-Deep space, unknown lightyears away from Earth-
One might have wondered what life would be like outside our galaxy, even though many advanced species had already left and explored much of the outer rims, who knew what lay behind the last star of the Milky Way. But if someone were to travel some distance away from our galaxy, between the third arm and the Large Magellanic Cloud, lay a starship on a bizarre world of metal, surrounded by four moons, each one respectively yellow, green, blue, and red. And far below, on the world that they surrounded, was a massive city.
Some miles away, an ancient Cybertronian drove across the metal plains towards the city, hoping to find some answers.
He stopped, transformed, and Nova Prime peered forward to the distant city. It had appeared driving here instead of awaiting the Ark's repairs to complete was taking far longer than what he had expected, the four moons above shining from the pale red star in the horizon. Nova Prime could not help but wonder why the moons looked like the moons that orbited Cybertron. Quite eerily, it reminded Nova of his trips to the enormous hot spots on Luna 1, before he initiated the spark slicing plan with the Matrix, which he had left in Cybertron's core.
Hopefully it would still be there when he got off this place.
The ancient Prime recollected what had happened behind him; his ship, tumbling through the dark wormhole, a new universe to conquer, and only to find he and his crew deceived by some means and thrown outside the galaxy onto this strange world. He and the others barely had time to register the new worlds before them, as what appeared to be a monstrous yellow spark flung itself at the ship and crippled it's engines. Cyclonus had called it faith, calling them to a new destiny awaited by Primus himself. Galvatron had just simply put it as bad luck. Jhiaxus had gone off to collect samples and other data on the world, and had requested the Ark's first mission outside the galaxy to be exploring the city in front of Nova Prime. He called the anomaly that attacked them the Hyperspark, because a spark the size of of a minibot should not even be possible.
"This accursed land, my spark wanes for me to leave..." Nova mumbled to himself, kneeling before the ground. It felt so much like Cybertron. Unnaturally so.
The city's twinkling lights shined a light blue; with smaller, more feeble buildings gradually growing bigger in the center until a central spire that must have stretched several miles high soared in the air, with what looked like a small, cylindrical room at the very top. The lights were on, which meant that someone or something was home.
Nova Prime arrived and transformed just outside the city's walls, which had looked like they hadn't been touched in a million years, reaching higher than Nova could stand. A small film of space dust had coated the outer layers, undisturbed due to the lack of an atmosphere. The black and white Prime pressed a hand on the wall, the dust flaking off in a small cloud, which revealed a small keypad. The numerals were Cybertronian, ancient Cybertronian, which only led to more questions that might only be answered in the city itself.
Nova Prime stared at the keypad blankly. He had read about this language after he and Galvatron had unified the thirteen tribes' millennia ago. It was said to be the language of Primus himself, gifted to Prima after he had embedded Cybertron with his prodigy, and sank into the core of the planet. But what was this ancient language doing here on this metal world? Was this another Cybertron, with four moons instead of two? Well, now one; Luna 2 was gone; disappeared after the Mortilus conflict with the Guiding Hand, believed to be destroyed in a cataclysmic explosion.
The Prime, though a genius, was hardly one to memorize an unspoken language older than Cybertron itself. Nova Prime turned on his comm-link with Jhiaxus, "Jhiaxus, get over here. I require your expertise in forgotten languages."
"Might I send Cyclonus, my Liege?" Jhiaxus asked, "Surely you would accept someone who went to the Vosian Linguist Academy instead of a scientist?" Nova Prime pressed the bridge of his optic ridges together in frustration; Jhiaxus might be one of his top scientists, but he could be quite the nuisance when it came to actually getting work done. Maybe the Monstructor event took more than just his image.
"Fine, send him and Galvatron over to me, and be quick about it! We have already bargained enough time as it is." Nova Prime turned off the comm-link and stared at the wall.
As he got a better glimpse of it, there seemed to be a huge dent on the wall's exterior, almost as if someone was trying to get in. The film of dust that lay around the indentations were thicker than the layer on it. Strange, that must have meant that someone was here before him.
But as Nova Prime walked towards a smaller dent and brushed off the dust, he realized it was not a dent at all.
It was a blast crater.
Hundreds of them pocketed the entire wall, which seemed to stretch for miles. The Prime could not help but wonder what kind of force tried to enter the city, and where they might be now. Hopefully nowhere soon; all of the blast marks seemed to have the same amount of dust on each of them, which meant that they were probably all created at the same time.
