a/n: Hey all! Just figured I'd let you know that I fixed up Ironwood's scenes prior to Patch-127 to bring them closer to his canonical depiction in the pre-Fall of Beacon era. Nothing from Patch-127 on has changed, as that's when I had consciously started rerailing his character, but I figured I'd let you all know.

Epilogue: Secrets and Lies

The sleek, red, orange, and yellow hot rod with flame decals slammed on the brakes as Beowolves and Ursai surrounded it.

"These must be the 'Sparkless beasts' Optimus warned about in the broadcast," the car remarked, before unfolding into a bipedal robot with orange optics, a black robot with silver legs flying out of his body as he transformed, "Firedrive, watch my six!"

"0100010001101111011011100010011101110100001000000100100100100000011000010110110001110111011000010111100101110011?" Firedrive asked.

"Just wanted to make sure we're on the same page," Hot Rod replied, before pointing his arms, and the flame-cannons mounted on them, at the Beowolves in front of him.

FWOOM!

The Grimm were immolated alive, disintegrating soon afterwards, as Firedrive delivered several punches and kicks, the latter aimed with blasts of flames from the soles of his feet, until the last Grimm was down.

"Okay, I think that's all of-"

"BAHRUUUUUUHHHAAAAA!"

"01011001011011110111010100100000011000010110111001100100001000000111100101101111011101010111001000100000011000100110100101100111001000000110110101101111011101010111010001101000!" Firedrive complained as the Goliath barreled through the trees and onto the road.

"... Shut up and engage the binary bond!" Hot Rod yelled as the massive Grimm barreled for them. Firedrive jumped into the air and folded in on himself, his legs becoming the silver barrels of a black gun. Hot Rod grabbed the weapon, and stepped back into the flames he had ignited when he incinerated the Grimm, then pointed Firedrive at the Behemoth

Through the Binary Bond, Firedrive was able to utilize Hot Rod's Distinction: Overheat Fury, and drew power from the flames, channeling it through their temporarily linked Sparks, and combined it with his own Distinction: Inner Inferno, to channel the power of their PSF's into a single, powerful blast.

KRABLAM!

The first shot destroyed half the Goliath's face.

KRABLAM!

The second destroyed its trunk.

KRABLAM!

The third and final completely obliterated its head, forcing the Sparkless beast to tumble across the ground as its body faded, its body reduced to a cloud of black and white flakes by the time its momentum carried it to Hot Rod and his Battlemaster partner.

"That was a shard of Energon," Hot Rod remarked as the cloud of dust and dirt the monster kicked up extinguished the flames. He let go of Firedrive, allowing the Mini-Con to switch back to robot mode, before checking the map Optimus had sent him via the signal. "Okay, just a little bit more, and we should be able to reach the coordinates for the rendezvous point."

"Oh good, your homing beacon wasn't busted in the crash!" Hot Rod and Firedriver whirled around, coming face to face with a helmeted woman riding a black and yellow motorcycle.

"Oh scrap!" Hot Rod folded back into vehicle mode as Firedrive jumped into the bushes.

"Relax," the motorcycle said as the woman dismounted it, "She already knows all about our war." The motorcycle then unfolded into a bipedal robot, the tires going up to his shoulders, and his ice-blue optics shining in the night. "Seriously Hot Rod, you didn't even recognize me?"

"Sideways?" Hot Rod questioned, before shifting back into robot mode, "Wow, never thought I'd be happy to see you!"

"... Really feelin' the love right now," Sideways deadpanned, "Anyway, my stasis pod was in emergency lockdown when I landed, did anyone else have that issue?"

"Actually, all of us did," Hot Rod replied, "Even Optimus."

"Wasn't his pod supposed to let him out in the event of a crash?" Sideways asked.

"Yeah, which is what makes this so weird," Hot Rod replied, "We all should've been woken up when we landed, but emergency lock-down was engaged automatically instead of manually. But all of our stasis pods had to be stimulated before we woke up. Why is that?"

"Razorclaw!" Megatron snarled, "You should know that I am busy."

