Well, my one week vacation from writing turned into one that was closer to three weeks. So yeah, sorry I took longer than expected to finish this one.
So, let's see, what's new with me? I got the final multiplayer DLC for Mass Effect 3, and beat Platinum multiple times purely because myself and two of my friends that play it a lot got the Geth Juggernaut in our Gift Pack from Bioware. I am still working on getting the final DLC for Mass Effect 3 in general, Citadel, but I don't want to spend money right now so yeah. I might be getting a part-time job soon, which would be really good since I have no money. Lol. And I have decided that I am going to write my own series of original sci-fi novels... Just need the story, the characters, the setting, the knowledge to explain the advanced technology I have in mind in a scientific manner, ideas in general, and a willing publisher... So I am almost done. Lol.
On a more serious topic, I would like to apologize to all of you. I have gone back and looked at my replies to reviews, and I found that a number of them could easily be misunderstood. You see, I have a very dry sense of humor, and I use it in my replies to those of you that review, but it is easy for me to forget that text doesn't carry a tone of voice, especially a dry one. So, to all of you that I may have accidentally insulted, made fun of, offended, etc., I am sorry. I am truly sorry that I came off in a bad way. I did not mean to come off like that, it is how I would talk in real life, but if you could hear the way I said those things, you would see that I was not being serious, it was my humor at work, as I said. So again I am sorry if I did anything to hurt any of you. I hope that you forgive me.
And to those that reviewed, I thank you. You help inspire me to write, and I always love feedback on my writing. Thank you all. :)
Oh, and before I forget to say this, Fate Calls is now over 20,000 hits! Thank you, my readers! :D
Oh! And before I forget *again* Fox of Magic, if you are still reading this, remember when you said that you spotted some foreshadowing way back in chapter 18? And I said that it wasn't foreshadowing? Well, it was. Lol. You totally called it right off the bat, I planned on having something bad happen to Shadowstreaker *see chapter 27* when I was writing that, I just said that it wasn't foreshadowing to throw you off the trail. Lol.
Thanks go to Crystal Prime for beta reading.
xDaughterOfKingsx - *Ignores what you said due to it not being relevant to what has happened since* Now that I know that you are very confused by my last chapter, I must say, hehe. :P You will be confused for a while, there are a lot of plot elements that are coming into play.
Abyss Prime - I did take some time off, and the situation/rough spot has now been resolved, so were correct in saying that good things happen to those who wait. Thank you for saying that.
Crystal Prime - And here I thought I had you there *snaps fingers* Lol. Hopefully the explanation will live up to your curiosity. :)
KayleeChiara - To quote one of the credit songs from my last chapter, "When we get started, man we ain't gonna stop, we're gonna turn it up until it gets too hot." There are a lot of plot elements that are coming into play now, and they are coming quickly. The events of last chapter are only the tip of the iceburg. MWAHAHAHAHA! *coughs* Hmm, I will have to work on that laugh.
That did come out as a compliment, all of them did, it means that I did something write last chapter. Hopefully I did the same with this one. Lol.
And I thank you for thinking my changes to the Prime-verse are amazing, I hope you continue to think so as I continue writing this, slowly *very slowly, I might add lol* getting to the end. :)
And you are welcome!
Autobot Shadowstalker - She actually realized her feelings back in the chapter where the Autobots recovered the Delphic, but I get your point. Haha. *Looks at the time of his last update* Didn't do a good job of that, huh?
Sky's Limit5 - I am glad that you think so, and I hope you enjoy this chapter, as well. :)
Guest - I am glad.
nic - *Shrugs* To each their own. I personally love novels that go into a lot of detail, let's me paint a picture in my head about what's going on in the book. And Fate Calls is in an episode formate, AKA lots of fill-in chapters that don't carry over, and also time-skips, and then a number of chapters that tie together, so that might be the source of some of your confusion.
Musical Prime - *Gives you a punching bag* I will leave that to your own interpretation. Lol. But be patient, I have a plan.
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro. I only take credit for this story and my OCs.
April 13, 2013 4:25 A.M
Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada
Ratchet stepped out of the quarters he shared with Moonracer and started walking toward the med-bay without looking up from the data pad in his servo.
He wasn't usually one to online this early in the cycle, but when he had a patient in his med-bay that was in stasis lock, he always made sure to be present in the med-bay as much as possible. The fact that his latest test on the Delphic had finished while he was in recharge may or may not have also had something to do with why he was onlining this early.
Even in her recharge, Ratchet could feel that the femme who became his sparkmate last mega-cycle was getting very annoyed at his numerous tests, constant thoughts of different tests, and late nights and early mornings of studying the Delphic. After all, he and Moonracer had known each other for centi-vorns, and had only truly found each other last mega-cycle, all his sparkmate wanted was to spend time with him after being without him for so long.
And he couldn't deny the fact that that was what he wanted as well. But he was close to figuring out what the Delphic had been keeping from them since they found it. And when his scientific curiosity was piqued, even he couldn't stop himself from working until he had figured out the mystery. He would make it up to his sparkmate after he finally knew what the Delphic was hiding, and his curiosity was satisfied.
Knowing he had taken the amount of steps it took him to reach the med-bay, Ratchet looked up from his data pad and entered the password to open the locked door before he stepped inside the med-bay. He sighed at the sight that greeted him.
Arcee had ignored his order to rest in her quarters, and was recharging in her chair next to Shadowstreaker's medical berth. Again. She had barely left his side since he returned from the asteroid two mega-cycles ago in stasis lock, leaving Bumblebee to bring Jack to the human academy. She, against Ratchet's orders, hadn't even left to visit the washracks. All she had done in the last two mega-cycles was sit in that chair. Although, technically speaking, she wasn't in the chair, since from the tank up she was lying on the berth while keeping a grip on one of Shadowstreaker's servos. It didn't look like the most comfortable position in which to recharge, and she would most certainly be in some moderate pain when she onlined.
'Not that she cares,' Ratchet thought, a ghost of a smile crossing his faceplate for a moment. He might have been oblivious to Moonracer's feelings for him until he finally told her about his own feelings for her, but he knew how a mech and femme acted when they loved each other. And those two were in love, likely unaware how the other felt, but definitely in love.
And that was a little surprising to Ratchet, given how Arcee had mostly closed herself off to romantic feelings since Tailgate was offlined in front of her, and had only showed an interest in Cliffjumper several vorns after they became partners. But Shadowstreaker had only been here for about fifteen jours. And that was an unusually short amount of time for Cybertronians to even develop an attraction to one other, let alone love each other. Maybe it had something to do with the slightly abnormal spark readings he detected in his last medical checkup of Shadowstreaker, and similar readings Moonracer told him that she detected during her checkup of Arcee.
Ratchet shook his helm and stepped over to the computer, side-stepping the Delphic as he did so. The small mystery of how Arcee and Shadowstreaker came to love each other so quickly, and without knowing how the other felt, was a matter for another time. He had a Delphic to study.
After reaching the computer, Ratchet brought it out of sleep mode and examined the readings on screen. He raised his optic ridges at the first thing he saw.
The previous night, he and his mate had managed to crack open one of the Delphic-type power crystals Shadowstreaker, Jetfire, and Springer had recovered from the station's armory and found the power crystal to be filled with an unknown liquid in a semi-solid state. And before he had gone to get some recharge, he had started to run a chemical analysis of the liquid to see if it could be replicated.
