Chapter one: The Introduction

Since the war ended, many Autobots suffered from something humans called PTSD, so Optimus ordered many of us to seek help. A Human therapist suggested I write down my thoughts or to catalog my memories, seeing as I'm far too big to hold a pencil, a Cybertronian data log will do, also I want to clear something up in case any humans end up reading this; 1 cycle = 1 day, 1 Astro cycle = 1 year, I use the term "cycle" because the human version sounds boring to me.

My name is Deadzone, I am an Autobot hailing from the planet Cybertron, well what's left of it at least. In case anyone is curious, I transform into a black BMW M4.

I arrived on Earth in a stasis pod, woke up in 2016 after a stray Decepticon missile broke me out of my stasis, when I did wake up, everything was dark, turns out my stasis pod landed on Earth a couple hundred Astro cycles ago, I didn't wake up because the pod malfunctioned and over the course of over 240 Astro cycles, I was slowly buried by time and earth, I'm not a big bot so it didn't take long to bury me fully, anyway I'm getting off topic, I had to dig myself out, which wasn't easy, I'd just woke up from a 4 million Astro cycle power nap, I barely had any reserved energon in me to dig myself out.

Over the course of several cycles, I finally dug myself out, I was in an old train yard (well I didn't know that at first), and when I looked around, I saw no trace of any Decepticons, just a pool of energon and a bunch of small bipedal creatures (I would later find out these are called Humans), they had other Humans in airtight suits cleaning up the energon spill. At first it was just confusing, then fear once they noticed my presence, I was ready to run, but without any energon left in my systems I couldn't even walk, the Humans begun to swarm around me like a bunch of Scraplets, they didn't attack however, instead they simply held their ground around me, waiting for me to make the first move, then I finally gave up and collapsed from energon deficiency.

I woke up again in a facility, my body still felt like slag, I began to look around and noticed something, I was in an Autobot medical bay, surrounded by multiple Autobots, even Perceptor, who is usually off making a new serum for his synthetic energon project. Many Autobots were asking me questions, but I was still too weak to respond, I was hooked up to an energon pump, I was so low on energon that even Perceptor was surprised that I was alive, how I survived? I'll get to that part later.

After a couple cycles in the medical bay, I grew impatient and walked myself out to see of the new base of operations, it was an underground bunker directly under a mountain. Many Autobots that I've met before and even became friends with were here aswell, including Bumblebee, working with Prowl to train more recruits, both Human and Cybertronian; Rachet, helping Wheeljack make an engine part for the Ark, and Optimus himself, talking to a group of humans and Ultra Magnus, all of them were talking in a language I didn't know, Ratchet would later teach me English, at the best of his abilities.

A lot of Autobots were stunned to see me up and walking, Rachet even ran over to make sure I didn't fall over, at first I was confused, then Rachet said that I was leaking energon, turns out my impatience to get out of the medical bay opened up a wound I got during my entry into Earth's atmosphere (explains why I was so drained when I first broke out of stasis). Rachet quickly got me back to the medical bay and laid me back down.

A couple more cycles passed and Sideswipe, the first Autobot I've ever met, and my oldest friend, greeted me with that annoying gesture he does, he puts both hands in the air and says "energon!", a throwback to when I first met him, he never let it down.

"How's the wound?"

I told him that it should be healed by now, Sideswipe then gave me a tour of the place. The Autobots dug out a massive cavern around the Ark, a massive ship that Optimus crashed here on Earth, I was one of the members on this ship before it was shot down by a Decepticon warship, Optimus ordered most of the crew to abandon ship via the stasis pods, and one by one we were ejected off the ship; the ship itself drifted through space and landed on Earth 4 million Astro cycles ago, I drifted through space for a long time before I landed on Earth, apparently most of the Autobots that stayed onboard didn't wake up either as most of the subsystems were offline, many of the Autobots woke up around the time that I crashed, I'm surprised they didn't find me.

During that time, the Decepticon warship that shot down the Ark, the Nemesis, also ended up in this solar system apparently, tracking the Ark after losing contact with it after the damaged Ark drifted into a nebula cloud, I later found out that the Nemesis was set to land on Earth, but a collision from within an astroid belt between Mars and Jupiter sent it off course and it crashed on Earth's moon instead.

