Disclaimer:Transformers belongs to Hasbro, Takara, etc . The only thing in this that belongs to me is Arcee's sister.
Jack and Arcee treaded carefully around the dead world known as Cybertron. Even though the planet has been dark for eons, they didn't know what to expect. There's the possibility of Cybertronians that remained behind; particularly Decepticons who remained behind to protect their capital. They wouldn't put it past Megatron to do something like that before retreating Cybertron. However, when they all thought about it, if they had the capabilities, the Autobots would have done the same thing for Iacon had it remain.
"We must be close," Jack surmised as the key started glowing brighter.
They walked underneath a statue of Megatron as they entered what seems to have been the pits of Kaon, the arena Megatron worked at when he was a gladiator before the war.
As they walked through the arena, the ground rumbled beneath their feet. The sensations were similar to them being in the middle of an earthquake. Emerging from the ground was a doorway. Standing tall and proud. The markings on the door were similar to the key that was glowing in Jack's hand and the door opened.
"Vector Signa's down here?" Jack asked.
"Kaon didn't always belong to the Decepticons. Megatron took it as a capital, apparently without ever realizing what lay beneath their feet," Arcee explained.
Suddenly they heard a growl from above and saw an insect looking cybertronian, it lunges right at them, only for Arcee to grab Jack, stopping him from getting crushed. She activated her blaster and started at the cybertronian insect which didn't do any damage to him, the cybertronian insect, then looked at Arcee's left wing on her back and saw her Autobot insignia and lunged right at her, slamming her at a wall.
"Arcee!" Cried out in fear.
The cybertronian insect turned around and saw the key to Vector Sigma in Jack's hand causing him to chase after the human, Arcee got up and started shooting the Cybertronian insect, jumped up as she continued shooting the cybertronian insect as she land on her feet a few feet away and it charged right at her.
"We're being attacked by some kind of giant bot beetle," Jack said as he activated his spacesuit's comlink.
"An insecticon!" Ratchet gasped.
"A what?!" June exclaimed freaking out about her son's safety.
"What are Decepticons doing on cybertron?" Raf asked.
"A few remained in stasis, sentries, should the enemy return," Ratchet clarified.
Arcee jumped onto a wall and continued firing her blaster at the insecticon. The insecticon fired at her, she evaded it, and transformed the insecticon followed per suit, she slid underneath him and began firing back at the insecticon. She noticed that Jack was still there, "Jack, go!"
"Seriously?" Jack exclaimed.
"Without Arcee? She's his guide," June protested.
"No, Nurse Darby. Arcee is Jack's backup. The keycard is his guide," Ratchet corrected.
"Do it!" Arcee screamed at him as she continued to fight the insecticon with her blasters.
"Listen to her, Jack. You've made it this far. Optimus is counting on you," June said and that was all the convincing Jack needed to go on without his partner.
He retreated into Vector Sigma, intent on seeing the mission through to the end. However, the door began to shut as soon as he stepped inside. The last image he saw before the door sealed itself shut…was Arcee being knocked to the ground by the Insecticon.
"Orion, have you made progress with Project Iacon?" Megatron asked Orion as he entered his workstation.
Orion turned around, "It seems I am a bit rustier than I thought," he said.
"Might That have anything to do with the nature of your after hour research?" Megatron asked him, Did I fail to mention that we would be tracking your activities?" He presses a button on the computer and an image of Optimus Prime/Orion Pax appeared on the screen.
Orion now knew that he couldn't hide it. He wanted to know what was true and what was false and he's been overwhelming with questions for the past two months. He needed real answers. He needed someone to explain everything to him.
"Why does history portray me siding with the Autobot aggressors? And why did Starscream call me a Prime? I must know. Who am I?" Orion pleaded with him.
"You are my clerk," Megatron answered, "Now get back to work and decode that database."
Courage swept through him. Something he hadn't felt for a long time. Orion was finally beginning to regain the qualities that made the council and sentinel 'Zeta' Prime ultimately choose him to become the next Prime so long ago. A title that Megatron was in no way worthy.
"No I would rather erase my findings than make them available for your questionable use," Orion decreed as he went to erase all his findings.
