"I left my throne a million miles away...Now give me the strength to split the world in two, Yeah, I ate all the rest and now I've gotta eat you. Well I sing, Space Lord Mother…I lost my soul when I fell to earth. My planets called me to the void of my birth. The time has come for me to kill this game; now open wide and say my name."

Monster Magnet

"Now the time has come, Time! There's no place to run, Time! Might get burned up by the sun, Time! Well, I've had my fun, Time! Well, I've been loved and put aside, Time! And I've been crushed by tumblin' tide, Time! And my soul's be psychedelicized, Time!"

The Chamber Brothers

Optimus Prime was pinned down behind Trailbreaker's large forcefield while Tracks screamed in his face over the sound of blasters firing at them. His velvet voice made is hard to hear what he was saying, especially when the jets screeched by. Luckily, Prime was a lip reader.

"WINDCHARGER'S STUCK BEHIND ENEMY LINES!"

"WHO'S WITH HIM?"

"NOBODY!"

"WHERE'S PROWL?"

"SHOT!"

"IRONHIDE?"

"SHOT!"

"SUNSTREAKER?"

"RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" Tracks gestured to the twins, fifty feet farther up the mountain, both frantically repairing the weapons shot out of their hands earlier. Jazz sat with them, firing at the Seekers whenever they came near.

The shooting stopped the same time Prime hollered, "WHO HAS NOT BEEN PUT OUT OF COMMISSION?" Tracks paused. You could hear Sideswipe grunting as he struggled with his weapon. Bumblebee was somewhere out of sight, crying, "Ratchet! Help! It's Cliffjumper!" Trailbreaker lowered his defense shield to venture a scan down the mountain. No sign of the Decepticons. They didn't leave. They must be regrouping. Optimus could not make out anything through the smoke. Inferno was working overtime trying to get the fire under control, but he was shot, too. The fumes rolled in.

Megatron's raspy voice cut through all of the tension. "Optimus Prime! I know you're hiding back there!"

It was out before he could stop it. "I am not hiding!"

He heard the Decepticons cackle. "Pride is difficult to overcome. I am certain some human psychotherapist could render aid."

No response. Optimus was assessing his troops, while he allowed Megatron to babble about their willingness to negotiate, since he had a prisoner. Ratchet must have found Cliffjumper, because Bumblebee had ceased his howling. Optimus caught the sight of Bluestreak climbing one of the giant pine trees, rifle strapped to his back. That tree better hold him. Optimus waved the twins, Jazz, Tracks, and Trailbreaker to get ready to attack.

"I do not enjoy delays, Prime. Make your decision!"

Optimus waited. Bluestreak readied his rifle to shoot the source of the voice.

"PRIME!" Optimus slunk down the hill, through the smoke, where he grabbed Bumblebee and Brawn. Brawn had been shot, but claimed it an exostructure wound. Ratchet was hastily working on Cliffjumper. He nodded to Optimus and the troops, murmuring he'd join them soon.

"Megatron! The space bridge has been activated!" The Decepticons were getting louder. Prime used this as an excuse to call the Dinobots out of hiding. Grimlock demanded Optimus Prime make up his mind, should they retreat or attack?

"Starscream! I gave no such order!"

"I pre-empted that order." Creeping over a fallen tree, Optimus could almost make out the faction below. The smoke thickened.

"You fool! I wanted to get them out in the open first!" Clunk. Optimus suppressed a chuckle. Soundwave's voice cut through the two's bickering, which did not end after Megatron's hit.

"Space bridge: opening."

The lightening and wind blew their cover, which would have meant something if the Decepticons were watching for them. All were staring at the space bridge. Optimus looked up the mountain, where the tendrils of smoke wavered enough in the wind to allow him notice of his sniper. He nodded to Bluestreak. Jazz led the others to creep up a little closer to their leader.

"Miss us, Megatron?" asked one the travelers. That was all the distraction Prime needed.

"Autobots! Attack!"