'What army could attack this sort of fortification and lose?' Nova Prime thought to himself, but already his question was answered when he remembered how easily the Hyperspark took down the Ark and then vanished mere seconds afterwards. Even with an army as supposedly large as the one that attacked here, Nova guessed that something here went on a rampage and annihilated every interloper.
But if there was a battle, why were there no blast marks on the ground, or no pieces of limbs anywhere to be seen? There wasn't even a shard of something that looked remotely otherworldly on this place. All there was were flat metal plains and the occasional ore outcrop. There was nothing to hold evidence that an army was here at all, other than the craters.
This place had many untold secrets.
Nova Prime wanted to know them all.
He turned around to see his Lord High Protector Galvatron and his second-in-command Cyclonus arrive at his location. Galvatron, the huge purple tank-former, transformed right in front of Nova, his orange antimatter cannon positioned on his right arm. He took a glimpse of the city walls and cringed. It was just going to be another exploratory mission.
Cyclonus touched down right behind Galvatron, the old jet-former landing with grace too typical of a Vosian. The horns on his head twitched. It was obvious, as a very devout Cybertronian, that this place could hold many answers to his own religion. He walked over to the keypad and studied the odd glyphs intensely.
"Anything?" Nova asked impatiently.
"Have patience, Lord Nova," Galvatron spoke to the Prime, "Cyclonus will tell us what the symbols are. It is only a matter of time."
"Time that we may not have, Galvatron." Nova Prime responded as Cyclonus returned.
"Well?"
"It's old Cybertronian, very old Cybertronian. I remember these symbols being written on the sides of Metrotitans and the rings that orbit Vector Sigma, and as a student of the Clavis Aurea I was to read them as if my life depended on it. I and my fellow students used to praise them for their holy teachings. It is said that he who could translate these symbols into modern tongue would find the answers to eternal peace, and the resting place for the Guiding Hand." Cyclonus stopped for a while to let this info sink in, and continued.
"The four moons above, the city behind the wall, and the ancient Cybertronian text could have led us to what could be, quite possibly, Nova Prime, one of the greatest discoveries in the history of Cybertron."
"And what might that be, Cyclonus?" Nova asked.
"Nova, I think… I think this is Cyberutopia."
"Cyberutopia. As in the entirely fictional Cyberutopia?" Galvatron scoffed. "Please Cyclonus, I know your religion counts for a good majority of your past time, but be serious."
"I'm feeling it in my spark that this is Cyberutopia!" Cyclonus urged, "I know it is!"
"You are correct, Cyclonus. And it is great to see you again, Nova. Quite impressive for one who has not been shown the Light of Primus inherently." A new, proud voice called out from the horizon as the thunderous claps of marching metal echoed through the air. Nova pulled out his ion cannons as Galvatron and Cyclonus followed suite. The source of the marching rose and from out of the horizon stood nearly ten thousand golden robots, led by a singular figure.
What Nova Prime saw made his energon boil as a familiar face made himself known.
"You…"
...
-Earth, Chicago-
Ethan hated people who didn't appreciate his work. Sure, he was just a medic, but he knew he had a knack for inventing little gadgets and other doo-dads that might serve some use to him later. Holly liked them because she would disassemble something he made in his spare time and watch in fascination as the human medical officer remade the broken pieces into something new. Once or twice she would ask him to make something for him, and thankfully she respected him enough to consider his opinion on the matter. The others were the same way, except for Samantha who wanted Ethan to make her some "private" things. At she still had some sort of humility towards Ethan.
At KSI however, it was another story.
"Hey, watch those needles!" He yelled, yet again, to the other people working on Stinger. He wondered how in the world KSI was able to recreate artificial Transformers when their top scientists were complete morons when it came to programming a single one of them. For past couple of hours, Ethan had gotten some assistance from some of KSI's scientists, or as Ethan would call it "Cybertronian Anatomy 101 for Morons". If Ethan wanted help he would have called Flatline, or Shockwave, or even Wildrider. But no, he was stuck with imbeciles who couldn't tell the difference between an arm link and an optic ridge. Thankfully, Ethan had given then menial tasks such as polishing Stinger's chrome and improving her joints rather than getting them anywhere near Stinger's precious codex.
While he didn't have the materials to make a false spark or a shatterspark, he improvised by making a program that would behave like a spark, implanted inside of Stinger's codex. Bless you Zoey, Ethan thought as he continued to type away. The little girl that Dead End loved had shown Ethan some of her tricks. He'd never knew that she'd actually be able to create a spark program on a computer.
"Look kid, just let me do my job." One of the whitecoats, a chubby guy with a Rainbow Dash pen in his breast pocket said to the boy.
