Author's Note: I apologize for the delay, but circumstances have been against me lately. I've been hip-deep in exams and now it's essay season. I'll try to update again as soon as possible, but it will be difficult.

The last chapter of this story did not go as planned. I guess that's what happens when you lose your train of thought five and six times before finally getting to write. Things tend to get changed. This chapter may be a bit short, and I apologize for that. The next chapter will be longer.

Disclaimer: I think you know the drill.

Past and Future

Chapter 7: Unwinding

Ultra Magnus blinked to clear his optics. "He's not happy about having to tell Optimus. I think I'm in for it later."

"Why?" Scattershot asked. "You didn't do anything."

"He won't shoot the messenger, but that won't stop him from getting back at him in other ways." Magnus shuddered. "He was trying so hard to keep the future a secret and then he found out that he has to tell or the future will be changed. He's not happy about it. And since I'm the bearer of bad news, it's going to be me who gets it."

"He won't hurt you," Bumblebee commented. "At least not much."

Sideswipe and a few others snickered.

Sunstreaker grunted. "Back then I was glad he left."

"You were jealous because even as a human he's more handsome that you are," his brother teased. "You didn't like his presence because people were admiring him and not you."

The gold Lamborghini glared at him.

"You should have heard him complaining!" Cliffjumper chuckled. "He spent weeks going on and on about how the 'puny flesh creature' stole his crowd of admirers. Of course, back then Sunny was still in full vain bastard mode. He's thawed out slightly since then, probably because Ultra Rodimus still eclipses him in terms of looks, but back then we were almost ready to raid Ratchet's supply of sedatives to make him shut up."

"I know of at least a dozen human men who were also glad to see him go," Spike added. "Their complaint was that he was stealing their ladies. About a week later I informed them that he could've had every female within a hundred miles at his feet if he'd wanted to, but the ring he wore said he already had a partner and wasn't interested in anyone else."

Even Magnus had to laugh at that, more because he could just imagine how Ultra Rodimus would have reacted to that jealousy. The young Prime had a way with words and a talent for taking people down a few pegs when he had to.

"Not that I blamed them for being jealous," Spike commented thoughtfully, then caught Magnus's sharp look. "I'm just saying! Even you have to admit that Roddy has an exotic beauty, and he's handsome enough to make even men look twice. He could've assembled a drooling female harem any time he wanted to, but even without knowing he was lifebonded I could tell he was the one-partner type."

The city commander eyed him for a long moment, then relaxed. He was about to say something else when his head went up and his eyes glazed over. The others waited patiently for him to return his attention to them.

"He's coming back!" Magnus was out the door in a second, the others scrambling to follow.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The time window was in a state of collapse. The edges were beginning to unravel and fray, the tattered edges tearing at Ultra Rodimus's human form. He felt himself beginning to shift shape, the morph from human to robot being accompanied by a stab of pain shooting through his chest. Tendrils of temporal energy wrapped around his shifting form, sizzling and burning where they touched metal or flesh. More pain rippled along nerves that were in the process of becoming circuits, and the transformation from flesh to metal only made the pain worse. He struggled against flailing tentacles of burning energy as they tried to hold him back, inside the collapsing anomaly.

Finally, the tendrils gave way and he was spit out of the time corridor, landing hard on a metal surface. Some instinct in the back of his pain-hazed mind urged him to run, but all he could do was slowly drag himself away from the raging mass of raw energy. His fingers dug into the metal, creating handholds that he used to half crawl, half slither away from the storm.

He wasn't fast enough.

The time window blew.

The unleashed blast of energy picked him up like a leaf in a tornado and sent him crashing through a wall thirty yards away. His half-formed exo-armor shell was badly scorched by the explosion. The pain had slowed his thought processes considerably, and the impact scattered most of the wits he'd managed to collect. He lay there for a long moment, stunned, panting as his air intakes attempted to cool his overheating systems. Finally he'd regained enough mental clarity to begin attempts to climb out of the pile of debris he'd landed in. He was just crawling out when his mate and the others arrived.

Magnus transformed and ran over to him, dragging him the rest of the way out of the heap and promptly enfolding him in a tight embrace. Ultra Rodimus grunted as his mate's grip compressed his still-not-quite-formed torso (his current state of near-unconsciousness and the effects from the time window's explosion having slowed down his morph back to robot), forcing the air out of him and sending more pain, this time from still broken infrastructure rods (his 'ribcage'), shooting through his chest.

"Magnus let go, Roddy can't breathe," he gasped out, his voice a least an octave higher than normal. Magnus's grip loosened immediately. Ultra Rodimus sucked in a huge breath of air, wobbled on his feet, then passed out completely and went down like a felled tree. Magnus caught him, lifting his unconscious lover into his arms.

"Get him to Repair Bay," First Aid commanded.

In Iacon's Medbay, the Protectobot medic dragged in all his equipment and began running scans on his leader. Ultra Rodimus's armor was scorched black, about three inches of his braid had been burned off, and Sandstorm had had to cut off another inch to get rid of the scorched, broken ends. The Paradronian and Magnus were lurking off to one side, Sandstorm because he knew more than most about Ultra Rodimus's exostructure and Magnus because he could find damage that even First Aid couldn't.