Megatron was doing well. The Autobots were all in hiding, those who weren't leaking fliuds at his feet. Skywarp clutched a small Autobot to his chest as though he were the last energon cube in the galaxy. When the time was right, Soundwave sent the message to fall back and wait.

"Optimus Prime! I know you are hiding back there!"

He allowed moment of his voice echoing off of the mountain before he heard a petulant whine returning. "I am not hiding!"

This cracked them all up. Skywarp laughed so hard he shook the Autobot with him. Megatron decided he had a sense of humor, too. He waited for his underlings to calm down.

"Pride is difficult to overcome. I am certain some human psychotherapist could render aid."

No response. The Decepticons all looked at each other, shrugging. "I don't think he wants to negotiate," muttered Astrotrain.

"They will negotiate or we lose a captive." Megatron raised his voice to address the obdurate leader. "I do not enjoy delay, Prime. Make your decision!" Still nothing. This was not to his liking. "Should he try an attack, kill that...thing. PRIME!"

Starscream ran up to his leader, glad to be doing something in the midst of this boring shouting match. "Megatron! The space bridge has been activated!"

"Starscream! I gave no such order!" This moron would never stop ignoring his commands. He cursed Starscream's little faction, should it ever be assembled, to be ten times as mutinous. The second-in-command crossed his arms and grinned arrogantly.

"I pre-empted that order."

"You fool! I wanted to get them out in the open first!" He had not meant for Optimus to hear that. Wrathfully, he belted Starscream as hard as he could. It helped a little that his victim bounced at least once on the grassy hill. He chuckled at that, while Starscream spewed his rant.

"When were you planning to unleash our weapon, when the Autobots have us surrounded?"

"I call for the space bridge to be opened, not you!"

"You were taking too long!" Soundwave waved frantically for Megatron's attention.

"Space bridge: opening."

A flash of brilliant lightening. The sky opened, shooting a cylinder of light down to the earth. The dust cleared quickly.

"I don't believe it!" Starscream whispered. "It's impossible!"

Before them stood Autobots Megatron had not seen in four million years, Autobots who should be dead. A few youngsters, too. Ultra Magnus grinned at the gaping Decepticons.

"Miss us, Megatron?"

"Autobots! Attack!" From behind them came Optimus Prime and his army.

"Decepticons! To the air!" Megatron was furious at this turn. For once, he would not relinquish his position, at least not until he was sure Trypticon was not coming. They would not go down without a battle.

Ultra Magnus greeted Optimus Prime the minute he had a chance. They were blasting the recent addition of Devastator while he attempted to go after the Dinobots. Bluestreak was in the giant gestalt's hand, grabbed before he could shoot Megatron.

"Nice to see you, old friend." Ultra Magnus' voice was soft and warm, like Skyfire's or Prime's. It hearkened to the days they were first fighting together. "We would have come sooner, but Metroplex had a tougher time with Trypticon than we thought. You should give Mirage a big 'thanks' from us, if he hadn't infiltrated the Decepticon base to send us their files, you'd be in trouble."

"Mirage?" Mirage was with them now, wounded. It must have been Lyra.

"We've also been getting news from other planets who received that transmission and feel threatened enough to want to help. I think we finally got the lucky break we were looking for."

Optimus grinned under his faceplate. "Welcome to earth."

The battle was in full swing when the femmes and Seaspray arrived. It seemed as though the Autobots were gaining ground around the space bridge, but not the part that would motivate Megatron to call it off. The Decepticons had not been sufficiently injured. Lyra glanced about her before turning invisible to see that everyone on Megatron's forces was wounded except for him. The despicable mech was still trying to get the blaster-scarred and pitted space bridge to open. Smoke from burning trees was everywhere while massive confusion reigned. The Autobots were not closing in at a rate Lyra thought progressive enough, leaving her to conclude that the only course of action was to take out their leader, whose back was turned even as she landed in the thick of Decepticon territory.

She was behind him with a clear shot. Nova's massive fire launcher would be nice, but Sunstreaker's would cut through that Cyber-rat's armor. Trying not to grin, she aimed it at a significant place and pulled the trigger. His left shoulder was hit first, causing him to spin around for the second shot. His chest was black and smoking as Megatron tried to shake off this unforeseen discharge. He looked around to see who hit him.