"And using a soldering iron on her optics is your job?" Ethan shot back sarcastically, and a couple of the other whitecoats snickered at their berated friend. When he got back up, he made sure that he got hold of a welder and a piece of hard glass.
"Look," he began, "what to do is first get an outline of her optic, and then put a metal outline around the glass." He pointed to Stinger's red offline optic, seeing as though she wasn't online yet. Neither were the Traxes, but Ethan would get to them later. Stinger was KSI's crown jewel, and who knows, maybe Joyce would pay Ethan some big money in exchange. Though it was probably unlikely.
"Sure. Whatever kid." The chubby whitecoat flapped a hand at Ethan, leaving the boy to grumble some incomprehensible slurs as he sat back down to finish Stinger's AI program. He just wanted out of here so badly. Maybe when he was back, and that was including telling Megatron everything about this damn place, he and the rest of the Stuntikids would go out somewhere to eat. New York City, Ethan's home city, sounded like a great place to go and visit.
"How are things going?" Joyce popped his head in the small glass room inside the massive storage area that held everything KSI was using to make Transformers. Ethan had requested that he be given some level of privacy in his work, which included the glass walls, a separately linked computer out of KSI's network, and a whole stack of Hostess chocolate cupcakes. This would mark the second time Joyce had came into Ethan's little lab, and the boy wished that the billionaire would have some degree of patience instead of just barging in given no warning.
"I'm just about done creating the false spark here. There were some imperfections to Stinger's chassis so I had your retard posse behind us do that. Unfortunately, Stinger might have been able to test her targeting systems by now, but of course those idiots," Ethan gestured with a thumb to the giggling scientists who made human genitalia out of wire and raw transformium, "were too busy mucking around to be any help." Joyce yelled something to the giggling group behind them, but Ethan blocked them out.
"And when will you be done?" Joyce asked after berating his nearly fired employees.
"Just finished." Ethan said, and Joyce recoiled slightly in surprise, making an "Oh." sound.
"And now I will upload the program to Stinger's integrated codex." Ethan plugged a small thumb-drive into his arm and the mechanical limb began to glow with a white light, vibrating wildly as well. Joyce looked on with surprise at what Ethan was going, and as he pulled out the thumb-drive he realized that he had redesigned the little device into something smaller. "This will provide her with all of the necessary things she will need; targeting, weapon systems and a whole mess of other stuff, including some very important people in her life."
"You're not converting her into a Decepticon, are you?" Joyce accused Ethan, and the boy just laughed.
"You might have made her from 'Con parts, but that doesn't mean she's going to be one. I'm programming her just like you said; the elite guards-woman that she is supposed to be."
Joyce smiled widely. "Will she know me?"
"Of course. She'll also know all every KSI worker here, and the Traxes of course. She won't know me because you would probably erase me from her memories anyway. She'll acknowledge humanity as an equal species and will view them as her creators, plus I programmed her to follow your instructions to the latter and to refer to you as Master Joyce."
"Master Joyce? Really?" The inventor raised an eyebrow and laughed. "Clever."
"Hm." Ethan walked over to Stinger's head and opened up a small sliver of a case open and placed the little device inside.
"She'll need a jolt of energon to start her systems." Ethan said, and then was reminded of another interesting fact about Stinger. "Oh, and don't worry about getting any more; I noticed that Stinger has some sort of systematic auto-regeneration that allows her to have limitless energy. How'd you do that?"
"There were some blips when we made her. We integrated her t-cog and then something happened, we don't know what."
Ethan turned to Joyce. "You mean you've never even tested her transforming abilities?"
"We've run the simulations; each time she preforms without fault. We decided that it would be good enough."
"Well," Ethan put his hands on his hips in the form of fists. "Looks like we're gonna find out. You do have energon, right?"
"We do. Wembly, the vial." Joyce snapped his fingers and the chubby whitecoat with the My Little Pony pen rushed forward containing a tube of innermost energon, the bright white glow of the potent substance eerily reminding the boy of some impending doom. Grabbing the vial, he clambered up the inactive form of Stinger, easing himself above her chest. The vial was then lowered gently inside of Stinger, carefully placed underneath her slim bust.
"Hold on to yer butts." Ethan quoted the famous line and pressed the vial down, the white liquid slowly emptying into Stinger's body. As the last drop fell inside the femme, there was pregnant pause in the entire warehouse. Silence reigned supreme as Ethan, Joyce and the other scientists watched and waited, hoping for a response.
All they got was Stinger's slender fingers twitching.