Orion went to walk away. He thought he was free from the lies. The deception. However, he was far from it.
"So that's how you want to play," Megatron chuckled as he brought back the research Orion had decrypted, "Did you really think that we wouldn't be tracking AND documenting every iota of your valuable research?"
Soundwave suddenly walked in and showed an image of Cybertron on his visor.
"One of our sentries was activated on Cybertron?" Megatron asked him.
"You told me our planet was dead," Orion said with confusion.
"That is beside the point. Guards!" Megatron called out to Vehicon troopers who were guarding the door to the room, they came in, as Megatron threatened Orion as he deployed his sword, "You will finish Project Iacon by time I return, or I will carve your spark before your very eyes!"
Back on Cybertron, Arcee was continuing to fire at the Insecticon with her blasters, as it approached her she jumped as it reached her location and landed on his lead, only to hurt him with her foot. She landed on the ground, the Insecticon swung his insect legs at her, but luckily for her she evaded the attack and jumped onto a pillar-like structure, jumped up the top of the structure and started shooting at the insecticon from the high ground. The Insecticon transformed in its beetle form and flew up towards Arcee and flew towards her smashing her into a wall, she fell to the ground after falling unconscious. The Insecticon transformed as he approached the door that leads into Vector Sigma and ripped the door open before going into the tunnel going after Jack.
The hall was dark. Eerily. The sound of his Spacesuit boots connecting with the metallic floor and his erratic heartbeat were the only sounds that he could hear. The smooth, cool, vibrant metal of the key was the only sensation that he could feel. The bright light and the little way ahead was all that he could see.
This place felt strange to Jack. And yet, he felt as if he was…home. He was where he belonged. He shook his head at the thought. He thought that was impossible. Then again, he thought about everything that turned out to be possible. He was once in love with Sierra, but once he met Arcee he began to fall in love with the femme, he bet she also had feeling for him, He though that falling in love with an alien was impossoible but somehow he fell in love with an alien, that impossibility turned out to be possible.
As he walked by he heard a familiar sound. Metal clanging against metal. Snarling. The marks along the wall. Immediately…he knew that there were Scraplets nearby.
As he continued to walk he found a metal bar lodged within a structure and grabbed it to use as a weapon, as he walked forward, there were thousands of scraplets on the ceiling waiting for the right time to attack.
"The activity log indicates my Space Bridge was set for Cybertron and remains open. The only possible reason the Autobots would take such a risk, would be to restore their precious Optimus Prime," Megatron told Soundwave as his surveillance chief shows him a picture of Cybertron with a picture of an active Space Bridge next to the planet.
As Jack continued to walk down the corridors, he found himself at a deadend and the wall in front of him lit up with the same light from the keycard and same shape before opening, revealing that the wall was a door the entire time.
He walked through the door, without hesitation and as he approached a giant circular platform that was the size of a Cybertronian and this is where Vector sigma was.
He presses a button on his spacesuit's comlink, "Hey Everyone. I'm in," he announced.
"Sweet!" He heard Miko cheered from the base on the comlink.
Jack walked across the walkway towards a center floor. The key seemed to glow brighter as it sensed its counterpart. Its keyhole was beginning to glow as well. The light seemed to glow brighter the closer Jack walked towards the keyhole. He was grappled by the realization that he was just a few steps away from restoring Optimus.
He set the key down into the keyhole and stood back as the key transformed to the original shape it was before Optimus gave it to him. Jack just stood there. Waiting. Waiting for it to do something. Anything to let him know that it was working. The floor below him surrounding the key began to glow. Jack let out a cry as the table began to move back towards the walkway. When it began to lift itself into an upright position, Jack slid down. Anticipating this, Jack was able to shift his body so he would be able to land on his feet.
There was a bright glow in the room. And he knew the source. A white light shone in the center as green lights reached the key, faded and repeated the process. Signifying that the Matrix of Leadership was being reloaded into it.
"This is…wow," Jack gasped in amazement, "Commencing download…I think."
"Soon, Optimus," Jack heard Ratchet say to himself through the comlink.
