Nova was jolted awake many hours later as the archivist let out a frustrated noise.
"Why would the Decepticon archives be so heavily encrypted?" Orion demanded, his face twisted in confusion.
He had hit a snag, and judging by his tone, it was only the latest of several failures to crack the code.
Nova remained silent, watching as he tried again, typing in a different sequence of commands to break the encryption.
The same image of the strange Cybertronian who was supposed to be Optimus Prime appeared on the screen once again. Orion clenched his jaw in determination and tried one last time.
Suddenly, in response to his keyed commands, the image was overlaid with a grid of squares. The colors and lines within the grid changed and shifted, forming an entirely different picture — one both Nova and Orion recognized. The wide-eyed archivist was now confronted with a perfect image of himself.
The archivist gaped. "How could I possibly be … Optimus Prime?!"
He gazed upon the picture in disbelief for several seconds until his head swiveled around to look at her, and he fired off a question.
"Is it true? What I see before me… is it true? " he demanded.
She nodded.
He looked up at the screen again, his shoulders shaking slightly as he leaned against the table for support.
"What do I do now?" Orion asked her, watching as she slid down to the computer tablet and placed a comforting hand on his. Nova did not hesitate for an instant.
"Just do what's right," she said simply.
"I do not know what that means anymore," he replied, obviously stressed.
"Hey." She put a hand on his forearm. "Listen. It'll be all right. No matter what happens, I will stay right here with you. I promise."
Orion was silent for a moment, then glanced at her with resolve in his eyes. "No. You tell me to do what is right, yet you want me to stand by while you put yourself in danger?"
"Well, yes," she shrugged. "You put yourself in danger for us all the time."
Without warning, heavy footsteps thudded outside the door.
"It's him!" Nova gasped.
"Right now, I must do for you what cannot be done for myself," Orion said, erasing the image on the screen and pointing to the area underneath the computer. "Hide there until it is safe."
"But I—"
"Nova," he said, locking eyes with her. "Trust me."
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
So it was that Megatron found Optimus at the computer, apparently hard at work.
He greeted him as usual, but Nova could hear the faint edge of suspicion in his voice this time. This was not a social call.
"Orion." He paced back and forth behind the archivist like a shark looking for the kill. "Have you made progress with Project Iacon?"
Nova could see that Optimus' eyes were shifting back and forth as he scrambled for a response, readying himself to face Megatron.
"It seems I am a bit rustier than I thought," he excused himself lamely, failing to meet the warlord's eyes.
"Might that have anything to do with the nature of your after-hours research?" Megatron probed, coming forward and standing at Orion's side. "Did I fail to mention that we would be tracking your activities?"
He pressed a button on the computer keypad, and immediately an image of the actual Optimus Prime flashed up on the screen. Nova gasped.
They had been found out.
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With a glance down at Nova, Orion steeled his nerves and decided it was time for a confrontation. Left with no more excuses, he blurted out all his questions, hoping to find some remnant of truth in his old friend.
"Why does history portray me as siding with the Autobot aggressors? And why did Starscream call me a Prime? I must know!" he pleaded. "Who am I? "
"You are my clerk," Megatron snapped. "Now get back to work and decode that database!"
Orion stood silently for a moment, looking up at the images on the screen. Something inside him urged him on, telling him that it was time to act as a Prime, even if he did not feel like one.
Then he made what Nova thought was the most magnificently bold decision she had ever seen.
"No," he said, pressing a button on the keypad. "I would rather erase my findings than make them available for your questionable use." Immediately, the data disappeared and was replaced by the Decepticon logo, indicating that his work had been completely erased.
Ignoring Megatron's venomous glare, Orion turned away and began to walk towards Nova, but was stopped by a low chuckle rising from the depths of the Lord Decepticon.
The warlord moved his finger and pressed the same button again, and Nova gaped as every single piece of data returned to life. None of it had been erased.
"Did you really think that we wouldn't be tracking and documenting every iota of your valuable research?" he asked.
Soundwave chose that time to step into the room, an image of the war-scarred Cybertron illuminated on his face screen. A signal's location pinged persistently on the globe, drawing Megatron's attention.
"One of our sentries was activated?" he inquired. "On Cybertron?"