Sideswipe first took me to the armoury, surprisingly stocked with weapons; on the Ark, the armoury was mostly empty besides a couple guns and an E.M.P device as a last resort, but here there were tons of weapons, ion cannons, proton disrupters, even a neutron pulse rifle, I wasn't looking for a gun though, I was looking for my weapon, it wasn't here though.

I was then taken to the research facility, Perceptor was there working on an energon matrix with Wheeljack, both too preoccupied to notice us.

After that, Sideswipe was taking me to the communications relay, but as we were heading there, something caught my optic; it was a memorial, for fallen Autobots and humans alike, it felt melancholic, Autobots I've known were on this wall, with their signature weapon hanging above their name, below the Autobots were hundreds of names of fallen humans, also with something they owned above their names.

I scanned the wall, reading the countless names on them, so many names, most of them I've never met, but felt cold anyway. I found a few I recognized:

• Getaway, even though he betrayed us by giving up our location to the Decepticons, he was still technically an Autobot, however his plaque was worn, it was never polished like the others. He died after being eviscerated by Grimlock and the rest of the Dinobots.

• Sunstreaker, Sideswipe's twin, I could tell that Sideswipe wanted to move on to the other names. he died on Cybertron, gave up his life to protect the Ark from Starscream's seekers.

• Grapple, he saved my life once, I still regret not being able to save his. He was one of the few Autobots who's stasis pods malfunctioned.

• Metroplex, his weapon wasn't on the wall, it's too big to fit. He died after a fight with his counterpart Tripticon, both were destroyed when Metroplex detonated his own spark to prevent Tripticon from destroying the Ark, both were killed.

• Springer, didn't know him too well, knew he was infatuated with Arcee, but that's about it. He died after fighting off Starscream's seekers to protect the Ark.

• Snarl, he was one of the Autobots who stayed behind to protect the Ark after Getaway gave up its location. He died fending off Bruticus from almost killing his friend Slag.

Many other Autobots were on this wall, but I never met them before, could've been from colony worlds I don't know.

I was making my way down the memorial when a name caught me off guard, it was mine; apparently my life signal went offline when I crashed on Earth, since they couldn't find me anywhere, many Autobots presumed I was dead, "Died from unknown causes".

It felt so surreal, it's almost as if I was forgotten. Sideswipe told me that I stood there for a solid ten minutes just looking at my name, then I reached for the weapon above it, my weapon, a greatsword forged from the pits of Kaon, the breaker-blade; a weapon that could shear through even Megatron's armour like fresh slag, it was light for me, but for most Autobots, even for Ultra Magnus it had weight to it.

I can't remember the last time I picked up my own weapon and it felt like I was holding it for the first time, and for the first time in a long time, it felt heavy to me.

"Heavy, isn't it?" An unfamiliar voice said to me, I turned around and a female human was looking at me.

"Margret, Margret Kitcher, C.I.A analyst.", she spoke as if I knew what she was talking about;

"Though we normally don't take weapons off the memorial, considering that they belong to the names on the wall."

Sideswipe let out an audible chuckle.

"Now what is so funny lieutenant? this is a memorial, not a bargain bin."

"Ma'am, he is the owner of that weapon."

"Of course he is, and I'm Jesus."

"I'm afraid you are wrong, Margret.", a deep voice from behind us spoke.

Both of us turned around to find Optimus standing behind us.

"Sir", Margret stood straight,

"At ease, agent"

Optimus towered over Margret.

"This weapon does belong to this Autobot."

"Your telling me that this is Deadzone? The Deadzone?"

I have to admit, having my name emphasized like that felt reassuring.

"Yes, he was found in a train yard, buried"

Sideswipe chimed in, "Almost dead aswell, almost.".

"Well then, this is news I'll have to bring back to the Pentagon, as for you Deadzone, get aquatinted, you have work to do.", Margret walked off with Optimus.

"Sideswipe, see to it that Deadzone is fully aquainted."