That analysis was now complete. And according to the results Ratchet was looking at, the liquid was in fact known to him. It was Nucleon, an incredibly unstable, but equally powerful, element that was abundant on Cybertron and its moons. It had, at one point, been considered to be a miracle fuel that would solve the energon crisis that was partially responsible for the war. Shortly after it started to be shipped in liquid form, however, a large number of Cybertronians suffered serious side effects from consuming Nucleon, with many of them ending up with permanent damage. Nucleon was immediately abandoned as a potential fuel source after that. Although a number of weapons, such as Shadowstreaker's Shock Cannon, were built to fire a crude, less powerful form of Nucleon, which was essentially energon that had been charged by an electrical current.
But, there was something different about this Nucleon. It was pure. But unlike the fuel Ratchet had seen permanently damage bots after they drank it, this Nucleon was stable, stable enough for a Cybertronian to drink and not suffer side effects, in fact. Of course, they had no way of recreating this formula without access to materials from Cybertron, so he and his fellow Autobots would have to extract the Nucleon from the power crystals and drink it that way. It would taste far from pleasant, but since Nucleon was far more potent than energon, they would only need to drink the liquid from one power crystal each cycle. And with the amount of power crystals Jetfire and Springer had recovered, and the ones Jetfire said Shadowstreaker had in his sub-space, they would be able to last for at least another six or seven jours without worrying about their energon supply.
'And we need that supply to last as long as possible,' Ratchet thought, sending his sparkmate a data packet containing the information on this discovery, which she would be able to read when she onlined.
Exiting out of the results from his analysis of the power crystal, Ratchet checked on Shadowstreaker's life signs, which were stable, before he opened up the results of his latest test on the Delphic. As the results were displayed on the screen, Ratchet scrunched his optic ridges in confusion.
The results were blank.
'This makes no sense,' Ratchet thought as he started to type commands into the computer, trying to determine why the results were blank. He had been running an examination of the Delphic's core, the one part of the ancient power source Ratchet hadn't scanned, on the yoctometer scale, there definitely should be something on his screen. What that something was, Ratchet did not know, but he knew that he should be seeing something right now. Unless...
"There's an atomic cloaking field," Ratchet verbally finished his thought, the gears in his CPU working overtime as he considered the possibility.
Atomic cloaking was a theoretical anti-reverse engineering technology that, despite its name, would hide the true nature of an element or piece of technology on the smallest level of matter. Essentially, an atomic cloaking field could fool the most advanced scanner into believing an ingot of pure Primax was in fact made out of wood, or that a stone was a blackhole.
So, if there indeed was an atomic cloaking field inside the Delphic, why was it keeping its core from being studied? And why was it only hiding its core? Why wasn't it keeping all the Delphic's inner workings hidden?
... Unless the cloaking field was keeping the Delphic's inner workings a secret, which was entirely possible, given how an atomic cloaking field was theorized to work. And if that was true, then everything Ratchet and Moonracer had found out about the Delphic was a lie.
Ratchet's thoughts were interrupted by a feminine groan off to his left and slightly behind him. Arcee was online.
Ratchet turned and looked at Arcee, who was, like any good soldier, already sitting up, fully online and alert, though she was rubbing her lower backplates in obvious discomfort. "Your backplates wouldn't be causing you pain if you hadn't ignored my order to recharge in your own quarters... Again," he said.
"How is he, Ratchet?" The blue and pink femme asked, ignoring his statement as she continued to look at Shadowstreaker's unmoving frame.
Knowing that Arcee would just ignore anything he said to her unless it was about Shadowstreaker's status, Ratchet turned to the computer, minimized the results of his latest test on the Delphic, and checked Shadowstreaker's life signs again, just as he did every morning when Arcee asked for his status. "His life signs are stable. Same as they were last cycle," he replied.
Arcee made no indication that she had heard Ratchet, just like she always did when she onlined and asked about Shadowstreaker's status, and looked at the black Triple-Changer's closed optics, almost as if she was willing his optics to open. "Any change in his CPU activity?"
Ratchet glanced down and checked the one reading he hadn't checked since entering the med-bay, a monitor for Shadowstreaker's CPU activity, which had been almost non-existent since Ratchet and his mate had repaired the damage inflicted on him by a bot whose identity was still unknown to them, since Jetfire said he had fallen into a forced recharge right after he was hit by a Thunderstroke missile, and Springer didn't even care about Shadowstreaker's condition.
The white and red medic raised his optic ridges slightly as he looked at the reading. There was a significant increase in CPU activity, activity associated with dreams. "Yes, he's dreaming."
Ratchet didn't even know Arcee had gotten up from her chair until she silently appeared next to him. She always was a stealthy one. "Is he onlining?" She asked, voice containing little emotion, though it was still obvious to Ratchet that she was hoping that he would confirm her inquiry.
Ratchet shook his helm once. "No, not yet," he said, keeping his gaze on the reading that displayed Shadowstreaker's CPU activity. "His CPU activity only spiked a klick ago, he will likely remain in an unending dream for the next few solar-cycles as his chassis gradually begins to power up his systems."
Arcee's faceplate remained stoic, though Ratchet knew from the slight dip in her shoulder-joints that this news disappointed her. She looked back at Shadowstreaker's unmoving frame, focusing on his optics like she had before. "Will his optics start moving, at least?" She asked, likely just wanting to have at least one piece of good news.
Ratchet nodded. "His optics should begin moving like a bot in recharge in about twelve breems, I'd say. He might even start moving in his recharge," he replied. "Although, I cannot be absolutely certain about that," he quickly added, not wanting to accidentally promise Arcee something that may or not happen.
The blue and pink femme made no indication that she heard him, though Ratchet knew she had. She turned and started to walk away in order to return to her chair, but as she walked away, Ratchet noticed that her left servo was barely moving as she walked, and he saw that Arcee was also being very careful each time she put weight on her right pede.
"Refusing to visit the washrack, has taken a toll on you, I see," the white and red medic observed. "You need to visit the washrack before your condition effects your spine."
"I'm fine," Arcee quickly said, tone clipped as she sat back down in her chair with an almost imperceptible wince. The position she had been recharging in, combined with neglecting to visit the washrack, likely had caused a large build-up of grime in the lower portion of her backplates.
To confirm his suspicion, Ratchet pointed his scanner at Arcee's backplates and started a scan, which caused the blue and pink femme let out a displeased sound, which Ratchet ignored. "You have a significant amount of grime built-up in your protoform, and some of the grime has gotten deep into your gears," he said with a frown, looking down at the readings on his scanner, which were exactly as he suspected they would be. "You need to visit the washracks immediately, before more grime gets into your gears. Otherwise, Moonracer will need to operate on you in order to remove the grime, and to prevent your gears from ceasing up."
"I'll be fine," Arcee said without looking away from the black Triple-Changer in front of her, clearly dismissing Ratchet's statement.
The white and red medic sighed quietly. "Arcee, you need to go and wash yourself off before that grime build-up causes more than just discomfort in a few places on your chassis."
Arcee turned in her chair to look at Ratchet, the action causing the pain in the blue and pink femme's back to flare, and making her wince slightly, which didn't escape Ratchet's notice. "But I... I don't want to miss Shadow' onlining, not after I've waited for him to online for two mega-cycles..."
"His frame is still at least another jour from being completely repaired, and his CPU has only just now had a spike in activity. So as I said, he will not online for several solar-cycles," Ratchet said, tone both firm and gentle. "But, on the off-chance that he does online before then, I will notify you the micro-klick he shows signs of doing so."
Arcee looked like she wanted to continue arguing against leaving Shadowstreaker's side and going to the washracks, but didn't. Instead, she let out an annoyed sigh, stood up from her chair and walked to the door. "Better make that the astro-klick he shows signs of onlining, Ratchet," she said just before she reached the med-bay door and stepped out into the hallway, then disappeared from Ratchet's sight once the door automatically closed behind her.
