Woo! Another chapter done! Hope you all enjoy the little bits of world building I slipped into this one!


"All guests aboard the Gilded Falcon, please make your way to the main outdoors deck on level five. Repeat, all guests aboard the Gilded Falcon, please make your way to the main outdoors deck on level five." The announcement coming of the speakers was a male voice, likely the Captain of the large vessel.

Optimus found his wanderings following the advice coming from the speakers around him, as well as following the signage along the corridors back towards the front of the ship.

By the time he stepped out onto the deck, night had finally fully fallen, the last vestiges of the sun's rays blooming over the distant horizon in a dying sun burst across the few clouds that persisted.

It would seem he was one of the last to arrive.

The twins were laying next to each other on reclining deck chairs, a small table between them carrying half empty glasses of a fizzing liquid.

A number of the ship's crew, all wearing white and trimmed gold uniforms stood around, he would of mistaken them for statues were they all not breathing, none of their gazes seemed to be in the present, almost hazed over.

It also seemed like he was the last to arrive, the silence that had been held before broken as Ironhide turned on the twins. "Well, what's all this about?"

Wren hummed low in her chest, reaching over to pick up one of the glasses to take a slow taunting sip before pulling it back away and speaking. "We thought you wanted your questions answered?"

Aria chuckled before taking over. "We figured that now would be a good time."

He could feel his mechs collectively lock up.

Clearly he wasn't the only one who'd thought that getting answers had been taken off the table.

The was a long pause, one that dragged just long enough for Wren to bring a hand up to her mouth and cough into before speaking. "Now don't all jump at once."

Almost all attention went to him.

Not a surprising action all things considered, so, after a few moments of contemplation he asked. "Who are you?"

Both twins flashed a quick smile before Aria replied. "Well… I, am Aria Rose Orichiono, and this is my twin…"

"Wren Eleanor Orichiono. We are the first born, and so heirs to the Orichiono fortune. On our home Earth of course."

"Your… what?"

Attention shifted to Mrs Madsen, who was tucked up against Jazz's holoform, she'd practically stuck herself to the mech the last few days.

Aria didn't bat an optic before answering. "Our Earth, the one we're from. The moment we got access to the internet we discovered this world... is drastically different from our own. Historical events went different, certain fashions never happened, a drastic variation in global and country populations, oh and the distinct lack of ABBA." Out of all of them that last one seemed to earn the most annoyance from the Harpies tone.

Jazz spoke this time. "How'd yah end up here then? Yah said before it had tah do with tha relics right?"

The twins nodded in unison, and Wren answered, her voice became… distant. "Yes… We… Its… fuzzy… We remember the start of the day perfectly well… But once we stepped into the staff room at the London Zoo… the memories lose focus… All except the… Thing… Unlike the Allspark, we've yet to find any clue to its existence or name here… we… we picked it up… then… there, there was a flash, a sound and then… Nothing…" She slumped a bit in the shoulders at the admittance.

Aria took over then. "When we came too… we were falling… like… hurtling downwards towards this massive canopy… and of course we were both screaming… then… BANG!" She clapped her hands together so sharply it jolted him. "We seemed to hit every branch worth its salt on the way down… then, finally, we hit the ground, with one big THUD!" She stopped her foot against the deck for emphasis, before sighing and shaking her head. "We'd be lying if we said we didn't pass out from the shock of it all." She admitted, words starting to break into breathy chuckles as she continued, as if the terror of those moments had ensnared her again.

He glanced around at his mechs then, Ironhide and Jazz seemed to be lost in thought, Bumblebee was listening to Mikaela whispering something to him, and Ratchet seemed to be… Optimus wasn't sure what exactly to call the expression on the medics holoform if he was to be honest with himself.

Wren took the pause to continue. "When we came around… we knew there was something wrong… besides the pain… our fingers… they felt like someone had wedged tree trunks between them… our legs felt… wrong… everything felt wrong… we felt too heavy… breathing felt wrong… when we moved our hands to see why they hurt so much… they weren't hands… they were those wings… we… we didn't take the sudden re-writing of our anatomy well…"She somehow managed to shrink back further, hands pressed together and fingers intertwined.

"We went from our part time job at the London Zoo… to crashing into the heart of the Amazon in a body that we had no idea how to use… thrown backwards in time and onto an Earth we knew little about outside of geography."

