Cybertronians: robotic beings known throughout the galaxy by a plethora of names. Transformers, weapons of destruction, monsters- but most commonly, mysteries. While the Cybertronians themselves claimed to have evolved from levers and pulleys; spawning from the depths of their – now dead - home world of Cybertron, not one being in the Universe genuinely knew how they had come into existence. At this point in time, however, the organics of the universe couldn't care less about where the Cybertronians came from as opposed to how to get rid of them. What was once considered an evolutionary miracle slowly devolved into a plague; spreading across the cosmos solar system by solar system.

It began the day war broke out on Cybertron's surface. Over time the conflict operated as a poison, slowly eating away at the planet's sustainability until there was nothing left. When Cybertron died, its inhabitants took their quarrels to the stars. Unfortunately for the stars, not even the Tyrest Accord could quell the violence. Within the first year, a colony fell when an Energon substitute was found underneath its bedrock. No one batted an eye. Within the first century, the entire Galaxy was split between Autobot and Decepticon control. Separating these two factions were a pair of conflicting ideals: order, and conquest. As the war spread further, these ideals became shrouded. Both factions, Autobots and Decepticons alike, branched off into their own respective guilds - factions that held on to their previous titles and ideals, yet independent, and without the supervision of High Command. In time, some questioned whether there was anyone in charge to begin with, for with their numbers so far apart, High Command had simply given up on tracking them all.

Battles for Energon, battles for glory, battles 'cause to hell with it. Even those who avoided conflict altogether were forced to take the lives of others just to ensure their own survival. Where the Cybertronians went, death followed. However, legends tell of a single Cybertronian who will one day turn on his race and end the suffering once and for all. More on him later.

...Much later.

Cartwheel peered cautiously over the crater's outer rim; scanning the area through thick, green-tinted binoculars. Damn aging optics. He was recommended getting built in extended optical scopes to expand his field of vision, but having your eyes bug out of your face whenever you wanted to scan an area looked ridiculous. So binocs it was. They had landed on the dwarf-planet hours ago, traversing it's rocky, purple surface in search of the resident Autobot guild-building.

Guilding. Cartwheel mused, snickering immaturely to himself. This didn't last long, however, as just like the last couple of outposts they visited, this one had been stripped clean and left barren. Dead whispers and decimation were all that remained of the crumbling structure.

'This is bad,' Cartwheel said, stating the obvious. 'Fourteen consecutive outposts... and with this level of precision? That doesn't just happen.'

His partner, a young, peach coloured Autobot, twirled a pistol around his index finger, grinning maniacally. 'You thinking what I'm thinking?'

Cartwheel sighed, his optics drawing away from his partner's demented expression and back towards the crater in question. 'What. That the Decepticons are back? Yeah, I'm beginning to suspect.'

Horn-Drill hurdled over the craters edge, making his way clearly and carefully down the purple slope and towards the broken outpost.

'Where do you think you're going?' Cartwheel called out, bounding after the eager Autobot.

'Where do you think? I'm off to kill some 'cons is where I'm going!'

'Horn-Drill!' the impatient bot sprinted ahead, forcing Cartwheel to raise his vocal processor. 'Our job is observation! We're observers, not fighters!'

VRRRRT

A vibration purred from his belt, it was his communicator. Optics locked on Horn-Drill, Cartwheel raised the communicator to his lips and answered. A voice, feminine but firm, emitted from the main speaker.

'Cartwheel, are you there?'

'I'm here, Sonar. Can't say the same for Horn-Drill.'

One of the Autobots' chief communication specialists, Sonar filtered orders through to the remaining bots under Head Military Strategist: Prowl's command. She, like many others in the so-called Autobot hierarchy, worked in perfect comfort at the Autobot Orbital Command Hub, where most filtering occurred.

'He ran off again, didn't he?'