Smiling at how he finally managed to convince Arcee to leave the med-bay and take care of herself, Ratchet turned back to the computer screen and brought up the blank results of his test on the Delphic, only to look at the screen in confusion.
Instead of displaying blank results, the screen was showing Ratchet an image of a panel made of gold alloy, with circuitry running through it that was far more advanced than anything else the white and red medic had seen.
"The core is a computer?" Ratchet asked himself, immensely puzzled by this discovery. Of all the things he expected the Delphic's core to be, a computer for very far down the list. It was just so... Normal, and the Delphic was anything but normal.
And then there was the matter of the atomic cloaking field keeping the computer from sight. That was an incredibly advanced security method for a computer. And-
Ratchet stopped his line of thought. Why did the atomic cloak deactivate? He hadn't had time to run any tests or programs to search for a way to deactivate it, or even confirm that an atomic cloaking field was actually there, despite everything pointing to there being a cloaking field. So why was he suddenly seeing results when there were none before?
Confusion and an intense desire to understand driving him, the white and red medic's digits flew across the keyboard as he typed commands into the computer, checking everything in the system for anything that might offer a clue to the unexpected deactivation of the atomic cloaking field. His digits froze when his optics landed on the monitor for the Delphic's energy readings.
The Delphic's energy had changed slightly, Ratchet had no idea how much the minor change was effecting the Delphic, but he knew that it was. And its energy had changed at the exact same time Shadowstreaker's CPU activity had spiked.
Ratchet looked at Shadowstreaker's unmoving chassis. "What is going on inside of your helm?" He asked the stasis-locked Triple-Changer, knowing he wouldn't receive an answer, but curiosity driving him to ask anyway.
The white and red medic turned back to the computer and quickly started to run a scan of the Delphic's energy readings, while opening the results of his previous test. Shadowstreaker might not be able to give Ratchet the answers he had been in search of for jours, but the Delphic would be able to.
And Ratchet was determined to find them.
Arcee was motionless as she held her servos out against the back of the washrack stalls, letting near-scolding hot water run down her armorless frame, just enjoying the feeling of having some of the built-up grime being washed away.
She had arrived at the femmes' washracks, stepped into a stall, and removed her armor more than half a breem ago. She meant to only step under the washrack for a quick rinse, and maybe grab the nearby brush to scrub off a little grime from her protoform, but the moment she stepped under the hot water, she realized just how badly her movement was restricted because of the built-up grime, and how good it felt to stand underneath a washrack again. So she had merely stood there, enjoying the feeling of the water washing over her.
She hadn't moved since.
So here she was, more than half a breem later, standing under a stream of hot water, having yet to even start scrubbing at her backplates, servos, or pedes. It wasn't a very productive use of her time, but she had definitely needed to get clean, that was for sure. She had trouble even moving her left servo up onto the wall in front of her when she first entered the washrack, now she was actually able to bend and twist it. Not as much as she normally could, of course, but it was a start.
Arcee halted her thoughts when she felt her sisters online at roughly the same time, a habit they developed while they were raising Arcee, and had never gotten out of.
The blue and pink femme continued standing under her washrack as she felt Elita and Chromia approach the washracks, no-doubt making small talk as they started their morning routines.
Less than a klick after Arcee felt her sisters online, her sisters reached the femmes' washracks, entered the password for the door, which was only known to the femmes on base, and stepped inside.
"Hey, C.C," Chromia greeted, smiling at the annoyed feelings she got from her younger sibling's side of the bond when she used the nickname she had given Arcee when she was a sparkling. "Finally washing up, I see."
Arcee wanted to tell Chromia to stop calling her 'C.C.' Again. But since she would keep calling her that no matter what, Arcee decided it wasn't worth the effort, and she smiled slightly at the last part of Chromia's statement. "Yeah. I haven't been in here for so long that I almost forgot what it felt like to have water wash over you. I've been standing here for more than half a breem, and I haven't even started scrubbing. Remind me come in here every cycle."
Elita chuckled as she stepped into a stall next to Arcee's. "You don't need reminding, you just need to stop spending all your time in the med-bay. You do still need to take care of yourself."
Arcee's smile disappeared. "I'm staying in there until he onlines, Elita." She said, tone a little more sharp than she intended as Chromia stepped by her stall and entered the one to her left. "I just... Can't not be there. He might be in stasis lock, but he's my partner, I would feel like I was abandoning him if I wasn't there, waiting for him to online."
"I never said that you shouldn't be there, Arcee, I was only saying that you still need to make sure you take care of yourself," Elita said calmly. "And you haven't been doing that in the last two mega-cycles."
Arcee sighed. "I know, I'm sorry, Elita," she apologized. "I've just been rather tense lately, with Shadow' being in stasis."
"You are forgiven... Little 'Cee," Elita said, laughing as her youngest sister stepped out of her washrack, armorless and dripping wet, punched Elita in the servo for calling her the one nickname she hated more than 'C.C,' and then went back into her stall without a word. "Oh, come on, lighten up. I was just joking with you, Arcee."
"Calling me that is not a funny joke," Arcee said with an angry tone, though Elita and Chromia knew Arcee was actually amused and slightly annoyed, going by the emotions they was getting from her side of the bond.
"Would you prefer we tease you about your mech?" Chromia asked with a mischievous smirk as she turned on the water to her washrack and began to remove her armor.
The amusement Arcee felt vanished with her sister's words, which, due to her bonds, caused Elita and Chromia to sober up as well. "He's not my mech, Chromia..." She said, tone blank as she grabbed the nearby brush and finally started to scrub her protoform.
"But you want him to be, don't you," Chromia stated factually, tone devoid of the humor that had been filling her voice just a moment ago. "You want your friendship to be more than what it is."
Arcee went silent for a moment, thinking about how true that statement was, both in terms in what she wanted, and... Whatever it was that her spark was trying to tell her during those strange moments once a jour where she felt something tugging at her spark before she was shocked.
"Yes, I do." Arcee finally said.
Chromia glanced over at where she felt Arcee, even though the stall was in the way. "If you want your friendship to be more, then why haven't you tried making him your mech?"
"It isn't about what I want," Arcee replied quietly, crushing the sad feeling she got from her spark as she spoke.
"I am reasonably certain that it is about what you want. You are a femme, after all, and femmes get to make their mechs do whatever they want." Chromia said, hoping her statement would make Arcee laugh and prevent her from putting up her emotional walls, which she could feel was beginning to happen.
Arcee didn't laugh. "Bad things happen to the mechs that I develop feelings for." She said flatly, as if stating a scientific fact.
"That isn't true," Elita said.
"Tailgate and I had just started courting when he was tortured and executed in front of my optics. Cliff' was offlined before we could even start courting. Shadow' and I are only friends, and he's in stasis lock," Arcee said stoically, though Elita and Chromia could feel that she was very upset. "Every mech that I've developed romantic feelings for has either been offlined, or nearly been offlined. And from where I stand, the only reason Shadow' survived getting a hole blown in his tank is because I didn't act on what I feel."
Elita was stunned. Arcee genuinely believed Shadowstreaker would be offline if she told him how she felt about him. That of course was completely illogical, since the relationship status of a bot had nothing to do with whether they survived an injury or not. But then again, Elita could understand why her sister believed that. She had been through a lot of tragedy in her life, and had lost two mechs she cared for greatly, while the third mech she cared for, and in Elita's own opinion, cared for on the deepest level of the three, was in stasis lock. It was a sobering reminder to Elita that her youngest sister wasn't so young any more.
"My dear sister, you cannot let the events of the past take away your chance for a future," Elita finally said gently, sending her youngest sibling waves of caring emotions, trying to get Arcee out of the mood she had fallen in.
Silence was Arcee's only response.