"And with every passing day… we get more and more… used to this body… humans aren't supposed to fly… but every time we did it… it felt too right… yet so wrong… humans aren't supposed to eat an entire dead cow in a sitting… humans don't have talons… humans are squishy… with beating hearts and stupidly overly complex brains...We're rambling… we always ramble when we're nervous… next question?" Wren chuckled bitterly, turning her attention back to them all at large.

Mikaela stepped forwards then, with her own question. "When are you from… you've commented the odd time about things to come… what do you mean by that?"

Aria chuckled, though her's had a bite of mirth to it. "An excellent question… the day in our home reality was… August 18th 2017. We woke here in the September of 2005, a twelve year time skip backwards. You'd be amazed at how much can change in that time. Enough time for your America to have three different Presidents..."

So that was what they meant by space time anomaly, thrown back in time and onto a completely different Earth.

Admittedly he'd of likely had no better a reaction than them.

Mikaela glanced around her quickly before asking a new question. "Our America? What about yours?"

There was a pause as a look of confusion went between the twins, but they seemed to realise what Mikaela meant after a moment Wren being the one to answer. "Oh! Ha, funny thing about that, America doesn't exist anymore, as you know of it at least, the Eastern States were absorbed back into the unified commonwealth, the Northern States went to Canada, the Southern States were returned to Mexico, the the Central States were returned to the native population, after they lost WW3 in the 1970's. Unlike in this reality, our 'Cold War', did not remain 'cold' for long after America declared war on Australia. They dropped a nuclear payload on the city of Melbourne and after that, gross slaughtering of innocents, the Commonwealth united as a coalition of governments instead of independent ones and dropped a bomb on Hawaii, before performing a mass invasion with the aid of the aforementioned Mexico and Canada, for all their 'greatest country in the world', they surrendered within six weeks of sustained combat. We learnt about it from our tutors when the topic of world history was at hand."

Mikaela and Ms Madsen exchanged concerned looks, though the later seemed to of paled somewhat.

Ironhide shot one to him.

Taking a moment to collect himself he spoke again. "What is the plan from here on then? It is apparent that going our separate ways would at this point be detrimental to the goal that seems to of been put before us."

Aria hummed under her breath. "In general there seems to be two options at present. Having taken that something like this might of happened, we have obtained three warehouses not too far from our individual residences. One for each of the cities we plan to set up fully in now that our Las Vegas post has been… burned to the ground. But there is also the possibility that in the long run, we expand within our properties to allow you to reside on our private property itself. We'll likely use the same bunker building technique we did under the Cosmopolitan but on a larger scale so that you can freely move around inside…"

Wren cut in then. "In general it's a good idea, you'd be stationed far closer and you'd be able to 'keep a closer eye on us' as Ironhide put it two days ago, yes we heard that." She snapped at the end, sending a pointed look to the weapons specialist who'd gone to refute her. "But those projects will take time, so the nearby warehouses will be your temporary accommodation instead of permanent if you agree to this."

He took a few moments before answering yes, that would be the preferable option, so long as everyone found a way to get along.

Ironhide certainly didn't seem fond of the idea.

With no more pressing questions to ask though, the topic shifted.

Namely by way of Wren snapping her fingers and one of the statue like crew members glided to her side, bending at the hip to offer a silver platter with a small device as the only thing on it sitting innocently in the middle.

Picking up between two fingers Wren glanced around before her gaze seemed to lock on him. "Hold still Prime."

"What-?" Was all he could get out before Wren pressed one of the buttons on the little device.

Not a moment later there was the sound of machinery coming to life and the groaning of metal moving.

It took a moment before he realised his actual form was being pushed upwards by something, him and the trailer.

That was when he spotted it, on the even larger deck below the one they were currently on, the wooden paneling had broken down the middle, his frame and the trailer carrying the twins were being pushed out into the open air.

"A little trick we had installed when the ship was still being built, we hate being cooped up below deck."

After a few moments of pause and a glance to his mechs, he dropped his holoform and began the transformation process, being careful considering how close he was to a drop down into the Gulf of Mexico.

Once upright, he found that he now towered over the upper deck.

Another sound came then, glancing down he realised that there were catches running down the middle of the trailers rood, and they'd just detached from one another.