"No one told you to stop, Pax," A vehicon said as he and his partner approached Orion, transforming their servos into blasters, after noticing that he's stopped working on decoding the Iacon database and they charged their blasters.
Orion turned around and looked at them, "I believe Megatron intends to use whatever he finds in Project Iacon to harm the Autobots. We can warn them," Orion said, approaching them, trying to appeal to 'their' good nature, only for them to attack him, causing him to fall to the floor as they started to beat him up with their feet before one of them aimed and charged their blaster at him.
"This is taking a while," Jack said as he was getting bored as it's taking a long time to finish downloading.
"Of course it is. We are talking about the collective wisdom of the Primes," Ratchet answered through the comlink.
Suddenly he heard the familiar sound of Scraplets munching on metal behind him, as they've all have woken up. With their vision of the combination of both heat-seeking and metal detection, the Scraplets looked forward and saw a big blue spinning ball of light surrounded by two circles revolving across the ball in two separate directions before looking down and sees the computer in which the key was was inserted into and downloading the matrix of leadership from. The scraplets then opened their mouths and started to fly towards the supercomputer.
"What?!" Jack exclaimed with surprise as the Scraplets flew towards Vector Sigma and he began to whack them with the metal bar, but he couldn't hit them all as thousands flew past him and reached the super computer.
"What is it, Jack?" Ratchet asked him on the comlink.
"Scraplets," he answered.
"What's a Scraplet?" June asked on the comlink from the base.
"Why did it have to be Scraplets?" Bulkhead asked.
"This is going to be more difficult than I imagined," Chromette muttered, "Hopefully the download gets finished before that happens."
"If they chew Vector sigma before the Matrix is fully reloads-" Ratchet started when suddenly a Ground Bridge portal opened behind them.
"So Vector Sigma is more than legend," they heard Megatron say as he exited the Ground Bridge portal and looked at him. The portal closed behind the warlord, "You Autobots have gone to impressive lengths to recover your leader. Be assured, I shall never underestimate you again. Now that I assume that your sister will be stepping through that portal with a reloaded Matrix of Leadership in hand," He added, talking to Chromette.
"We'll never tell you, Mega-moron," Chromette said.
"We hold the space Bridge at all costs," Ratchet announced as he stood in front of the portal with the other three forming a defensive line to keep him away from the portal. Bulkhead, Bumblebee and Chromette activated their servos into their blasters, while Ratchet transformed his servos into blades.
Bulkhead, Bumblebee and Chromette began firing at Megatron as they slowly approached him, while Ratchet went to charge at him. Megatron charged at Bulkhead and punched him, causing Bulkhead to fly towards the portal but landed on the ground in front of it.
Ratchet went to attack Megatron only for Megatron to grab him by the head, picking him up, and threw him off the platform as Bumblebee started shooting at him, running around the edge of the platform, Megatron came up to him, grabbed him before throwing him across the floor and deployed his sword , raised it to give Bumblebee the finishing blow when Ratchet tackled him, getting him away from Bumblebee, Megatron grabbed ratchet and threw him at one of the pillars.
Chromette continued to shoot Megatron but she, like all the others, was not able to stop him as she fell unconscious after he threw her across the platform in front of one of the pillars, one across from the one where Ratchet was thrown at.
"You're going Down, Buckethead," Bulkhead exclaimed as he ran towards Megatron, while Chromette was shooting Megatron and stopped shooting the warlord when Bulkhead tackled him, falling off the platform and collided with a rock wall before fighting.
Back on Cybertron, Arcee gasps as she regains conscious, sat up and felt a tingling sensation on her foot and looked at her right foot, she widened her optics as she saw a Scraplet nipping on her left foot, transformed her right servo into a blaster and killed it with her blaster.
"Jack?" Arcee called before noticing the missing Insecticon and opened passageway. She jumped into the air before transforming into her alternate mode and speeds into the opened passageway.
Jack kept whacking the Scraplets as they chewed on Vector Sigma, when Vector Sigma's energy suddenly started to pulse weakly.
"Oh, no, no,no,no! Don't quit now!" Jack pleaded when he suddenly heard a sound from the corridor that sounded like a motorcycle engine and turned around, "Arcee."