Arcee and her sisters spent another twenty klicks cleaning themselves in the washracks. They were silent throughout that time, unable to find a way to start another conversation after Arcee refused to acknowledge Elita's attempts at encouraging Arcee to act on her feelings for Shadowstreaker.
After exiting the femmes' washracks, the three sisters parted ways, with Elita and Chromia heading out for their early morning patrol, along with most of the other Autobots, while Arcee immediately returned to the med-bay.
The med-bay hadn't changed since she left it. Ratchet was still near the computer, looking like he was deep into another of his tests on the Delphic floating next to him, judging by how his digits flew across the keyboard while he muttered scientific gibberish to himself. And Shadow' was still lying in the exact same position she had left him in.
Arcee stepped over to the chair she had barely left for the last two mega-cycles and sat down, sighing in relief when the action brought her no discomfort. She looked at the optics of the mech she had come to love, and was pleasantly surprised to see faint movements beneath his optic shutters. His optics had started moving sooner than Ratchet predicted.
'Enjoy your dreams, Shadow', I'll be here whenever you online.' Arcee thought, reaching out and grabbing her partner's servo, the same one she had been keeping in her grasp for the majority of the last two mega-cycles. And when she did, his servo twitched, and slowly, almost instinctively, closed around her smaller one, causing Arcee to smile for the first time since Shadow' fell into stasis lock.
Arcee was too focused on Shadowstreaker, and Ratchet was too occupied with analyzing data, to notice that the CPU readings of Shadowstreaker exponentially spiked at that moment.
Transcending Time
Unknown Place
I found myself... Somewhere after my systems shut-down. I had no idea where, though. I could see nothing, hear nothing, and feel nothing. But somehow, I knew I was somewhere, I just had no way of knowing where.
'This cycle has been so strange,' I thought, looking around at the black nothingness around me. It had just started out as an uncommon, but not unheard of, mission to an asteroid, where we had detected unknown Cybertronian technology. But with the unexpected sight of floating structures built by unknown Cybertronians, finding out the technology we detected were artifacts of the Thirteen, which were taken off of the ship of the Thirteen at the core of the asteroid, getting zapped by aforementioned ship and then getting assaulted by images I had no way of sorting through, and being called 'Xel'Tor' by what was definitely the most sinister-sounding voice I had ever heard, this cycle had gone from uncommon, to odd, to unusual, to downright strange. This cycle was definitely getting the top spot in my list of the weirdest cycles in my life.
A blue-white light suddenly broke through the black nothingness around me. At first, it was tiny and its shape was unidentifiable, but then it grew into a massive blue-white spiral galaxy, bathing me in enough light for me to be able to see that I was in dark space, floating hundreds-of-thousands of light-years away from the galaxy. And that made me feel very, very small, not an easy thing to do to a Cybertronian.
"A single galaxy, can contain trillions of stars," a deep voice said, sounding like it was coming from all around me.
The voice didn't sound like any voice I had ever heard before. It sounded like countless lesser voices, all carrying different levels emotion, combined into a single, great voice, one that was filled with so much wisdom that it made Prima sound young and ignorant, of which Prima was neither.
"Each star, may have many planets orbiting it," the voice that sounded incalculably ancient continued. "Each planet, may have many moons. Each moon or planet, may be home to a sentient race, perhaps several sentient races. But, few of these races will learn to master their world, fewer are destined to master their solar system, and fewer still will learn to master their galaxy."
The galaxy in front of me was suddenly joined by hundreds of others, all unique in their own way, their light making it almost seem like I was standing outside in the middle of the cycle on Earth.
"Only a precious few will ever become the masters of many galaxies," the ancient voice went on.
The galaxies shrank with the voice's words, becoming so tiny that I could barely see them, but yet were somehow distinguishable from each other. The now tiny galaxies were then joined by an incalculable amount of other galaxies, which formed a multi-armed structure that was almost tree-like in appearance, and unfathomably immense. Calling it beautiful and awe-inspiring would be an insult.
"None will ever truly master the Cosmos in its entirety. It is older, and more expansive than you, or any single entity, can fathom. And for every moment that goes by, The One expands it by millions of light-years, creating thousands of galaxies and countless of races as he goes. The Cosmos are too extensive to be colonized, and too powerful for a single race to master," the voice said, confusing me tremendously with its mention of 'The One,' someone, or something, that I had never heard of before. "But, for all the unimaginable wonders of the Cosmos, it can all be destroyed and devoured..."
A red light suddenly infected one of the galaxies, spreading along its arms at an alarming rate until the entire galaxy was red, as if the whole galaxy was rotting, along with everything in it. The red light spread to another galaxy, and it quickly suffered the same fate as the first, then it spread to a group of galaxies nearby, and then another, larger group and turned them red as well.
In short order, the light spread to every galaxy I could see, leaving the once-mesmerizing beauty of the galaxies into a disgusting sea of rot. And when the light had finished infecting everything, it all began to crumble and die away, as if something was dissolving everything and everyone, until I was once again surrounded by black nothingness.
A pair of white orbs pierced the black, like plasma torches burning paper, and looked right into my optics, making me feel like my soul was being studied. The orbs had what seemed to be transparent blue energy billowing from them, looking almost like smoke, before vanishing into the nothing that shrank back from the orbs. "The time of the Chaos Bringer's awakening is approaching. His awakening is inevitable, you cannot stop, nor change, the events that awaken him. But, no matter what transpires, you must not allow him to break free of the prison that has formed around him. If you do, it will spell the uncreation of everything," the ancient voice spoke, sounding exactly the same as it did when it first spoke, but somehow managing to make its words seem more important than anything.
I opened my mouth to speak to the voice, but I found myself cut off before I could utter a syllable.
"There is great power locked within you, young one. It remains to be seen whether you will master it, or it will master you," it said, the white orbs that clearly belonged to it seeming to study me at even deeper level before vanishing from view.
And just like that, I felt an invisible force push me backwards, and I was thrown from this strange place, with numerous questions ringing in my helm.
Transcending Time
Pocket Universe
After being flung from the strange place where the equally strange voice spoke to me, I found myself standing in the Pocket Universe again. Unlike the last time I was here, I was standing in the desert instead of the forest. But, there was something... Off about the Pocket Universe. Everything seemed to be clearer than it had been, like spending your whole life watching a low resolution TV, and then watching a program on a HD one for the first time. It was strange.
My parental bond with my carrier suddenly opened, preventing me from continuing to observe the slight change to the Pocket Universe. And my bond with Solus wasn't the only bond that opened, because I felt another bond open, one that definitely wasn't there before. It was similar to my bond with my carrier, but noticeably different. It felt almost exactly like the source of the emotions I received before Jetfire, Springer, and I left for the asteroid. Odd.
Shaking myself from my thoughts, I used my bond with Solus, and also the second bond that had opened, to find where my carrier was located. Luckily, she wasn't far, only about two kilometers off to my right, on top of a large, rocky hill.
'Good, I won't have to fly to her this time,' I thought as I started to walk in the direction of my carrier, and, going by what I was getting from my second bond, the other bot who I now shared a bond with. And, since there was only one bot that my carrier was near at all times, that could only mean that I finally had a parental bond with my sire.
After a short walk across the desert and up the hill, I reached the top of the slope, and was greeted by one of the weirdest sights I had seen in the Pocket Universe.
Prima, Alpha Trion, Zeta, Vector, and my creators were all sitting on boulders, which in turn were surrounding a pond that was about one-hundred meters in diameter, making large enough for all of them to sit around it with room to spare... And they had bot-sized fishing poles in their servos, and I could see a half dozen bobbers floating in the pond. The remaining members of the Thirteen... Were fishing.