Slowly the two halves of the trailer split apart, revealing the Monochrome twins as they lay curled up on the trailers floor, their helm already craning all the way back to look at him through their cracked visor.

With a grunt they began to move, each wing sliding down and off the trailer with a groan coming from their vocalisor as they moved the limbs properly for the first time in days.

He couldn't help but wince at the sound as they continued to try and loosen up their frame, stiff seemed to be a grand understatement considering how many mechanisms seemed to only now be coming back to life after so long of misuse.

He watched on, curious, as they continued to stretch out, the sounds they made throughout were… strange, grunts and clacking being the main two as they gritted their razor sharp denta.

Finally after what sounded like a very satisfying pop in the middle of their back strut, they seemed to go strutless, slumping back down on the trailer as their wings spread out, each tip dangling off the sides of the ship, a glance revealed the very tips were breaking the waters surface, lit by the lights from the ships portholes.

"Remind us to never agree to riding in a trailer again." Wren murmured.

Slowly they regained themselves, and after a bit of shifting, their wing struts came down on the deck, and with a quick push, managed to partially flip themselves onto their back.

With that, their damaged pede was fully exposed to the open air.

He didn't miss the gasp from Mikaela, she'd seen it before in the hanger, as had everyone else, but the gasp was enough to draw his own attention back to the gruesome wound.

A muttered curse of some sort left the twins lipplates as they tried to shift fully onto their back strut, folding their wings close to their sides before completing the full flip.

A moment later, their back came to rest against his leg.

Their gaze now directed back towards the assembled group Aria spoke. "Anything else to ask?"

Mr Barnes stepped forwards then, the man had mostly kept to himself on this journey, but now it seemed the man wanted the answers he'd been promised. "Yeah, what kind of damned reason did you have to drag my daughter into this mess?"

Attention shifted back to the twins, he couldn't see their expression now, not with how their helm was resting against the top of his joint, but he felt those protrusions of theirs shift, the damaged one excluded, against his plating for a moment before Wren answered the man. "Simple, we needed the glasses to lure Bumblebee to Las Vegas, closer to the Allspark, so that the rest of them would be forced to change course so that we could more safely greet them than if they'd crashed into the heart of California. After coming to the realisation that the owner of the glasses at the time, one Samuel James Witwicky, was not mentally mature enough to deal with aliens and what not, we looked outwards, and after some debate, we chose Mikaela. It was never anything personal, but being able to bail you out of jail, certainly helped us win her over into helping us."

Even if he couldn't see their expression, he could hear the smug smirk in Aria's voice as she followed right after Wren. "You're welcome by the way~" The two chuckled at the man's expression of shock as he sputtered incoherently.

The mans previous bravado died entirely then, and he shuffled back towards his daughter.

He noted then that Ratchet's holoform had already made it's way down to continue working on the twins damaged pede.

Looking around he noted that the deck he found himself standing on was actually quite large, it could easily fit another of his mechs alongside himself and the twins, though the later two might have to fold their wings in somewhat just to prevent accidentally knocking someone overboard.

It would seem though, that this was why they'd waited until they had reached international waters.

They'd planned to go up to this deck to stretch and let Ratchet tend to them, he had simply been brought along because he had still been hitched to the trailer carrying them.

The main conversation died after Mr Barnes had stepped back, Ratchet muttered away as he worked, a few of the crew had brought out a whole tool box at some point, he'd waved them off but had quickly set to work identifying which tools did what and if they'd be of any use.

Surprisingly, the twins seemed to know enough to help his CMO on that part at least.

Ironhide had wandered off back inside, Jazz and Bumblebee had taken their charges up to the deck above to where there was apparently a bar from what he could spy through the tinted glass and the brief moments when the five had walked through the sliding glass doors.

Leaving him to watch over his CMO and the twins.

Slowly his helm tilted skywards, away from the ship and upwards to the cosmos, a thick bank of cloud had rolled in, the planets moon completely obscured.

"Careful~, we're fairly certain your neck isn't as flexible as ours." Aria's voice spoke up then, catching his attention away from the dark sky.

Glancing back down he found the twins had in fact completely rotated their helm and tilted it back to look back at him. "If you want, we can move." Wren added.

He shook his helm. "No, no, this is fine, I barely noticed you."