But the noise wasn't coming from Arcee but the Insecticon's wings instead as he came into the room, flew into the air before transforming into his robot mode and started to approach Jack but stepped back and stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw the scraplets.
"Back off, Bug!" Jack yelled as he held the metal bar in a threatening manner when he thought up of an idea, turned around and looked at the scraplets, then looked back at the Insecticon and picked one of the scraplets, "Hey, guys. The main course." He threw the scraplet at the insecticon, which began to chomp on the Insecticon as it began to turn tail and run, when suddenly the Insecticon fell to the ground. The other scraplets looked and sees the Insecticon and began chewing on him as he ran but they all latched onto him and had a hard time walking as he couldn't to which way he was going as his limbs fall off and fell over the edge of the walkway with the Scraplets chasing after him. Jack ran towards the edge and saw thinly in the dark the Insecticon being attacked. Then it let out one last screech.
He then looked back at Vector Sigma and a few seconds later it beeped telling him that the download was complete, he ran towards it as Vector sigma descends back down as the gasp that was the circular platform closed. He grabs the key and ran back to where he was before he ran towards it and heard a motorcycle engine approaching. Arcee transformed as she enters the room.
"I have the Matrix," Jack informed her as he shows her the key which now was lit with blue light.
"Let's roll," Arcee said.
Back at the Space Bridge, Bulkhead had his servos transformed into his wrecking ball maces and as he went to punch Megatron with one of them, Megatron grabbed the mace and rotated him in a circle before throwing him at a wall before falling unconscious laying next to the other Autobots that were unconscious and Megatron walked back up onto the platform.
"You have to admit, it's a privilege to stomp the former leader of the Autobots," One of the Vehicons that were beating up Orion said to his partner who was doing the same thing.
Orion crawls away and turned around as he heard them say that and look at the screen above him which showed a picture of him, then looked back at one of the approaching Vehicons, they then continued to beat him up by punching and kicking him.
"No. Please, stop. Enough!" Orion begged in desperation and accidentally activating his blasters, "I'm armed?" He said with disbelief as he is shocked by this as he didn't know that he was installed with weaponry.
The vehicons realise they were in trouble before activating their own blasters and charged it at him and started firing upon him, he fired back in retaliation killing them instantly, and was surprised that he killed them with ease and then looked at the blasters knowing what he must do.
Arcee was in her alternate mode with Jack riding on her as they neared the portal.
"We're almost there," Jack said as he notices that they were close to the Space Bridge portal .
"Ratchet, we have the matrix. We're coming through," Arcee said as she contacts Ratchet in her alternate mode. She doesn't get a response and immediately transforms with Jack landing on his feet as Arcee touches her comlink and as they both stood in front of the portal, "Ratchet?"
"Something's wrong," Arcee said as all she got was total silence and realized that something was going on, over the other side of the portal as Megatron deployed his sword.
"We can't not go through, can we?" Jack asked Arcee.
"Come, Arcee, so that I might end the lineage of the Primes for all time," Megatron said, waiting for Arcee to come through the portal.
Suddenly a Ground Bridge portal opened up from behind him, "I cannot allow that to happen, Megatron," Orion said as he walked through the portal, surprising the warlord, who turned around to look at him.
"And why should you care, Orion Pax?" Megatron asked him, "You are no prime."
"That may be true, or yet another deception. But this much, I do know: my sympathies lie with the Autobots, and you are not one of us," he answered before activating his swords, one of them was still broken as Megatron neglected to repair it.
Orion growled as he charged at Megatron and slashed his broken sword against Megatron's fusion cannon, Megatron then punched him and Orion fell to the floor, still conscious.
"Your spark may be in the right place, Orion," Megatron said before slapping him in the back of his head and Orion's swords get retracted back into his arms,"But you have much to learn before you can hope to ever again stand your ground against me, a moment, sadly, which shall never come."
As Megatron raised his sword, Arcee came through the portal in her alternate mode before transforming and colliding with him, sending him flying across the platform. As Megatron and Arcee were fighting Orion stood up before turning around and sees Jack standing in front of the portal and shows him the keycard. "Are you certain I am worthy?" Orion asked.
"You have no idea," was all Jack said.
Jack held the key up and it glowed brighter at the presence of its host. At an instant, a ray of light shot from the key towards Orion's chassis. Immediately, the doors to his spark opened, happily accepting the Matrix of Leadership into him. He looked at his chassis as the memories he once lost finally returned to him, while loosing the once he gained within the last two months as Orion pax.
Ratchet regained conscious as he saw the ray of light from the key card aimed towards the Matrix of Leadership.
Arcee fired her blasters at Megatron as she ran across the platform, jumped and rolled as she landed before jumping again only for Megatron to grab her and held her against one of the pillars, "How nice of you to join our little reunion. Now of you please, the Matrix!" He demanded before noticing that Jack had the keycard and was uploading the collective wisdom of the Primes into the matrix, within where Orion's spark was located and gasped in horror. He lets go of Arcee and ran towards him.
Ratchet stood up as he saw Megatron running towards Orion and flung him out of his way.
The keycard finishes uploading as Orion Pax has become Optimus Prime once again and los every memory of what he's done while he was Orion pax. The keycard levitated in the air for a few seconds before Optimus caught it between his digits as the doors to spark closed and quickly puts it back in his personal Sub-space storage pocket dimension.
"No!" Megatron yelled as he deploys his sword as he jumped towards them only for Optimus to catch it, just like Megatron did in their last battle at the Volcano.
"Megatron," Optimus said as he activates his battle mask and Megatron looked at him in horror as Optimus took one servo off the sword ready to punch him, "Begone!" Optimus then immediately punched him in the face sending him backwards.
Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Chromette all regain consciousness as they saw Optimus punching Megatron, a few seconds later Optimus gave him an uppercut, sending him flying into a rock wall.
"Ratchet, how did we arrive here?" Optimus asked his old friend as Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Arcee and Chromette activated their blasters.
"Long story, Old friend," Ratchet said as he activates his blades and Optimus turned his left servo into his sword and the other into his blaster.
"Base to Arcee, we're reading six Autobot life signals down there. Is Prime with you?" Fowler asked through the comlink.
"And Jack," Arcee answered.
"Yes!" Miko cheered as June sighs deeply with relief knowing that her son was still alive.
Megatron groans as climbs back up the platform as a Ground Bridge portal opens next to the Autobots.
"It's ours," Arcee informed everyone.
"Autobots, fall back!" Optimus instructed.
Arcee grabbed Jack as she went through the portal first, Chromette then stopped shooting at Megatron and went through the Ground Bridge portal.
"This time, he's coming with us," Bulkhead said, recalling when Optimus went through Megatron's Ground Bridge when he had amnesia.
Ratchet then ran through the portal, followed by Bumblebee as he stopped shooting at Megatron, Bulkhead did the same and fired at Megatron before jumping through the portal.
Megatron continued to shoot at Optimus with his fusion cannon, Opimus evaded each shot from Megatron before jumping to his side into the Ground Bridge portal and as the portal closed Megatron growled with anger.
Raf, Miko, Fowler and June stood in front of the Ground Bridge as Arcee, Jack and Chromette came through first.
"Jack!" June cried happily as she saw her son who took off the helmet.
Bumblebee then walked through followed by Ratchet and Bulkhead as they entered the base.
Bumblebee knelt down his knee as Raf approached him. Optimus then came through the portal which closed behind him.
"Optimus?" Raf asked Optimus as he approached him, hoping that he remembers him.
"Hello, Rafael," Optimus greeted, telling him that he remembers him.
"Whoa," Raf said as he heard this.
"The big guy remembers us!" Miko said as she and Jack walked onto the Autobot insignia that was on the floor, "Whoo-hoo!" She cheered, jumping in the air.
"Although, it seems there is much I do not remember," Optimus said, glancing and pointing at the Decepticon insignia which was still on his left shoulder pad.
"Optimus, it truly has been our darkest hour, but know this: from every indication your spark never ceased being that of an Autobot," Ratchet said as he walked up to him , the others approached him as well, happy that their leader was back.
Please review and Next is Operation: Bumblebee part 1