Journal entry; fear the big one

I was subjected to hours of shouts and lectures by every uppity up in the base, not to mention that Ironhide had a few choice words for me. I didn't argue with a one of them. Didn't even really say anything unless it was required. They were right and I couldn't deny it.

Optimus finally deemed that he needed to speak with me in private and that's where I found out that no matter how kind, benevolent, caring, soft, sweet, ~whatever~ all those fanfictions and profile sites said about the GIANT alien leader, when he glared at you he was downright terrifying.

~Aurian Fae

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Optimus looked down at the repentant woman standing on his desk looking for all the world like she wished she had something to crawl under. He was not pleased with several things that the woman had spoken of in the past few Earth days and was determined to stop it before she did any further damage, however looking at her he could see that she knew she had done wrong and was completely willing to accept whatever he would do without any argument. It was not what he was expecting to say the least.

"I didn't mean it." She spoke softly, but Optimus's superior audio receivers could easily pick up the quiet words. "I wasn't really thinking. I just kinda...I don't know. I thought he needed to know."

"Why?" He tried to keep the anger out of his voice but her wince was an obvious indication he had failed.

"Because if it had been me, I'd have wanted to know." She explained miserably. "Jazz was a good friend to him, don't you think he at least deserved to know the truth?"

"The truth? Yes. The details? I think those could have been spared."

"Yeah...probably." Aurian shuffled her feet a little before looking up at the Autobot leader, a mix of honest sorrow and something else that Optimus couldn't quite place playing across her face. "But without the details, it's only a half truth at best."

Optimus was unsure how to respond to that. It was true that even he viewed a half truth as fraudulent and wouldn't stand for it, so did that mean that she had been right? By those standards, yes, but still. Sideswipe was one of the younger mechs and despite whatever he may have seen in his lifetime of war was it really that prudent to describe Jazz's death so completely? "Perhaps." He gave, at least he could see her point of view.

"What, um, did you tell Ironhide?" Aurian knew that her most recent blunder wasn't the only thing that the large mech wanted to discuss with her so thought she might as well move the conversation on now that he didn't seem as upset about this particular one.

"I told him the truth." Optimus sighed, "I hadn't intended to keep the shard a secret from the others. I simply wished to wait for a more appropriate time."

"Oh."

"I wanted to avoid the false hope that the shard may represent to them." He lowered his head slightly as he continued, "It is merely a shard and does not have the power within it to resurrect our planet. I knew that once they discovered that it existed that they would demand we try."

"Is that what he wanted to do?"

"Yes." Optimus considered his next move for a long moment before he retrieved a small object from one of his storage panels. "It is dead, for all terms and purposes. It cannot bring our world back. It cannot even repair its self." He dropped the small object before Aurian and she found herself trapped between giddy joy at seeing the detailed carvings on the small thing and absolute horror at knowing that was all that was left of the one device that could have saved the Cybertronians.

"Oh, Gods, Optimus!" Aurian walked slowly around the jagged piece of unusual metal. She wanted to touch it, she wanted to see if she could pull it apart and see how it worked, she wanted to make it whole again...she wanted to do something! "Could it..." She paused to think out her next words carefully. She didn't want to repeat her past two flummoxes yet again.

"Yes?" Optimus prodded. Even if it was suspicious all the things this young human knew, she had a different way of looking at things and he was interested to know what she thought of the chunk of metal that no longer represented the hope of their entire race.

"Is it possible that it might be able to resurrect a mech?" She looked at the leader to gauge his reaction. She didn't think that her question was out of line, or that it could cause any harm. It was, after all, just a theory.

Optimus pondered the thought. The humans from Sector Seven had used the residual energies from the Allspark to generate life within their own inanimate objects, so could it do the same for a once live mech? And if it could, would that mech be actually alive or would it just be animate? "That I think is a question best answered by Ratchet."

"Oh." Aurian turned to study the little piece of metal again, "He doesn't know yet, does he?"

"No." Aurian wasn't entirely sure but she thought the Autobot leader had just groaned.