"Yes Sir."

I remember asking Sideswipe if all humans were like that, he replied with, "No, just her, you get used to it.".

After taking another long look at the memorial, we went to the communications relay, nothing special, I was never the "sit and stare" type bot anyway.

Eventually we ended up in the recruitment platform, Autobots I've never even heard of were here, training against each other and even against humans in mechanical suits.

"Ah, just in time"

Prowl was waiting for me up ahead.

"Good to see you're up, and you have your weapon, good, let's get to training then."

"Uh Sir?"

"Go ahead Sideswipe."

"Isn't it a little early for that? I mean he did just kinda wake up from a 4 million Astro cycle power nap."

I remember telling Sideswipe that I would be fine, plus it would be good to stretch my servos. Sideswipe said he had to attend to something and that he would "catch me later", I wouldn't find out what that meant until cycles later. So then it was just Me, Prowl, and a bunch of recruits.

"Attention!" Prowl exclaimed.

"As most of you may know, Deadzone is back within the Autobot ranks, today he will be sparing against you."

This caught both me and the recruits off guard, then one of the recruits piped up.

"Are you sure major? I mean he is kind of small..."

The other recruits chuckled, Prowl and I Weren't as amused though.

"Ok then rookie, you can go first."

The recruit was taken aback, then stepped up to the ring, obviously nervous. I remember both of us just standing there, unmoving.

"Well rookie, go on, make the first move."

The recruit attempted to hit me, I just moved out of the way.

"Oh yeah, forgot to mention, Deadzone is a master at movement, it's sorta his thing."

The other recruits looked weary after Prowl said that.

The recruit attempted another hit, this time aiming for the gut, I moved out of the way again, the recruit was now getting visibly annoyed, trying to land another hit on me, and missing again.

"Oh cmon rookie, he's barely even trying to dodge." Prowl chimed in, the other recruits were barely holding in their laughter.

The recruit, now almost about to blow a fuse, starts charging at me full speed, I forgot what happened after that, but Prowl later told me that I jumped over the recruit and kicked him into a wall.

"And that's why you don't make fun of the short ones." Prowl exclaimed.

After a couple more hours of training and not getting hit even once, Prowl and I made our way to the Autobot lounge, the lounge itself was filled with multiple Autobots and humans alike, both parties participating in human and Cybertronian activities.

A small little wooden board caught my attention.

"It's called chess, a human invention.", Prowl explained how the game worked then sat me down to try it.

After a couple minutes, I lost, twice.

The lounge had a bar, it even had Engex, a favourite among Cybertronians, I don't drink though.

Many Autobots were just having a laugh and partying, I never seen anything like this before, I've never seen Autobots just having a laugh and just enjoying life, I've only ever seen them always on edge, never laid back. Prowl noticed my confusion and chimed in.

"It's confusing isn't it? It felt like not so long ago, we were as tense as a lugnut, things have changed since you were gone."

Oh yeah, things have definitely changed.

Prowl caught me up with current affairs; when the Autobots first woke from stasis, he said it was because of a one-in-a-million chance that a lightning bolt struck the ship and reactivated the ship itself, if only for long enough to wake everyone from stasis, however some Autobots didn't wake up, their stasis pods failed, and without additional life support for the long mission, their sparks slowly ran out of energon.

Prowl told me that a lot of Autobots that were on the Ark still haven't gotten over that, I could figure that Wheeljack was hurting the most, he was the one who built the ship in the first place, and knowing him, his consciousness would never let him forget it.

Prowl, quickly trying to move on from that experience, told me that the Autobots were greeted with a human settlement, the humans made the settlement around the ship, not knowing what the Ark was, and not knowing that it had beings in it. Prowl told me that the humans were startled to say the least, they ran from the Autobots, Optimus tried to mediate the situation, but that didn't exactly work, Optimus is huge compared to these humans, the humans tried to attack the Autobots with torches and extremely primitive rifles, it didn't help that Optimus didn't know English, and that the humans didn't know Cybertronian.

After multiple cycles of trying to communicate, Perceptor managed to learn some of the human language, Prowl told me that Perceptor made an attempt to communicate with the words he could, managing to deescalate the situation.