"Show your face!" He demanded. Silence. He turned back to the space bridge controls in time to see the paneling open, and wires being cut. He reached for the invisible hand he knew would be in there somewhere, and felt it bounce off his own appendage more than once. There it was! "Now you have nowhere to go, Autobot," he snarled, squeezing his prey as hard as he could.

Click. The Decepticon was amazed. There stood 'Mishap', a glow of rage surrounding her ugly body as she debated her next course of action in front of her self-repairing victim. Megatron tried not to laugh at the patches of raw metal that had not been painted yet, or the soldered line showing where he had split her lip in half. His smirk only infuriated her as she yanked her hand away and rapidly changed charge batteries. The barrel of a now-apparent blaster was aimed at his head, slightly to her left.

"An eye for an eye, motherfu-."

She had not time to pull the trigger before out of nowhere a gray, red, and blue figure swooped out of Megatron's right and tackled her to the ground. "Oh no you don't!" Starscream scolded.

"Let go of me!" They grappled for the gun. Starscream was the stronger opponent, injured or not. Lyra, although her mind fuzzy, was NOT damaged, giving her the advantage of speed. She slithered out from under him as he knocked the blaster a few meters away. Starscream lost his balance, but not his coordination, leaping at her like a cat the moment his hand touched the ground. She anticipated this and jumped out of his way. She turned to face him, fighting stance ready. "This is not your battle!"

"It became my battle when you shot him!" He feigned one direction and went for another. She fell for it. He had her on the ground, hands closed around her throat. She kicked him with her legs hitting one of his wounds, causing him to react and allow her to throw him off of her with a strength she didn't know she possessed.

"He deserved it!" Lyra was gasping for air in an attempt to cool her body off. Being this close to him, for the first time in a long time, was doing something strange to her. "I thought you WANTED him dead!"

"Not by your hand..." He wanted to kill Megatron himself, not have a femme do it. That was a matter of pride. The Seeker was also impressed with how well his upgrade had been received by her CPU. She was right, war was a universal language. He had not built her to be stronger than he; though now that she was out of her prison this meant she would never rejoin the Decepticons. Now he would have to kill her, or at least keep her busy until Megatron called a retreat. There might be a way to make another attempt. His stopping to process this cost him. She leapt upon him with her hands around his throat.

"What does that mean?" She would end his control over her in one fell swoop!

"It means that you are mine! The only reason you want to kill him is to please ME!"

"That's what you think!" He didn't know SLAG!

"That's what I KNOW!" Her grip had lessoned, cueing Starscream to allow his hand to stroke her face instead of throttle her throat. Her hand went up to meet his, fingers curling around it. Then a random laser blast brought them back to reality and the violent struggle commenced. Something was missing in it.

By now Megatron's shot wounds were self-repaired and he watched the skirmish below him with fascination. Optimus Prime was coming, blaster firing, so Megatron halted him, gesturing away. "Prime! You might be interested in the scene before us."

"The only scene I'm interested in is seeing your circuits rewired," he thundered, hoisting Megatron over his blue head.

By now, without an order, the barely-functioning Decepticons had retreated. All victors wandered over to the last four gladiators. Optimus heard Lyra screaming and glanced over to see her in an embrace with Starscream. She was on top of him, shaking, hurling insults, hands around his neck. Starscream sat up, hands closed around her neck, giving them almost the appearance of peripheral hockey players in a brawl, aggressively holding each other as a token act until the referee breaks the REAL fighters up. It did not help when Starscream locked her into a closer embrace and rolled her down the hill. It looked as though he might have kissed her-

"What on Cybertron?" he demanded, tossing his enemy. Megatron sailed overhead until he hit the space bridge control panel.

Clang! "I told you so!" The leaders and the fighters had formed a perfect triangle.