"He's not gonna be happy, is he?" It was a statement, not a question. "I won't say anything. I promise." She closed her eyes briefly as she scolded herself for her previous moments of stupidity. "Okay, I will try my best anyway. I don't always think once my mouth starts running. I just follow the train of thought to its end, unfortunately sometimes it ends badly...okay, recently most of the time it ends badly."

"I think its time you told me everything you know so we may avoid future incidences."

"I don't know that I can promise everything." Aurian saw the dark look take over the large mechs face as he glared at her, "I mean, cripes! What I meant was that I know a lot of stuff, I can't guarantee that I'll remember everything right here and now, but like I said before I'll tell you everything I can remember."

"Hmm." Optimus sounded suspicious.

Aurian groaned, 'great, this is all I need', she thought to herself miserably. "This would be easier if I had Ruby."

"Who's Ruby?"

"Not who, what. Ruby's my laptop. The computer that Will confiscated when he brought me here. Well, wherever he took me anyway."

"I may be able to arrange for that." Aurian was happy to hear that. Ruby may not have been a living thing but the laptop had been an integral part of her life for several years and she missed the small comfort it's humming hard drive gave her. Kind of like a security blanket for nerds. Optimus sent out a signal to someone, who Aurian didn't know, she only knew that the message had been sent by the horrible sound that consumed her brain for a few seconds.

"I really wish you guys wouldn't do that around me." She moaned, one hand pressing against her forehead trying to relieve the sudden headache. Another waive of the heinous sound alerted her to someones response and she groaned again.

"Why don't we begin while we wait. Tell me about these...'fan fic's'? you told Ironhide of."

"Oh!" Aurian felt a wave of excitement as she thought of all the questions that fanfictions had created that she may now be able to get answered by the leader of the Autobots himself! "They're stories."

"Yes, Ironhide said that they were human speculations on how we have come to be and the things we have done."

"Exactly!" She nearly hopped with her joy, "So, are you Bumblebee's creator?" The dead silence made Aurian realize that once more, she had opened her mouth and let the wrong words fall out. "Oh, um...is that a secret too? Or, is it not true? I just ask because I've read so many...Optimus?"

The large bot had stood as Aurian tried to explain herself and she was afraid she was about to see a repeat of Sideswipe's disappearing act as he moved toward the large door of his office. However, instead of leaving he punched a code into the panel beside the door and she heard the unmistakable sound of locks engaging. 'Oh, Hell! She thought desperately, 'He's going to kill me.'

"What would bring you to believe such a thing?" Optimus turned back toward the woman, his optics focused intently on her.

"Rampant fanfiction theory." She stated. Her heart raced but she knew now that the large mech did not have her imminent demise in mind...or processor, however you wanted to think of it. "It was always written as a 'rumor' that was never really outright denied, a few times it was even confirmed through some of the stories. I guess my real question should have been is it really only the Allspark that could create life for you guys? Or is it possible for a femme and a mech to create a life on their own?"

Optimus sighed, he had never really thought about discussing their reproduction with an alien before and it really wasn't something he wanted to do. "I thought we were going to discuss what you know, not what you're curious of."

"Oh." Aurian was disappointed but she couldn't blame the mech. She had kind of dropped a bombshell on him and if the Allspark really had been their only way to create life then likely it was a very sensitive subject. Hell, even if it was something that a femme and mech paring could do, there was hardly a femme to be seen right now.

"You predicted Sideswipe's arrival, even that he would be without his twin. Lets start there."

"Okay. Well, the news posts had a list of tentative Autobot arrivals. Like I said before Arcee is most likely due to arrive since they already had her design for the first movie but decided not to follow through." She had to pause and think for a while, "There was another one they mentioned, oh who was it? Started with a 'C' or something like that..." Aurian made a few 'ch' and 'ka' noises trying to spur the name into her own mind. "Jolt!" She finally announced proudly.

"That does not start with a 'C', or anything that sounds like that." Optimus pointed out confused.