That was the truth really, he'd noted a few times how lightly built they were, they had to be for kinetic flight he supposed.

Their pede certainly wouldn't be as mangaled if they'd been been put into the frame of a grounder.

That thought was quickly banished away, he knew that the Harpies condition was not of their own choosing, to suggest they'd of done better in a different frame would of more likely than not upset them.

An hour passed and the strange peace that had fallen between the four of them was only broken when a startled have formed shout lurched it's way out of the twins vocaliser as they nearly buckled over.

A moment later they were hissing air out of their clenched denta as Ratchet's holoform jumped out of the way as the talons on the Harpies right pede flexed and spassamed, coming back to life.

Apparently Ratchet had succeeded in fully re-attaching the main line.

It took a few moments, but finally a slow vent left the twins as the tension in their frame bled back out of them.

"Thank fuck…" Wren muttered, helm falling back against his pede as their chassis rose and fell in a way that was distinctly organic.

He glanced to his CMO's holoform, the older mech seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief himself and dropping a large wrench back into the tool box.

He took a look closer at the still exposed main line, now it was more easy to see that the plating that had covered the area had been almost completely torn off, likely at the same time the line had been severed, now it revealed that Ratchet had managed to fasten the two ends back together with a primitive cylindrical clamp.

Ratchet patted the plating just above where it had been torn away. "This is a temporary fix, your still at risk of completely losing your pede if you land on it, this is just so you can actually feel said pede again."

The twins gave a shallow nod before slumping their full weight back against his pede.

The call of their last name for the upper decks changed that.

One of the crew had apparently come to life and saluted them. "Ma'am's! A small tropical storm has been building out in the Atlantic, permission to divert to prevent possible damage?"

The twin Harpies let off a low hum. "Keep the pre-set course, if it has worsened by the time we leave the Gulf, we'll alert the Captain to potentially change course."

The crew member nodded and bowed.

When their head rose again, their expression had returned to the same glassy thousand klik stare as the rest of them before they turned and walked back into the main part of the ship.

Something wasn't right with this picture.

He'd ask them to explain what had happened to the crew, but thought better of pressing such a matter, he doubted it would do any good regarding this tenuous deal they had with the Harpies.

They seemed to have an influence beyond authority over these humans.

Winston and Lena were the only two who seemed to maintain autonomy at all times.

He had yet to meet the two snipers who had injured Freedom to free Mikaela, so he was uncertain or which category they sat in.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sliding doors that some of his unit and their human charges had gone through opening again.

Mikaela stepped out, her attention on the twins resting against his pede.

Their own helm tilted to give the human their full attention.

After a moment of shifting on the spot, Mikaela spoke. "Could… could I speak with you? In private?"

The twins nodded and their holoforms flickered back into life not far in front of where the young human was standing.

Wren glanced down at her holoforms leg, the projection complete once more.

The black themed twin looked back over her shoulder to Ratchet. "Your patch is working, thank you."

Aria made a gesture then to Mikaela and the teen nodded, turning to lead the two holoforms back inside.

Out of curiosity he looked back down towards the twins.

Their frame was slumped even more than before, and seemed to of gone into a kind of standby mode if the sudden lack of activity he could detect was anything to go by.

So that was why they had stashed their true forms away when they had been using their holoforms previously.

He turned his attention to Ratchets holoform when the projection banged on one of the metal plates on his pede. "Yes Ratchet?"

"There's some things I wish to discuss with you in private too."


Maggie glanced up from the drink she had been staring at to look over at where the twin… Harpies and the teen Mikaela walked past, heading deeper into the ship.

Jazz was trying to talk to her, but she'd been spacing out for a while now if she was being honest.

The memory stick shifted slightly in her ear, causing an involuntary shudder to go down her spine, that was never going to feel right.

Nor was hearing all of those voices she knew she wasn't supposed to hear.

"Mags? Mags? You in there?" Jazz's concerned voice finally cracked through her musings and she looked up to the holoform, for a solid projection of an alien, she had to admit, he looked pretty damn good, but at the moment, she wasn't in the mood to ogle.

"Hmm… yeah… just thinking…"

She saw Jazz's shoulders sag a bit, he'd been trying, really honestly trying to try and cheer her up, but moments where she cracked a smile the last few days were few and far between.

