Pretender Chronicles

A War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron/Transformers Prime Fan Fiction

By daywalker03

Prologue Part 5: The Final Countdown

/* The man-cub reminds me of you, Orion, in so many ways it's not funny, */ Mae said from the top of Optimus Prime's private data console in his quarters. She was standing there nude, studying the reports from the Nemesis incident, so she sensed, rather than saw, him looking at her as he replied /* In what way, Mae? */

/* His sense of duty, for one thing; and it's that sense of duty that will bring him back to us. Let me explain. While what happened on the Nemesis no doubt frightened him, as it should any sane being, at the same time how he reacted under pressure is uncannily like how you reacted to being made Prime all those vorns ago. He accepted the responsibility for the welfare of the two younger teens without visually flinching away from it. */

/* But they should never have been there on the Nemesis to begin with, */ Optimus said.

/* True, but it's Jack's sense of duty that caused him to follow Miko and try to protect her that lead to them being there. As I heard personally, when Bulkhead went to retrieve Fowler, he left Jack in charge of the teens and that's why Jack and Raf followed; to try to find Miko and keep her safe. That's also why I sent Turq, for that matter. The rest was an unfortunate thing, but since it happened, as the humans say, "You can't unscramble eggs". Jack just needs a nudge from the right person to realize how much he is needed here and he will return, */ Mae concluded.

Optimus looked thoughtful at that and asked, /* Who is that right person, if you and Miko couldn't get him to return? */

Mae looked at him and said /* Truthfully, I didn't exactly try to; I just told him about things I've seen. His guardian Arcee will be the one. She looked horribly disappointed when he walked through the ground bridge, if you understood how to read her perpetually scowling expression. And like a certain medic that we both know, she'd rather peel her plating off than admit it to any of the team. */

She looked up at Optimus as she heard a soft rumbling noise from his direction and watched as he nodded his head. /* The vorns we have been apart have not taken your memory of the quirks of your former teammates, I see. Even more amazing is that you have spent much of that time without access to a much larger form to ease travel between destinations. But then, that would have marked you as different and possibly had repercussions that I cannot fathom. */

/* Strangely enough, the ones I met first, and ended up staying with, knew I was different but weren't bothered by it. Perhaps someday I will explain that in detail, but for now that is all I can tell you, */ Mae said. She stretched and Optimus marvelled at the similarities between the small human shaped Autobot on his desk and the young human girl Miko. Even without being able to see Miko's skin, he knew that she would look very much like what Mae did if he ever did see her in less.

/* Mae, I have been wondering whether the humans had something similar to our Well from which they gain their offspring, but have not known who to ask. Is this something you know an answer to? */ Optimus asked as he studied her form.

Mae smiled as she turned to face him, then carefully sat down on the console. /* I can answer the question, but you must understand that because of my nature, I have no practical experience with the entire thing. While it might seem contradictory, they both do and do not have a Well of Allsparks. */

Optimus tilted his head and said, /* Explain, as it does seem to be as you say. */

/* Humans believe that the soul, which is similar in principle to our Spark, comes from another source while the physical manifestation of the offspring comes from within the human female's body, */ she said slowly.

/* From within the female? I suppose that is sufficient information for now, as the way you are sitting suggests a few things that I had not considered, */ Optimus said, carefully gauging her reaction.

She smiled, then stood with a sigh, pulled on her vest and loincloth and switched languages. "Optimus, would you please tell Ratchet to back off. Butch is trying to help Agent Fowler, but he can't concentrate with Ratchet stomping around the medical section of the base. Teal and Turq are about to tag-team him if he doesn't settle down, and that's not going to look good if the kids come in."

"I may not understand the exact wording, but the implication of what you are saying is clear so I will speak to him immediately," Optimus said as he reached carefully over and picked her up off of the desk. He walked out of his quarters and down the corridor to the main area to see Teal and Turq pushing Ratchet quickly away from where Agent Fowler and Butch were. Optimus spoke quietly but with some degree of force, "Ratchet, stand down and let Butch work on Agent Fowler; I know it's annoying you, but do you really want them to move up to the top of the mesa so the local wildlife can bother them?"

Ratchet glared at Mae but allowed Teal and Turq to escort him to the main console area while Butch looked relieved to be able to concentrate on his attempt to settle Agent Fowler; Mae heard him murmur "Thanks Guardian" as Optimus knelt to set her on the ground. She smiled and put a hand alongside his on the temple of Agent Fowler's head to see if she could get a sense of what had happened from the delirious agent but was unsuccessful. ~* I tried that too; too turbulent in his thoughts to see anything, *~ Butch said as she pulled her hand away.

~* The Clan medicine men taught you well, it seems. The one thing that they could not teach is how to concentrate with a metal titan stomping around, mainly because that form was lost to me just before we met, *~ Mae said as Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee entered the base. She watched Arcee transform and walk over to where she and Butch were, then kneel to look at Agent Fowler.

"Any improvement yet," Arcee asked with a hopeful expression on her faceplates, though it didn't change when Butch indicated a negative. "Mae, I talked to Jack; he's got to work, but I will be picking him up when his shift is over."

Mae smiled and said, "I knew he would make the right choice, and I suspect that he needed to hear whatever it was you told him to realize just how important he is to all of us, but most especially you."

Arcee grimaced and Mae spoke, "Yes, I know you don't like to admit it after the things that have happened in the past, but you and I both know it's the truth. But don't worry, I won't tell any of the teens about it."