"I thought they were-"

"As did I. Once again, they contradict themselves to the point of suspicion." Megatron stood up. Another strange act proceeded, this time producing agitation in both leaders.

"Starscream/Lyra! What are you doing?" yelled Megatron/Optimus.

The two looked around to find they had an audience. "It's not what you think!" they yelled in unison, facing their respective leaders.

"Then what is it?" They had two VERY different tones.

"I'm trying to kill her/him! What!" They glared at the other, shocked.

"Hold still! I'll get her/him for you!" Two large guns were aimed with precision.

"No!" They forgot the choking and hugged the other protectively, like a pair of stuffed monkeys with interlocking Velcro arms Spike brought into the ark once. The Autobots stared in disbelief.

"Starscream," Megatron sneered as Optimus exclaimed "Lyra!" "Whose side are you really on?" Again, two different inflections.

"I'm a/n Decepticon/Autobot!" Starscream and Lyra affirmed.

"You have a strange way of showing it." This time the voice was exactly the same.

Everything froze. Lyra was aware of all of her fellow combatants staring at them, judging. She saw Megatron and Prime's annoyed expressions. There was only one way out of this. She tried to find a way to pry herself from Starscream and get Nova's blaster out of subspace without notice.

Tink. Lyra had her distraction: a ninja star stuck to Megatron's face. As all watched, Megatron pulled it out of his armor, glaring at his former toy.

"I shall deal with you later," he growled. Nightbird crouched low to the ground, scowling.

Lyra went invisible and, pushing away from her sparring partner as hard as she could, grabbed Nova's gun from subspace and fired at Megatron as fast as she could while Optimus took cover. From out of nowhere someone's null ray hit her target first, holding him long enough to allow her shot to hit home. The silver mech fell, bounced up to destroy whatever was in his path, and FINALLY noticed he was surrounded. Deciding not to take on anyone without help, the fearless leader of the Decepticons flew for it. After a moment Starscream sadly followed, optics resting a moment on Lyra's last position.

Lyra re-appeared and sank down on the grass. What now? She was sure that there would be some angry questions. Nova was not back. She looked over to Optimus Prime, who stood with an Autobot she'd never seen before.

"I take it you got the message," she addressed the unfamiliar one. The large red white and blue mech nodded.

"You put it on every frequency. We'd be stupid not to."

She leaned on her hands, blaster in sight. "Good," she sighed. She had sent those plans out to anyone who would pick them up. "I'm glad I could help." All continued to stare. Then a small motion began.

She didn't notice who did it first. The second mech had been unseen, too, but the third prompted everyone else. One by one, then in simultaneous clumps, the Autobots placed their fists against the opposite shoulder, gun still in hand. The ancient Cybertronian symbol of respect for a soldier who had done a good job. Lyra felt her spark glow in surprised delight. Looking over at Optimus, she saw him nod, and bring his fist up to emulate. Lyra, unarmed, stood to face the crowd and did the same, which meant 'thank you,' but also 'you're welcome,' like when a crowd applauds an artistic performance she responds with a bow. The returned gesture broke the spell; the Autobots dissolved into groups to recover. Ratchet ran around to see who could carry the wounded. The Lamborghini boys were comparing stories. Optimus Prime inspected the space bridge consul.

"A useless pile of junk, now..." he pondered.

"I could fix it up for us, Prime," Wheeljack offered. "We could get the female Autobots to construct a receiver at their base."

"That is feasible, Optimus," supplied Elita-1. "With Skyfire, Perceptor, Grapple, and Lyra working on it, it would be operational in a short amount of time."

"Well?" he turned to two of his scientists. Perceptor was still in the lab. "Lyra? What happened to you?" For the first time he looked at her, sitting on the grass, blaster within reach, face scarred, lack of paint in some areas.

"I could help Skyfire and Perceptor build a space bridge receiver," she replied, ignoring the concern on other Autobot's face. Skyfire, who was loading up the wounded, concurred.

Optimus turned to his fellow warriors. "It appears we will no longer have only a radio signal to link us to Cybertron! Let's go home for repairs. Transform, and roll out!"