Her head was just full of too much stuff, and she couldn't find a way to either sort through it all, or find a good enough distraction.

Reaching for her glass, tequila, strong stuff, but even as she knocked back another shots worth she barely noticed the burn.

Jazz was at a loss.

From the moment Prime had passed the shaken woman to him at the dam, he'd been dead set on getting her to feel better, but everything he tried, earth radio, jokes that admittedly didn't translate too well, slag even trying to tell her about who they were seemed to not work.

One would think interacting with aliens would be the highlight of one's life, but she just seemed to be mentally shut down.

He glanced over his shoulder at Bumblebee as his charge took another shot.

The scout wasn't paying attention, scribbling stuff down furiously on the latest notebook.

It brought a small smile to his holoform, at least he'd found a way to properly communicate without having to use the radio, it wasn't his actual voice, but it was nice that he could better express himself now.

He noticed that Maggie called the bartender over again, a women, who's expression was just as blank as the rest.

It was unsettling, reminded him of drones.

He turned his attention back to his charge.

She'd cleaned up well, now that all the blood was long gone, her blonde hair mixed well with her tan skin tone.

All the terms of which he'd had to look up a few days ago because he'd been struggling to properly describe her internally with Cybertronian terms.

He watched as she chugged the clear liquid before nearly slamming the glass back down on the bar.

She turned to him then, they were sitting next to one another on the bar stools, he'd joked earlier that there used to be bars just like this on Cybertron, it hadn't landed.

He raised an eyebrow as she seemed to consider something, he'd wait for her to finish her thought before he did anything else.

What he got for his patience was a muttered 'Fuck it' and both ends of his collar being grabbed.

For once in his long career as a special ops, he was caught off guard.

And then knocked right off his balance by her slamming her lips against his.

He heard Bumblebee drop his pen behind him, but in that moment his focus suddenly shot downwards to the woman currently kissing him.

After a moment she pulled away, leaving him to let his jaw drop a little as she pushed her hair back behind her ears.

Her features were a little flushed, and her expression suddenly so much more determined than what he'd seen of her before.

And apparently that was all that was needed to get his engine revving as she rubbed the side of her face and began to ramble off apologies.

That wouldn't do, he'd caught a glimpse of something then, something that he knew was what was hidden behind her walls.

Slaggit he was gonna get another glimpse.

Carefully he reached out and cupped the side of her face, the words she'd been about to say dying away in that moment.

"Maggie, you don' gotta apologise for nothin'."

With that he leaned in and kissed her back, careful not to bang their noses together as he pressed his lips to hers.

She was quick to reciprocate, one arm going behind his neck and the other reaching to grab the collar of his jacket again.

The quick fleeting press of something against his lips caused his engine to give an even stronger rev, and his spark bounced around his chamber with this sudden kick of exuberance he was feeling.

Testing the waters he flicked his holoforms tongue out.

He felt more than heard her gasp before their tongues met and began a dance all of their own.

Bumblebee watched for all of a few seconds before deciding to give the two some much needed privacy, sliding off the bar stool as quietly as possible, a glance at the bartender revealing they were no longer there, good.

Taking their distraction as an advantage, he opted to go hunt down his own charge.

Just as he reached the door he'd seen Mikaela go down with their hosts, he heard Maggie muttered something about 'her room' followed by the sound of them getting down from their own room.

After a moment's hesitation he opted for going the long way to find his charge.

This proved to be a less than wise decision.

The corridors were all the same, the doors had numbers, but they seemed to be erratic, no rhyme or reason to their placement.

It was a maze he quickly got lost in.

Taking another corner, he found himself back in a corridor he'd already been in, he wanted to groan in frustration, but of course, couldn't.

Reaching up he felt the scar tissue on his neck that had been created for his holoform, it was strange how accurate it was.

Whatever the Harpies had done to create these holoforms, it had certainly been well thought through.

"Kid?"

Ironhide's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he turned to find the weapons specialist regarding him.

Bumblebee waved to the mech, reaching for his latest notebook he pulled it out and scribbled down a greeting and showed it to him.

"Yeah, yeah, what are you doing here?"

'Looking for Mikaela's room, Jazz was… getting to know his charge so I wanted to find her, she went off with the twins a while ago… I've gotten a bit lost.'

