Optimus Prime stood in a plane of pure light, watching "windows" to areas of cybertron as it was being rebuilt. He saw his former scout BumbleBee looking over the final preparations of his ships expedition, with Jazz and Brawn, two of Optimises closest friends before the war. The observer was contemplating what they were doing until he saw the name of the ship. "The Optimus" chuckled The Prime "have I really been missed that much that my own bots name the very first ship they made after me?" As Optimus started to think about it he couldn't help but feel a bit proud, until it hit him.
"How long has it been," He wondered. "Since I had fused my spark with the Allspark?"
Optimus turned around and looked at a monitor showing Bulkhead, WheelJack and three members of the Wreckers that he had not met before. "Why have I not yet returned to Primus so that I may be reborn as another?" He continued to ponder this question.
When Optimus the last of the Primes had fused the Allspark with the well of Allsparks he had expected to simply cease to exist and to wait for his turn to be reincarnated again from the well of allsparks like before, but instead he discovered that he had instead been transported to some sort of monitor room which allowed him to watch as cybertron was rebuilt. And while Optimus enjoyed watching his comrades returning home, it was starting to become a bit unnerving to watch the rebuilding process and not be part of it.
Another pulse rocked the plane as Optimus steadies himself while slowly observing the surroundings.
"These anomalies have been affecting this plane for quite some time. I hope that it is nothing that will endanger Cybertron. My brothers and sisters had enough pain for one life cycle"
Just then a pulse unlike anything Prime had felt before pulsated through plane and lasted longer than the previous anomalies. Prime was always a calm and cool-headed bot, that was what had allowed him to survive the war. But this was beyond his understanding.
"Why?" Asked the imprisoned leader. "Why am I still here? Why have I not yet joined my brothers in the well of AllSparks?"
It was then that something unexpected happened. A monitor just appeared out of the blue. It was not the projection that had started him but what was on it. It showed him standing with Elita-one, Hot Rod, Arcee, and other members of his old team and a few other bots that he had known during the war. What concerned him was the bots that he didn't know. They looked familiar but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. It was then he realized that he had not met any of those bots when he had returned to Cybertron.
"But, I am one with the Allspark, I will never meet my friends again in this lifetime." Though the Prime. Then he looked at the picture again looking harder at the 5 that stood out from the group of autobots he didn't know. Suddenly, he wasn't so sure.
BumbleBee was on his recharge berth on the newly created star carrier "Optimus" thinking about his days on earth. It had been nearly five vorns (or 5 centuries in human terms, mused Bumblebee) since he had last been on earth, when they had gotten to reactivate the omega lock and the entire mess with Unicron and his undead predacon horde had happened. He was happy that entire catastrophe had blown over without anyone dying. Well, everyone but Optimus. BumbleBee lay there with a sinking feeling at the bottom of his servers. Optimus prime had given his spark to ensure that Unicron was trapped in the Allspark Container. He and the rest of Team Prime missed him, but it was thanks to him that Cybertron was now healing itself and could now support a population again.
Many of the autobots he never expected to see again were coming back. His old friends Heli, Bumper, the twins femmes Bluestreak and Silverstreak and the unofficial leader of his old scouting team Rodimus had all survived the great war and they had escaped together on one of the refugee ships. They had landed on one of the lost colonies, a planet called "Velocitron" on the old star charts, but the current inhabitants had started to call it "Speedia" due to the fact that everything there was created for speed and racing. They fit in just fine there due to the fact that BumbleBees old group was meant for scouting, message deliverance, or anything for speed. They even found some spark mates on their cycles on Speedia. The genius Bumper and his shy nature had met Lancer, a young scientist that always liked to test theories to the limit but could never work up the nerve to apply for higher positions or claim the promotions. Heli fell mainframe over server Clipper a emergency response vehicle just like him. And good old Rodimus had done what he always does and aimed for the top. He had met a femme named Phoenix on one of his explorations of Speedia. They had crashed into each other and had spent a couple of cycles yelling at each other. That's when Phoenix had challenged Rodimus to a race. The race hadn't even ended when Rodimus, who had no idea how to race, wiped out. Phoenix never got tired of telling that story. Those two were definitely a match made in the allspark.
An intercom buzz snapped Bumblebee back to the present. He looked at the blinking red light and pressed the button.