Megatronus looked up from the boulder he and Solus were sitting on while they watched their bobbers. "Long time no see, son. And yet, you still haven't made progress with Arcee," he said, sighing in disappointment and shaking his helm. "How very depressing. If not quite amusing."
I didn't acknowledge Megatronus' words, just stared at the water in shock. They were fishing. "You're in the Pocket Universe... And you're fishing... Why are you fishing?"
My sire looked down at his fishing pole for a moment, then looked back at me. "What was your first clue?" He asked dryly, ignoring the last part of my statement. "Was it the fishing poles? The fact we're all sitting around each other? Or was it the bobbers in the water?"
I finally broke free of my shock and glared at my sire, causing him to grin in amusement, while I felt the same emotion flood through my second bond, confirming that I did indeed finally share a parental bond with Megatronus. "You know, you should be a comedian."
Megatronus looked up at the constant dark cloud cover, as if seriously considering my words. "I could be a comedian, I am hilarious, after all..."
Solus rolled her optics. "Could you be a little less humble? It isn't good to put yourself down so much." She said, tone dripping with sarcasm and annoyance, though I could feel her amusement.
My sire grinned. "Yes, I could be less humble," he said, then looked up at the sky and took a deep breath. "I AM THE GREATEST MECH EVER CREATED BY PRIMUS!" He shouted, then looked back at his mate with a straight look on his faceplate. "Is that better?"
My carrier, who I could feel was on the verge of laughing, shook her helm and gave Megatronus a look. "Why did I agree to become bonded to you?"
"Because of my soldering good looks, sparkling personality, and witty humor?" Megatronus offered quickly as he continued giving my carrier a straight look, as if he was completely serious.
Solus finally lost her composer and let out a snort of laughter before shaking her helm again. "You are the most ridiculous mech I have ever met."
Megatronus grinned again. "Of course I am, who else would suggest fishing in the Pocket Universe?"
"Probably Shadebreaker," Alpha Trion piped up, lazily watching his bobber from his boulder. "She would likely suggest fishing as a pastime as well."
"And so we come back to my question," I said, looking around at the Thirteen members before focusing on Megatronus. "Why. Are. You. Fishing?"
Prima answered my question instead. "Shadowstreaker, the six of us have been in this Pocket Universe for an entire universal-cycle, making sure countless species of animals don't end up killing each other off. And sometimes, we need a break. Hence the fishing. It is... Relaxing."
I nodded in understanding. There were many times in the last orbital-cycle where I just laid on my berth, accessed the internet, and played slow music to relax. Of course, I almost always found relaxation in shooting guns, but sometimes the best thing to do was to sit back and do nothing.
Zeta scoffed at Prima's words. "Hmph, this is not relaxing. Visiting the Unending Sea is relaxing. This, however, is incredibly dull and pointless."
Solus chuckled. "You're just upset that you haven't caught a fish yet." She said, smiling in amusement at the sour look her fellow Prime gave her.
"The fish are simply too stupid to even realize my hook is down there," Zeta said. "But that is beside the point. Even if I was to catch a fish, I would still find this activity boring and point-" He cut himself off and looked down at his bobber, which was now submerged beneath the water. "Oo! I got a bite!" Without another word, he reeled his line in, which was far longer than I thought it would have been, until an odd-looking, bioluminescent fish that was about eighteen inches long broke the surface of the water. He then proceeded to stare at his catch, a pleased look plastered on his faceplate.
I raised an optic ridge at Zeta's almost giddy mood as he looked at the tiny fish at the end of his fishing pole. "What was that about finding fishing boring and pointless, even if you were to catch a fish?" I asked.
Zeta glared at me. "Shut up," he said shortly, then went back to staring at the fish he caught for another few micro-klicks before releasing it and putting his line back in the water with an excited look on his faceplate.
I blinked at Zeta, but chose not to further comment on his behavior. "So, I'm in stasis lock," I said, trying to steer the conversation away from fishing, and toward more serious topics.
The amusement I felt from Solus' side of our parental bond vanished and was replaced by sad feelings, while I received the same feelings from the bond that could only be attached to my sire.
"Yes... You are," Solus said a little sadly, emotions from her end of the bond matching her tone of voice, as if blaming herself for something.
"You knew that I would go into stasis lock," I said, stating a fact, not asking a question. The Thirteen knowing I was going to fall into stasis lock would fit perfectly with most of the emotions I received from what must have been Megatronus before Springer, Jetfire, and I left Earth. He would feel dread and sadness at how he knew I would fall into stasis lock, but couldn't do anything about it, and he would also grudgingly accept that he couldn't do anything. He also would probably be happy that we were going to recover several of the relics they left behind, even though we failed to recover them. The other two emotions, however, I had no idea how they fit, nor did I know how he managed to send those feelings to me when my bond with Solus was closed and we didn't even share a bond at the time.
A wave of regret came from my carrier's side of our bond, while I caught some comforting emotions from Megatronus' side of our bond that were directed at Solus. "Yes, we did. We spoke with Primus recently, and we discovered you were destined to fall into stasis lock... Among other things. And we were not allowed to assist you during your trip to the station." My carrier answered, still sounding, and feeling, like she was saddened by this fact.
I sent Solus reassuring feelings through our bond. "When Primus tells you to do something, you can't exactly say no. His word is kinda final in every argument. So, there's no point in feeling sad about something you had no control over," I said, lessening my carrier's sadness slightly, judging by the emotions I got from her. "But, I need to ask, what do you mean by, 'Among other things'?"
Alpha Trion gave me a long look. "Do you know how a ten-thousand piece puzzle fits together immediately after you have taken it from the box?"
I frowned at Alpha Trion's statement. It could mean one of two things. One, they knew the answer to every question that I had about the events of the research station, but weren't going to tell me. Or two, they were in the dark about it as much as I was. Given the fact this was the Thirteen I was talking to, I was more inclined to believe the first option.
"Does that mean you aren't going to tell me anything? Or does that mean you just don't know?" I asked after another moment of thought.
"The first one," Megatronus said bluntly, avoiding my optics as he stared down at his bobber.
"So, you're not going to explain what those visions were? That whole Xel'Tor thing? The voices that spoke to me? Nothing?" I asked, already knowing the answer, but asking anyway just to be sure.
"Essentially, there are some things we will explain, and some topics we are allowed to discuss, but we have been barred from telling you most of what you want to know." My carrier said, not looking, or feeling, happy about this, but also not feeling sad about it, which was an improvement over how she felt a moment ago.
Vector gestured to an empty boulder that was between his boulder and the one my creators were sitting on. "Have a seat, Shadowstreaker. You'll be here for a while, probably best to get comfortable."
I nodded and moved to sit down on the boulder. "So, if we're not going to talk about what happened on the station, can you at least tell me if Refit got Jetfire, Springer, and I back to Earth?" I asked, hoping that my fellow Autobots and I were safely back at base and with the rest of our brothers and sisters in arms, even if I wouldn't be there until I onlined from stasis lock.
"It would be cruel of us to not tell you," Prima said as he at me from across the pond. "Yes, you and the others are now on Earth. Jetfire and Springer are fully functional, but you, obviously, are in stasis lock. It is fortunate that Refit returned you to Earth as quickly as he did, your injuries may have proven fatal, had you been left untreated for much longer."
"I guess I owe Refit a cube... Or a software upgrade... Or whatever it is that AIs consider drinks..." I trailed on, distracted by thoughts of whether or not an AI would want to get a software upgrade with another AI like bots shared cubes of energon, before I rearranged my thoughts and got back on track. "How did he get us back to Earth, anyway?"