Nova nearly jumped for joy. That had to be the Autobots! They were probably using the Key to access Vector Sigma right now. She and Optimus had to hold out just a little longer.
"You told me … our planet … was dead, " Orion growled through gritted teeth.
"That is beside the point!" Megatron snarled. "Guards!"
Two Vehicons entered the room as Megatron approached Orion and flung out his sword.
"You will finish Project Iacon by the time I return …" he held the sword up to the archivist's neck so that Orion could see his own terrified reflection in its sharpened luster, "…or I will carve out your Spark before your very eyes !"
He and Soundwave strode out of the room, no doubt heading for the Spacebridge. Nova looked up nervously from her hiding place underneath the computer, staring at the feet of the Vehicon troopers positioned between her and Optimus.
"This isn't good," she whispered to the floor.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
"No one told you to stop, Pax," the Vehicon growled, activating his blaster and aiming it at Orion's back as his partner did the same. Hesitating, Orion turned from the screen and addressed them directly.
"I believe that Megatron intends to use whatever he finds in Project Iacon to harm the Autobots," he explained, extending a hand toward them. Perhaps these troopers would be more sympathetic to his cause.
"Please," he entreated. "We can warn them."
In response, the Vehicon pulled back his fist and drove it into Optimus' face, making sparks fly as Nova let out a gasp. Then, he threw down his elbow and bashed the archivist in the middle of his back, bringing Orion to his knees while the second Vehicon kicked him in the side. Then, Orion's eyes were greeted by the triangular barrel of the Vehicon's blaster as he raised his head up from the ground.
"Get up, nerd," the Vehicon said. "I dare you."
Suddenly, out from under the computer darted the half-spark's armored body, flashing and glinting in the light as she launched herself onto the nearest Vehicon, clinging to his face with a guttural cry.
"Don't touch him!"
"Nova! Wait!" Orion cried out.
But the enraged half-spark did not heed his warning. She persisted in slashing and slamming the Vehicon with her blades, delivering quite a few dents to his head and causing his blaster to light up and go haywire.
"Hey!" The second Vehicon grabbed his partner's arm and shoved the erratic blaster towards the ground. "Point that somewhere else!"
The first Vehicon reached up with his free hand and yanked the exhausted human off of his face, grasping her arms in his clenched fist and laughing at the sight of her legs kicking uselessly above the ground.
"Heh. Hold it still," his partner said, taking aim at the dangling half-spark. The first Vehicon nodded and seized her legs as well, pulling her body taut between his hands and holding her out to the weapon of his companion.
"No!" Orion leaped up from the ground and tried to push the blaster away, but he was too late. The laser had fired inches away from Nova's chest and caused her whole body to jerk as the shot exploded into her armor with full impact. She cried out in pain, and at that moment, the archivist thought he had never heard a more horrible sound in all the world.
Orion looked on in shock as the limp form of the human was tossed aside like a dead animal, and her mouth made no sound; her body made no reaction as she hit the ground, rolled away, and lay still.
"No…"
The first Vehicon slammed him in the face, bringing his gaze away from the half-spark and up to his assailants. "Still care about those crummy humans, huh, Pax?"
He kicked him under the ribs savagely, and his friend contributed on the other side with a punch to his back.
"Let the beating begin," he said with a chuckle.
They kept exchanging blows back and forth, making sparks fly from Orion's unresisting body until he could not even push himself up on his arms for the pain.
The Vehicons paused in their torture and let the battered archivist crawl towards Nova, trying to reach her, hoping against hope that she may have survived.
"You have to admit, it's a privilege to stomp the former leader of the Autobots," one of the Vehicons said in amusement.
Inches away from the human, Orion stopped at those words. He rolled over on his back, looking dazedly at the images of Optimus Prime on the computer screen, then at the faces of the Vehicons who stood above him.
However, before he could get up off the ground, a fist slammed into his eyes, once, twice, eliciting teeth-gritting groans of pain from Orion as he backed up against the wall to avoid their attacks. Kicks, punches, violent blows rained down upon the weakened archivist like relentless hailstones, and he covered his face with his arms as he protested.
"No."
Crash!
"Please."
Crash!