Ironhide's chest seemed to rumble as he thought over the scouts predicament. "Take two lefts then a right, you should find it here."

Bumblebee nodded, but then paused. 'What are you doing here?'

Ironhide huffed. "Heard there was a gym somewhere on this ship with a built in 'boxing ring' wanted to give it a look."

Feeling that the conversation had come to an end, Bumblebee moved to take the older mechs directions.

"Oh and Bee."

Pausing he looked back with a curious tilt of his holoforms head.

The other mechs holoform looked like he'd heard something unpleasant. "Keep a close optic on your charge, none of this smells right."

Bumblebee chose just to nod, letting Ironhide know his words were heeded, before turning back to his quest to find Mikaela.


Back on the deck, Optimus found himself frowning. "Old friend, you're quite certain of this?"

Ratchet's holoform nodded. "I won't know unless they let me do a full frame scan, but we may be dealing with a condition so rare I've only heard it mentioned once."

Optimus shook his helm in disbelief. He'd never even heard of such a thing. Split spark same frame? It sounded ludicrous.

And yet… the twins did seem to be just that.

After a few moments of pondering he spoke again. "Do you suspect any ill effects this might cause?"

Ratchet nodded. "Yes, for one thing, two sparks in one chamber doesn't leave much room, and with their thin platting, they're all the more likely for their sparks to be damaged in a fight. That's the most obvious issue I can think of… "

Optimus nodded himself, he glanced down at where the twins remained slumped lifeless against him, ever since the incident with Kia and the Allspark at the damn, Ratchet had been hesitant to scan any deeper, at some point the medic would have to press the twins on the matter, but for now they had other things to deal with. After a few more moments of thought, he opted for diverting the topic somewhat. "You're certain the Bot who told you of the first case was telling the truth?"

Ratchet almost laughed. He hesitated for a moment before replying. "Optimus, you truly doubt the words of my own mentor?"

He watched carefully as his Prime's optics spiraled, that processor of his working to connect the dots.

He almost flinched when he saw the final line was drawn.

"Dust."

The designation was practically vented out, a long laborious sound that ended sharply.

Even from human height it was impossible to miss that Optimus was no longer in the present.

He couldn't blame the mech.

Dust had been close friends with two femmes, split spark twins, that Optimus had been close to before and in the early stages of the war.

They and another friend all perished together, Optimus hadn't taken it well.

No one had taken the events of that cycle well.

And now he'd gone and drawn up those old memories for his Prime.

It wasn't a secret he'd wanted a relationship with his mentors friends, Primus he couldn't even bare dredge up their designations, the memories were too bitter sweet now.

And now Optimus was reliving them again, all because he'd brought up his mentor.

Dust had been a medic far beyond many others, he'd still yet to successfully perform some of the procedures she had.

The groaning of mechanisms brought him back to the present as Optimus slowly slid down, even in his state he was careful to move the twins so they instead rested slumped against his side.

The Prime's gaze was distant and filled with a grief that Ratchet struggled to look at.

After a few more moments, a voice long passed began to speak, even now Ratchet recognised that unique quirk in their vocals, that soft hum that always drew out the ends of their words.

"We're not leaving… we can't… we have to manually maintain the controls… get as many to evacuate as possible… please for the love of Primus. We're only going to be able to delay the inevitable... Keep fighting the good fight Hunter, it was an honor fighting at your side. Till all are -"

"Whoa! Whoa! Let me speak my peace first S-!"

The recording cut off and Ratchet could see that his Prime's grief have manifested into slivers of lubricant just under his optics. "Optimus."

"I never should of sent them on that mission..."

"Optimus..."

"I should of had the courage to tell them…. I should of…"

"OPTIMUS!"

The shout was enough to jolt the mech, his helm snapping down to look at him.

"We cannot change the past, and we can't afford to become lost in it. We all lost bots we cared about, and for them, we have to keep fighting, one cycle this slagging war will finally end, and all their sparks will be able to rest at peace."

"Not the ones that are lost."

That one statement hit his spark like a armour piercing round.

His holoform took a long rattling vent. "I know… old friend, I know."


Whew, another chapter down 'looks at the story ahead', sweet mercy of Macedonia what have I gotten myself into writing this... welp... I put this on myself, hope you all enjoyed this latest edition, until next time, see yah!