"This is BumbleBee responding, who's calling?" Responded the scout.
"BumbleBee, this is Jazz we need you to come to the bridge." Responded the current captain of the Star Carrier. BumbleBee remembered the first time he had seen Jazz, he had been on the rescue team that came to retrieve him at Tyger pax. Jazz was the one who had found him after Megatron had destroyed his voice module. After Optimus Prime had called the evacuation Jazz was the one who was in charge of the ark. When it was shot everyone had thought it destroyed. Two years after the capture of Unicron it was discovered that Jazz had figured that the ark would have been destroyed so he had placed the ship in autopilot and had then ordered the entire crew and passengers to the cargo bay where the stasis pods had preserved the occupants of the ship as the mighty ark fell apart. There they stayed until the captured Decepticon Flagship "Nemesis" under the autobots command found them in the wreckage that surrounded saturn where it had be destroyed by the nemesis. That reunion was one of the best events to happened since the war had ended.
BumbleBee was jogging down the corridors to the main bridge when he met Mirage, the new security. The femme looked at the yellow scout and put a quick glance and there servos locked for a few seconds before they both went their separate ways. The white and dark blue racecar was a bit smaller than Arcee, with small blades on her forearms and usually very quiet. In fact she hardly ever talked, the only times he had seen her talk was at meetings and sometimes around the other femmes for what BumbleBee assumed as the Cybertronian version of "girl talk." He also didn't understand why he always felt a bit nervous around her, but it had to wait for another time. Jazz was waiting for him and he didn't want to keep the boss bot waiting.
On the bridge Bumblebee looks around, and saw Prowl, Hot Shot and Brawn were all at different monitors making sure that the ship was in tip top shape. BumbleBee wondered how they were holding up, since they were the original team Prime. The team prime on earth was a ragtag team of autobots who had managed to escape to the planet but Prowl, Hot Shot, Brawn, Jazz, Warpath, Ratchet and Optimus were the original team Prime members. They had survived since the beginning of the war all the way to Primes evacuation orders were given. It was there that they had separated so that a veteran would go with a colony of survivors, giving that colony a better chance of surviving the aftermath of the war. The only original team Prime member unaccounted for was Warpath. He had taken the Xantium which was a combination of the archives of cybertron, exploration vessel and any scientists playground. Botanica was the lead scientist of the ship while Warpath was meant to be head of the security detail. It was the second largest ship to be launched the first being the Ark. Now the "Optimus" was soaring through space to discover the fate of the last of the great refugee ships. The ark being the last of the refugee ships had been targeted by the Decepticons due to it being the ship that carried Optimus. The rest had used the diversion to escape into parts unknown. The other refugee ships were easier to find due to the fact that they didn't want to journey to far into uncharted territory.
"All except the Xantium. " mumbled BumbleBee as he looked at all the monitors wondering where the bot who called him went. "They're the spark forsaken reason why we are even leaving cybertron space."
"What was that?" Asked Hot Shot as he turned around.
"Nothing, I was just wondering where Jazz went?"replied BumbleBee.
"I heard he went to the supply bay"
"What but that's on the other side of the ship. How did he get past me? For that matter, what's he doing in the supply bay?"
"Knowing him he took the elevator."
"Wait I though all of section A's elevators are decommissioned until we get back and have the repair droids continue refurbishing the ship."
"When has that stopped him before? As for why he went down their. He has to settle a quarrel between the emergency responders."
"Those two at it again?"
"Yep"
BumbleBee sighed, and started to exit the bridge. "So, Jazz jumped down the broken elevator shaft." BumbleBee thought to himself. "Can't say I'm surprised. From what prime told me even before the war when he and jazz used to work at the hall of records together he would do things that most bots would deem reckless and even downright crazy." It was this trait and his ability to gain intelligence that earned him the top spot as head of the reconnaissance and espionage division of the autobot army during the war. His ability to stay cool and analyze the situation and create a solution had also landed jazz the spot for third in command behind Ultra Magnus and of course Optimus.
A few minutes of traveling the ship BumbleBee was walking down the corridor that lead to the supply bay, as he began to near his destination the distinguishable yelling of Clipper and Heli grew louder. BumbleBee chuckled as he began to brace himself for what was behind the airlock. As the doors began to automatically open the yelling grew to unrealistic proportions as words seemed to simulate firefights from the great war and just beyond the two red bots that were screaming their voice boxes off, one white bot was trying to calm them down.