" Stop! Enough! "
With this last cry, Orion's hands transformed into the blasters he had long been without, and the Vehicons staggered back in sudden fear. Incredulous, Orion looked at his hands.
"I — I'm armed?"
Recovering, the troopers opened up their own blasters and fired upon the clerk, who ducked his head, screwed his eyes shut, and let lasers fly.
After a while, silence descended upon the room, and Orion dared to open his eyes. Sure enough, the smoldering bodies of two Vehicons lay dead in front of him.
He looked at his hands in a new light, astonished at what he had done, and suddenly, the archivist of Iacon came up with a plan.
Orion scrambled forward and knelt by the half-spark, scooping her up in his hands. Again, this scene seemed familiar, dancing just out of his mind's reach. He had a terrible feeling he had held her in his hands like this before and wondered if she were alive.
Acting out of some buried instinct, he prodded her in the back.
To his relief, her head jerked up as she sucked in a lungful of air and began to breathe again.
"Ow..."
"Are you all right?" Orion asked. "I thought you might be dead."
"I'm not all right," Nova groaned, holding her chest in pain. "But I think I will be in a little while..."
She glanced at the dead troopers, and her eyes widened.
"What … what did you do?"
"I — killed them," he said in a strange voice. "I wish there had been another way."
She nodded and let her head fall back in exhaustion. "I do, too."
"Can you remain functional until I bring you home?" Orion asked concernedly.
"Home," she breathed, and her head rolled to the side as she fainted dead away.
"I will take that as a yes," Orion said, clutching her in his hand as he hurried to the warship's stationary Groundbridge portal.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Megatron, the fallen bodies of the three Autobot warriors lying in sprawled forms around him, stood at the entrance to the blooming Spacebridge portal with his sword drawn, waiting for someone very important.
"Come, Arcee, so that I might end the lineage of the Primes for all time," he muttered, his mouth curving into a venomous smile.
"I cannot allow that to happen, Megatron," another, stronger voice rang out from behind him.
The warlord spun around to face the speaker, and there, silhouetted against the light of the Groundbridge portal behind him, a human cradled in the palm of his hand, stood Orion Pax, the only one left to defy his might. He gently placed the human on the ground as Megatron turned to face him.
"And why should you care, Orion Pax?" Megatron spat venomously, seeking to destroy his young opponents' confidence. "You are no Prime."
"That may be true," he responded, looking down at Nova's body next to him, "… or yet another deception, but this much I do know: My sympathies lie with the Autobots, and you are not one of us."
He deployed his blades and held them up in front of his face valiantly, standing in the way of Megatron despite any fears he may have had, and charged at him with a cry. Orion brought his blades up and swept them down towards his enemy. But Megatron raised his own sword and blocked them on his arm as though holding off a child. He swung his left fist around with a growl and rammed the Autobot in the gut. The momentum lifted Orion fully off the ground, and with a cry of pain, he crumpled to the floor, head bowed, shoulders shaking.
"Your Spark may be in the right place, Orion," Megatron said condescendingly, bringing his elbow up and crashing it into the back of the young warrior's head, "But you have much to learn before you can hope to ever again stand your ground against me."
He pointed the tip of his blade down at Orion before raising his arm in the air for the killing stroke. "A moment sadly, which shall never come!"
Through the aching pangs in his head, Orion saw a speeding figure shoot out of the Spacebridge. She leaped up in the air and used the acceleration of her body to drive herself into Megatron's back, knocking him to the ground several yards away. Surprised, Orion got to his feet and looked into the portal again. There was another figure emerging from it, a human similar to Nova, only with different armor and a domelike helmet fixed to his head. In his hands, the boy held something he recognized from data entries: the Key to Vector Sigma, capable of containing the collective wisdom of the Primes themselves.
To his eternal shock, the human came close and pointed the ancient relic at him .
"Are you … certain I am worthy?" Orion asked as the human held up the card to him.
"You have no idea," the human responded, and a beam of radiant energy shot out of the Key, streaming into his chest and causing his paneling to slide open. Taking this strange new occurrence in stride, Orion watched the energy accumulate in his Spark chamber, surprised and very humbled to be chosen for such an honor.