As Arcee stood and walked away, Butch said, ~* You knew her before you came to us, Guardian? *~

~* Yes. She has lost friends, some that were very close to her. The one that made her spark hard is the loss of a Mech named Tailgate at the servos of one whose name I dare not utter, lest it draw the glitch to this world somehow, *~ Mae said angrily, seeing in her processor the Femme that had caused her friend so much anguish.

Butch lay a hand on her arm and said, ~* Save your anger for the battlefield, Guardian; it will do Agent Fowler no good for you to be close to him in his current condition if you remain so. *~

She smiled and answered, ~* You're right, sweetspark. It's just that Arcee used to be such a sweet femme until the trauma of losing Tailgate occurred that the thought of the femme responsible for it angers me. *~

Teal had walked over after Arcee walked away and as she knelt, she spoke, ~* That one will be dealt with if found; that's all the more that needs to be said. *~

~* You're right, Teal; let's join the others and leave Butch to tend Agent Fowler, *~ Mae said as she climbed into Teal's outstretched servo. Teal stood carefully and placed Mae on her shoulder as she walked over to where Ratchet was searching for the Decepticon Space Bridge. "No luck finding it yet, Ratchet?" Mae asked from her perch on Teal's shoulder.

"It's like looking for a servo in a scrapyard," Ratchet replied in a gruff voice, as he changed to another sector of the sky to scan. Raf looked up at her from his laptop and shook his head as well.

Miko looked up from where she was sitting and saw Mae on Teal's shoulder; she walked over to the railing and said, "How do you manage to stay up there when she moves around? I'd think you fall off. And what are you wearing?!"

Mae laughed and said, "We've known these 'Bots for a few years, so it's second nature for us to stay in place when they move. And surely you are familiar with the traditional dress of the Native Americans?"

"Cool; wonder if Bulkhead would let me ride on his shoulder, but I'm not going to go around like that," Miko said when Raf gave a triumphant cry.

"Found it, over Africa," he said just as Arcee came pulling in with Jack. The others came over while the Autobots debated how they were going to get there. Eventually it was decided that they would risk using the ground bridge even though it could potentially scatter their parts; the threat of Megatron gaining an army of undead warriors was greater than that of their death.

Teal and Turq, along with Ratchet, stayed behind as the others went through the bridge. Mae climbed down Teal's arm to the raised platform where the teens were and smiled at Jack, who smiled back. "The more I thought about it, the more it became clear you were right, Mae," he said. "Then, I ran into Arcee in the parking lot at work and she more or less said she needed to have me around, so I came back."

Mae grinned, then said quietly, "She needs to have someone to watch over; they all do, though some of them will try to make it seem like they have no desire to have us around." She looked pointedly at Ratchet, who was monitoring the Autobot assault team on the space bridge. When it became clear that the Decepticon ship needed an assist from some other source to lock on Cybertron, she crouched next to Raf as he tried to hack his way into the system that was most likely to be the one that would be used. She smiled when he looked over at her briefly and patted his hand, then got up and walked over where Jack and Miko were standing.

She accompanied the teens to the Giant Size Array grounds and picked the lock on the door so they could get inside; she stayed outside the door, not wanting to be recorded on the internal security cameras, so she looked around outside while the teens did what they came to do. When she heard a jet fly away, she realized that a Decepticon had been there too, so she ran to see if the teens were okay. They were waiting for her at the ground bridge and she heard Raf comment on her skin sheen. "You're safe, but from your expression Raf, I'd say the mission was a partial failure."

Raf nodded and said sadly, "The Space Bridge is locked permanently on Cybertron, but I did manage to get the schematics for it, so maybe we can still beat them."

Mae nodded and led them into the ground bridge and they returned to the Autobot base. Upon their return, they discovered that Megatron had sent a massive chunk of Dark Energon through the Space Bridge and the Autobots were in need of an ace in the hole. Mae pushed Raf forward gently and he said to Ratchet "Would the schematics help?" as he held up the flash drive containing the files he had copied. Ratchet nodded, and Raf inserted the flash drive and sent the files over to the mainframe the Autobots were using, then smiled up at Mae shyly.

"Without a means of leaving this world, we Autobots take strength in the bonds we have forged with our three young friends - true warriors. If not in body, then in spirit. My name is Optimus Prime, and I send this message. Though we did not choose to be of Earth, it would seem that we are here to stay. If you approach this planet with hostile intent, know this: We will defend ourselves. We will defend humanity. We will defend... our home."

Raf looked up at Optimus and asked, "Why just mention us? Aren't Mae and the others staying?"

Mae answered the question, "Yes, we will be here Raf, but Butch and I do work, so there will likely be times that we will be unable to assist. This is part of the reason that Optimus didn't mention us; the other is that we don't really want the Decepticon forces to know how many they may be fighting in future battles." She smiled at Raf as his eyes brightened, then looked around to see where the others were.

Author's note:

Yes, I decided to show Ratchet being frustrated by the presence of a sick human a bit differently than what the show did when Raf got infected with Dark Energon. However, since this is set during Darkness Rising rather than later in the main series, it is quite likely that Ratchet really was frustrated by the babbling from Fowler after his being hit several times by Starscream's Energon Prod, but since it was not material to the main story, it was glossed over. I'm also leaving out some things that I'm sure folks have seen done hundreds of times and focus on interactions behind the scenes. Of course, it wouldn't be the end of Darkness Rising without Optimus Prime's message, so I included that.

Yes, I've hinted at the reason why Arcee is such a hard case, but not by name.

Song in the title is from the group Europe and describes what this situation would have been had the Autobots failed to stop Megatron.