'''Fraid so. With that kind of stupidity I'm surprised he hasn't gotten himself killed yet. Baffled, really. Anyway it's just as Prowl suspected, the base has been wiped clean. No survivors.' Cartwheel upped his pace as Horn-Drill scampered off and into the underbelly of the wrecked fortress. He was out of Cartwheel's sight. 'Hold on a minute- Horn-Drill! You there?'

He called out.

No response.

'Horn-Drill?'

'We'll get back to you.' Sonar replied. 'Retrieve Horn-Drill and return for pickup. There's nothing left for us down there.' The communicator sounded, and the line went dead.

'Cartwheel?' Horn-Drill called back. 'I found a survivor.'

Scratch that. Cartwheel darted eagerly down the slope and under the wrecked fortress. He arched around a thick corner to find Horn-Drill leaning over what Cartwheel could barely make out to be a broken corpse. The body was limbless and nearly headless save for a lower jaw, crowned by a dark, mechanical blob stemming out from his throat (something that Cartwheel could only guess was the remains of a brain-module). His torso was gutted, his legs crumpled into stubs, and a pile of metallic tubes and robotic fluids stretched from his center.

'Dear Primus…' Cartwheel whispered, kneeling next to his partner. 'You said he was alive?'

'I did,' Horn-drill pointed at the bot's trembling lower-jaw. 'Scrap, right?'

Cartwheel shook his head in disgust. 'Decepticons couldn't have done this, could they? I mean, they're still Cybertronians- they're still people. They wouldn't do...' he shook his servos at the body, 'this!'

He felt a sense of unease, though for once it was not as a result of the vivid gore that laid before him. 'Behind his head,' he said, pointing, 'there's some writing.'

Horn-Drill carefully dragged the body aside for closer look. 'Hey you're right. That's old Cybertronian, innit?'

Cartwheel pressed a pair of digits against his lips, inspecting the writing carefully. 'I can read it.'

'You can? You never told me you could- well, never mind that, what's it say?'

'It's... strange. Strange. It reads: "waiting."' he turned to Horn-Drill who stared back at him through widened optics. 'Any idea what that means?'

His partner didn't say a word. He was seemingly pre-occupied with Cartwheel's face. He had been staring at it the entire time.

'Horn-Drill? What's wrong?'

In a flash, Horn-Drill whipped out his pistol and fired three shots at Cartwheel. All three had somehow managed to tear through his cheek and bounce off the large, hulking figure behind him. Grabbing the wound, Cartwheel span around to find himself faced with a large metallic creature, hidden within the shadows of the building to avoid detection. From the shadows, Cartwheel could only make out a multitude of limbs and eyes, like the kind of monster described in children's stories. It was then he realized that he was faced with the kind of creature people saw and never lived to describe.

Horn-Drill screamed, firing his gun until it ran out of ammo, each shot bouncing off of the creature's armored plating without creating so much as a dent. Before Cartwheel could pull out his own weapon and react, a long, bony tendril struck into his chest cavity, twisting through a maze of wires and circuits, piercing his spark casing and letting the energy blow the rest of his torso apart. Stunned, Horn-Drill did the sensible thing and ran, transforming into his drill-tank mode and driving as fast as drill-tankpossible. But before he could reach the other side of the crater, the large, metallic creature dropped one of its thin, long, angular legs in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.

Sonar tapped at her keypad once again, frantically trying to boost the signal. She shouldn't have ignored the data interference. She should have sent some precautionary measures. But it was a short visit, and frequency blowouts happened all the time in space. How could she supposed to know her lack of caution would prove fatal? 'Cartwheel, are you there? Cartwheel?!'

Her view-screen re-calibrated, and either life signal fizzled and faded into a a spiral of pixels and data. She lost two soldiers. Massaging the bridge of her nose, Sonar turned to her chief, sitting across from her with his back turned.

'They're gone.'

Prowl shut his optics, plunging himself deep into thought.

It would be long before Sonar got a response.

But this story isn't about them, nor is it about the supposed chosen one of Cybertronian myth.

For now, we place our attention on a completely uninteresting looking spaceship, manned by a completely uninteresting looking captain...