And as the Key finished transferring the information, floating into the air and descending into his hand, the plates of the Autobot closed, and he was no longer Orion Pax, but Optimus Prime once more.
Having thrown Arcee and Ratchet aside, Megatron lunged at Optimus with his sword drawn, roaring in rage as he moved to finish off his sworn enemy.
"No!"
The sword blade flashed in the air as it swept down to meet Optimus' face, only one blow away from securing a victory for Megatron, and there was a loud clang.
Megatron's face took on a look of horror.
The leader of the Autobots had closed his hands around the blade, stopping it inches from his face with a thundering noise.
"Megatron …" Optimus Prime's battle mask slid over his mouth as he brought his vengeful fist back. "...Begone!"
He brought his fist up into Megatron's chin, sending him into the air with a flurry of trailing sparks.
One by one, the Autobots and Nova got up off the ground and looked up at their leader. They watched, transfixed, as Optimus drove Megatron back with mighty blows, battering the Decepticon's victory to shattered pieces as he inspired new hope in his friends. Optimus Prime had indeed returned.
With the last powerful uppercut, Megatron flew up in the air and hit the wall, and Optimus finally had a moment to get his bearings.
"Ratchet, how did we arrive here?" he inquired as the others rallied behind him.
"Long story, old friend," the medic puffed.
Nova came to stand next to Jack and gave him a huge hug.
"I don't know what you did up there," she said, pulling away. "But thank you!"
" Base to Arcee, " Fowler commed. "We're reading five Autobot life signals and a half-spark down there. Is Prime with you?"
" And Jack," Arcee confirmed.
" Yes!" Not surprisingly, Miko's voice was exuberant, and Nova could almost hear June's sigh of relief at her son's safety.
Megatron, still enraged, got to his feet and growled as the Autobots opened fire, seeing that a Groundbridge had appeared right next to them.
"It's ours!" Arcee reported.
"Autobots, fall back," Optimus ordered, still firing upon the Decepticon leader, allowing Arcee and Jack to be the first ones to go through with Ratchet.
"This time, he's comin' with us," Bulkhead growled.
Bumblebee jumped through the bridge, then the Wrecker, then Nova, and last of all, Optimus, leaping sideways through the portal just as it faded from view and out of Megatron's reach.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
The children were the first ones to greet the Autobots as they walked through the portal, Jack and Arcee first, to the relief of Mrs. Darby, then Bumblebee, Ratchet, and Bulkhead, to whom Miko and Raf ran with joyful tears glistening on their faces. Last of all, in a burst of radiant light and with a half-spark by his side, came the one they had worked and sacrificed and hoped to bring back: Optimus Prime.
Rafael came to look up at the warrior. "Optimus?"
"Hello, Rafael," the Prime said to the littlest with a smile.
"The big guy remembers us!" Miko shouted, "Woohoo!"
Optimus looked at the new Decepticon symbol adorning his shoulder.
"Although it seems there is much I do not remember," he said, and Nova placed a hand on his foot as Ratchet spoke.
"Optimus, it has truly been our darkest hour, but know this: from every indication, your Spark never ceased being that of an Autobot."
"I agree," Nova said with a smile as they all gathered around him. There was much work to do, but they would be doing it together, and that was what mattered most.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Nova sat with the kids in the human corner, all of them gathered around the old couch and badgering each other with questions.
"So what happened while I was gone?" Nova asked. "How did you all take over the Decepticon Spacebridge?"
"We used Agent Fowler's voice to distract the Cons at HQ," said Miko. "And Raf handled a lot of techy stuff while Jack went to Cybertron with Arcee and recharged the Matrix into some tricked-out computer while the Scraplets tried to eat him. And there was this huge Insecticon they had to beat—"
"And after Arcee and Jack got back through, they had to fight Megatron, and you know the rest of the story better than we do," Raf added.
"From the looks of things, you all did a fine job," Nova beamed at them. "I'm proud of you."
"Yeah, yeah, big deal," Miko scoffed, waving it aside. "So tell us about what happened on the warship and the Decepticon smackdowns already!"
Nova sighed. "Thank goodness everything's back to normal."
Normal for them, at least, she thought, putting a hand over the whirling heat in her chest. But after what I saw - after what I watched Optimus go through - can things ever be normal again?
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII