Fate Calls

by Sci-Fifan95

In life, the only certain thing that applies to us is death. We cannot escape it. We cannot outrun it. It is a fate that finds us all. However, He plays chess. And you don't find out until too late that He's been playing with two queens all along.

27. The Station

Well, I broke my record again. What is that, like three times in the last four chapters? Lol. So yeah, the length is the main reason this took so long, the second being my wisdom teeth coming out a week ago... That hurt... A lot. If you have had your wisdom teeth out, or are going to have them out, I feel your pain.

Alright, so you know how I had a prayer request last night? *Knows everyone who is reading this for the first time will be confused* well, she came back, and we've resolved the situation. I don't know how many of you prayed, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

As what I am making the norm, I thank everyone who reviewed and left feedback, you all make my day. :)

Thanks go to Crystal Prime for beta reading.

Autobot Shadowstalker - I am glad, I really liked writing that chapter, not as much as this one, but still. Haha. *Notices your sarcasm* All except the weapons of the Thirteen are good things. *Prowl impression.* And I didn't do a good job of that, but at least this chapter is REALLY long.

KayleeChiara - You think THAT was evil? *Laughs evilly* Oh, I have so many plans you will love and hate at the same time. Lol. Thank you very much for listing the things you like about my story, I will always believe it to be decent at best, but I thank you for telling me exactly what it is about Fate Calls that makes you come back to read it. :) And there is a reason why I haven't said anything about that yet, and it WILL be clear in its explanation, it will just take me some time to get there. And finally, if I managed to confuse you with my last chapter, this one will increase it ten-fold... And that is not me being arrogant, I am stating a fact, I managed to confuse Crystal and she knows most of what will happen in Fate Calls. Hehe.

tg-darkside - I will never think of myself as amazing, but I am glad you think so. Haha. And I always wondered why other fics didn't do that, so I decided to make it happen.

xDaughterOfKingsx - Thank you, sis. I was having a bad day when we were talking about that. And I can't put into words how happy I am that you listened to God and came back so we could resolve everything.

pfolk - I always hate hitting a dead end on stories. I was going to write a Transformers/Mass Effect story, but I couldn't get passed the time-line. It would depend on how much free time I had, and what you wanted to do, but I would be willing to listen to ideas, yes.

And I am not entirely sure how to reply to your last review... God... Bless... You?

Abyss Prime - Thanks! *short response for a short review*

Sky's Limit5 - I am glad you think so, and here's the next one!

HanamiKaze - Well, I did name the ones that were taken off the ship, so that would probably be why. But if you are talking about the ones still on the ship, then the things you are thinking of are probably right. And they are going to get worse, sorry. Lol. Yeah, I made a lot of them back in my early chapters, I am getting better, but they are still there and I know it. And see what's happening with this update. :)

Crystal Prime - Lol. Yeah, you can wait, you are my beta, I tell you everything. Well, ALMOST everything. Hehe. Thanks for the review. :)

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro. I only take credit for this story and my OCs.

---

March 30, 2013 4:24 P.M

Research station constructed by unknown Cybertronians, inside an asteroid containing relics of the Thirteen

I activated my jets and landed on the ground next to Jetfire and Springer. We had just finished our second free-fall since we first stood on the surface, and we were now standing at the bottom of the tunnel, out of reach of Decepticons and the crawling Cybertronians for the moment.

The bottom of the tunnel was a junction, with two huge hallways that lead to our left and right, which had ceilings about one-hundred meters in height and were roughly twice as wide as they were tall.

The hallway on the right seemed to be in... Less than stellar condition. It was made out of the same material as the floating constructs at the surface, but it was so badly damaged from what looked like weapons fire that it barely even looked like a hallway anymore. Its walls were almost completely black instead of grey like the structures above us, its ceiling was partially caved in, and the floor was blown apart in places, leaving craters in the middle of the hallway. It would more than likely was going to be bad for our health if we decided to travel down it.

But, while the right hallway was a mess, the left hallway was in perfect condition. It was simply crafted, with no unnecessary curves or designs in the architecture, no logos on the walls that might have given us a clue as to who created this place, there weren't even any benches for Cybertronians to sit on. It was just a long, straight, utilitarian hallway. Exactly what I expected to see, going from what I had already seen of this place.

"Which way?" I asked, already knowing my fellow Autobots would say left, but asking anyway just to be sure.

"Left," Jetfire said, nodding in the direction of the pristine hallway. "It's the only real choice. Going back up is out of the question, and going right seems like it would be a very bad idea."

"I second that," Springer said quickly, looking up at the crystal bridges above us nervously, likely searching for any sign that the violet-opticed Cybertronians were following us.

"And I third that," I said as I deployed my Scatter-Blaster and my Plasma Chaingun. "So, let's get going while we don't have company."

Jetfire nodded at my suggestion. "Agreed," he said, then gestured for Springer to stand next to him. "Springer, you and I are up front. Shadowstreaker, you're on rear security." He ordered as he deployed his missile-shooting machine gun, or Automatic Micro-Missile Rifle, as I had found out it was actually called.

Without exchanging any more words, Springer and I moved into the positions Jetfire ordered us to, and then the three of us started moving down the hallway to the left.

We descended into silence after we started moving down the hallway, and beyond the sounds of our pedes hitting the metal floor, nothing made a sound. It was both reassuring and eerie. Reassuring because the lack of noise meant we weren't near any violet-opticed Cybertronians or Decepticons, and eerie since this place was so massive, and yet so quiet.

"This place is too quiet for my liking," Jetfire whispered to no one in particular, probably just to create some sort of sound other than our silent pede steps.

"Same here," I whispered back, turning my helm back and forth in search of hostiles behind us. "Silence is quite unnerving in a place this large."

"Silence is also good," Jetfire said. "Means that we're safe for the moment."

I nodded, even though Jetfire likely wasn't looking back at me and I wasn't looking ahead at him. "Same conclusion I reached. Still doesn't make this place any less unnerving, though."

Silence descended on us again, because there really wasn't anything to talk about, and it was probably for the best since we needed to focus on searching for hostile Cybertronians.

We came to another junction and, after taking a moment to decide which way to go, turned right. We continued down the new hallway, not saying a word as we kept our optics and audio receptors open for threats, until I saw the faint outline of a near-seamless doorway to my right, with a single word written above it in the language of Cybertron.

Armory.

I widened my optics as my inner gun nut screamed at me to move over to the door and open it, and then proceed to examine every weapon inside the armory next to me.

But I resisted the impulse to do so. We were trying to recover several relics of the Thirteen, which were of significant importance, before the Decepticons could. This wasn't the time to examine the weaponry of the Cybertronians who built this place... No matter how interesting, useful, plentiful, and drool-worthy they could potentially be.

'You like guns way too much.' I own CPU seemed to observe, as if it was a separate entity.

'Shut up, CPU.' I thought. I really needed to get Ratchet to check up on me, this whole 'CPU-making-its-own-observations' thing was getting old.

My thoughts were interrupted as the scream that sent chills down my spine echoed down the hallway from the opposite direction we were walking, causing the three of us to come to an abrupt halt a short distance from the armory door.

"That's not good," I said, stating the obvious fact calmly as I stared at where we had just come from, prepared to fight the horde of violet-opticed Cybertronians, even though every part of me was telling me to run away from the source of the scream.

I heard Springer's helm turn to, likely, glare at me. "Oh, gee, what gave you that impression?" He asked sarcastically.

I ignored Springer and glanced at Jetfire. "Might I suggest taking cover in the armory to our right?" I asked, any trace of eagerness to see the weapons inside the armory overwhelmed by the need to find a place to hide from the horde. "There's going to be a lot of crazed Cybertronians after us, and not only will the armory keep us out of sight, we might find something in there to help us fight them off."

Jetfire looked off to the right, and then nodded after a moment. "It's our best option. Let's get in there before the company arrives," he said, then walked to the door and started to search for a control panel, since there wasn't one visible.

"I hate whoever built this place," Springer said as he and I walked over and joined Jetfire in his search for a control panel. He gestured at one of the sides of the near-seamless doorframe. "Why did they hide the control panel? There should be a panel right here!"

As if Springer's words were a magical spell which summoned things from thin air, a hidden panel next to the door slide into the wall, and the Cybertronian equivalent of a Hand Scanner replaced the hidden panel.

After the Scanner appeared at the spot Springer gestured, the green Triple-Changer widened his optics and looked at his servo in shock, as if he thought he'd created the Scanner by gesturing at the wall.

A look of mischief entered Springer's optics, and he gave me a crude grin before he looked up at the ceiling and spread his servos out. "Armorless Arcees should be falling from the sky!" He said in an excited tone, as if he expected his statement to actually happen.

My left optic twitched. It was obvious that the only reason he said that was to get a rise out of me, and to react to his statement would be doing exactly what he wanted, but I didn't care.

I stepped closer to Springer and Gibbs slapped him in the back of the helm hard enough to make him stagger forward.

Springer grabbed the back of his helm in obvious pain, but he had a smug look on his faceplate as he looked back at me. "Oh, would you look at that. Shadowstreaker is still touchy about the way bots talk about Arcee." He rubbed his helm for another micro-klick before he let his servo fall to his side. "I'd better watch what I say around her, not that I do a lot of talking anymore, mostly just watching." He smiled.

I bite back the growl working its way out of my throat. "You do that, Springer. Unless, of course, you want to revisit what happened the last time you opened your mouth around her. I'd happily trade a few cycles in the brig if it meant a jour or two without having to deal with you." I said coldly, leaning forward slightly for an intimidation factor.

Before Springer and I could continue to threaten each other, Jetfire walked over and Gibbs slapped both of us in the back of the helm. "Stow it, you two. Now!" He whisper-shouted, an uncharacteristically angry look in his optics. He usually was calm, slightly gruff at times, but calm.

Springer opened his mouth to speak, but slammed his jaw shut when Jetfire gave him a glare that would have offlined him, had looks been able to kill sentient beings.

"Now, both of you are way out of line," the seeker said, shifting his glare between the two of us. "And when we get back to Earth, the two of you will be punished for bringing this rivalry on a mission. But we have to get back to Earth first, so for now, just stop talking to each other and help me get the armory door open." With one last look at Springer and I, Jetfire turned and walked over to the Scanner.

"What's there to help with?" Springer asked, looking like he still wanted to trade blows with me, but was obeying Jetfire and moving on from our confrontation. "Servo Scanners can't be bypassed or disconnected from security systems, and it's impossible to fake a scan."

Jetfire ignored Springer's question and placed his servo on the Scanner.

An orange strip of light appeared beneath Jetfire's digits after he put his servo on the Scanner, and it moved up his digits before it went back down to the bottom of his servo, and then flashed red and disappeared.

"Access: denied." The disembodied voice of the station VI said after the Scanner deactivated, then fell silent with that short statement.

After the VI fell silent, Springer looked at Jetfire incredulously. "Are you joking? That's your plan on how to get inside that armory?" He asked, tone mimicking the look on his faceplate.

Jetfire returned Springer's disbelieving stare with a flat look. "Do you have a better idea? Or do you want to stay out here with those crazed Cybertronians?"

As if on cue, another scream from the horde echoed down the hallway, sounding closer than the last one, since I could faintly hear countless pedes and servos hitting the floor.

The scream seemed to take the fight out of Springer, since he sighed and walked over to place his own servo on the Scanner.

Just like when Jetfire placed his servo on the Scanner, an orange strip of light appeared beneath Springer's digits after he put his servo on the security device. And after scanning his servo, the light flashed red and disappeared.

"Access: denied." The VI said, then fell silent again.

"This is going well," Springer said sarcastically as he stepped away from the Scanner so I could try as well.

"Springer," Jetfire said, giving the green Triple-Changer an annoyed look. "Shut. Up."

Springer, thankfully, took his suggestion as a threat, which it probably was, and he went silent as I stepped up to the Scanner.

I placed my servo on the Scanner. The orange strip of light appeared beneath my digits after I touched the Scanner, and after repeating the same process it had for Jetfire and Springer, the light flashed red and disappeared, just like it had for my fellow Autobots.

"Access: de-" The VI started to tell us I was denied entry, but it started to skip like Techlaser's logs did before I had time to take my servo off the Scanner.

As the VI continued to skip like a damaged CD, I noticed that one of the orange lights on the wall further down the hallway turned blue and started giving off sparks, like it was a damaged power line.

The blue light transferred to another orange light that was closer to my fellow Autobots and I, then it transferred to another light, and another and another, until it had transferred to the light right next to me. It showered me in sparks for a moment, before, in what almost looked like a bolt of lightning, the light transferred itself into the Scanner, causing it to ark with electricity that didn't touch my servo, which was still on the Scanner, and then shut down, along with the skipping voice of the VI.

After a micro-klick, the Scanner powered up again and started to scan my servo again as if it hadn't done so in the first place. And when the Scanner finished its second scan of my servo, the line of light flashed green instead of red before it vanished.

"Access: granted." The VI said, reappearing just long enough to make that short, shocking statement before falling silent again as the near-seamless door opened with only the faintest whisper, revealing a short hallway that led to another door.

If I thought the hallway was eerily silent when we were walking down it, then it was completely silent after the VI gave me access to the armory. There was literally no sound. If someone dropped a pin from where we first stepped into the hallway, we would have heard it. Even the sound of the approaching horde of Cybertronians seemed muffled by our silence.

I looked down at my servo, and then back at where the blue light had first appeared. Where did that light come from? How did it override the station VI? Why did it appear after I touched the Scanner? And what was it in the first place?

Whatever it was, it managed to bypass a Servo Scanner. And that was something which not only shut down if its internal workings were exposed, which made it impervious to hacking, but it scanned for the spark signature, bio circuitry, and examined the exact metal composition of the Cybertronian attempting to gain access down to the atomic level, making it absolutely impossible to fake a scan.

'Or so we believed,' I thought. If that light was able to bypass a security system that was impossible for us to crack, then whatever the source of the light was, it was something far more advanced than anything we had ever even theorized. Something way beyond our ability to create.

The shocked silence of my fellow Autobots and I went on for several micro-klicks before Springer voiced the question we were all asking ourselves. "What the pit was that?"

Before Jetfire or I could answer Springer's question, another scream from the horde echoed down the hallway and the sounds of them crawling along the floor got louder. Much louder. And within a few micro-klicks of the third scream, more than a dozen violet-opticed Cybertronians slide around the corner and started rushing toward us, and they were soon joined by countless others.

"We have no time to wonder how or why that light opened the door for Shadowstreaker, we need to get inside the armory while we still can," Jetfire said over the sound of the approaching horde as he stepped into the short hallway between the door which had just opened and the one that was still closed.

I deployed my Scatter-Blaster as the horde got closer and Springer joined Jetfire in the second hallway as well, but I didn't need to use it since I moved into the door and hit a button on the other side that must have been to close the door. But, just as the door closed, I heard something impact and then frantically claw at it. Evidently, we had gotten in here just in time.

After the first door closed, and the horde started to claw at it, I heard the second door slide open without us having to press anything, more than likely having been set to automatically open after the first door was closed.

I turned around after I heard the second door open, and then widened my optics in delight at what I saw.

The armory was illuminated by orange light, just like every other room in this place. It was probably about twice the size as the armory we had back at base, making it around a kilometer long. And both sides of it were lined with row after row of weapons I had never seen before.

The right side of the armory was packed with what seemed to be heavy weapons, but they looked nothing like any weapons I had ever seen. They were more streamlined then any weapons we had back at base, and their designs were... Strange. It was obvious that they had been created by the makers of this station, since I could see a few parts on some of the weapons floating in place like the structures at the surface, but they were still odd in appearance. That didn't mean there appearance was off-putting, however, I still was looking forward to examining them up close.

The left side of the armory seemed to be where the standard weapons were kept, unlike our armory. A collection of pistols, over-sized rifles, grenades, and what seemed to be blocks of metal lined the weapons racks, all of which were clearly designed in the same odd way as the heavy weapons on the right.

Confused why there were raw materials in an armory, I walked up to the nearest weapons rack that held one of the metal blocks and gave it a closer look.

It had rounded edges, not unlike the other weapons I could see, and it was small enough to be carried on the backplates of a Cybertronian, or in my case, the small of my backplates. Orange lights were littered different areas of the metal block, although they seemed to be at a low setting since I could barely see their glow. And on the left side of the rounded block of metal, there was a simple circular button that had no apparent use.

'Curious,' I thought, reaching out and tentatively touching the button on the side of the block.

As soon as my digit came into contact with the button, the block of metal expanded and shifted its shape, not unlike when we changed form. It changed its shape until it formed into a massive pump-action shotgun that was longer than my servo, and, as what seemed to be the norm for the creators of this place, had some of its parts floating above or around the main body of the weapon.

"That would certainly put a hole in something," Jetfire said as I picked the shotgun up and shouldered it, while Springer picked up an over-sized rifle from a rack next to me.

"Or blow something apart," I said, cocking the pump on the shotgun and revealing the currently empty ammunition chamber to be on the bottom of the weapon, like many human shotguns. "Going by the size of the barrel, this thing packs enough firepower to tear apart a Cybertronian's torso," I added, looking at the barrel of the shotgun, which was almost large enough to fit one of my fists.

"Only if it has ammunition to fire," the seeker said as he picked up a cylinder-shaped glowing crystal that had been at the bottom of the weapons rack I picked up the shotgun, then offered the crystal to me. "And I assume that shotgun uses this as ammo... Whatever this is," he gave the tiny crystal an appraising look. "Reminds you of a smaller version of the Delphic, doesn't it?"

I took the crystal Jetfire was offering me and gave it a once over. It was somewhat like the Delphic, however, it was far less bright, shaped differently, and was glowing orange instead of white. It was like someone had looked at the Delphic, and attempted to make a crude copy of it, while changing its shape in the process.

"I can't deny that they look alike," I said. "But this seems to be a lot less powerful than the Delphic, like when humans make cheap knock-offs of high-quality products so they can be mass produced."

"The fact it even resembles the Delphic raises questions," Jetfire said, giving the crystal in my servo his full attention. "For instance, how were they able to make a power crystal that appears to be very similar to the Delphic, something that defies what Cybertronians know of physics, when we have the Delphic back on Earth?"

"Maybe there's more than one Delphic," Springer piped, looking over a power crystal he had picked up from the weapons racks in front of him. "We haven't found anything that says there's only one Delphic. Yeah, we have basically no idea how it works right now, but we've only had the thing for a few jours. And if we study it for vorns and vorns... Well, we'll probably be able to create our own Delphics, albeit less advanced versions."

I was stunned into a silence for a moment, before I nodded. "That... Is true, Springer," I said, blinking at Springer's logical, well-thought point.

Springer merely gave me a grunt of acknowledgement, put the over-sized rifle back on the weapons rack, and walked to the other side of the armory to look at the heavy weapons.

I looked at Jetfire. "That's the second time he's said something or done something intelligent this cycle," I whispered, voice giving away my shock.

Jetfire nodded mutely, looking passed me as he gave the green Triple-Changer a confused look. "I know, and that's two more intelligent moments than he usually has per cycle," he whispered back, then shook his helm and looked at me. "But I think we're getting off topic. Plug that crystal into your shotgun, let's see what it does."

Knowing Jetfire was right about us getting off topic, I dropped the subject of Springer's intelligent statement, and loaded the power crystal in my servo into the shotgun.

The shotgun hummed as it powered up after I inserted the crystal into the ammunition chamber. The lights littering the weapon brightened exponentially, almost to the point they looked white instead of orange. And a holographic display on the stock of the shotgun came to life, displaying the Cybertronian symbol for the number eight, clearly an ammo counter.

Jetfire gave the powered up shotgun an impressed look. "High ammo capacity for a shotgun of this size," he said as he looked at the display. "I would have thought it would have held one or perhaps two shots per magazine, not eight."

"Efficient and likely powerful, I like it," I said with a smile, then turned to the weapons rack I had picked the shotgun from and picked up the other power crystals. "I think I'll keep it for a while, in fact."

"I will look for a suitable side-arm," Jetfire said, picking up and examining a pistol that had been on the weapons rack directly in front of him. "I feel comfortable with my Missile Rifle, no point in changing my primary weapon when I know how to use it."

"I call this... Thing," Springer said, trying, and failing, to pick up an enormous, multi-barreled heavy weapon that had many of its parts floating around the main body of the weapon, almost like miniature planets orbiting a star. "Whatever this thing is."

"That's a missile launcher, Springer," Jetfire said, not even looking at the weapon the green Triple-Changer was attempting to pick up, still examining the pistol he had picked up.

Springer paused in his attempts to pick up the heavy weapon and looked at Jetfire. "How do you know that?"

Jetfire pointed a thumb digit over his shoulder-joint at the power crystals, which were long and had a cone-like shape at the top, on the weapons rack Springer had picked the heavy weapon up from. "The power crystals are shaped like missiles. And since Shadowstreaker's shotgun uses crystals shaped like human shotgun shells, it is easy to figure out what kind of weapon that is."

Springer looked at the power crystals, which I noted did look like missiles now that Jetfire said they did, and it seemed like realization had entered his optics, since I saw them increase in size. "Oooh... Now it makes sense," I heard the green Triple-Changer say to himself, then raise his voice to it normal level. "Well then, I call this missile launcher," with that, he went back to trying to lift the massive heavy weapon.

As Springer continued to try, and fail, to pick up the missile launcher, I shared a humored look with Jetfire, then looked at Springer. "You do realize that thing's too heavy for you to use, right?" I asked.

The green Triple-Changer turned his helm and glared at me. "Shut the frag up," he growled, then turned his attention back to picking up the missile launcher without another word to me.

Deciding against any further attempts to convince Springer that the missile launcher was too large for him to use, I turned back to the weapons racks in front of Jetfire and I.

Every weapon in sight was clearly far more advanced than anything we currently possessed. Taking the weapons could possibly help us gain an advantage over the Decepticons, which we were in desperate need of ever since they received an upgrade to their armor. But leaving the weapons here would allow the Decepticons to take possession of them once they managed to get the door open to this armory, and that would give them an even greater advantage over us.

That wouldn't do.

"We need to clear out this armory," I said to Jetfire. "We need every advantage we can get over the Decepticons, especially with their superior armor."

"That is what I was going to say," the seeker said, loading a magazine-shaped power crystal into the pistol had been examining before sub-spacing the other power crystals directly in front of him and walking to the weapons racks closest to the armory door. "I'll start over here, you start at the other end and we'll work our way back to each other." He gave Springer a look. "And you will start sub-spacing the heavy weapons. The ones you can actually pick up, at least."

I suppressed a chuckle as Springer scowled at Jetfire for his comment, before he finally gave up trying to pick up the missile launcher and moved to a different heavy weapon and started sub-spacing the power crystals for that weapon.

After Springer started sub-spacing ammunition, I turned and started walking to the opposite end of the armory from Jetfire. And once I had reached the other end of weapons racks, I began what would without a doubt be the long process of sub-spacing them all.

---

It took the three of us forty klicks to sub-space everything in the armory, since I was the only one who could even lift most of the heavy weapons. But we had done it. Every single item that we found in the armory was now stored in our sub-space pockets, not even one power crystal remained on the weapons racks.

After making sure that we hadn't missed anything, we met up in the middle of the armory.

"So, where to now?" Springer asked, examining his new over-sized rifle he had decided to use instead of his chaingun. "Back out the way we came in?"

"That's our only option," I said, glancing at the outer door of the armory, where I could still hear the horde clawing at the door. "We came in here to take shelter and maybe find something to help us fight those crazed Cybertronians, and now we all have found something to help clear them out." I emphasized my statement by cocking my new shotgun.

"Let's get to the door, then." Jetfire said, deploying his Missile Rifle while holding his new pistol in the other servo. "No point is standing here when we still have artifacts of the Thirteen to recover."

Silently agreeing to Jetfire's words, Springer and I began walking to the outer door of the armory, with Jetfire following behind us.

After we reached the door, I stacked up on the side with the button to open the door, while Jetfire and Springer stacked up on the other side.

The horde renewed their attack on the outer door once we stacked up, almost as if they sensed our presence, and were eager for the battle that was about to come their way.

Jetfire put his pistol on his hip. "We go on 'one,'" he said, holding up three digits and looking for affirming nods from Jetfire and I. He continued after Springer and I nodded. "Three."

I shouldered my shotgun with one servo, and hovered my other servo over the button to open the door.

Jetfire folded a digit. "Two."

I saw Springer shift on his pedes slightly as we heard a faint screech from the horde.

Jetfire folded another digit. "One," he closed his servo into a fist. "Execute."

I slammed my fist into button, then placed my servo in its correct position on my shotgun and moved to run through the open door and out into the horde... Only the door remained closed.

The three of us stood in a confused silence for a brief moment before Springer looked at me. "You didn't hit the button, dumbaft," he said condescendingly.

I ignored Springer and looked at the button. I was certain I had hit it, but for some reason it hadn't worked, and I had no idea why.

I didn't get a chance to wonder why the button hadn't opened, because right after I had looked at it, the blue light from earlier reappeared in the form of an ark of electricity that looked like a bolt of lightning, similar to when it had bypassed the Servo Scanner.

The blue light moved through the air of its own accord, then transferred itself into one of the orange lights on the side of the armory wall, causing it to spark like it had in the hallway. The light transferred itself into another light further inside the armory, and another and another, until it was at the opposite side of the armory from us.

After the light traveled to the other side of the armory, it became an ark of electricity again, and then moved through the air until it touched the far end of the room and seemed to disappear into the wall. But, it reappeared again a moment later, this time in the form of a blue outline of a door that was clearly meant to stay hidden, since it would have been impossible to see without its edges being highlighted.

While keeping the door highlighted, the light became a bolt of electricity again, and it floated down and merged into the floor.

After a moment, a single line of pulsing blue light appeared on the floor that started at the base of our pedes, and lead to the outline of the second door.

"That's... Interesting," Jetfire said after the light revealed the hidden door, and started pulsing on the floor.

"Yeah, I'd say so." I said, blinking at the light's sudden appearance, and what was clearly its way of telling us to go a certain way. It was like it was sentient. "The light must have prevented the door from opening. And now it wants us to go that way." I added, looking down at the light beneath my pedes and following it until it met the bottom of the second door.

Springer scoffed and gave me a dull glare. "You're acting as if the light's an intelligent being, but it's just a light, dumbaft."

I was about to send Springer's insult back at him, but I didn't get the chance.

The light pulsed a darker shade of blue after Springer said it wasn't intelligent, and a bolt of electricity lashed out at Springer and hit him in the servo, causing the green Triple-Changer to shake his servo and let out a pained yell.

I smiled at Springer's misfortune. "I don't think the light likes you, Springer," I noted dryly. "Probably because you called it 'just a light,' when it's clear to me that the light is at least intelligent in some way. It wouldn't have been able to open the armory door for us if it was just a light."

The light pulsed a lighter brighter at my words, as if pleased someone took note that it wasn't just a light.

Jetfire looked at the pulsing light with curiosity in his optics. "Hmm," he shifted his attention over to me. "Interesting," he said.

I raised one of my optic ridges. "What?" I asked.

"Nothing," the seeker replied, dismissing my question as he started walking toward the door the light highlighted. "If the light wants us to follow a certain path, then let's not keep it waiting, shall we?" He asked over his shoulder-joint, not bothering to look back to see if Springer and I were following him.

I gave Jetfire's backplates a confused look as Springer moved to join the seeker. Just like with Optimus, it wasn't like Jetfire to avoid a question, so it was strange to see him do so. But I chose not to look into the matter. We didn't have the time anyway.

I mentally shrugged, shouldered my shotgun again, and walked after my fellow Autobots, and soon caught up to them because of my longer strides.

The three of us reached the second door in a short time. And once we got close to it, the blue light around the doorway sparked even more than the rest of the light did, which caused the door to short out and open without any of us having to search for a control panel, revealing a dimly light hallway that wasn't any taller or wider than the door.

After we stood in the doorway, I looked at the floor and saw that the light continued into the hallway, and that the light was leading us to the left.

"This should be interesting," I said, then stepped into the hallway and turned left, following the path the light wanted us to use.

Neither Jetfire nor Springer added or acknowledged my statement as they followed me, but I was positive they agreed with it as we silently followed the pulsing light on the floor.

The three of us failed to notice the hidden camera, just one in a network of hundreds of similar ones, in the corner of the armory, which had recorded everything we said, and sent the data to an off-site location through a secure FTL channel.

---

We spent half a breem walking through the second hallway, following the pulses of the blue light.

The hallway was obviously built into the wall of the station, since the hallway often turned in a different direction or became even more narrow than it already was, and that likely meant it was following the side of at least one larger hallway, possibly two.

I had no idea what the small hallway was built for, but since the light lead us to it, and it was keeping us from the horde, I didn't really care.

After rounding one of the many corners we had gone around since entering this hallway, we found ourselves standing in front of a wall, with no other corridors that we could use besides the one we had just used. We had hit a dead end.

It was quiet for a moment before Springer turned to me. "It leads us into a wall, and you said something about the light being intelligent?" He asked, somehow managing to make his statement sound condescending.

I didn't bother trying to reply, since I knew that it was only a matter of time before the light zapped Springer.

And sure enough, the light pulsed a darker shade of blue like it had earlier, and it zapped Springer with a bolt of electricity, which caused the green Triple-Changer to let out a yell and shake his servo like he did the last time he opened his mouth.

After zapping Springer, the bolt of electricity moved through the air and touched the wall in front of us, sending a shower of sparks down on us before the wall slid into the ceiling, revealing it to be a door leading into a large room that had far fewer lights than any other room we had been in on the station, making it dim enough that I had to enhance the light sensitivity of my optics.

I gave Springer an emotionless look after the light zapped him, and then opened the door. "You said something about the light not being intelligent?" I asked, sending his condescending statement right back to him with no small amount of internal smugness.

Before Springer could respond, I looked away from him and stepped through the door the light had opened, ignoring the glare I knew the green Triple-Changer was giving me.

After stepping into the room, I looked around. To our far left, I saw the outline of another door, though it clearly wasn't made to be hidden like the door we just stepped out of.

To our right, the ceiling, floor, and walls appeared to be made out of a slightly different material than the rest of the room. But other than that, there was nothing noteworthy about it.

Directly in front of us, where the blue light seemed to end in what appeared to be the center of the room, there was a floating sphere like the one we had seen earlier when we listened to Techlaser's logs. Going by that, it was most likely a computer.

Not bothering to waste any time with words, the three of us walked to where the light stopped in front of the floating sphere.

After we stepped near the sphere, a holographic keyboard appeared in front of us, while the blue light transferred itself from the floor and into the sphere itself.

"Password required." The VI said, then went silent as quickly as it appeared.

I shared a look with Jetfire and Springer before looking at the keyboard. "Supercalifragilisticexpialid -ocious," I said as flatly as I could, knowing the VI was going to deny us entry anyway since we didn't know the password, which meant it didn't matter what we said, or the blue light was probably going to do something to overide the VI.

The keyboard flashed red. "Password: incorrect. Access: deni-" The keyboard arced with blue light before flashing green, causing the VI to restart. "Password, 'Supercalifragilisticexpialid -ocious': acknowledged. Access: granted. Opening observatory windows." With that, the VI fell silent.

After the VI went silent, the three of us shared a confused look, each of us likely asking ourselves the same question, 'What observatory?'

Before any of us could voice that question, however, the floor beyond the sphere split down the middle and started folding out to the side, revealing a glass, or at least what the Cybertronians that built this station considered glass, floor beneath the metal one. But I only had a moment to view the glass floor before the floor opened enough to let in a light that was bright enough to blind the three of us.

I brought one of my servo in front of my faceplate to block out the light, then I readjusted my optics to their normal setting. I didn't look at the light right away, since I could hear the floor was still moving. But once the sounds of the moving floor faded, I let my servo fall back down to my side and looked down at the light... Then proceeded to drop my shotgun at the awe-inspiring sight that greeted my vision.

In front of us, inside an immense cavern, was a ship... An incredible, colossal ship.

It dwarfed the Dark Matter, and made the Nemesis look like a bath toy. It stretched in either direction for as far as I could see, making it at least thirty kilometers long.

The vessel was shaped elegantly, at about one sixth as tall as it was long, and slightly less wide as it was tall.

A great 'Wing' protruded from the stern section of the ship, making it twice as wide as it was tall at that section, I assumed there was an identical wing on the other side. Four perfectly circular holes were visible on the only wing we could see, but no matter what I thought of, I couldn't figure out what they were there for.

But the wing and the ship's sheer size was but a footnote compared to the vessel's hull.

Its hull was pure white in color, though it seemed to change color ever so slightly when you looked at it at a different angle. Whatever material was used in the construction of the hull glowed incredibly bright, making it glow like the surface of a star, except it wasn't painful to look at, and every detail on the ship was still visible, unobscured by the glow of the hull. And covering every last area of the hull was a honey-comb of hexagon-shaped lights. And they were changing their luminosity from an even brighter white than the rest of the hull, to a shade of cobalt that was similar to the color of my optics, allowing them to be easily seen against the rest of the ship.

In all, the vessel in front of us was without a doubt the most beautifully crafted construct I had ever seen.

I had thought that the ship Ironhide, Elita, Chromia, Flareup, the twins, Smokescreen, and Jazz arrived in was aesthetically pleasing, but that ship paled in comparison to this one. It was like comparing the Mona Lisa to a mass-produced painting you might see in a chain restaurant.

The three of us stood there for a long moment, before an alarm blared throughout the room, and the few orange lights around us flashed red.

"Alert! Alert!" The VI's voice said, sounding no different than it had the last time it spoke, despite the blaring alarm. "Foreign entity attempting to gain access to all systems! Attempting... To..." The VI started to speak at a slower pace, as if it was losing power. "Purge... En... Ti... Ty..." With that last, slowly-spoken word, the VI's voice died away completely, and every single light, even the lights inside the cavern the ship occupied, went out without warning, as if someone, or something, had cut the power to the station.

The three of us were surrounded by darkness, with only the hull of the ship giving us any light.

The darkness didn't last long, however, since the lights flickered and returned to life, this time as a dull blue. The same color as the light that opened the armory and guided us here.

I didn't have any time to ponder that, because almost as soon as the lights came back on, a cobalt wall of transparent light shot out from the ship and entered observation room the three of us were standing in.

The wall of light moved over all three of us at the same time from the tops of our helms to the bottom of our pedes, giving me a mild tingling sensation as it passed over me, almost like one of Ratchet's medical scans.

After scanning us once, the wall of light moved upward and stopped at our chestplate level. Well, my chestplate level, it went well above Jetfire's helm, and it blinded Springer, going by how he cried out and covered his optics.

The light, for lack of a better term, shrank after it came to my chestplate level. It started out as wide as the room, but it soon shrank down to a beam of light that was no more than a foot wide. After shrinking down, the light focused on the center of my chestplates, directly over my spark.

The floating sphere in front of us sparked like the blue light would when it transferred itself into a different light. "Direct descendant of the Thirteen detected," the voice of the VI said, although it sounded... Off, like its voice was mixed in with a different one. "Activating Precursor Protocol."

A perplexed look formed on my faceplate. What the hell was the Precursor Protocol?

My question was never answered.

The light focusing on my chestplate shifted to the floating sphere, causing the sphere to glow cobalt and ark with bolts of electricity that steadily increased in size.

I saw Jetfire and Springer take several hurried steps back, clearly wanting to get as far away from the sphere as possible. But I when I tried to do the same, I found that I couldn't move my pedes, or anything else, in fact. It was like an invisible force was keeping me in place, forcing me to keep looking at the sphere.

The bolts of electricity increased in size and seemed to gather at one point on the sphere, like when you touched a Plasma Globe at a museum. And the point where it was gathering was right where I was looking.

I saw Jetfire notice how I was still standing in the same place out of my peripheral vision. "Shadowstreaker, move!" He said urgently, giving the stray bolt of electricity a nervous look.

I couldn't open my mouth to respond to Jetfire. And even if I did, it wouldn't have mattered, because the electricity seemed to finish gathering its strength, since the electricity started to ark more frequently, and the sphere started glowing far brighter than it had before.

The electricity increased the frequency of its arcs, up to the point that I couldn't even count how many times it arced every micro-klick. And then, it went dead, as if it had shut down because it was holding too much power.

For a moment, I thought it was over, but I was wrong.

The sphere glowed like the brightest star, then it shot a bolt of white electricity at me, which hit me in the chestplates directly over my spark.

My world went dark... And that's when things got strange.

---

Images flashed before me.

Visions of lush, beautiful planets surrounded by space stations.

Brief looks of the sentient beings that inhabited those planets and stations, some faintly looking like creatures I had seen in human works of fiction, and others that I had nothing to compare to.

War.

Memories of a sentient being's last moments on one of those planets, just before they were killed by an orbital bombardment.

Footage of black ships that looked to be made of organic parts instead of metal, descending on the same worlds and turning them into a smoldering mass of nothingness.

Flickering images of the sentient beings fiercely fighting back against unseen opponents, with Cybertronians falling from the sky and joining them in their fight with weapons that made every weapon I had seen before look like a cap gun.

Detailed pictures and graphs of the weapons the Cybertronians were wielding, but so advanced and complex that I could not even begin to describe them.

Flashes of a naval battle between an unfathomably massive fleet of ships lead by vessels that were shimmering as if they were made of white fire, and an equally large fleet of the black ships from before.

A graphic vision of a great battle on the ground, where tens-of-thousands of missiles, energy beams, and Particle Cannons were firing every micro-klick, causing the deaths of thousands of organic sentients, and the offlinings of hundreds of Cybertronians fighting alongside them.

An unclear image of several Cybertronians standing on a hill after the battle, overlooking the field in which the worst of the fighting took place. Each of them with visible damage to their armor, even though the image was fuzzy, but still standing tall, clearly proud of how they beat the enemy back.

That fuzzy image was quickly replaced, and more images flashed before me, but they were changing so quickly that none of them were clear.

The images abruptly stopped, darkness surrounded me and a voice spoke.

"And so the Xel'Tor has awoken..." It said, sounding beyond ancient, and infinitely intelligent and infinitely condescending, like it felt it was speaking to something below filth. It sent a chill down my spine.

Two purple optics pierced the darkness around me. They were filled with nothing but hatred and pure, unadulterated evil. "It matters not what you, or those like you, do, Xel'Tor, for I am the Chaos Bringer... And you will know pain before you die."

With those chilling words, conscious thought returned to me.

---

My optics snapped open, and I found myself lying on my backplates, with the back of my helm was hurting, and Jetfire looking down at me.

"Are you still with us, youngling?" The seeker asked, looking slightly concerned for some reason.

I nodded slightly. "Yeah, helm feels like slag, and I'm confused as hell, but I'm still here." I said, moving a servo to rub the back of my helm, only to stop and look at the servo when I saw that bolts of electricity were traveling along the length of it. I sat up and looked at the rest of my chassis, my entire frame had electricity traveling along it, all of it the same shade of blue as the light that guided us here. "Well, that's... Odd."

"When the bolt hit you, you fell straight onto your backplates," Jetfire said, starting to explain my unasked question while offering me a servo up, which I accepted. Oddly enough, the electricity traveling along my servo didn't touch Jetfire when he pulled me back on my pedes. "The electricity started transferring itself to you when you hit the floor. I don't have a clue what it was doing, all I know is that it started to dissipate a few micro-klicks ago. It will probably be completely gone within the next klick."

Confused by what Jetfire meant by 'Dissipate,' I looked down at my servo again and watched it for a few micro-klicks. The amount of electricity that was traveling along it was indeed rapidly decreasing, almost like it was being absorbed into my armor.

"I see," I said blankly, not sure how I felt about electricity traveling over my frame, and possibly being absorbed into my chassis.

Jetfire looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to answer a question, even though he had not asked one. "Well?" He finally asked. "Do you know what that was all about? Or are just as confused as we are?"

I didn't answer immediately, and instead looked at the sphere that had been building up electricity last I had seen it. Now it was just glowing blue, like the rest of the lights around us. "Not... Exactly," I said. "I saw something while I was out, something really bad, but nothing about it is clear. And just before I onlined, someone spoke to me, and it wasn't a good someone. They called me a 'Xel'Tor.'"

Springer, who was standing off to the left of Jetfire and I, gave me a perplexed look. "What the frag is a 'Xel'Tor?'" He asked, sounding genuinely confused. "Some kind of organic waste? Because that would be an accurate description of you."

I ignored the second part of Springer's statement and picked my shotgun, which was still where I had dropped it after seeing the ship for the first time, from the floor. "I don't know, all I know is that whoever spoke to me said that no matter what I did, I would know pain before I offlined." I couldn't help but shiver slightly as I recalled the words the being with purple optics said to me, his voice was just so... Evil. It was like the Devil himself was speaking to me.

Jetfire seemed to notice me shiver, and he gave me an appraising look for a moment before nodding, as he had come to a decision. "We'll put this aside for now, it sounds like a matter for Optimus, anyway," he said. "And we still need to find the relics of the Thirteen that Techlaser's logs mentioned, let's get back to searching for those so we can get out of this place."

"I believe I can help with that," a mech's voice said with a faint British accent, seeming to come from all around us, which caused the three of us to jump at its sudden appearance.

Springer pointed his over-sized rifle wildly. "Who said that?!" He asked, sounding almost panicked as he searched for the source of the voice.

In response to Springer's question, a hologram of a mech wearing armor that was constantly shifting position on his holographic frame materialized from the floating sphere. "I did, I thought that was obvious." The hologram said in a voice that carried a tone of dry amusement.

I blinked at what was obviously an AI. "Who are you?"

The AI bowed its helm. "I am the primary AI of the Sentinel-Class battleship, CNV Infinite Reverence. Artificially Intelligent Construct NTC 0452-9, at your service, Xel'Tor," he said formally, then looked up at me. "Although, just so you know, I prefer the name 'Refit,' over my official designation, sir."

I scrunched my faceplate in confusion at how I was being called by that name the being with purple optics called me, as well as being referred to as 'Sir' by the AI of a ship that was older than time. "Why did you call me that?" I asked, tone giving away my confusion.

"Call you what, sir?" Refit asked, his holographic armory shifting in such a way that I suspected it changed with his emotions.

"That, and the other name, 'Xel'Tor.' Why did you call me that?" I asked

My statement caused Refit's holographic faceplate to scrunch in confusion in almost the exact same way mine had. "What? You don't know?" He asked in surprised tone, as if shocked I didn't know what the name meant.

I gave Jetfire a confused look, which he returned with one of his own, before I looked back at Keeper and shook my helm. "No, I don't. Why should I?"

The AI made a sound like he was choking. "You honestly don't know?" He asked, then paused for a moment as I shook my helm. "I... Wow, when I detected your presence here, I certainly I didn't expect this." He shook his holographic helm and sighed, as if getting prepared for a lengthy explanation. "Well, you are the Xel'Tor, whic-" A high-pitched whine emitted from the sphere before Refit could continue, and a perplexed look crossed his holographic faceplate. "Oh, that's... Unexpected."

"What's unexpected, scrap for processors?" Springer asked, not even looking at the AI as he cycled the action on his over-sized rifle, likely out of boredom.

Refit's holographic optics narrowed and flashed a deeper shade of blue, and he looked over at Springer and raised one of his transparent servos. A bolt of electricity formed from one of the few lights in the room, and struck Springer in the servo, causing him to yelp and drop his rifle.

The green Triple-Changer glared at the AI after it zapped him, and Refit returned the glare with an innocent smile. "What's wrong, greenie? Got oil on your digits?" The AI asked, clearly pleased with himself for how he handled Springer.

Jetfire sighed. "I am getting so tired of playing peace maker," I heard him say under his breath, then look between Springer and the AI. "For Primus' sake, don't start this, just answer the damn question... Please," he said in an exasperated tone, obviously fed up of the sparkling-like behavior of Springer... And likely me as well.

Refit immediately looked back at Jetfire and I and acted as if he hadn't done anything. "Sorry about that. I am sensitive about jokes about my processing power, and will stand up for it when I need to," he said, giving Springer a quick look as the green Triple-Changer picked his rifle off the floor. "Anyway, back to what you wanted to know what the Xel'Tor is. Well, ah... It seems as though almost all information related to the Xel'Tor has been deleted from my matrix. Quite embarrassing, if I do say so myself, sir. I have had an entire universal-cycle to organize my data archives, and I manage to lose the most important information I possessed."

Filing away the term 'Universal-cycle' for later, I took a step closer to the AI. "What do you mean it was deleted?" I asked. "How was the data even lost?"

The holographic pieces of Refit's armor shifted forward in what seemed to be concentration. "It seems my data archives were remotely accessed during my last maintenance routine," the AI replied. "Other than the fact I know you are the Xel'Tor, it seems I know just as much about the matter as you do, sir."

Jetfire let out a short, mildly amused chuckle. "Knew all this had something to do with you since Refit lit the path to this place," he said, giving me a meaningful look. "But, it looks like someone doesn't want you to know exactly what that means. And, to me, it sounds like that is someone who not only has access to technology that can hack through the firewalls of a Tier 0 ship, if Techlaser's log was accurate, but is someone you're familiar with."

I nodded slightly at Jetfire's words, having reached the same conclusion.

The Cybertronian race had a series of tiers in which we measured the technology of sentient races. It was almost exactly, to the point of being a little creepy, like the technology tiers I had read about on a website about Halo, except we had an eighth tier for civilizations that had absolutely no technology. And out of all the sentient races we knew of, not a single one even came close to our own technology at Tier 2. But, from what records we had of the Golden Age, it seemed like we once were a Tier 1 race, and from what Techlaser's logs said, at least the Thirteen had Tier 0 technology. So, that meant that someone from the Pocket Universe had hacked into Refit's data archives, and deleted everything related to the topic of 'Xel'Tor.'

I was going to have to have a talk with my carrier and sire the next time I was able to.

"We can wonder who deleted the information from Refit's data archives, and what their reasons for doing so, later, we need to find the relics of the Thirteen that were taken from the Infinite Reverence," I said to Jetfire, then looked at Refit. "Refit, the first thing you said to us was that you believed you could help us find the relics. Well, can you lead us to them?"

The AI gasped and had his holographic form take a step back as if struck by an unseen blow. "Xel'Tor, you insult me. It is almost like you don't have faith in my abilities," he said as a line of light similar to the one that lead us here appeared on the floor that lead to the door we hadn't used. "If you follow that path, it will lead you to an elevator, which will take you down to a platform approximately three kilometers beneath your pedes. The artifacts that were stolen from the Infinite Reverence are being kept there."

"Thanks for the help, Refit," Jetfire said, turning around and walking in the direction of the door while gesturing at Springer and I to follow him. "Let's get moving while we're still ahead of the Nemesis and the Decepticons."

"I was not finished speaking," Refit said, just before Springer and I went to follow Jetfire, while the seeker himself stopped and turned around.

"Well then, what else were you going to say?" Jetfire asked.

"It has come to my attention that you are trapped in this section of the station. I know of a way for you to get out of this place." The AI said.

My raised both of my optic ridges. "How?" I asked curiously.

Refit's avatar smiled slightly and turned until the upper half of his holographic frame was looking out of the observatory window, directly at the Infinite Reverence, then gave me a look.

I immediately understood what the AI was suggesting. "You want us to take the ship," I said in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone, in awe of the concept of flying the massive vessel.

Refit nodded. "Yes, I do. As the ship's AI, I can materialize defenses, both in the form of turrets and enforcer drones, within the inside of the ship, lock down any section of the vessel to prevent unwanted personnel from accessing sensitive systems, run real-time scans of everything the size of an atom that gets within a light-year radius of the ship, and summon worker drones to construct... Well, anything." He said with no small amount of pride. "But I have programming blocks that prevent me from activating the engines of the Infinite Reverence, or powering up its main armaments. However, if those blocks were manually removed by the Xel'Tor, or if the Xel'Tor was piloting the ship... Then the enemy Tier 2 vessel you spoke of would literally would be reduced to nothing within an astro-klick."

I didn't even think about my answer for a micro-klick. "Then after we recover the artifacts, get the three of us onto the ship so we can give you control, because I don't have a clue how to pilot something like that," I said, giving the Infinite Reverence another awe-inspired look before I turned and walked over to Jetfire and Springer, who had joined the seeker while I spoke to Refit.

"Acknowledged, Xel'Tor." Refit said as Jetfire, Springer, and I stepped up to the door, his tone the AI suggesting was smiling happily. "Let me get that for you, sir."

The light on the floor that was guiding us became a bolt of electricity, and it transferred itself into the closed door in front of us, which caused the door to spark and then open, revealing a circular room with a crystal floor and a control panel with a pair of buttons on it. Obviously, this was the elevator Refit told us lead to the relics.

Springer looked back at the AI as the three of us stepped into the elevator. "If the elevator was so close, why did you even light up the floor?" He asked, giving the holographic avatar a confused look. "We would have found it anyway, since it's right here."

Refit smiled. "It was to make sure you didn't get lost, greenie," he said, sounding like he was totally serious when he was making fun of Springer. The AI looked at me. "I will give you the official tour of the ship after you have returned the relics to the armory, Xel'Tor. I believe you will find its systems most satisfactory, sir." With that, he bowed his holographic helm slightly, and then had another bolt of electricity close the elevator door.

After the elevator door closed, Jetfire pushed the button to go down on the control panel, and the elevator began to move downward with barely a sound.

We didn't speak as the elevator traveled down, because we didn't have anything to talk about.

There was no point in wondering about the relics, since we knew what they were thanks to Techlaser's log.

Talking about the ship also would be pointless, since we would be inside it and on our way to Earth before long.

And discussing the name Refit called me was irrelevant, since only Optimus might have an inkling of an idea of what it could mean. So we just stood there in silence, waiting for the elevator to arrive at the platform Refit told us the artifacts were being kept.

After riding the elevator for about half a klick, the walls around us gave way to empty space. We were now inside the cavern.

Looking over the side of the elevator's crystal floor, I saw the platform where the artifacts were being kept, judging by how it was the only platform in sight, there was a crystal bridge leading to it, and that I could see four blue energy fields on it, each one containing a different object.

Now knowing where we would be going, I leaned back away from the edge of the elevator floor and went back to waiting for the elevator to get down to the platform's level.

Luckily, the elevator got down to the level of the platform within a few klicks, and it came to a halt at the bridge which lead to the platform.

Without exchanging words, the three of us stepped off the elevator and started walking toward the platform, which was around five-hundred meters away.

After completing the short, uneventful walk, we stepped onto the platform... And gawked at the artifacts for a few moments.

In the energy field to the far left, there was silver cylinder that was about ten feet long and a third as wide. I had never seen something like it before, but there was no doubt in my CPU that it was the data cylinder Techlaser's log mentioned.

Just to the right of the energy field on the far left, there was another energy field that contained a massive warhammer that was gold and silver in color, with blue jewels decorating the handle. The head of the hammer wasn't completely solid, instead it was split into countless parts that were always moving, almost like when we would transform, except far, far more complex.

Clearly, the hammer was Solus' Forge, which she used to combat Unicron, as well as construct the other weapons of the Thirteen. I knew just from looking at it that it would be a formidable weapon and tool in Optimus' servo.

The energy field next to the one holding Solus' Forge contained a duel-pronged great sword, one that glowed without anyone wielding it. It was bright silver in color, and its handle was decorated with white and blue jewels that were shining like a fire burned in each of them.

I gave the great sword a second look. According to Techlaser's log, this sword was the Star Saber, Prima's weapon. But this great sword looked completely different from the one I had seen Prima wield against Liege Maximo. It was a good deal smaller, too. So, this sword wasn't the Star Saber, since it wasn't of the correct design and it wasn't large enough, except according to historical records it was, which was rather confusing to me.

I mentally shrugged and added a note to ask the Thirteen why there was more than one Star Saber, then looked at the final energy field.

It was holding the second sword Techlaser's log said they took from the Infinite Reverence's armory. It was simple in design, yet elegant and excellently crafted. Its blade was large, probably half again the size of one of my swords, and dark as the vastness of space, yet as glossy as water, and with an edge sharper than an Obsidian fragment, which gave it a dangerous look. And embedded into the handle of the sword, was a single jewel that glowed a faint crimson, which added onto the dangerous look its dark color already gave it.

Since this was the only remaining energy field, this sword was obviously the Omni Saber, my sire's blade. And what a blade it is. I was going to have to compliment Megatronus on his taste in swords the next time I spoke to him.

"Looks like the Thirteen had good taste in weaponry," Springer said, a trace of admiration in his voice as he looked at the Star Saber. "Makes me want one of these swords, only more awesome so it mirrors me."

Jetfire rolled his optics at the green Triple-Changer. "Springer, get over yourself and shut up," he said in a tired voice. "I have dealt with enough of your antics for a mega-cycle, let alone a solar-cycle."

Springer huffed in response and went to examine my carrier's Forge, while Jetfire started to search for a control to turn off the energy fields.

As Jetfire searched for the control for the energy fields, and Springer was... Well, Springer, I stepped closer to the field that held the Omni Saber.

It was so close it was like it was teasing me, like it wanted me to pick it up. And even though I couldn't touch it, it was almost like I could feel it in my servo, like I was using it in battle, the sword pulsing with power as I cut through Decepticons like a farmer cut through a field of Wheat. The feeling was so strong it was intoxicating.

But I quickly shook myself from the feeling. This was the weapon of a Prime, not of the average bot. I wouldn't be able to wield it, even if it was the weapon of my sire.

I turned away from the Omni Saber and started walking over to join Jetfire in his search for the control for the energy fields.

That was when the missiles hit.

They were Thunderstrokes, twenty foot long, gunship-mounted, precision air-burst missiles that traveled at exactly twice the speed of sound, which made them impossible to hear until it was too late. And there were three of them.

The first missile detonated above Springer, showering the green Triple-Changer with balls of molten metal, as well as a concentrated EMP burst, sending him to the floor before he even knew what was happening.

Missile number two detonated over Jetfire a split micro-klick later, giving him the same treatment as Springer, but the seeker reacted to the explosion of the first missile, and he managed to avoid some of the shrapnel. But it wasn't enough, for he too was sent to the floor.

Seeing the fate of my fellow Autobots, I dove to the side in an effort to avoid the Thunderstroke that was without a doubt heading for me. But I wasn't quick enough, because the last thing I heard before my audio receptors started ringing was an explosion. Incredible pain in my wings and backplates soon followed the sound of the explosion. I had been hit, and from how much of my backplates were in pain, I had actually dove into the missile instead of dodging it.

I was slow to recover from the missile, but recovering wasn't really the correct word to use. It was more like sucking it up, and hoping my auto-repair systems would be enough to keep me going.

After laying on the ground for a few micro-klicks, I slowly raised my helm to check on the others.

Neither of my fellow Autobots were moving, but judging by how they didn't have very many wounds, they were still alive. Forced into recharge by their frames as their auto-repair systems treated their injuries, but alive.

My hearing started to return, and as it did, I became aware of the sound of a gunship approaching. So, I laid my helm back down on the floor and stayed in the spot I had fallen, hoping to fool the Decepticons into thinking I was offline, or at least in the same state as my fellow Autobots.

After letting my helm fall to the floor, I saw the gunship pass above me before it hovered next to the bridge and a door on the side of its hull opened.

Once the door on the gunship opened, two large Decepticons holding modified Scatter-Blasters stepped out onto the bridge.

"Don't know why we couldn't just fight 'em," one of the Decepticons said as they walked toward the three of us. "It's no fun shooting 'em with missiles, it's over too quick."

"Don't complain," the other Decepticon said. "No one questions what Megatron orders, that's the fastest way to get yourself offlined. So just shut up and make sure the Autoscum are offline."

I tightened my grip on my shotgun as the Decepticons got closer. I needed to choose the right moment to attack. I was injured, and these Decepticons were taller than I was. I was going to have to make the fight short, and also not a fair one. And also take out that gunship so it wouldn't fly away and hit us with more missiles.

The Decepticons reached the platform and stepped over to Jetfire's unmoving frame. The first Con that had spoken lightly kicked Jetfire in the tank, causing the seeker to be roused from his forced recharge and let out a groan as his injuries from the Thunderstroke hit him fully.

"Looks like this one's still online," the Decepticon who kicked Jetfire said, then gave Jetfire another kick, this one hard enough to make the seeker groan louder than before. "How tragic, now we have to offline him manually."

The second Decepticon moved to the side of the first one, inadvertently turning his backplates to me. "That we do," he said, then cocked his Scatter-Blaster and pointed it at Jetfire.

It was at that moment that I acted.

As the Decepticon cocked his Scatter-Blaster, I pushed myself up from the floor, crouched, and pulled the trigger of my own shotgun. The recoil was positively brutal. It felt like Ironhide had just kicked me in the shoulder-joint. But the recoil was nothing compared to the damage the shotgun inflicted.

My shotgun had spate out a dozen orange pellets of energy, but in the very brief look I got of them, they were vastly different from the energy the weapons back at base fired.

The pellets impacted in the center of the Decepticon's backplates and dug into the armor of the Con before exploding, tearing his backplates apart, and undoubtedly offlining him before he even knew what happened. But before the Decepticon had even hit the floor, his frame started to turn into amber ashes, starting at where I had shot him, and not stopping until he had completely dissolved into a pile of ash.

I didn't pause to watch this process, since the other Decepticon aimed his Scatter-Blaster at me and fired three shots in rapid succession, but they were rushed, and most of the pellets went wide.

Ignoring the few pellets of energy that bounced off my armor, I shifted my aim and fired at the other Decepticon, hitting him directly in his chestplates and causing him to be reduced to amber ashes just like his comrade.

After offlining the second Decepticon, I stood from my crouch and checked on Jetfire. He was already back into a forced recharge, nothing I could do for him at the moment. And that was good, since I didn't really have time to treat his injuries with the gunship still active.

Stepping out onto the bridge, I deployed my missile launchers and targeted the engines of the gunship as it powered up and started to take off, the pilot clearly knowing what happened to the Decepticons that they dropped off.

Just as the gunship started flying away from the bridge, I fired all my remaining missiles at the engines of the gunship. Each missile found its mark, and they reduced the engines to scrap metal, sending the gunship spiraling out of control toward the bottom of the cavern far below.

I watched the gunship fall for several micro-klicks before I turned around and started walking back to the platform. That gunship and its crew were likely a scouting party, which meant a much larger force of Decepticons was on its way here, and they wouldn't be long. But hopefully, I would be able to treat my fellow Autobots and we would be able to get the artifacts and get onboard the Infinite Reverence before Decepticon reinforcements showed up.

I froze mid-step. There was a sound carrying through the air. A bad one, a jet engine. And it was coming from below me.

Looking over the side of the bridge, I saw that a Cybertronian in jet form had flown out of the gunship. A large, silver Cybertronian in jet form.

The jet flew straight up toward me, went right passed the bridge, then transformed in mid-air and fell back down on the bridge, landing in a crouch about one-hundred meters away from me.

The silver Cybertronian came out of his crouch and stood to his full sixty-foot height and rolled his spiked shoulder-joints.

Megatron had landed.

"I must say, you would make a fine Decepticon, Autobot," the Decepticon leader said, as if complimenting me. He made a gesture as if he was brushing dust off his servos. "Pretending to be offline, and then shooting your enemies when they turn their backplates to you? That is indeed a tactic I encourage among the Decepticons."

I said nothing in response. He was right in a way, the tactic I had employed was underhanded. But in war, there is no such thing as a fair fight. It didn't determine who fought with more honor, it only determined who was left. And I always did everything I could to make sure the ones who were left were my fellow Autobots and I.

Megatron chuckled lightly when I hadn't said anything to him. "What is it, Autobot? Are you scared of Lord Megatron?"

"Nope, just thinking of different ways to offline you quickly so I don't miss the NCIS marathon next cycle," I said with the bluntest voice I could muster. Truth was, I was scared. I was terrified, in fact. This was the Megatron, the one responsible for the current state of Cybertron. I couldn't even count the number of sentient beings he had killed.

And unlike the last time I had seen him in person... Optimus wasn't here to fight him.

It was just me.

The warmonger smiled and let out a loud, genuine laugh. "You?" He asked, still laughing slightly. "You are but a bug that will be crushed on my path to glory. And those relics will ensure that you Autobots are crushed even sooner than I thought." He looked behind me, at the artifacts of Prima and my creators, shifting his weight slightly so he could get a clear look at them. It was a pointless gesture, since he was fifteen feet taller than I was.

But it also left him vulnerable to attack.

As fast as I could, I raised my shotgun and fired three shots at Megatron, one at his helm, one at his chestplates, and one at his pedes, tripling the chances that the warmonger would be hit by the deadly orange pellets.

But it seemed that Megatron wasn't one for odds.

I have no idea how, but the Decepticon leader dodged every single pellet. He fragging dodged three hypersonic shots like it was nothing. And before I even fully realized what happened, a shot from Megatron's Fusion Cannon hit the barrel of my shotgun, melting half the weapon and sending it flying from my servos and over the side of the bridge.

Megatron smiled again and let his still-smoking Fusion Cannon fall to his side. "Was that all?" He mocked, slowly stepping toward me.

Quick as lightning, I deployed my Plasma Chaingun and aimed it at Megatron's pede, intending to at least throw off his balance so I could deploy a more powerful weapon.

The warmonger's servo was a blur as he raised his Fusion Cannon and causally shot off my Plasma Chaingun, sending waves of intense pain pulsing up my servo as a part of me was literally shot off, and my servo was forced to return to normal.

"This is it? This is the best you can do?" Megatron asked, as if in exasperation as he continued to step closer to me. "The efficiency you showed in how you dispatched my troops promised at least amusement if I was to face you in battle, but this is just sad."

I deployed my Scatter-Blaster and aimed it at Megatron's faceplate, but it too was shot off before I could send the mental command to fire, leaving me with no weapons in my servos except my swords.

Megatron shook his helm as he reached me. "Now you are just embarrassing yourself. Stop now, while you still have a shred of dignity left."

'Frag you, you bastard,' I thought, deploying my swords and stabbing at the Decepticon leader's optics, knowing that I wasn't going to win this, but determined to at least scar the warmonger before I went down.

My swords cut through the air at speeds human eyes couldn't follow, getting closer and closer to the crimson optics of the Decepticon leader... Until he caught my swords with his servos, just a foot before they would have entered his optics.

There was a long moment in which it seemed like frozen, with me feeling dread as I knew what was going to happen next, while the warmonger just looked down at me as if to say, 'Are you done now?'

"Pathetic," Megatron said, then crushed my swords in his servos like twigs, and kicked me in the chestplates hard enough to end me crashing into the energy field that contained the Star Saber, which caused the field to flicker as I impacted it and fell to the floor.

I tried to get up, but Megatron's servo was wrapped around my throat and he was picking me up before I knew he had even moved from where he kicked me.

"You are in my way..." the Decepticon said, bringing his Fusion Cannon up against my tank, then smiled again, a cruel, twisted smile. "Bug," with that, he fired.

Extreme, burning, yet somehow cold, pain instantly spread throughout my frame, and I unwillingly went limp like a ragdoll. My frame was already shutting down to save power and energon.

Megatron huffed. "Weakling," he said with distaste, and tossed me away as if I were nothing but a piece of scrap metal.

I hit the floor and slid for several feet, eventually coming to a stop next to Jetfire's pedes, leaving a trail of energon wherever I touched the floor. I didn't need to look down to know there was a gaping hole in my tank, not like I could if I wanted to, and I knew that saying I was in trouble was a massive understatement. I also knew that this was an injury that would prove lethal if it wasn't treated. Now.

As I laid on the floor in agony, the warmonger stepped right up to the energy field that contained the Star Saber and punched his servo into the top of it and then pulled it out with a fist-full of wires, which were obviously important, since the field dropped almost as soon as he tore out the wires.

"And so glory is at my digits," I heard Megatron whisper to himself, slowly reaching out to grab the ancient great sword.

But just as Megatron's servo touched the Star Saber, it sparked once, then turned into dust. Just like that. One moment it was a sword that was without a doubt made of the best materials, probably Primax, and the next it was a pile of dust.

The warmonger stood there for a moment, as if he wasn't sure what to do, or was completely uncomprehending of what just happened.

"No..." Megatron whispered to himself again, voice almost sad as he looked down at the pile of dust at the base of his pedes. He turned to the Omni Saber, and after disabling the field like he had on the one around the Star Saber, he reached out to touch it, but it too crumbled to dust, reducing my sire's blade into nothing.

I watched, helpless, as Megatron stepped back from the pile of dust that was once my sire's sword, and disabled the energy field around my carrier's Forge, and then looked on as it was turned into dust, just like the other two artifacts.

After all three weapons turned into dust, Megatron stood completely still, as if he had turned into stone, before he let out a yell that echoed around the cavern twice. "NO!"

The warmonger's optics burned with fury, and he turned around and walked over to the last energy field, the one that held the data cylinder. But unlike the relics of Prima and my creators, the data cylinder didn't turn to dust when Megatron touched it, and he was easily able to pick it up, which caused him to grin.

"So, the cycle isn't a total loss, after all," he said to himself, looking at the data cylinder he held in his servo, then up at the Infinite Reverence, then down at me. "Before I put you out of your misery, Autobot, know this. Your leader's ideals are foolish, petty, even. And with the data inside this cylinder, alongside the technology we will gain from that vessel, the Autobots will be crushed." He pointed his Fusion Cannon at me, and it glowed as it powered up. "Goodbye, Autobot."

I stared up at the mech that was about to offline me with as much defiance as I could, not giving the warmonger the satisfaction of seeing the fear I felt.

Megatron's Fusion Cannon continued to power up, but just as it seemed to be at full power, the scream that sent chills down my spine echoed throughout the cavern.

The horde had found us.

Megatron looked up at something that was behind me as he powered his Fusion Cannon down. His gaze shifted to the left, then to the right, he was scanning. And from what I was able to see in his optics, he didn't like what he saw.

The warmonger looked down at the data cylinder in his servo for a moment before he sub-spaced it. "In light of recent events, I will leave you Autobots to your fate," he said, transforming into his jet form and hovering above me. "Goodbye, bug," without another word, Megatron activated his jets and flew away, with the sound of his engines echoing around the cavern before it completely faded away.

After Megatron flew away, I, with a monumental effort that doubled my pain, managed to roll over so I could see what caused Megatron to leave. I almost immediately wished I had stayed lying in the same position.

The wall of the cavern... Was literally covered with violet-opticed Cybertronians. And some of them were jumping off the wall and landing on the bridge, just in front of the elevator my fellow Autobots and I used to get down here.

I watched in mute horror as the violet-opticed Cybertronians that landed on the bridge turned and ran on all fours toward where my fellow Autobots and I laid helplessly on the floor, forced into recharge as our auto-repair systems treated our injuries, or in my case, sat there unmoving as my lifeforce leaked out of my frame.

The horde screamed again as they reached the half-way point on the bridge, though it was in a slightly higher pitch, like Hyenas laughing as they surrounded a helpless Zebra.

I continued to watch the horde approach with a blank look on my faceplate, too focused on a single thought to really care about the horde anymore.

I never got to tell Arcee how I felt.

The horde got within twenty meters of the platform, and the violet-opticed Cybertronian leapt at me like a Panther attacking its prey. But just as it was about to cross the last section of the bridge, it hit a white shield littered with hexagon-shaped patterns that definitely wasn't there a moment ago, sending the Cybertronian crashing back into the other members of the horde behind it.

Out of my peripheral vision, I saw an odd-looking robot float into view, somehow projecting the shield out of a single 'Eye' on the front of it.

I would have examined what was clearly a drone in more detail, but my vision went dark for several micro-klicks before returning in a blurred state. I was on the verge of stasis lock.

A drone that looked exactly like the one projecting the shield hovered right in front of my faceplate, while dozens of other drones flew above it, working from what I could tell, but on what I had no idea.

"You have my most sincere apologies, Xel'Tor," the familiar voice of Refit said quietly, obviously using the drone as an avatar. "I was unable to assist you as I should have. I cannot create defenses outside of the Infinite Reverence's hull. The only way I could help you was to funnel the infected ones to this location, in order to drive off the arrogant mech that calls himself a lord. And the infected ones are not ones to cooperate when the need arises."

I tried to say something, anything, to the AI, but my mouth refused to move. And my vision started flickering between darkness and its normal state. I didn't have much time left before stasis lock set in.

"But mark my words, sir." The AI continued when I hadn't said anything. "You and your companions will return safely to the garden world you came from. I promise you." The drone hovered a little closer to my faceplate. "Rest now, Xel'Tor, your frame is too badly damaged to sustain you at the moment. And the longer you remain online, the more difficult it will be to repair said damage."

I couldn't have even mentally argued with the AI, since my frame chose that moment to force the shut-down of all my systems in order to preserve my life.

And then my world went black.

---

Inside the computer systems of the Infinite Reverence, the countless yottabytes of data that made up the matrix of the AI known as Refit concentrated on one thing.

Getting the Xel'Tor and his companions to safety.

The AI sorely wished he had been able to help the Xel'Tor sooner than he had, but the infected ones had proven to move far slower than he had anticipated, and he had run millions of calculations on their projected average speed. But they simply had no reason to move when a non-infected wasn't near.

It was sad to think the infected ones were once sentient bots, some of which were even bonded. They hadn't been authorized to access any of the systems they had been studying, but they were still sentient. And that alone made the AI feel a little sad.

Refit shook off his feelings on the matter. He had wasted approximately one, one trillionth of an astro-klick bringing up his data files on the Cybertronians that were now the infected ones.

That wouldn't do.

The AI was directly controlling one-hundred and thirteen worker drones in order to convert the platform the unauthorized Cybertronians had transported the weapons of his creators to into a makeshift escape pod. He would have space bridged the Xel'Tor and his companions onto one of the strike craft in one of the Infinite Reverence's aircraft hangers, but his programming blocks prevented him from space bridging any and all forms of matter onto the vessel without authorization from his creators, the current Prime, or the Xel'Tor.

And since his creators had left this reality long ago, and the sensors of the ship detected the current Prime on the nearby garden world only had a ground-based alternate form, and the Xel'Tor was now in stasis lock, he couldn't bring the Xel'Tor and his companions onboard the Infinite Reverence. As much as it frustrated the AI, a makeshift escape pod would have to do.

The makeshift escape pod Refit was converting the platform into was completed approximately one klick after the Xel'Tor fell into stasis lock.

"I am getting rusty," the AI said to himself, only voicing the thought inside his matrix. Back in the Age of the Primes, Refit could have used half as many worker drones to construct a three kilometer corvette from literally nothing in one quarter of the time it took him to convert the platform into an escape pod. Perhaps he would assign one of the lesser AIs to guard the ship during his next maintenance routine, he was in need of a defragging.

Refit mentally scolded himself for losing his focus for another one, one trillionth of an astro-klick and maneuvered the worker drones he was controlling to fly underneath the completed makeshift escape pod, and moving it toward the tunnel located at the top of the cavern the Infinite Reverence was currently inside.

The unauthorized Cybertronians had made many tunnels during their stay on the asteroid, the tunnel he detected the Xel'Tor and his companions using to gain access to the station was merely the widest. It was the one they used to transport raw materials down into the station to be used in construction, as well as the primitive tanks they had used to try and forcibly gain access to certain areas of the Infinite Reverence. They never succeeded.

The tunnel he was moving the makeshift escape pod to was the first the unauthorized Cybertronians had made, the one they began work on when they first detected the vessel of his creators all those centi-vorns ago. It was the longest tunnel on the asteroid, but it was the most direct exit rout available to Refit, and the Xel'Tor was in critical condition, he needed the most direct path back to the current Prime.

Besides, Refit had run billions of simulations, and the tunnel he was moving the makeshift escape pod to would allow him to send it off with the greatest possible starting velocity with the least amount of effort. He always prided himself on his efficiency.

The worker drones the AI was controlling reached the tunnel at the top at the cavern, and Refit pushed their repulsor engines beyond maximum power. It would inevitably burn out the power sources of the worker drones, but the AI did not care. They were non-sentient worker drones that he had built from matter the vessel had created, they were nothing that Refit couldn't replace in a micro-klick.

It was exactly fifteen micro-klicks before the worker drones reached the surface of the asteroid and he sent the command that would activate the engine he installed on the makeshift escape pod. He saw through the optics of the worker drones as the pod carrying the Xel'Tor and his companions instantly rocketed away at twenty times its previous speed.

The pod left the worker drones far behind as the pod headed straight for where Refit detected the current Prime in roughly the middle of the third largest continent on the garden world, where it would impact in exactly half a breem, according to the AI's calculations. And his calculations were never wrong.

Seeing that his work was done, Refit released control of the worker drones and sent them a command to decommission themselves, causing the drones to dissolve and be reduced to nothing in a micro-klick, preventing any chance of these new unauthorized Cybertronians from gaining access to the technology of his creators.

As Refit returned to scanning the systems of the Infinite Reverence and monitoring the progress of the new unauthorized Cybertronians, he couldn't help but feel slightly sad, since he was again alone without the Xel'Tor or his companions, even if the green one was an aft. He hoped they would be able to return at some point.

But until then, he would guard this vessel, and make sure the unauthorized Cybertronians weren't able to study the technology of his creators.

---

(Human calendar) March 30, 2013 5:57 P.M

(Cybertronian date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since the end of the Golden Age)

Decepticon War Cruiser Nemesis, currently landed on surface of asteroid containing technology of the Thirteen

Megatron walked to his quarters with a purpose. He had just returned to the Nemesis after leaving the three Autobots to their fate. And he wasn't going to wait another micro-klick to see what was inside the data cylinder he had recovered.

The warmonger reached the door to his quarters and typed in the password on the control panel. After the door to his quarters opened, Megatron stepped inside, closed the door again, and made a beeline for his personal terminal, where he would be able to access the data cylinder.

When he reached his computer, Megatron connected the data cylinder to a port on the side of the terminal that would synch the data cylinder to the terminal, which in turn would allow it to download the information stored on the cylinder.

'If there's any information on it at all, you didn't run a scan before you took that cylinder and that wasn't wise because-'

'Shut. Up.' Megatron thought at the second voice that had taken residence in his helm, which the warmonger had since started to call The Scientist.

The Scientist obeyed Megatron's thought, and it fell silent, but a new voice spoke almost as soon as The Scientist fell silent.

'Lab mech is right, you know. Probably would have been a good idea to scan it before you let it into the computer systems of the Nemesis, no telling what's inside it.' This third voice sounded far deeper than the Scientist, and also more gruff, like one of the gladiators back in the pits of Kaon.

'Leave my helm. Now,' Megatron mentally hissed as the data of the cylinder appeared on screen, albeit in an encrypted form. He would have to run a decryption program.

'Nah, I think I'll stay, see how this goes. It could be entertaining,' the new voice said dismissively.

The warmonger ignored the voice and started running a program that would decrypt the information inside the data cylinder, a process that would likely take several breems, considering the amount of data Megatron saw on the screen.

After running the program, the Decepticon leader turned away from his terminal and started walking to his desk, where Soundwave had, just like every mega-cycle, left a neat stack of data pads that contained progress reports from each project Megatron was running.

Megatron didn't get the chance to take three steps before his terminal beeped, signaling the completion of the decryption program he just started.

Turning back to the terminal screen with the closest thing to confusion he would allow to cross his faceplate, Megatron stepped up to the terminal and typed in a command that would cause the computer to display the newly decrypted data.

The terminal's screen changed, and the link for a single data file appeared.

Megatron opened the file.

It was a formula. A formula for a type of modified energon. But, there was something wrong, the formula seemed... Familiar. From what the Decepticon leader could tell, the formula modified the chemical composition of normal energon and made it burn faster inside a Cybertronian's frame. It wouldn't make the Cybertronian overcharged or overclock their systems, but it would give them a burst of energy and also improve their focus, but it could also cause them to crave it, need it, become chemically addicted to it.

The warmonger knew he had heard of something similar to the formula he was looking at, but he couldn't place it among any of the formulas he had seen on Cybertron.

In desperation, Megatron accessed the human internet and searched with the keyword of, 'Energy beverages.'

A number of links to webpages appeared in Megatron's CPU. He searched through them all, but the human drinks described on the different webpages didn't fit with what he was looking at. That is, until he saw a link to another human beverage while he was searching on a website called 'Wikipedia.'

The warmonger opened the link, and immediately saw some similarities between the human beverage and the energon formula. But he read every word on the webpage four times just to be sure, then he looked at the formula again after thoroughly examining the webpage. It was a perfect match.

'Knew this was going to be entertaining.'

Megatron's optic twitched at the words of the new voice, and he screamed in frustration and threw the terminal off his desk.

For he had discovered the formula for energon coffee.

---

March 30, 2013 9:11 P.M

Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada

Arcee had been on patrol when Jetfire, Springer, and Shadowstreaker left Earth's atmosphere, on their way to investigate an asteroid that contained unknown Cybertronian technology, which Ratchet had since determined was created by the Thirteen.

She had returned from that patrol breems ago, roughly at the same time Shadow' and the others landed on the asteroid, according to Ratchet. And since she got back, she had spent most of her time with her sister since they still had a lot of catching up to do, one didn't make up for thousands of centi-vorns of separation from family in just a few jours, after all.

But, when Moonracer and Ratchet detected the life signals of Shadow' and the others on an unknown craft rocketing toward Earth, and that all their life signals were weak, Arcee had dropped what she had been doing and immediately volunteered to help recover the craft once it landed. Optimus, for reasons that she didn't know at the time, refused to allow her to be on the team that would recover the craft.

Arcee had been far from pleased by that. Shadow' was her best friend and partner, she had a right to be on the team that would bring him and the others back to base if they were in fact injured. Just like Shadow' would have had a right to go on the team that would have brought her back to base if she was injured.

However, the Prime had been firm in his order, and he had taken Ratchet and Moonracer with him to the coordinates where, according to Moonracer's calculations, the craft would land, which had been only fifty kilometers away from their base.

Arcee had paced in front of the ground bridge, ignoring the confused looks she had gotten from a few other Bots, until they had returned half a breem later, which, at the time, Arcee had found to be an unusually long period of time to bring three Bots back to base. But when Jazz had opened the ground bridge when Optimus finally requested one, the reason they had taken so long had been clear.