First Aid eyed his monitors, then looked at Magnus. "Can you influence his morphing ability?"

"I'm not sure. Why?"

"He's not quite finished shifting back to robot. That's why his armor is so much weaker than usual. There's still a lot of organic tissue in his body. I can't begin repairs until he's finished morphing."

The red and blue Autobot frowned thoughtfully, then reached through the lifebond into his mate's mind, searching until he had a rough idea of how the morphing was controlled. Narrowing his optics absently, he turned his own will to the task and was rewarded when molecules began to move, scrambling and rearranging until Ultra Rodimus was fully robotic again.

The medic let out a soft sound and immediately dove into the repair work, aided by Ultra Rodimus's own internal repair systems. He left the task of repairing the outer armor and sealing the tears to Ultra Rodimus's own body, focusing his own attention on the broken infrastructure rods surrounding the younger robot's chest cavity. Ultra Rodimus's skeletal structure was built along the same lines as a human's, only out of a light but incredibly strong metal instead of bone. The broken ends had to come out until First Aid could repair the underlying circuitry, then held firmly in place with wire and bolts until Ultra Rodimus's repair systems could cover the breaks with new metal.

Movement at his side made First Aid look up and see Perceptor. The scientist was working on Ultra Rodimus's right arm, the creature on which was whimpering painfully. Falcon had been scorched pretty badly, but he'd somehow avoided being directly hit by the temporal energy. That had probably saved his life.

"How's Falcon?" Perceptor asked Magnus.

A frown creased the bridge of the Autobot second-in-command's nose. Magnus was silent for a moment. "He says it's mostly surface damage, on his skin but not going any deeper. He's reacting more to Roddy's pain than his own."

"That metal alloy that merged with his skin after he came back with the big guy provides him more protection than he would've had if he was a normal skrill," First Aid commented. "He should be grateful for that."

Magnus chuckled. "He is."

It took three hours of repair work before First Aid resealed the young Prime's chestplate and moved him to the recovery wing. Ultra Rodimus's own repair systems dealt with the damage that remained within a few hours. Almost a day after his return, he came to.

Blaster walked into the small room to see Ultra Rodimus sitting up and First Aid running a last series of scans to make sure there was no lingering damage. Magnus leaned against the wall, watching. All three looked up as the communications officer walked in.

"Good to see you up and about," Blaster told his leader. "Just in time, too."

"Just in time for what?" Ultra Rodimus asked.

"I just received a signal on an older Autobot comm frequency. It's from the female Autobots."

Ultra Rodimus straightened. "What did they say?"

"They're on their way here." Blaster paused. "Elita's with them. They've been out of touch for so long I'm not sure they know about Optimus..."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elita-1 and a small group of other females followed the large green and silver male through Iacon's corridors, wondering why every male they passed either refused to look in their direction or watched them with sorrow in their optics. She wondered what they knew that she didn't. Something had happened, something she wasn't sure she wanted to know about. No one was saying anything and that made her uneasy.

The male introduced as Springer led them to the Repair Bay on Iacon's lower levels and toward one of the rooms. Elita perked up, hoping to finally see her mate again.

"In here." Springer opened the door for them, but remained outside. The females filed in.

Off to one side stood a strange robot, colored yellow and orange. He watched them calmly. The familiar bulk of Ultra Magnus stood beside the only med table in the room. And on the table sat a stranger.

Elita stared at the other bot, a young one by the look of him, oddly built yet quite handsome, colored in grey, red, and blue. He was watching her out of green eyes with slit black pupils, and there was sadness in his gaze. Despite his obvious youth, he possessed an aura of authority and wisdom.

"Who is this?" Elita finally demanded. "Where is Prime?"

"Before you," Magnus rumbled softly. "Elita-1, I introduce to you Ultra Rodimus Prime, leader of the Autobots."

The femmes stared at the silver male. He nodded slightly, his eyes never leaving them.

"If he's..." Elita breathed, "where is Optimus?"

Pain crossed Magnus's face. Ultra Rodimus closed his eyes and lowered his head, and that told the femme commander all she needed to know. Her beloved was dead, and the young bot was his successor.

"How?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly.

Ultra Rodimus sighed heavily. "It is a long story..."

To be continued...

(looks over chapter) Wow. This was longer than I thought it would be. Anyway, this is the last chapter dealing with the future. The next, and last, chapter will be set in the past, dealing with the aftermath of Ultra Rodimus's presence and answering the question of what inspired Wheeljack to design a humanoid Transformer. Remember, to get more story you have to send me reviews, and that means more than one person has to review this chapter. Yes, Fenestrae, there are times Optimus seems to have a death wish. That is demonstrated by all versions of Optimus Prime through every Transformers series with him in it. This time, he just didn't know what he was dealing with. And the lesson seems to have skipped him entirely.