"I know." Aurian waived it off as nothing of great concern. In all actuality she did that a lot and was used to the fact that others had a hard time dealing with her odd way of remembering things. To her she had remembered that the name had rhymed with the vehicle alt mode the mech was supposed to take on and that sounded similar to a baby horse, a colt. Hence to her, the name started with a 'C'. "I wonder if they'll bring in Prowl? Well, probably not since his alt is also a police car, they probably would think it'd be too confusing after Barricade." Aurian paced along the desk as she thought out loud, forgetting that she had actually been talking to Optimus. "I wonder how he'll take Jazz's death. Poor guy. I can't even imagine..." Her voice trailed off as her thoughts ran away with her over the many different thoughts that had been wide spread through the fandom considering the two mechs.

Optimus for his part was stunned by the woman's rambling. She continued to simply reference things that there was no way for her to know. He had become somewhat use to the idea that what she said about a movie and fandom were, if not true to the world, were true to her but it still did not stop the shock every time something new was presented that was part of the 'she could not know that' type. When Ironhide had come to him fuming about the Allspark shard Optimus had been beside himself with absolute astonishment and then went on about this thing called 'fan fic' where people had written about them? That was beyond belief. Not to mention that Ironhide had been completely distraught that the woman had speculated that he had been Bumblebee's caretaker.

"But if Ratchet could use the shard to bring back Jazz, that wouldn't be a problem." Aurian continued completely oblivious to the large mech's dazed expression. She walked over to the shard and lifted it, granted it was large in her hands, but still small enough for her to easily handle. "If it has enough power left that is. I wonder how it's supposed to work."

"The Sector Seven humans knew how to access the Allspark's potential." Optimus finally spoke, startling the woman who had forgotten that he had been listening to her and she dropped the fragment looking almost guilty for having touched it. "It may not be such a bad idea to see if they could do so again."

"But Sector Seven was disbanded."

"That does not mean that their information has been."

"Right! So, you're going to ask these government guys for it? But shouldn't you tell the others about the shard before that...I mean, to avoid more, um...outbursts?"

"You are correct." Optimus sighed, "I should not have kept it from them for so long in the first place."

At that moment there came an odd sound that Aurian could not identify but Optimus was jolted out of his musings and turned to the door. He keyed in the code to release the locks and greeted whomever was on the other side, bent to retrieve something and bid farewell to them before closing the door once more. Optimus reached his hand out toward Aurian and she was overjoyed to see her small red laptop within. "Ruby!" She exclaimed as she grabbed up the small machine and looked it over intently.

"They claim no damage has been done to this item."

"I'm sure they did," Aurian grumbled as she rubbed at a small scuff on the top of the machine, "They don't want to have to replace it. Not that they could." She plopped herself down on the oversized desk and booted up the laptop. "Did they even show you what was on here?" She asked somewhat perturbed.

"It is 'password protected'."

"Riiiiiiight," Aurian gave him a look that Optimus knew meant that she knew that was not true, "like they don't have their very own team of hackers that couldn't get past my password." The machine made a pleasant noise as it booted up. "You believed them? Cause they lied to you. I'll tell you that right now."

"I did not see a reason to question them at the time. You were more then willing to disclose whatever it was that you knew, so whatever information may have been stored on your personal device did not seem important." Optimus returned to his seat and watched as Aurian searched through her files bringing up random things as she went. "Was I incorrect?"

"No." She stated flatly, "There's really nothing on here that I would have hidden from you, but you didn't believe me when I told you where I got my information from, so shouldn't you have checked to make sure I didn't have some," Aurian changed her tone to something mocking a horror movie announcer, "'evil Decepticon plans for world domination'?" She smiled at the look Optimus gave her. "I don't, but I'm just saying if I were you, I'd have looked." Aurian laughed a little to herself and repositioned herself so that the larger mech could see the screen of her laptop better. "Can you see alright?"

"Yes."

"Okay, here we go then..." Aurian started with a file dubbed 'G1 TF classic' and brought up several images for Optimus to see, shortly describing each one as she went. "These are all from the original cartoon." She stated as she continued to name each character the images represented. "Look! Here's you even!" She brought up several images that Optimus found amusingly similar to himself. After several minutes of browsing through these images she moved on to a file labeled 'G1 TF fanart'. "These are pictures that people drew, painted, colored, created with some form of digital art program or recreated somehow." She explained.