"He used worker drones to convert the platform where our weapons were being kept into an escape pod for you," Solus answered, looking around her mate and at me. "He used the same drones to give your pod a running start, as the humans say. Your pod returned to Earth safely, and your fellow Autobots brought you and the others back to your base before the Decepticons were able to arrive."
I raised my optic ridges. "Is that all? He just converted a platform made for walking on into an escape pod?" I asked sarcastically, finding Solus' statement to be humorous for some reason, despite the fact I already knew that most modern Cybertronian technology would look like sticks and stones compared to the technology the Primes around me wielded.
My carrier smiled. "Cybertronian technology during the time of our reign was at Tier 0, it is far beyond your current technology. With our technology, creating an escape pod out of a platform would be as easy as lifting a digit, most times easier."
I chuckled. "I don't doubt that. The technological gap between a Tier 3 race and a Tier 2 one is astronomical, and we Autobots aren't even remotely close to being able to create theoretical Tier 1 technology. I can't even imagine the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 0."
Megatronus gave me a sideways glance. "You can never predict the future, son." He said, tone blank and his bond equally empty.
I gave my sire a confused look. "What was that supposed to mean?"
Megatronus ignored my question, and pretended to focus all his attention on his bobber.
I nodded in understanding. "You aren't allowed to tell me." I said factually.
My sire's only response was a long look, and a regretful emotion from his end of the bond. I was dead on the money.
"Why do I get the feeling you're all going to do this a lot?" I asked in slight exasperation, starting to get annoyed by the lack of straight answers.
"Probably because we will," Vector said as his bobber was pulled under the water and he started to reel his line in. "Primus told us many things in our last discussion with him. And the conversation covered many topics, many of which even I wasn't aware of. And I am the Guardian of Time and Space," Vector paused a moment as he finished reeling in his line and pulled his fishing pole up, revealing a Marlin-like fish that was about ten feet long. Without really looking like he was excited about his catch, the Prime unhooked the Marlin-like fish and let it go before he continued. "And out of all the topics we discussed, we are only allowed to talk about one of them."
I waited for Vector to continue, but he didn't, he just sat there, staring at his bobber. "And what topic is that?"
Megatronus responded instead. "The fact that you and I now finally share a parental bond," he said with a smile, while both he and Solus sent me feelings of happiness through the bonds I shared with them.
I looked over at my creators. "I was wondering about that. And since this is the one topic that you can talk about, might I ask how our bond even formed across the multiverse, when it hadn't formed in my other visits here?" I asked, directing my question to Megatronus.
Solus answered my question instead. "Primus is the creator of the Cybertronian race. He can cause Cybertronians to form bonds with each other if he sees fit, and he saw fit to cause your parental bond with Megatronus to finally form, like it should have when you became a Cybertronian."
"Alright, that actually makes sense," I said. "Although, there is still one thing that doesn't make sense to me."
"And what is that?" Megatronus asked, glancing over and giving me a curious look.
I returned my sire's curious look with one of my own. "Not long after we detected the asteroid, I was flooded with emotions that weren't my own. Was that our bond opening?" I asked, still confused about the origin of the emotions I received earlier in the cycle.
Megatronus nodded. "It was," he answered simply.
"Then how did you send emotions across realities?" I asked, voicing the part of my previous question that had been bugging me the most. "Solus and I can't send emotions like that, our bond is completely blocked when I leave this place. So, how were you able to send me emotions for that brief moment?"
"Sparks are very strange things, Shadowstreaker," Prima said, answering in Megatronus' place. "Even when we ruled Cybertron, and our civilization was at Tier 0, we could never unlock their mysteries. And bonds are equally as mystifying. For reasons we never were able to determine, when a bond is first formed it is at its greatest strength, allowing the two Cybertronians that share a bond to feel each other no matter the distance, even when it is normally not a strong bond. It was this unusual phenomenon that allowed Megatronus to send you emotions across the multiverse."
"Okay, so why didn't I feel my bond with Solus open up like that?" I asked Prima. "I didn't even feel our bond until I came here for the first time since becoming a Cybertronian."
"You were sedated when you became a Cybertronian, and as a result, you didn't feel our bond open when it first formed," my carrier answered. "Had you been online, you would have felt our bond form."
I nodded in understanding. Me not feeling my bond with Solus open when it first formed made perfect sense, since Ratchet had sedated me when my transformation process from human to Cybertronian first began. "Huh," I said after a moment, not sure what else to say to the explanation. A thought came to me, and I looked at my creators again. "Since there are multiple types of bonds, do they each have their own unique feel to them when they open?"
Megatronus smiled mischievously. "Wondering what it's like to be sparkmated to the femme you love, son?" He asked in a teasing tone, raising his optic ridges up and down in a suggestive manner, causing my carrier to punch him in the shoulder-joint for his comment.
I stared at my sire for a long moment. "Firstly, no. Secondly, ew. Thirdly, EW. Fourthly, how the slag did you manage to make my question sound suggestive?"
Before Megatronus could answer, Solus leaned around her mate and Gibbs slapped the back of my helm. "Language, young mech!" She scolded lightly, looking like it was completely normal for her to Gibbs slap me, which wasn't supposed to happen since I wasn't a Prime, and as a result wasn't actually in the Pocket Universe.
"Since when could you do that?" I asked in a surprised tone, shocked that my carrier was able to Gibbs slap me when it shouldn't have been possible.
"Since you arrived in the Pocket Universe," Solus answered easily, as if this bit of information wasn't important, though I could feel that she was amused at my reaction.
"And you didn't tell me I could interact with everything in the Pocket Universe... Why?" I asked, incredulous that she and Megatronus wouldn't even mention something like this until now.
My carrier smiled. "You did not ask," she replied, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world, which it was.
"And it shouldn't be a surprise to you," Megatronus added. "You are in stasis lock, which means that your spark has the ability to reach out into the Pocket Universe much easier than it would normally, since your spark does not need to support the systems of your chassis."
I blinked in surprise, and as a test, looked down at the ground next to me and looked for something to pick up. I settled for a small rock that was lying about ten feet way, and I picked it up without any problems. "So, all I have to do in order to pick up a rock in the Pocket Universe is fall into stasis lock, that is so worth it," I said, tone dripping with sarcastic humor.
Solus chuckled. "It is a small benefit for such a heavy price, but you are correct, in a manner of speaking," she said, then got up from her spot next to Megatronus and walked over to me. "But there is another benefit you gained from your current condition, and that after more than an orbital-cycle, I can finally give my son a hug," she then spread her servos out and wrapped them around me in a tight hug, sending happy and loving emotions through our parental bond as she did do. She broke the hug after a moment and smiled again. "I have wanted to give you one of those since you became a Cybertronian."
"And you only had to wait an orbital-cycle to give me one," I said as Solus went back and sat next to Megatronus again. "I hope the hug was worth the wait."
"It was," my carrier said, sending me another wave of happy emotions before falling silent and returning her attention to her bobber.
I waited for someone else to speak, but none of the Primes did, they just sat on their boulders, watching their bobbers with different levels of boredom or excitement.
After the silence continued for ten klicks, during which time each Prime caught at least one fish, I finally broke the silence. "So, is there any truth to the rumors that pure Primax is indestructible? And if so, are the other rumors of you knowing how to create pure Primax also correct?" I asked, voicing a question that I had wanted to ask for a long time, but wasn't able to due to circumstance, in order to restart our conversation.
Zeta looked up from his bobber. "No, those rumors are not accurate. Nothing in the Universe is indestructible, Primax comes closer than anything else we used, but it can be destroyed. And we were never able to create Primax in its most pure form," he said, then went back to looking at the bobber without another word.
