'Transformers: Crisis' Chapter 10: "The Signal".

(Author's notes on bottom)

"WHAT!" I screamed, "How in the name of Primus could you let them escape! No one was supposed to survive!" I was furious. I changed my hand into a claw and grabbed Megatron by the neck and lifted him off of the ground. "Ughh…please MetalSamamon…let me down…let me explain!" he begged as I crushed his neck. "It had better be good!" I proclaimed as I let him down. He rubbed his neck for a moment and then sighed. "Alright…you see it all went downhill after you vanished. Dozenkillezia was distraught over your apparent death; so much so that she didn't want to do anything…she just sat there in pain and shock. Meanwhile; that left the rest of us without a leader and without a lieutenant; and so we were lost. Gigatron and I tried to take command; but the drones would only take orders from you or their commanders; and of course the drone commanders would only take orders from you. So Gigatron did the only thing he could…" He explained. "And that would be…?" I asked him. "He sent for reinforcements from Destron." "Destron? I thought that place…" I began. "…Didn't exist?" Megatron finished, "Well, not many know of its existence. It's the only real Destronger stronghold left; hence our names." he explained. "Gee, like I didn't figure that out." I made a sarcastic remark. "Anyway, go on." I gestured with my hand. "Well, you see, they never came. We were waiting and waiting and waiting; but no one came," his eyes turned a deep somber red, "and during this whole time the remaining Autobots had more than enough time to evacuate and leave Cybertron; but to where we don't know."

"Great. Now that's a beautiful story. You leave for just 1 day and look what happens…" I said. "Uh MetalSamamon…" Megatron interrupted me, "You've been gone nearly 3 weeks." I turned to him in amazement. "No way…" I started off, "that realm must alter reality more than I had anticipated." "What realm?" Megatron asked me. "Oh nothing; never mind. Let's gather the troops and leave." I said and began to walk away. "Uh, that's another thing." he muttered. I stopped and turned slowly to look at him. "What's that?" I asked with a gloomy tone. "We suffered heavy casualties." he said. "Really? How many drones?" I asked him. "Oh it's not the drones I was referring to; it was our soldiers." he quickly responded. "O.K. then; who did we lose?" I asked him. "We lost Gas Skunk, Slapper, Sky-Byte, and Dark Scream." he replied.

I sighed deeply. "Well, at least they died on the planet from which I freed them." "Huh?" Megatron looked at me in sheer confusion. I looked to see his eyes wide. "Oh, I guess I never really explained that, did I?" I asked. He simply shook his head in disagreement. "Back about 12 years ago when the Decepticons and the Predacons were defeated by Optimus and Fort Max; ultimately that is; Galvatron and the rest of the Decepticons along with all of the Predacons except Sky-Byte were captured and imprisoned and sent here to Cybertron. I witnessed this, and decided that I needed to do something about it. But I have rules I have to follow; the rules of history and time; so I could only free the rest of the Destrongers and use mindwipes on them to make them believe that they in fact never were captured and were still renegade on Earth while Galvatron had to be left behind…" I explained as I came to a sudden realization. "Hey, why am I explaining all of this to you? Shouldn't you know all this, Megatron?" He glared at me in udder amazement at my realization but quickly responded. "Uh, well, I was…uh…frozen. I didn't know what went on during my imprisonment time." I looked at him suspiciously, but dismissed it as nothing. "Alright then…" I said as I regained my composure and began to walk away again towards the ship that we came in. "Come on Megatron; we've got work to do." He followed me to the ship.

As we made our way back to the ship the rest of the Destrongers were waiting for us; or rather Megatron since they didn't know that I survived. I looked at the ship and noticed that it had taken some damage during the battle, but it was minimal and the ship would still fly. I noticed that the crew was beaten and tired out, and that they all were exhausted from battle, so I decided that I would spare them the trauma and shock of seeing me alive and teleport myself into the cockpit. Megatron climbed aboard, and I took once last look at the wasteland of Cybertron out of my window. As I did the ship began to shake. At first I thought I had accidentally activated the engines but they were not on. I looked around for any sign of anything that could be causing the shaking, but there was nothing. However, just then, I noticed that the entire runway and area was shaking. I looked into the distance ahead of me and seen the buildings near the horizon shake and crumble to the ground. "Oh my word the planet's shaking!" I said to myself in a mildly panicky voice. Just then a column rose out of the ground about a thousand yards away and formed a giant volcano shape. I was confused to say the least. But then, as if things were weird enough, the new structure shot out a bright burst of energy towards deep space. It nearly blinded me, and I shielded my face from the light for a moment, but when my eye and optic adjusted I looked to see the light beam penetrate deep into space until it was nothing more than a dot in the sky.

"What in the world was that? Some sort of signal or something…?" I asked myself out-loud; and rubbed my chin. I was stumped, but no sooner than it started did it end and the volcano retracted back into the planet and left a crater where it had been. "Hmm…maybe this whole thing wasn't such a great idea after all." I pondered to myself, and decided that it was time to go before anything else odd happened. I fired up the engines which took a few seconds to activate, and used what little runway I had to launch the ship back towards Earth.

As we traveled back I decided to take it easy for a few moments and reflect upon all that had just transpired. I put the ship on autopilot as I had previously programmed the coordinates for Earth and wondered just how much I really did know. I couldn't recall as much as I used to, and it seemed that things and events that I knew about before I no longer knew; and I hated it. I wished that WarMetalSamamon hadn't inferred in my business and had just stayed in the Digiworld. It would have been so much better, I thought, especially since he nearly cost me my life and consequently the lives of some of my Destrongers. I decided that I needed to catch some much needed sleep, and reclined back in the pilot's chair and fell asleep slowly as I watched the starry sky outside the window.

As I awoke we were nearly at our destination. I didn't know how long I slept, and for that matter I really didn't care since time was so screwed up away, and resumed the controls once I had fully woken up. I maneuvered the ship so that the bottom would plunge into the atmosphere at the right angle so that we wouldn't burn up and managed to land within 100 feet of our HQ.

But when I landed things were not as I had left it. The place was surrounded by Autobots! "Man, I have been gone a long time." I said as I opened the hatch and landed on the ground beside the ship. Immediately Autobots began pouring out of the base armed to the teeth. "Just like the space scanners said Optimus, he's back!" Skid-Z said to his towering leader. "Good, and I have a few surprises for him!" Optimus said as he and Ultra Magnus combined into Omega Prime. He generated the sword of Fortress Maximus and held it firmly in his hands. "Your villainy has gone unchallenged for far too long, MetalSamamon, and it ends here!" He boldly stated. I smiled slyly, "We shall Prime; we shall see…"

Author's notes!
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What tricks does MetalSamamon have up his sleeve for the Autobots? What happened to the Destron reinforcements? What secret is Megatron hiding from MetalSamamon? What was the significance of the signal? How will the Destrongers react to MetalSamamon's survival?

This was the last chapter before the 3-part finale to the end of the first story arc. All these questions and more might be answered in the exciting 3-part conclusion to the first story arc of Transformers: Crisis!