"Unfortunately Megatron, I'm afraid that this cannot wait," Razorclaw replied, "We've captured an Autobot."

"So?" Megatron questioned, "I don't call you every time my inner circle captures a Maximal. Just do with that traitor what you will."

"That's erm, just the thing," Razorclaw replied, "He claimed he's secretly a Decepticon, and that you can verify his story."

"Oh really?" Megatron replied, "What is his name, perchance?"

"You know, Razorclaw, I can speak for myself," Sideways replied from the corner of the bridge as Divebomb and Rampage restrained him.

"Silence, Autobot scum!" Razorclaw snapped.

"Sideways? Is that you?" Megatron questioned, "I thought you had died with the Ark!"

"Please, Lord Megatron, don't remind me," Sideways replied, "I accidentally got into the wrong stasis pod after locking-down Optimus' personal stasis pod, nearly went up in flames when something on the planet decided to blast away half the moon!"

"That would explain your radio silence," Megatron remarked, "But back to the mission I assigned you when you joined our cause…" Sideways grinned as Divebomb and Rampage released him, and stepped in front of the view screen.

"While I wasn't able to retrieve the Omega Lock, I did have just enough time to grab this," he produced a shining, platinum key with the mark of Mortilus on its base, "Unfortunately, the other three were lost in the crash, and the Predacons destroyed my stasis pod when they found me."

"I see…" Megatron remarked, "Razorclaw, I believe it's time to alter the terms of our deal."

"But, Megatron-"

"I'll be taking Trypticon to that planet, so we can discuss our terms in person," Megatron replied, "I need that Omega Lock."

"And you will get it, my liege," Sideways added with a bow.

"Honestly, who knows?" Sideways replied, "Seriously though, my Homing Beacon was busted, could you lead me the way back to base?"

"Oh, certainly!" Hot Rod replied as he folded back into vehicle mode, "C'mon Firedrive, we've got places to go!"

And the quartet went further down the road, two of them unaware of the devil in their midst.

To be continued in "A Girl and Her Bike: Spotlight Collection 1"...

a/n: And that's Volume 1 complete! I've NEVER finished AND published a multi-chapter fic before.

...

Welp! Might as well reply to the reviews one last time!

Yeah hi sorry: Trust me, I'm looking forward to writing how the Transformers mix things up!

Mobian: Yeah... There's a LOT of ground to cover in future installments, but I'll be getting to all that eventually. But first, I'm going to take care of the bits that don't really fit in Volume 2, but still need to be covered.

Mad Titan 9: We're going to be seeing more of the Predacons going forwards. As for whether or not Beast Wars Megatron will appear... Go onto TFWiki and search "Gnashteeth".

Z-King: I am planning on continuing this, don't worry.

Theheroneeded: Well I've got a few things to handle before I move on to Volume 2, like picking up the slack on the prequel I kinda neglected, writing a few Character Spotlight Oneshots, maybe expanding on "Myths of Cybertron" a bit. I've got a lot of ground to cover, basically!

merendinoemiliano: Yeah, I was worried about the final chapter being too short, but in the end our heroes had a closer emotional connection with Dropkick than they did with Shatter so I suppose it makes sense that Chapter 15 would be shorter. But seeing how it was mostly just tying up the remaining loose ends, I figured it worked just fine in that regard.

HEROS Central: Honestly, I decided on the scars before I decided on her losing her arm. Mostly because there aren't a lot of heroic female characters with noticeable scars. I mean, in terms of female heroes with noticeable scars, there's Weiss Schnee... And that's all I'm really aware of! Plus, I can do interesting things with how Yang reacts to other people reacting to her scars.

Brutimus Prime: I said that Lio Convoy was the leader of all Maximals. Optimus Primal is just the leader of the Maximals on Menagerie.

Welp, that's all for now! See you all with whatever I update next, be it one of the sequels or spin-offs to this fic, or something a little...

BIGGER...

So long for now, and thank you for reading.

UPDATE!: THE SEQUEL IS NOW LIVE! I repeat: THE SEQUEL IS NOW LIVE!