I gave Zeta a confused look. "What? You weren't able to create pure Primax?" I asked in a slightly shocked voice, genuinely surprised to hear him say that the Thirteen were never able to create Primax in its most pure form when their technology was so far beyond current Cybertronian technology, and yet we still were able to purify Primax until it was forty-nine percent pure. With their technology, it should have been easy for the Thirteen to make pure Primax.
"Do not act so surprised, Shadowstreaker," Alpha Trion said with a trace of amusement in his voice. "Our technology may have been at Tier 0 when we ruled Cybertron, but there were still many, many things we could not do."
"But, making an element totally pure isn't that hard to do. Primax is the only element we, we as in my fellow Autobots and I, can't purify to one-hundred percent. So, how come you couldn't purify Primax? With your technology, it should have been ridiculously easy for you." I said, still surprised that they never able to create pure Primax.
"Are you telling us how our technology works?" Vector asked, tone clearly indicating that he was teasing me. "As I recall, you said that you couldn't even imagine how Tier 0 technology worked."
"I said I couldn't imagine the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 0, actually... But yeah, you pretty much got what I said right." I admitted.
Vector smiled. "Of course I did, I am the Guardian of Time and Space. It's what I do."
I rolled my optics at Vector and sighed. "Yes, yes, can you just answer my question, please?"
Solus answered instead of Vector. "We couldn't purify Primax due to the... Unique qualities it begins to develop after it becomes sixty percent pure." She said, pausing for a short moment in the middle of her answer, more than likely thinking back to some experiment involving Primax.
I raised an optic ridge at the tone my carrier used. "What kind of qualities?" I asked curiously.
"It varied. Sometimes a sample of sixty percent pure Primax would have normal properties, while another sample of the exact same purity had completely different properties," Solus responded. "Some samples would turn to liquid, but were unable to boil and turn into gas. Some would become soft, and have the odd ability to change their mass, and the mass of matter around them, when an electrical current was run through them. Some amplified energy exponentially, which made them useful in weaponry. And some simply retained their incredible strength until we purified them to ninety percent, the percentage where every sample that got that far formed the same properties each time."
"And what were those?" I asked.
"Firstly, our scans reported that the samples had increased in density by a hundred-fold, yet when we weighed the samples, they were twenty times lighter than they were when we began to purify them. This makes Primax at ninety percent purity the only element in existence that is ultra-dense, ultra-light, and ultra-strong," my carrier answered. "And secondly, Primax becomes pure white in color at ninety percent purity, and it produces a significant amount of light, which makes it hard to look directly at a large amount of the metal. After seeing the properties of that purity of Primax, we tried to make it totally pure, but we were never able to do so. Ninety percent was the best we could do. But I truly wish we had been able to succeed, because even we do not know the properties of Primax when it is completely pure."
"I see, it seems there is a lot more to Primax than we Autobots thought," I said. "And going by what you just said, I am guessing that you made the Infinite Reverence out of Primax at ninety percent purity."
Solus nodded once. "Yes, we did. Its hull is made of fifty meters of Primax of that grade, in fact." She confirmed. "Not even the Star Saber of your current reality would be able to cut through it, for I used Primax of eighty-five percent purity to construct that sword."
A trace of guilt built up within me. I had failed to recover that sword, and had watched as Megatron destroyed it. But I forced the guilt back and focused on my carrier's statement, and the fact it brought up another question I wanted to ask the Thirteen. "Why is there even more than one Star Saber? Isn't Prima's sword the only Star Saber?" I asked, gesturing to the sword hilt on Prima's backplates. Another thought came to me, and I looked at Solus, and the warhammer that was on her own backplates. "Come to think of it, why is there another of your Forges?"
Prima answered instead of my carrier. "The multiverse is infinite, and there is a different version of every man, woman, child, mech, femme, and sparkling you've ever met or heard of in each of them." He said as he pulled his line up, pulled off the lure at the end of his line and replaced it with a different one he pulled from a sub-space pocket, and then threw his line back into the pond. "And in each reality, there is a different version of the Star Saber that we have built and left for that reality's version of Optimus, or whoever the Prime is, to find. We do the same with our other artifacts, such as the Omni Saber and Solus' Forge. It ensures that every version of our descendants becomes the greatest they can be."
The feeling of guilt returned, and this time I couldn't push it away. The reasons they left their artifacts behind was simple, yet noble. And I was responsible for the destruction of three of them. Because I had failed to stop Megatron, or even manage to slow him down.
My line of thought was halted when both Megatronus and Solus, having more than likely felt my guilt, sent me comforting feelings through our bonds. "I, uh... I'm sorry that I couldn't stop Megatron," I said to my creators as I looked down into the water of the pond blankly, avoiding their optics. "There's a reason why only Optimus engages him in battle, I really didn't stand a chance. And since your artifacts are meant to be wielded only by Primes, your weapons destroyed themselves when Megatron went to touch them, and now neither the Autobots nor the Decepticons will benefit from them."
To my shock, my creators chuckled. "Our weapons didn't destroy themselves, son, they merely changed form." Megatronus said as he jiggled his fishing pole, likely trying to catch the attention of any fish in the pond.
I shifted my gaze away from the pond and gave my sire a perplexed look. "Wait, what? What do you mean by that?"
"He means what he says," Vector said, not taking his gaze off his bobber as it jerked underwater for brief moments as something nibbled on the bait. "When we built our weapons, we built a safeguard into them. This safeguard kept non-Primes from using our technology by turning our weapons into dust when a non-Prime attempted to wield them. You witnessed this safeguard in action when Megatron attempted to wield our weapons."
"Huh," I said, not exactly what else to say. I had really thought we lost our best chance to even the odds against the Decepticons when I saw the Star Saber, Omni Saber, and Solus' Forge crumble to dust in front of me. But according to Vector, we hadn't lost that chance due to a safeguard they installed, more than likely similar to how the Matrix appeared to fall apart when Sam first touched it in Revenge of the Fallen. Well, we had that chance as long as we still had the dust, that is. "So, when Optimus goes near the piles of dust that your weapons fell into, if we have them, that is, will they reform themselves?" I asked with a neutral look on my faceplate, even though I was really, really hoping the answer was yes.
Solus nodded. "Yes. When Optimus touches the dust of our weapons, our safeguard will deactivate, and our weapons will revert to their original state."
"Which is good, because I really hated seeing my sword fall apart like that," Megatronus said, adding to his mate's statement. "I really liked that sword."
What little remained of my guilt over not being able to stop Megatron vanished with Solus' words, and was completely replaced with excitement when my sire mentioned his sword. "I do, too. If fact, I would have drooled over it, if Cybertronian physiology allowed me to do so," I joked, though I honestly would have done that if I had been able to.
Megatronus' optics twinkled in amusement. "Oh, its looks are nothing compared to how it performed in combat. Then it's really something to look at," he said with a smile, obviously very fond of the sword he once wielded.
I raised an optic ridge. "How so?"
My sire didn't answer, he just looked back at his bobber, feeling very smug, if I read the emotions I got from his side of our bond correctly.
After Megatronus stayed silent for a few micro-klicks, I narrowed my optics. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"Nope, I'm not going to ruin the surprise," Megatronus said with a cryptic smile, then went back to looking at his bobber.
Our conversation died again and we all fell silent for the second time, though it didn't last long, since another question that I had wanted to ask the Primes around me popped into my helm.
"Are you all the makers of the Delphic?" I asked, not really singling out one Prime in particular, just voicing the question as I looked into the pond.
I saw Vector shake his helm out of my peripheral vision. "No, we merely added to it."
Vector's statement puzzled me, so I glanced over at him. "What do you mean you added to it? Aren't you its creators?"
Prima looked across the pond and locked optics with me, a serious glint in his wise optics. "What you call the Delphic is far older than us, we only found it, and added to it, as Vector said.."