Moonracer had been supporting Jetfire, since the old seeker had clearly seen better cycles, with visible shrapnel damage to the majority of his frame. And the damage had apparently been worse, since Arcee had learned since then that Jetfire had been in a forced recharge when they reached the craft.

Ratchet had been helping Springer walk through the ground bridge, the green Triple-Changer in a similar state as Jetfire. Arcee didn't personally give a damn, but Springer had also been in a forced recharge when the others got to the craft.

But almost all her focus had been on Optimus when all her fellow Autobots had returned to base.

The Prime had been carrying her partner through the bridge, because Shadow' had been in no condition to walk. His armor was damaged like Jetfire and Springer's had been, not to the same degree since his armor was so much stronger, but the damage was still clearly visible. On his tank, there was a gaping hole. It had been covered with a patch, but Arcee had been able to see it without any problem. And his royal cobalt optics were open, but they were dark and unseeing, almost as if he had powered his optics down while he was in a trance.

Her fellow Autobot, her brother in arms, her best friend, her partner, was in stasis lock.

Arcee's CPU had gone blank when she saw Shadow's condition, and she was so detached to what was going on that she hadn't even tried to follow when Ratchet handed Springer off to Bulkhead and barked at Optimus to get Shadow' to the med-bay, with Moonracer following after she had handed Jetfire off to Jazz.

Her sisters had brought her out of her stupor after Optimus carried Shadow' to the med-bay for emergency repairs. And they had helped Arcee keep her CPU from worrying about her partner by telling her stories she hadn't heard before, some embarrassing, some entertaining, and others simply funny.

But after a couple breems of talking with her sisters, Arcee felt like it was time to check on her partner, so she asked to take her leave. Elita and Chromia had understood and hadn't tried to keep Arcee from checking on Shadow', Chromia had even managed to say something suggestive about her and Shadow', which was something her sister had done periodically ever since she figured out that she liked him back when she first arrived on Earth. Arcee had walked out of the room without acknowledging Chromia's statement.

And that was how Arcee came to be in her current situation, standing in front of the med-bay door, silently battling with her emotions as she tried to get herself to open the door, which she had been trying to do for the last twenty klicks.

The condition Shadow' had been brought back to base in was... Far too familiar. It had brought flashbacks of seeing Tailgate being dragged across the floor by a pair of Decepticons, looking like he had already been offline. It also brought back memories of seeing the twisted form of Cliffjumper, so disfigured that his frame was barely recognizable.

'Three partners... Three mentally scaring moments in my life,' Arcee thought with a stoic look on her faceplate, but internally she was a torrent of emotions.

Her brother and sisters sensed her inner turmoil, and they sent her calming emotions through the bonds they shared, which Arcee return with feelings of gratitude.

The comfort of her siblings helped Arcee finally come to a decision, and after taking a deep breath that her frame didn't actually need, she pressed the button on the control panel to open the door and stepped into the med-bay once the door opened.

Ratchet was standing at the computer, with the Delphic floating on one side of him, and the three piles of dust they had recovered from the craft that they hadn't identified. He was staring at the life signs being displayed of the med-bay's three current patients, watching for any anomaly, as well as looking at a series of readings she couldn't identify, likely another test he was running on the Delphic.

Springer was lying on a medical berth in the far left corner, looking far from pleased at his presence in the med-bay. His injuries were moderately severe, and he was going to spend at least a mega-cycle in the med-bay. Had he been anyone else, Arcee would have felt sorry for him, but since he was Springer, she couldn't care less.

Jetfire was resting on a medical berth on the right side of the med-bay, just behind where Ratchet stood at the computer. And he would remain there for at least the next two solar-cycles. His injuries hadn't been as severe as Springer's, but still serious enough to warrant a couple of cycles in the med-bay, then several cycles of no heavy lifting or training after getting out.

Her partner was lying on the berth closest to the door, the one that had taken the least amount of time for Optimus to put him on. He didn't look even close to as bad as he had looked when the Prime carried him in.

His armor had been cleaned and repaired, it almost looked like he had just stepped out of the washrack. And the only evidence there was ever a gaping hole in his tank were the fresh welds Arcee could see around his tank area. But his optics were still dark. They were closed now, but Arcee knew they were still dark. After all, even in recharge, a Cybertronian's optics would move subtly, much like a human's eyes when they were sleeping. But Shadow's optics weren't moving, a clear sign of a bot in stasis lock.

Arcee pulled a chair next to the berth and sat down. For a long moment, she just sat there, staring at the unmoving form of the mech she had come to realize she loved.

Of course, she hadn't realized she loved Shadow' until after he had given her his Revolutionary War musket for a creation day present. And that in turn was only a little over a jour since she first realized she liked him.

'And to think, I've only known him for a little over an orbital-cycle, and he's already wormed his way into my spark, more so than any other mech I've met.' Arcee thought with a small smile on her faceplate, though it was a sad one since the mech she was thinking of was in stasis lock.

Arcee let the smile fall from her faceplate and scooted her chair closer to Shadow's medical berth. She reached out and took hold of Shadow's larger servo in a firm, yet gentle, grip. His servo didn't move, on account that he was in stasis, but Arcee didn't care.

'Come back, Shadow', there are bots here that need you around, me in particular,' Arcee thought, letting her helm partially rest on Shadow's medical berth and staring at her servo as it rested in his, as if willing it to move and him to wake from stasis lock.

She stayed in that position all night.

---

(Local date) Unknown (Has not developed calendar)

(Cybertronian date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since the end of the Golden Age)

Unknown planet in the NGC 3109 galaxy (Unofficially named)

Inside a large, spartan room, which in turn was inside an immense complex made out of golden alloy, a pair of ruby red optics belonging to a pure white mech scanned more than thirty holographic displays from where the mech sat in a chair held up by a gravity field.

At sixty-six feet in height, the mech taller than most mechs that hadn't had their frames modified, or had their sparks transferred into a chassis that was built for war. His faceplate was blank, set in the neutral expression he always kept on his faceplate. There were no visible weapons on his massive frame, but that did not mean he did not have any. Very few mechs had fought him and lived, and most of them ended up joining him after their battle.

The mech raised his servo toward an energon dispencer, which had just finished filling his cube with high-grade, and the air between his outstretched servo and the dispencer became distorted, almost as if the air was being heated up. After the mech raised his servo, his cube of high-grade silently flew into his outstretched servo, and the mech took a small sip of the delightful liquid.

A quiet beep from far behind the mech interrupted him from taking another sip. It was an alarm he installed when someone requested to enter his sanctuary.

"Enter," the mech said to the empty air, his voice impossibly deep and far more mechanical than the voices of other Cybertronians.

After speaking, the mech heard the door open quietly, then heard each step of the Cybertronian that entered his sanctuary and walked toward him. Another mech appeared in his peripheral vision. It was Praxis, his first lieutenant.

"Sir, there is a matter that requires your attention." Praxis said in his usual tone that was devoid of emotion.

The mech turned away from his holographic displays slightly. "What is it?"

"Station A4-D718 just transmitted a positive sighting." Praxis replied.

The mech froze, and that was something he very rarely did. He always was a step ahead, always had a plan, always was in control of the situation. To have him even pause would take something monumentally shocking, and this piece of news certainly was shocking.

Station A4-D718 had been ejected from this solar system more than five-thousand centi-vorns ago, less than a vorn after the mech first established his organization on this world. The station had been built into an asteroid in the system, one that formed around a ship created by the Ancients.

The previous Reclamation Division had advanced their technology substantially by studying that vessel. His organization's use of power crystals would not have been possible without the study of the Ancient ship. But unfortunately, the Warrior project had compromised the station, and the mech had been forced to order Techlaser to send the asteroid through an unstable sub-space rupture, sending the asteroid to an unknown location. However, the security systems on the station had remained operational, and the mech had them shut down to save power, but not before he programmed them to activate if the Xel'Tor was detected, and then send the footage back to this planet.

"How long has it been since we received the transmission?" The mech asked, quickly regaining his composer.

"Five klicks ago, sir." Praxis answered.

"Show me the footage," the mech ordered, folding his right pede over his left and taking a sip of his high-grade.

Praxis pressed a button on the side of his servo, and a 3-D hologram appeared in front of the mech, between him and his displays. The hologram was split up into pictures from dozens of different angles from a number of different cameras. The focus of each picture was the same.

A large black mech, with dark blue optics, and a silver mark on either side of his helm that identified him as a direct descendant of Solus Prime. But that mark also identified him as something else when it was flipped over. It identified him as the Xel'Tor.

The mech looked at the mech in the picture, then out the window in his sanctuary, where an Ancient complex covered with silver and gold symbols filled most of his view. It was a place where nearly all of the systems required a Prime to activate them, that or the Xel'Tor. And it was where the greatest concentration of Tier 0 technology was located on this world.

The mech looked back at the hologram. "Where was the station when it transmitted this?"

Praxis pressed a different button on the side of his servo, and the images of the black mech changed to the image of what the mech recognized as the Milky Way galaxy, the second most massive galaxy in this group of galaxies, and home to colossal energon deposits. Praxis highlighted a small solar system located about two thirds along one of the smaller galactic arms.

"This is where it transmitted, sir," Praxis said. "We are uncertain what the name of the system is, but we believe it is inhabited by a Tier 4 race of organics, and that both the Autobots and the Decepticons are using the race's home world as an outpost."

The mech internally sighed at the mention of the two warring factions of Cybertronians, their presence could possibly complicate matters. But the presence of the Xel'Tor in that system overrode his worries about the Autobots and Decepticons.

"Contact Jhiaxus, and tell him to travel to this system and recover the Xel'Tor and bring him here," the mech said after a moment. "Alive," he quickly added, knowing that while Jhiaxus was a fine military officer, he tended to get carried away when on operations, and also liked to bend the orders the mech gave him.

"Acknowledged, sir." Praxis said, then bowed and turned around to walk out of the mech's sanctuary.

"And, Praxis," the mech called, causing his lieutenant to come to a halt. "I want you to go along and make sure Jhiaxus follows my orders, but do nothing except observe, leave him in command."

"As you wish, Extremis," Praxis said, then resumed his walk to the door and closed it once he had left the room.

After his lieutenant left his sanctuary, the mech known as Extremis looked back out at the Ancient complex. With the Xel'Tor's arrival, things were starting to be set in motion that he would not be able to control. Things that would spell the awakening of the Chaos Bringer, the doom of everything. And they needed every scrap of Ancient technology to help them once he awoke.

"So it begins," Extremis said to himself quietly, not taking his optics off the symbol on that was displayed proudly on the front of the Ancient complex.

The same symbol that was on the black mech's helm.

---

You are confused, are you not? Hehe.

And you will remain confused for a while, because while I now have my motivation back to write this, I need to collect my thoughts for a while, make sure what I want to write fits. You know, stuff like that. So, the next chapter will not be this month, and I don't know when it will be, but I know Fate Calls won't be on hold anymore.

This chapter has two credit songs, since my muse wanted their to be two songs.

Credit song number one "Les Friction - Come Back To Me" In my opinion, this song fits perfectly with the scene with Arcee, it is simply perfect.

Credit song number two. "Thousand Foot Krutch - Courtesy Call" Again, in my opinion, this song fits with the very end of the chapter, which is probably the source of a lot of your confusion.

So, please be sure to leave a review and thanks for reading. I will see you soon, now that I have my motivation back. *Still knows anyone who reads this for the first time will be confused.*