Prowl said that the humans were confused, they had barely any concept of space, even about other species with sapience, it was difficult for the Autobots to explain their situation, the humans during that era didn't even consider space travel. For most of that time though, the Autobots stayed under the radar, with help from their now human allies, they stayed secret from the rest of human kind, and for over 150 Astro cycles it stayed that way, that is until the Deceptions showed up.

Prowl explained that during this time, the Decepticons were already on Earth, albeit on a different hemisphere, their ship's stasis pods deactivated eons ago, though unfortunately for them, their ship was in critical condition, so for a very long time they spent the first few Astro cycles repairing their ship with what they could, they somehow managed to get the life support systems online, in turn reactivating the stasis pods, many Decepticons returned to stasis while a select few loyal Decepticons remained active, rebuilding the ship with whatever they could, those Deceptions didn't last long, the energon reserves were for all of the Decepticons, not willing to possibly kill their allies, they starved to death, their remains slowly buried by the Moon. The Decepticons in stasis reawakened after their ship detected an Autobot life signal, my life signal landing on Earth.

The remaining Decepticons rallied what they could to built a small vessel, a vessel that took 150 Astro cycles to build nonetheless, that could travel to Earth, eventually landing in a place humans called Japan. The Autobots revealed themselves to the U.S government after the Decepticons attempted their first skirmish against the Autobots; Prowl told me that the Decepticons sent the Insecticons to dig tunnels though the planet to scavenge for a fuel source to refine into an artificial energon. The Insecticons ended up finding Autobots instead, harvesting oil to refine into energon, the Insecticons relayed the Autobot presence back to their homebase and the Decepticons sent their seekers to hunt down the Autobot miners, the seekers fought against the miners, but lost after reinforcements arrived.

The Autobots brokered a peace treaty with the then president, and a secret alliance was formed. Over time, many things happened while I was still in stasis, 3 wars, well 2 and a secret one, but that's not the point. The Autobots remained secret for a long time, even now.

Prowl said that the humans helped carve out the mountain, even making new weapons based on human technology. I remember thinking that humans seemed to like keeping secrets from eathother, I later found out that the humans are practically violent towards things they don't understand, at one point I could relate to that.

As we were talking, Prowl said he to attend to a meeting, so then it was just me. I just wandered the base, scoping it out.

After mapping out most of the base, I saw Margret waving me down.

"Deadzone, I need you to file a report for the Decepticon Blitzwing, I've heard you've had multiple encounters with this Decepticon in the past, so you would know him best I presume?"

Blitzwing was a shock trooper back on Cybertron, he took care of the things that other Decepticons didn't even think to attempt, he was a triple-changer like springer, however he wasn't created like this, he was one of many twisted experiments shockwave made in his laboratory, with his new abilities shockwave gave him, he could give even Optimus a run for his money. I had many run-ins with Blitzwing, since we both had basically the same occupation, we always ended up clashing with each other, Blitzwing never fought fair, always looking for your blind spot, but because of the way I was created, it was difficult for him to find one. I didn't want to disappoint, so I put a lot of detail in the report, even things that an Autobot shouldn't know, now that I think about it though, I don't think that was a really good idea.

After filing that report I got a message from Margret a couple cycles later, apparently these humans have hardwired communication systems into the Autobots, including me while I was still out of it, though personally I hated this arrangement, this system could contact Autobots on the other side of the globe, so I guess it's fine.

Margret said that the Pentagon has requested my audience, they wish to know more about my past and how I knew so much about Blitzwing and why I was so connected to the Decepticons as a whole, seeing as most of the logs of my past in teletran 1 have been scrubbed by Optimus himself.

I was reluctant at first, but seeing that this "Pentagon" basically controlled the narrative, I had no choice but to comply.

I remember being instructed to meet at a certain location, I never found out why, but I think it has something to do with the whole secret stuff humans like to do.

Once we finally met, they sat me down and asked me to explain my origins, and how I knew so much about Blitzwing; I told them to get comfortable, they would be here for a while.

End of chapter one