expression he could feel the anxious knot of dread forming in the pit of her fuel tank as well as his own.
"What kind of catastrophe are you talking about?" Rhinox hesitantly asked.
Switchblade crossed his arms across his chest. His face became stormy and dark. "Several million years from now on December 21st in the year 2012 C.E., Protoform X, also known as Rampage, will awaken from a long-term stasis lock and begin a killing spree on modern day Earth. Waking in present-day southern Mexico, X will kill everything in his path all the way up across North America's southern coastline. In Cape Canaveral, Florida, after killing close to 2.5 million humans, Protoform X will highjack a prototype military spacecraft from nearby Patrick Air Force Base and use it to return to Cybertron with for revenge in a second rampage. This second killing spree, by the way, doesn't include the twelve space colonies he decimates along the way to Cybertron. By the time he's finally brought down, more than 5 million people are dead - many of which were close friends of mine - and several cities and space colonies completely leveled."
"You people did a horrible job of disposing of Protoform X," Depthcharge hissed. The black glare he sent Optimus left little doubt in anyone's mind who he blamed for the disaster. "This was why I wanted X's spark permanently extinguished after I brought him back to stand trial for his crimes in Omicron. I told the Council it was dangerous to put him in stasis and dump him on some uninhabited planet. But no one would listen to me. Everyone was too squeamish to do what only I seemed to know needed to be done. And now millions of innocent lives have been lost because of the Council's softness. For a long time after the Axalon left to dump his stasis pod, I considered going after X to finish the job myself. But after you returned from the Beast Wars saying he'd been killed, I believed justice had finally been served." His glare at Optimus intensified. "Looks like I was wrong to believe you could finish the job yourself."
"Wait a minute," Blackarachnia said, holding one pincer up in the air for attention. "Rampage, Protoform X, or whatever you call him, is already awake. He became part of Megatron's crew more than six or seven months ago."
Switchblade shook his head. "We know that. But that's not the problem. In our timeline, when yinz guys finally defeat Megatron and win the Beast Wars, Rampage was thought to have died in a massive landslide during the final battle. Instead, he was really only put into a deep stasis-lock and buried for several million years until a Mexican mining crew had the bad luck of stumbling across him. Because of the time needed to travel between Earth and Cybertron without any kind of hyperspace drive, it took the spacecraft X stole from the U.S. military almost three hundred years to reach the nearest space colony in the Alpha Centauri system. From there he hopped from colony to colony - stealing newer and faster ships at each new settlement - until he finally reached Cybertron. By the time word got back to Cybertron about the destroyed colonies, X had reached Cybertron's outer satellites. Thousands of people were killed before he was finally taken down just outside of Iacon and permanently deactivated."
Switch swept his dark red gaze around the room, making sure he had everyone's undivided attention. "Depthcharge and I have been sent here by the Maximal High Council to hunt down X and destroy him before he gets the chance to go into stasis-lock and wake up in modern times. I knew some of the people he killed - some of them very close friends of mine." Over the course of his dialogue, Switchblade's face had begun to tightened around the edges until his facial plates were a twisted snarl of anger. Rattrap was eerily reminded of his sparkmate in the heat of battle and the fearsome expression she always wore while fighting. "I want X dead," Switch spat. "I want him stopped before he kills anymore people for his own twisted amusement. And I'm not going to leave until I'm sure he's gone for good."
Utter silence reigned over the bridge as everyone digested this horrifying glimpse into the future.
"You said the Maximal High Council sent you on this mission?" Optimus solemnly intoned.
Switchblade nodded. "The idea of going back in time to prevent X's killing spree was originally thought up by a former general in the Maximal Imperium. It gained so much popularity that the High Council immediately approved it. Depthcharge and I were chosen for the mission. Him because of his prior experience hunting down X, and me for my familiarity with the planet and everyone here."
"What about the time fractures you'll cause by changing history?" Rhinox interjected. "I know that's basically your entire motive for coming here, but you have no idea how anything you do will actually change the future. You might end up doing more damage than good by trying to change things. Who knows what your meddling might do."
"I doubt we could make things any worse than how they've already turned out," Depthcharge growled. "All we want to do is permanently remove X from the timeline. Any and all details that might change as a result are inconsequential."
Rhinox stared at the ex-security officer, his expression aghast. "You can't be serious. The Intergalactic Treaty of 3724 clearly states that those using transwarp technology are strictly forbidden from-"
"Oh, slag the treaty!" Depthcharge snarled. "I'm not trying to right every wrong in the slagging universe. I just want X dead! He killed millions of people and destroyed countless settlements - including my colony! I want him stopped before that happens again. We were sent here by our own High Council to terminate him and I'll be damned if I go back without finishing the job."
Switchblade glanced at Optimus. "If it makes you feel any better, the High Council sent me along to make sure Depthcharge doesn't go overboard."
Depthcharge growled behind his facemask. "I already told you, Switchblade, I don't need a babysitter."
"We'll see 'bout that," Switch muttered, unconvinced.
Across the holo-table, Optimus heaved a sigh. "If the High Council's ordered this, then there really isn't any way for me to question your mission. If there is anything we can do to help please let us know."
"Oh, I have a feeling we're going to be taking you up on that offer eventually," Switch dryly assured him.
"I still can't believe you guys are really from the future," Cheetor said. "Well, our future at least." He looked Switchblade up and down. "It's kind of cool to know what's going to happen before it actually does."
"I gotta agree with cat-nip breath over there," Rattrap agreed, finally deciding to enter the conversation. Getting to his pedes, the spy crossed the room until he stood directly in front of his adult son and looked up to meet Switch's gaze with a smirk. "It's nice ta see how tall ya actually grew. I was afraid ya were gonna end up my size fer da longest time."
Switchblade's reply was a wry grin. "Like I haven't heard that one before, dad," he snickered before breaking into an amused chuckle.
To be continued
I hope my explanation for Switchblade and Depthcharge coming from the same time makes sense. I really would like to know what people think of adult Switch and his proposed mission on Earth.
Thanks for reading!
Signing out
-LAXgirl
P.S. Identify Switch's accent and win the award for Useless Trivia Expert.
P.P.S. Links for sketches of adult Switchblade can be found on my profile page.