Whoo, I really slept in today!
Shadescribe - I'm glad you agree on my choice for Maria's and Wildfire's theme! :) Those themes aren't going to be the only ones that people are going to have, though - those things can change, or you can have multiple ones at once! Which is going to prove quite interesting in the future...
Anyway, here's the third part of this short tale, guys!
Chapter 3
Maria jumped off Wildfire's shoulder as she and the others emerged from the portal and entered what appeared to be a forest of some kind.
"Where do you guys think we are?" Matthew asked from where he sat on Sparkseer's shoulder. It didn't look like he was planning on moving anytime soon.
"We're about half a mile out of town," Joshua responded. "There's a road near here."
"A road?" Shape-Change gained an intrigued expression. "We can use that to our advantage."
"We can?" Coil asked in confusion.
"We are going to need alternate modes here so that we can remain close to Collin and the others," Shape-Change said, looking down at the smaller mech.
"Always thinking about disguises," Wildfire said with a slight shake of her helm. A slight smirk came over her face. "We are going to need them, though. We don't need to get the other humans in the area even more riled up than they already have been, considering Maria's actions." The femme sent a pointed look in the Reploid's direction.
Maria ignored the look Wildfire was giving her, a slight frown coming over her face. "...looks like we've only been gone for about half an hour. Mom and Dad shouldn't be worried yet, but it'd probably be a good idea to let them know where we are."
"I'll agree to that," Matthew said. Sparkseer carefully removed the human from his shoulder and lowered Matthew to the ground. "Mom and Dad can meet us out here then, and we can explain everything that happened out here."
"Sounds good to me," Liz commented. She looked over at Khrista. "Do you want to call your parents, too?"
Khrista paused to consider that for a moment, but then shook her head. "Nah. Mom and Dad only just got over the fact that I'm not exactly going to be 'normal' for the rest of my life. I don't know how they'd handle hearing that aliens actually exist and that I've had one in my head for who knows how long."
"Twelve years," Shape-Change corrected. "Joshua, where is the road that you mentioned?"
"Down that dirt road," Joshua replied, motioning to the tracks that were leading out of the clearing and between the trees.
"Thank you." The gray femme started towards the road.
"Where are you going?" Jolt asked.
"To get an alternative mode that fits in with Earth culture." Shape-Change paused and looked back at the others. "I am not about to go around in my natural alternate mode, because that is most certainly alien." With that, the femme continued down the dirt road and disappeared from sight around a bend in it.
"I think I will follow after her and chose an alternate mode myself," Sparkseer commented. He started after Shape-Change, using his golden spear almost like a staff.
"Why does he have that big thing, anyway?" Liz asked.
"It's because of his systems," First Aid explained. "Sparkseer can see and sense other Cybertronians' Sparks - our 'souls,' as Morgen once said. However, he is constantly creating a backlash energy as a result of that, and has to have it siphoned off by a specific kind of metal. His spear is made of that metal, so Sparkseer keeps the weapon on him at all times."
"So, he's like a Cybertronian version of Lucario?" Khrista guessed.
"Pretty much," Matthew confirmed. He smirked and held up a hand, causing it to become covered in blue fire. "He's not the only one who can do what Lucario can do, though."
"Whoa!" Collin looked at his brother in surprise. "That's cool!"
"When did you pick that up?" Liz asked.
"When Maria and I were in that other world for a week and a half," Matthew explained. "The first time I used an Aura Sphere, I ended up hitting a Decepticon named Starscream in one of his wings. Left a pretty nasty dent, too."
"You hit Starscream?" First Aid repeated in surprise.
"What does he look like?" Joshua asked, intrigued.
Maria frowned, trying to remember the one time that she had caught sight of the Seeker in person. Then she held out a hand and caused the air to shimmer before a mirage formed, creating the form of the Decepticon second-in-command. "This is him. He can transform into a jet, I think."
Collin cocked his head to one side, looking up at the hologram of the Seeker. Then he laughed. "He looks like a girl!"
"Seriously? Are those high heels?" Khrista gained an incredulous expression.
"He certainly looks...streamlined," Joshua commented carefully.
Maria snickered as the mirage faded. "Technically, Khrista, I think they're called stilettos."
"Okay, that just makes his image look worse." Khrista was smirking, despite what she had said. "And you guys had to face him?"
"We only ran into him a few times," Matthew responded. "He'd apparently become a loner for some reason, so he never showed up for the really important events. Like taking out Unicron. Or Brainiac, for that matter."
"Brainiac?" Liz looked at her brother, eyebrows raised. "That's the computer thing from Krypton, right? From the TV show?"
"And the comics," Maria confirmed. "He managed to sneak into Megatron's head and was planning on doing who-knows-what if we hadn't gotten in the way."
"You mean if you hadn't gotten in the way," Wildfire corrected, looking at the little Reploid in amusement. "You're the one who completely melted his little device and messed with his programming, remember?"
Maria blushed out of embarrassment and rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, well..."
There came the sound of shifting dirt, and two vehicles rolled into the clearing - a blue semi, and a gray car with a red stripe and a yellow stripe running down the driver's side. The semi transformed into Sparkseer while the car's doors opened, letting out two figures - a woman with frizzy black hair, and a man with amazement shining in his blue eyes.
"Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!" Maria waved from her perch on Wildfire's shoulder. "Shape-Change, thanks for picking them up!"
"I thought it might be wise to alert your parents of what had taken place," the gray car responded. The vehicle then started shifting, transforming into the familiar form of the femme. "They were quite surprised to see Sparkseer and I."
"You got that right," the man commented, looking around the clearing. He stopped short with a jolt when he saw First Aid. "What the - we heard that you had been-"
"Rumors of my passing were...greatly exaggerated, I believe the saying is," First Aid said, sounding somewhat amused.
"Indeed," Sparkseer put in.
"Where have you all been hiding?" the woman with black hair asked, spinning slowly in place in order to see all six.
"Vector Prime warped time and space and trapped us in the minds of these kids," Jolt explained. "Wildfire with Maria, Seer with Matt, SC with Khrista, Aid with Liz, Coil with Collin, and me with Joshua. We only just found a way to get out."
"Coil?!"
"Hi, Katie! Hi, Morgen!" the aforementioned yellow mech gave a wave, causing the Carlsdale parents' jaws to drop.
Maria snickered. "Yup! Cool, right? And it gets even better, too - Optimus Prime is probably on the planet somewhere, too!"
Katie and Morgen looked at their eldest daughter with expressions of surprise.
"Optimus is here?" Katie repeated. "How do you know?"
"That has something to do with the world we were on before," Wildfire responded. "Apparently, the Cybertronians there had company in the form of the Justice League."
"We ended up helping them get through Unicron's awakening and an attack from Brainiac," Matthew added. "At least, we helped them from the sidelines."
"Unicron?" Morgen frowned. "Isn't that the name of your deity of destruction?"
"Correct," Sparkseer said. "It seems that, after the battle between the Thirteen Primes and Unicron, something caused his form to become covered and forcibly transformed into the planet beneath our feet, with his Spark at its core. When a collection of 47 planets made an alignment between Cybertron and Earth, the magnetic pull caused him to awaken from his slumber. He would have destroyed the planet were it not for Megatron and Optimus Prime working together for a short amount of time."
"Megatron?" Katie's voice came out soft and cautious.
"Who's that?" Khrista asked. "Sounds like a bad guy."
"He is the leader of the Decepticons," Shape-Change explained. "The forces which oppose us Autobots."
"And Megatron looks ugggly!" Maria declared. "Matt and I call him Buckethead for a reason!"
"You saw him?" Morgen whirled around to look up at his daughter's perch.
"Optimus had to...invite him into their base for a while, before they went for Unicron's Spark," Sparkseer responded before Maria could open her mouth. "Thanks to the technology of the Ground Bridge, he was unable to get a specific fix as to where on Earth their base was. However, the humans were inside the base at the time."
"Megatron didn't make a move to hurt any of us, though," Matthew added. "I mean, he did make a temporary alliance with Optimus so that they could take down Unicron together."
"And things went right back to normal after Optimus had a bout of amnesia," Maria continued.
"Amnesia?" Katie looked surprised. "Can Cybertronians even have memory problems?"
"In some cases, yes," First Aid responded, nodding. "After a cataclysmic event on our planet - a great disaster that wiped out a good number of Cybertronians - it was discovered that an electric storm of sorts had corrupted some of the memories of the older Cybertronians. And, as time goes on for us, a good number of our memories have to be compressed to make room for more data. In the second case, if something happens that forces those compressed memories to surface, then we would recover them in the same sort of way an amnesiac human might recover their memories."
"Fascinating," Joshua murmured. "But how does that explain Optimus losing his memories?"
"It had something to do with him unleashing the Matrix of Leadership on Unicron's Spark," Wildfire said, eyeing Maria. "That's about as much as I can tell."
Maria nodded. "Yeah. Their version of Ratchet said that Optimus had reverted to his pre-Prime state of Orion Pax, meaning before he was ever considered a Prime in the first place."
"Which, in affect, meant that he considered Megatron an ally, didn't it?" Shape-Change guessed.
"Unfortunately," Sparkseer confirmed. "We managed to discover a way to restore his memories a few months later, but he was unfortunately unable to remember what exactly had occurred inside Megatron's base. Maria managed to find him during that time, however, and was helpful in filling the gaps that we needed."
Katie and Morgen became astounded upon hearing this.
"So, you snuck into Megatron's evil lair?" Khrista asked, raising her eyebrows in interest.
Maria grinned sheepishly and opened her mouth to answer, but she was suddenly cut off by a bright green beam of light shooting across the sky, creating an echoing boom as it shot towards the west. Everyone's heads shot up in order to see what was going on...while Maria gripped her own head and closed her eyes.
A tower of metal - hordes of white and black figures flying towards what looked like an anthill-shooting down a helicopter-a giant ship appearing over a mound of rock and firing down a giant beam-
Maria let out a yell of shock as her eyes snapped open. "Guys, the Autobots here are in big trouble!"
To be Continued...
That's where I'm ending Axiom Nexus.
The next time I post anything (and that's going to be in a couple weeks), it's going to be far longer than this story...and I have to think of a proper name for it, too.
It's going to be the third season of Transformers: Prime, and that's all I really want to say about it without giving away anything. If anyone can come up with a decent title for the next entry in the Maria's Adventures series, let me know!
