Chapter 8

Cybertron,

It was deep in the heart of the Decepticon empire, the space-bridge port of the Cybertronian sector Polyphex.

At the moment, the installation was non-functional because no transports were planned and was currently guarded by two seekers.

That was, until now. Suddenly the machine behind them came to life. The space-bridge was being activated without authorization.

Both looked at each other in confusion; they knew that no arrival was planned for today, in fact none was planned for the entire week.

The space-bridge system was barely used these days. After they had driven off the Autobot resistance from Cybertron, the Decepticons had, for the most part, returned to more regular means of transport.

Before the two surprised guards fully realized what had happened, a team of twelve Autobots had materialized on the platform.

And before they had a chance to react, the dozen newcomers had drawn their weapons and fired on them. The two robots were hit by precise head-shots that were killing them nearly instantly.

"We are here, this is definitely sector Polyphex," Ultra Magnus, the leader of the just arrived strike-group announced after running a scan on their surroundings.

Beside himself his team consisted of Kup, Hotrod, Mirage, Hound, Trailbreaker, Perceptor and the Protectobots. They were a contingent of warriors who had been sent over the space bridge first to secure the area and prepare for the following invasion.

The long planned major offensive of the Autobots had finally begun.

xxx

At the same time, a few million miles away, a fleet was holding course towards the planet. Besides the two regular shuttles, it was Omega Supreme in his rocket- and Cosmos alias Rattrap in his spaceship-mode.

Magnus' team was a strike-force that was sent over the hijacked and restored space-bridge to Cybertron with the aim to establish a bridge-head on the planet before the actual attack. After them the main part of their army would be arriving from space.

One fact, however, that only a few were aware of was that not all of the fighters on board were actually Autobots.

"Well, have I already told you that this is a stupid idea, Optimus?" Rhinox commented.

"Yes you have, a few times actually."

"Then I say it again," he said.

"This may be our best chance to get him," Optimus Primal, who was still occupying Springer´s body, replied.

"It is going to be a real battle," Rhinox replied. "Training exercises and skirmishes with the Predacons are one thing, but this is the Great War. Look around, the others here have done this for thousands or even millions of years and you think you can just jump in and play Autobot? This is stupid. We are not supposed to be here."

Optimus Primal remembered his field training at the military academy of Iacon back on Cybertron as he was still a cadet. That now seemed an eternity ago, even if it was technically only a few years before, time-jump and dimensional displacement not taken into account. This was not longer his time and recently not even his universe anymore.

He had to admit that in those days he had been fascinated by the history of the old Autobot-Decepticon conflict and in many ways he still was. Now he realized he had gotten his wish. He was right in the middle of the Great War.

His opponents back then on Cybertron, however, had been either other cadets or mindless drones programed to follow preset attack patterns.

In particular, an incident during an exercise came to his mind when he was running with blazing guns through an entire group of training-droids. Here the same sort of behavior would probably get him killed.

The problem was, he was still a rookie commander with only a few months of actual fighting experience surrounded by veteran warriors.

Rhinox seemed to have similar thoughts in his mind.

"Starscream is there," Optimus argued.

"Yes, and with him the entire Decepticon army," his partner told him.

"I know it is a risk." He paused for a moment.

"It is too much of a risk," Rhinox pointed out.

"Dinobot and Waspinator wanted to meet us there."

"They told us to meet them on Cybertron, they didn´t say in the middle of a major battle."

"I know that but..."

"Boss-bot, normally I would never question one of your decision like that but here I have to ask you, what the hell were you thinking?"

"All of us who are here now have gained access to our host body´s memories," he defended his decision to join the invasion.

"Archived memories are still not actual skills and experiences, " Rhinox replied. "We aren´t Autobot warriors."

"They are needing every Bot for this battle. We are in the bodies of five of their warriors, five soldiers who were meant to be here."

"It is these five that we are endangering these five more than anybody else with our presence here. Is this because of Prime?" Rhinox wanted to know. "Are you doing this because he asked you?"

Optimus Primal didn´t know how to respond.

xxx

At the same time on the surface, Ultra Magnus and his group had secured the area around the space-bridge and began to run an attack on the control-center of the planetary defenses.

They were at the moment involved in a heavy firefight with the defending troops.

During this, Magnus gave one simple sounding order.

"Protectobots, merge." At his word the five robots transformed and combined into the giant Defensor. The Autobot gestalt quickly began to overwhelm their opponents.

xxx

By now the oncoming ships were already preparing for the landing.

Omega Supreme´s air-locks opened as he was still in the sky and five large robots came flying out. It was the Dinobots diving downwards in attack formation.

Next was another fiver-group, the Aerialbots, who were leaving one of the shuttles in jet-form.

As soon as they touched the ground, Omega Supreme transformed into robot-mode, just as the Aerialbots combined into their gestalt Superion and the two super-robots were joining the battle.

Against them and Defensor stood the Constructicons and the Stunticons, the only two Decepticon combiner groups who were currently on the planet.

Inside his office in Decepticon headquarters Shockwave was, in his logical way of course, cursing Starscream for carelessly withdrawing so many of their troops for his own personal adventures.

xxx

"I have no right to ask this of you." Primal remembered Optimus Prime´s voice from their last conversation. He heard the words from the Autobot leader in his mind now. Maybe he should have listened to him.

"I have no right to ask this of you," Optimus Prime said to him during their conversation two days ago. "You are not my soldiers, in fact you aren´t even really Autobots. These are desperate times for us and we need every man."