"Then... Then who made the Delphic?" I asked slowly, still puzzled by what they were telling me.
Solus gave me a look I couldn't read. "You will find out. After you are complete."
Before I could ask what she meant by that, my vision flickered between the Pocket Universe around me and darkness, and when I looked at my servo, I found that it was flickering along with me.
"It seems our time is coming to an end... And much sooner than when we expected," Solus said as she got up from her boulder again and walked toward me, tone carrying the faintest trace of frustration, but I didn't know what it was directed at. After reaching me, she quickly gave me a hug, which I returned, then she smiled. "I enjoyed talking to you again, my son. I hope you will be allowed to come back again soon."
Putting aside my confusion at how abruptly I was apparently leaving, I smiled at my carrier. "I do, too. I look forward to our next talk," I said to my creators, then looked around at the other Primes. "That extends to all of you."
Prima nodded at me. "Be well, Shadowstreaker."
After Prima spoke, my vision flickered again, and this time it kept flickering, unlike the first time when it only flickered for a moment.
Just before I found myself onlining, Megatrous looked at me with a dry look on his faceplate.
"This is the last time I will say it. You had better make progress with Arcee, it's becoming painful to watch you be so stupid."
I onlined before I had time to reply.
After Shadowstreaker left the Pocket Universe, a cobalt tear in the fabric of Time and Space appeared on the side of the pond that had the fewest members of the Thirteen, and a being of light and energy stepped through it.
The being was humanoid in appearance, sharing features with both Cybertronians and humans, and several of its own, such as its hands, which each had four fingers and two opposable thumbs, and the fact there was no mouth visible, despite the fact it did not have a battle mask. The light and energy that made up its body was formed in such a way that it appeared to be armored, though not as extensively as Cybertronians, since it also appeared to be clothed in white robes over its armor that glimmered brighter than they should have with the available light around it. The being was also a titan, standing half again Prima's eighty foot height, while also being just as broad as the first Prime. Its eyes were pure white, and even brighter than the robes it wore. They and had transparent blue energy pouring from them that looked like wisps of smoke, which would then disappear not long after they poured from the being's eyes.
The being locked its white orbs on Solus. "You told him of his future," it said, the countless voices that made up its single, great voice all carrying the same tone. Disapproval.
Solus looked right back at the white orbs of light, doing everything she could to not look away from the being's primordial gaze. "I did not tell him anything that would help him, you made it clear that I couldn't." She said, tone making her ill feelings on the being's order clear. "And I didn't, even though I want nothing more than to tell him everything. And did you really need to send him away after so little time?"
The being ignored Solus' tone, and her question. "You told him he would be complete, that is telling him the future. And that is not a topic you are allowed to discuss with him. You have compromised the orders Primus gave you, which in turn came from The One himself."
Megatronus put his fishing pole down and stood up in defense of his sparkmate. "She did not reveal any details of what she spoke of, nor did she tell him anything that he understands. So, she did not compromise what Primus and The One told us to do."
"What he does not understand today, he will understand tomorrow," the being countered, speaking figuratively. "He does not understand what he was told now, but he will. And so, you have told him of the future."
"And you didn't?" Zeta asked with a faint tone of sarcasm. "Going by what you are reprimanding Solus for, you told Shadowstreaker far more about the future than she did. And far less vaguely then Solus, as well."
The being's white orbs landed on Zeta. "We were told to do so, she was not. As a result, Solus Prime informed him of more than The One desires him to be aware of."
"Perhaps it is better if he knows," Alpha Trion said, tone sagely as he looked up at the being from where he stood next to the boulder he had been sitting on. "He is the Xel'Tor, he should know his purpose."
The being shifted its ancient gaze on Alpha Trion. "He is not the Xel'Tor, not yet."
"But he will be," Prima pointed out as he walked up to the being, not at all intimidated by the difference in height. "No one else can be the Xel'Tor, only him. And he has a right to know what is expected of him."
"He will not be ready, otherwise," Vector added. "Not allowing us to prepare him for his trial is a mistake. A grave one."
The being's white orbs shifted to each Prime, then settled on Solus and Megatronus. "Your desire to help him, is irrelevant. Even with the assistance you want to provide, there is no guarantee that he will survive the coming storm." It said, words hitting both Solus and Megatronus hard, even though they already knew of what the being was telling them. "And even if he does survive it all, he will never be the same. He will carry the experiences with him for the rest of his immortal life."
Solus nodded slowly, the implications weighing heavy on her CPU. She loved her son dearly, despite the short amount of time he had been her son, she did not want to see him go through the things she and her fellow Primes had been shown. "We know... But, any training we give him will give him a far better chance of living, and succeeding in his trial."
The being was silent for a brief moment, an eternity for it. "Perhaps," it admitted as another tear in Time and Space opened behind it, signaling that it was leaving momentarily. "But this is what The One has planned, and it will go as He says." With its task of speaking to the Primes complete, the being turned around and walked toward the portal, but it paused a moment and looked at Vector. "Do not tell your daughter of her impending discovery, it is not something The One wants any of you to interfere with." It said, then turned around and walked into the tear in Time and Space, the portal closing behind it immediately after it stepped through.
Solus narrowed her optics at where the being was last visible. "I hate them," she said, the displeasure she clear in her voice. "They have no right to decide the fate of our son."
Megatronus sent calming emotions to his mate. "They are not deciding Shadowstreaker's fate, The One is. And The One has just slightly more wisdom than we do," he said, fighting his own feelings on the matter as he tried to reassure his mate.
"Even if they aren't deciding our son's fate, I still do not like what we are doing."
"None of us do," Prima said. "But, our servos have been tied. We can do nothing for Shadowstreaker at this time, and we can't dwell on that. We have Shadebreaker to speak with as well, and we cannot let our feelings regarding our commands from Primus and The One to affect her visit, she will know something is bothering us, and will not let the matter be, it is how she is." The first Prime looked at Vector. "When is she arriving, Vector?"
Vector did not immediately reply, because his parental bond with his daughter fully opened at that moment, just like he knew it would. He sent his daughter feelings of love, which were returned, before he looked back at Prima. "She is here now. At the Unending Sea."
"Go and bring her back," Prima ordered. "The rest of us shall wait here."
Vector nodded, and then disappeared as he space bridged to where his daughter appeared in the Pocket Universe.
Prima looked at Solus after Vector space bridged away, and nodded slightly, a sign that he understood how she felt about their command not to inform her son anything about his future, then he went back to his boulder and sat down.
After Prima sat back down on his boulder, the rest of the Primes followed suit and pushed their feelings about their orders aside for Shadebreaker's sake.
But, even though Megatronus and Solus appeared normal, like their fellow Primes appeared, their thoughts were still focused on their son, and the path he was being asked to walk.
And so... I add more things that are not explained. I think I am having too much fun doing this. Lol.
And I know that I recently cut a chapter off like I did with this one, but I am making my story lines for each chapter quite long, too long for me to write them in one chapter unless I write at a steady pace, which I have not been able to do in a long while. So, sorry for doing the same thing as two chapters back, but I had to cut this off so that you wouldn't kill me due to lack of updates. I should be able to write the chapter following the next one without splitting it up, though. So there's that. I am sorry if you are sick me doing this, I will do my best to stop doing it, though, since I am hoping to cut down on the amount of things I have occur in each chapter, unless you like how I have them set up, in which case I will keep it the same.
This chapter's credit song is "Selectracks - Black Horizons" This song has a mysterious feel to it, and mystery is a heavy theme in this chapter, so it fits very well in that regard.
So, please be sure to leave a review and thanks for reading. I'll see you soon.