Optimus was taken aback by some of the images, how alive they seemed to be. "You are sure that the people who created these images have never before seen a Cybertronian?" He asked skeptically.

"Not unless they found themselves in a situation like I have, no." Aurian paused in her ministrations, "I guess if it's happened to me then it could have happened to someone else. But then they would have had to find a way to get back to the way it was before...can I go back? I mean, I really don't know what happened for things to end up this way. There was no Earthquake to suck me down or any huge explosion throwing me into an alternate universe as far as I'm aware of. I just...woke up. Hmm..." She shook her head, "No, if these people had this happen to them either they wouldn't have wanted to go back or they wouldn't have ended up such big fans. And I'm sure they would have said something." She continued through the pictures, pausing momentarily to admire one depicting an altered form of what Optimus knew had to be Bumblebee. "It's Bee as a sparkling! How cute."

"Sparkling?" Optimus was thrown.

"Yeah, I already went through that with Ratchet. Yes, I know the term 'sparkling', it's used often as the term for infant Cybertronians and I also know the term 'youngling' used for Cybertronians that are no longer sparklings but are not yet adults. He never told me if they were right or not."

Optimus studied the woman as she continued on through the documents she had. "The terms are correct." He finally stated.

"Really?" Aurian turned to Optimus with a look of pure wonderment. "That's so awesome. To think, all those fans out there writing about them were right. I wonder how that happened. Is it because so many people believed it or is it just a coincidence?"

Aurian had unwittingly stopped on a picture that Optimus found rather intriguing, "Who is that?" He asked indicating the image.

"Oh," Aurian glanced at it a second, "thats Rodimus Prime. He became Prime after...um..." Aurian didn't know how to go any further then what she had already said. Obviously what she knew of this new character hadn't come to pass and she really didn't know if she wanted to know if it would. "Is there an Autobot named 'Hot Rod'?" She asked hesitantly.

Optimus thought for a moment, "There is an Autobot who's designation could be translated into the human English phrase as 'Hot Rod', yes."

"Oh." She turned her attentions back to her laptop almost mournfully. "What is the Matrix like?" She asked quietly.

All of Optimus's systems froze at the simple question. It was something that would be expected to be heard from a youngling as all question deactivation at some point and have to come to terms with what it really means but from a human it was horribly out of place. "You know of the Matrix?"

"Yeah." Aurian gave him a suffering look, something that said she almost wished she didn't. "I know about it but what is it like?"

Optimus wondered at her tone, it was full of sorrow and curiosity all at the same time. "It is a place of peace, where all are one and there is no sorrow, pain or suffering."

"Do you forget who you were? Who your friends were?"

"It is said that your knowledge becomes a part of the whole and the whole becomes part of you. It is not so much forgetting as it is remembering everything anyone has ever known. What makes you ask of such a thing?"

"I don't know...I guess death." She quickly moved past the picture of Rodimus Prime on her laptop and continued to explain the variations of different characters that were left. Optimus was concerned over the quick change in subject, did she know of something that was to happen to Hot Rod? His attention was effectively diverted however when she moved on to the next file deemed 'Movie 2007 TF' and he began to see pictures of everything that had transpired since their arrival on Earth. "I even have some of the tailors on here..." Aurian laughed somewhat evilly as she brought up a short movie clip that advertised the emanate release of the Transformers movie in 2007. "I told you there was a movie." She explained seeming satisfied by Optimus's stunned silence.

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Journal entry continued; I told you so

Okay, I've heard all the cautions, warnings and pleas against media pirating but right now the only thing I can say is; 'I'm a pirate and I think it just saved my ass'.

~Aurian Fae

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Okay; I call this a slow chapter. I thought it was pretty boring while I was writing it but deemed it nessecary.

For any who want to question any part of this story....quite simply I've read so many fanfictions that I've just congomorated the ideas into something and that's what I'm running with. For the time I'm staying away from any spacific ideas. However!! Any questions are still welcome, I will answer everything I can without giving away my story. Any tips/ideas/pointer are also welcomed. I'm open and willing to consider pretty much anything at this point.

I hope you've enjoyed this chapter!!!

Thanx again FORD B. and all my readers!!

Reviews are much appreciated if you've got a moment!