During this confrontation, they had informed the Autobot leader about everything, who they were, Starscream, the Vok. He was understandably less than happy that five of his warriors were practically out of service and that in a time like this.

And Optimus Primal remembered the answer he had given to him.

"We would like to come with you sir."

Blackarachnia was of course not with them. Despite being created from a Maximal protoform she was still a Predacon and if he was honest, she could hardly be expected to fight against her own ancestors.

Still, she was in the same situation as the rest of them. Like them, she would only be able to return to their world if they managed to stop Starscream.

Thinking about it, he had asked himself the question why Dinobot and Waspinator had not been with them from the beginning. Looking back, the answer was quite obvious: their sparks. The ones of Maximal heritage had been going to inhabit Autobot bodies and the one of Predacon one Decepticons. This was the reason this two had landed here on Cybertron instead of in Autobot city.

From the moment they had landed, they had been under heavy fire. In the last several minutes, he had seen Autobots, legendary warriors in his time, dying left and right to him.

The first had been Cliffjumper, a member of the original Ark crew, who was killed by a shot through the spark chamber less than a minute after they had landed.

Then came Smokescreen, the Autobot warrior was hit by at least a half dozen blasts before he went down.

For all their power, their size and strength, Optimus realized, the old Transformers were actually inferior to the Maximals and Predacons in one thing: they were much more vulnerable to damage.

A Maximal could literally be blown to pieces and survive unless his spark is extinct, an Autobot obviously could not.

And they were in the bodies of five of them.

Maybe Rhinox was right, he thought, maybe he had let his admiration of Prime cloud his judgement, maybe he had underestimated the danger, maybe they should have stayed behind.

xxxxxxx

Miles away from the battlefield, five more robots were assembled and waiting for their call. They were Decepticons, but space-jets of a foreign design.

"Cyclonus." The leader of the group was receiving a transmission. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes Shockwave," he replied. "Have you come to a decision?"

"I have. You are powerful warriors. It would be illogical not to reintegrate you into our forces. So I accept your offer. I will take command of the Decepticons and you Cyclonus are my new second in command."

"I understand. Thank you, Shockwave."

"There is however one condition," the governor of Cybertron continued.

"I think I can guess what that is," Cyclonus stated.

"This planet is under attack. Since our current leader has made the decision to withdraw necessary troops and resources for his own plans, the Decepticons now need your help. You will join the defending forces now."

"I understand, commander."

As the communication was cut-off one of his group asked him one question.

"Tell me, why are you not simply taking over yourself? You are more powerful than Shockwave. I am sure you would manage to bring him down," Wrath wanted to know.

"I have no real interest in taking leadership of the Decepticons," Cyclonus responded, "and we have our own mission given by the Vok right now."

"Why should we do what these aliens want?" Specter asked him.

"Maybe because they have saved our hides and are also very powerful and they certainly won´t like it if we just ignore the task they have handed to us," the winged and bearded robot beside them commented.

"Scourge is right," Cyclonus said, "and even if we are able to fight the Vok off it, would be a needless risk. After all, it is not as if we have a problem with this mission." Not in the slightest, he thought.

"What I truly want is to avenge Megatron and destroy this creature," he pointed out. "And if our Starscream gets in the way with that, well it will be his loss."

xxxxxxx

Decepticon-flagship, in orbit over the planet Paradron

Two robots, two very similar robots, were sitting together in a single cell in the body of the ship.

Both were seekers, both of them were of the same design, in fact both were nearly identical.

How could it have come to this? one of them asked himself silently.

Starscream, the one who had been created in this reality, could only wait here and look back at the insane events of the last weeks.

This strange double of himself had somehow taken him over and kept him a prisoner in his own body.

"Here you see what happens when you defy the will of Primus," the clone seeker next to him said.

"Shut up," Starscream yelled at him.

"Your denial won´t change anything." Sunstorm smiled. "With my creation, you had started your heresy in the first place and now it is your unholy doppelganger who has continued it."

"I said shut up," the overthrown Air Commander repeated.

He was sick of having to listen to the rants of the lunatic.

And at the same time he had to think about the creature that brought him into this situation in the first place.

Just who was this mysterious double of him?

It was not a clone, that much was clear.

He still remembered shreds of memories from the weeks that he had been trapped in his own body, bits about something else, another life, things that had never happened.

In first line, he remembered himself or maybe rather the other one, standing on top of the podium in Polyphex and being shot by a purple Decepticon he had never seen before, but at the same time he knew that this robot was somehow Megatron.

Galvatron, he had the name burned in his mind.

However, there was also something else in the back of his mind, a strange sort of Transformer, neither Decepticon or Autobot but somehow similar, smaller and seemingly with organic components. It was bizarre.

Where the hell did that being came from?

Somehow he knew, this other one was him in a strange way.

Anyway, caging him here together with the insane clone was possibly the worst punishment his double could have imagined.

He remembered what happened 15 Earth years ago, how he had allowed Shockwave to talk him into letting him create a copy of himself.

Of course the clone went insane and attacked him in the matter of only a few months.

It was all still fresh in his mind, even the one thing that wasn´t in the official records, that nobody knew beside Sunstorm, Megatron, Soundwave and himself; only one small detail, the most shameful one for him that Megatron in some twisted act of kindness had kept to himself.

In the end the clone, Sunstorm had him at his mercy and for some reason changed his mind and decided not to kill him. He had spared him.