"No no no, the crates of spare parts should be near the door so if we need to bunker down here we will have plenty of cover to hide behind and evenly distributed to ensure that the ship does not tip over." Yelled the red femme known as Clipper.
"Oh yeah? Then tell me, who would attack us? The war with the Decepticons is over, the quintessons haven't come after us ever since Optimus foiled their invasion during the maiden voyage of "The Ark", and every other civilization we met is far too primitive to lift off their homeworld, let alone attack us." Retorted Heli, "and we're in space. How in the name of Cybertron will we capsize. Everything is designed to stick to the floor."
"Until planet fall."
"We might not even need to make planetfall!"
As this little exchange was going on Jazz was trying his best to calm them down, but was barely getting a word in, and to Bee it looked like those words were falling to deaf receptors. Bumblebee decided to enjoy himself for a little, while he analyzed the situation. He had heard the stories on how Heli and Clipper had first met and he was happy he got to see just how the two bickered.
From what he had heard, when Heli had first landed on Speedia was after a civil war had happened there. Apparently one of Megatron's spies had divided the Speedians and as always when two ideals clash fighting broke out. This war, contrast to the war on cybertron, had only lasted for 3 million stellar cycles, and the fighting hadn't been that bad. The damage was repaired in only 2 weeks. After the end of that war the only problems that occurred was isolated incidents caused by local insurgents that were easily remedied and forgotten.
It was during this time that Rodimus and his team landed on that planet and started to make themselves at home, by making a small "detective" agency. The stranded team did odd jobs for the inhabitants while gathering potential Decepticon activity. During one such intelligence gathering Heli met Clipper, and they began to argue on no clear topic. They continued to argue for a good 12 cycles until a building near them burst into flame. Since the duo were originally meant to be a rescue vehicles they immediately dropped their argument and went to work saving the population.
"Those two were made for each other." Thought BumbleBee, smiling slightly as the two young bots bickered without a care in world. Bee enjoyed this moment of tranquility and hoped that if would last forever.
Meanwhile on the ship's bridge three mechs were musing about the days before the great war.
"I remember when I got my transfer data confirmed with my boss. He had allowed me to go to the crystal city and to help in the construction of it transparent and majestic frames and towers." Brawn recalled "It was the happiest day of my life."
"Heh, ya before your employers wiped it out." Prowl remarked.
Brawn scowled at this remark, remembering the destruction that had been caused by the constructicons during the beginning of the war.
Hot Shot noticed this and tried to stop Brawn from tearing Prowl a new servo.
"Hey now, Prowl no need to reopen old wounds. The wars over, the Decepticons disbanded and are now either nomads like their leader or 2-bit terrorists. Unless they decided to become autobots like Knockout."
"He, ya those second rate bots ain't nothing but trouble. They should be booted off of cybertron." Brawn quirked.
"Now, now lets thank Primus that some Decepticons have joined us and are actually helping us instead of helping the terrorists and hampering the progress of rebuilding Cybertron." Prowl calmly said.
"Ya cause everything's better with those fraggers." Brawn snorted.
"Hey now, no need to go fragging the cons just cause we got some bad energon." Hot Shot said.
"Bad energon? Ha, those cons spilled enough energon to drown half of cybertron in."
"Oh don't start now, we just finished a war we don't need good bots going all vigilante and starting another one."
"Frag off, you weren't even in the fights."
"Because I was a prisoner until prime busted us out towards the end of the war and then we were given the order to evacuate, remember?"
As this exchange was going on Prowl had been looking out the ships monitors which had begun to fitz around.
"Hotshot, take a look at the monitors, something is going on." Prowl quickly interrupted the verbal duel. Hot Shot and Brawn both turned to face the former security officer.
"What appears to be off?" Asked the second in command as he walked toward his monitors. "Everything looks the normal."
"I don't know. Something is causing the scanners to fritz." Than his detective instincts started added, as he looked out the window, "and I think that we should hang on" Hot shot and Brawn follow his gaze as something chinks off the fortified glass.
"Ah scrapp." Was all Brawn could say as a shadow darkened the room.