"Was that it?" Ethan asked to the general populace. "Maybe we should-"
Out of nowhere, Stinger erupted from her slab, launching a screaming Ethan into the air. As glass panes were shattered as Stinger started to thrash around wildly, grabbing a screaming Ethan out of the air. The rest of the scientists booked it out of the warehouse as security and Darcy rushed in to stop the seemingly enraged femme. Said femme was screaming a war-cry straight at the boy's face, bathing him in hot air. All Ethan did was put his hands in the air as if under arrest. Stinger's right forearm reformatted itself to become some sort of cannon shaped like a pincer. Now Ethan squealed for his life when the barrel of the gun started to glow orange with lethal energy, primed to vaporize his poor ass.
"INTRUDER!" Stinger yelled at the top of her vocalizer, "State your business or die!" Ethan thought that she sounded gorgeous, and her booming voice easily supplemented her being a combat specialist, even if it were being used against him right now with a gun at his face.
"Stinger, stop this instant!" Joyce rushed forward so that Stinger wouldn't cause a lawsuit or further problems with the Decepticons.
Stinger's pearlescent optic covers retracted back into her slick head to get a better view of the person she was programmed to obey. Still holding onto the boy, she leaned down to get a better view of the billionaire. Her true ruby red optics shined brightly towards Joyce. It was her master, the one who created her!
"Master Joyce?"
"Yes Stinger. Now be a good girl and drop the boy." Joyce gestured to the panicking Decepticon in her hand.
"Why? He's an intruder, and a Decepticon no less!" Stinger's fury returned as she glared at Ethan with self-righteous optics, believing herself to be in the right.
"He also brought you to life." Joyce explained, and Stinger seemed to gape considering she had no mouth.
"WHAT?!" Stinger screamed, and her EMF seemed to go haywire at the truth being spoken. A Decepticon had helped her master? "No! You're lying! If you're right Master Joyce then tell me the truth!"
"I am telling you the truth."
Stinger now looked like she was greatly disturbed, the pincer-cannon-thing shaking ever so slightly. A Decepticon had made her, and her internal CPU was screaming at her to kill him. But Joyce didn't want her to kill the child, even if he was an enemy. Seeing as though she had to swallow the truth and take it like a big femme, she dropped the boy to the floor without bothering to be careful. Ethan flopped to the floor straight on his bum with a sharp yelp of pain.
"Does that mean-?"
"Oh no no no. You're far from a Decepticon, Stinger. You are part of KSI's brand new breed of Transformers, neither Autobot nor Decepticon." Joyce began to explain, but was interrupted when an angry-looking man with gray hair marched up to Joyce. A pair of purple-blue shades hid his eyes from anyone looking, and he seemed to not care about the Decepticon child nor the KSI femme standing near him.
"Joyce." The man said, with a clear intention of getting the billionaire's eye.
"What is it Savoy? Can't you see that I'm working here?"
The man, Savoy, pointed at Ethan. "Well, your little working buddy over there? Energon detectors just picked up five targets just outside of Chicago, each of them matching Decepticon signals." The man held up a large holopad and shoved it in Joyce's arms, giving him an ample view of Chicago and the five glowing yellow dots on the map bearing towards his headquarters.
Joyce turned to stare at Ethan, and the boy felt the heat of Stinger's cannon behind him. All he could do is point at his mechanical arm and say one word.
"GPS."
"Great." Savoy raised his hands in the air in frustration. "You said that we'd have the Traxes armed and ready for deployment a week ago! Did you need purple boy over there for help too?"
"The name's Ethan, jerkoff."
Savoy decided that words wouldn't do good against a rebuttal like that, so he just whipped out his pistol and pointed the barrel right at Ethan's face. Knowing that not only one, but two guns were now aimed right as his slim body clammed Ethan like a tin can. Probably wasn't wise to annoy the angry man.
"You say one more word, and I'm putting a hole in your head."
"Savoy, the last thing we need to do is kill him." Joyce tried to calm down Savoy, but the black-suited man was having none of it.
"And why not? Let your little science experiment turn him into ash, one less Decepticon to deal with."
"How about you just let me go?" Ethan offered his advice, but wasn't heard.
"Because if we do kill him, do you think his friends will just idle by and not think anything of it? He's not the drones you've been hunting down; he's a medical officer, the important kind. The ones that take care of everyone else? And we sure as hell don't have anything to throw at them yet." Joyce said to Savoy, and the man relinquished his firearm back into its holster.
"So what can we do?"
Stinger took a step forward.
"I've got an idea."