Chapter 6

Animated universe

But not only in this parallel universe, but also in their own someone was following the events.

Ironically it was another variant of the same being, Megatron. He was the one of this universe, the leader of the Decepticons.

"Interesting, very interesting," he said as he watched the recording their spies had made. "As it looks the Autobots had the same idea as we did," he commented.

Next to him stood a line of other robots, all of them Decepticon warriors he had gathered during the months since he had escaped Autobot captivity. Under them were Lugnut, Shockwave, Blitzwing and the assembled Team Chaar.

They were standing inside one of the many basis the Decepticons had established throughout the known cosmos. It was build on a unpopulated planetoid in a not all too great distance to Cybertron, the ideal location for an outpost to prepare strikes against their enemy.

"But it seems someone has interrupted them," he pointed out. "What do you think?" he addressed one of the other robots, one particular one.

His name was Cyclonus, formerly one of the members of Team Chaar under Strika. He was a very large purple colored warrior with jet alt-mode. Until recently Megatron admitted, he had never paid much attention to him, despite that he was known to be competent and very powerful. Now however this had changed.

It was then, when he had much to his surprise realized that this warrior was nobody else than another version of the Second of Command of his own alternate self called Galvatron.

The two were slightly different in design and body modification and they certainly differed in personality by what he had seen of them both so far.

But that alone was not surprising. As far as he had found out, the appearance of many `doubles´ between their universes was quite diverged. To that came that many Cybertronians had the habbit to upgrade or alter their bodies over their life-time or were just rebuild after heavy damage.

No, what was truly astonishing was that he had heard that `Cyclonus´, like Galvatron, was in fact a secondary identity given to them by the being known as Unicron. A few decades earlier, as he was told, the Megatron of their world and a group of wounded warriors had been reformated by him into their current forms.

But Unicron had never appeared in their universe. So where did this Cylonus come from? Megatron became curious and started to investigate. In part that simply meant just picking the Decepticon in question up for interrogation.

What he had found out was more than fascinating. Cyclonus, their Cyclonus, as it had turned out, had one day just appeared out of thin air over the Decepticon main-colony of New Kaon, during an ion-storm. The garrison had repaired him and recruited him into their ranks.

But actually as it looked like and as he also willingly admitted, he seemed to come from the future. In this time Unicron had appeared and transformed it´s Megatron and a few other Decepticons in the same way he did with the other Galvatron.

But it was a future that would certainly not longer come to pass. Too much had turned out different. Cyclonus appearance alone would have changed events. To that came now their contact with the Transformers from this parallel universe. It was something that had clearly never happened in Cyclonus version of history.

That means he was in fact from yet another alternate reality. This meant he was one of the few in their universe who had ever actually experienced such a transfer, beside himself, Lugnut and Blitzwig of course. But that journey had been executed by the technology of Galvatron and his Decepticons and been under their full control.

Cyclonus had been spontanous and established with his own technology and that made him a valuable source of insight and information.

"Yes Megatron," the large purple jet responded, "their space-bridge had clearly been modified to allow space and interdimensional travel, obviously based on designs the Transformers from the `other´ universe have given to them. Or at least they are trying," he stated.

"Like us you mean?" the Decepticon leader questioned.

"Well yes," he answered a bit hesitatingly.

No wonder, they were in fact trying to create such a device on their own and Cyclonus was helping their techs with it. But so far they didn´t succeed either.

"But you are right," Megatron told him. "This development could be useful for us," he stated. "Shockwave, prepare a team. We are leaving for Cybertron´s sector in five breen. We are trying to find out whatever information we can and if we get any chance, we will destroy their space-bridge."

"As you command Megatron," the one-eyed Decepticon replied.

xxx

At the same time the fight on Cybertron they had been watching was slowly coming to an end.

Omega Supreme was just blasting away the last two of the car-mode robots, Optimus and Sentinel were rushing to confront the alternate Starscream who was standing at the space-bridge controls.

As he saw that the seeker was trying to activate the bridge, Sentinel opened fire.

xxxxxxx

Cybertronian universe

Skywarp and Scourge were moving nearly simultanously. In a sense they both had been working together for millions of years, even if it were not truly them.

The seeker made a simple gesture with his hand that the Sweep leader instantly followed by taking cover and pointing his weapon at the corridor before them.

After a few moments the unknown robot they had been approaching came out of hiding. Or better said he was storming out with blazing guns.

Skywarp recognized now that it was an Autobot he had never seen before. He was a middle-sized, bulky mechanoid, maybe a half-head smaller than himself.

"You won´t trick me Decepticons," the robot yelled. "I won´t fall for your ambush - die," he shouted.

"You have nerves talking about ambushes, you are the one who shot us on sight," the seeker retorted, while a laser blast hit the wall behind him a few meters beside his head.

"Spare me your lies Con. You have killed my partners. But now it´s your turn."

"You idiot, that wasn´t us," Skywarp yelled back. "We didn´t plan to trick you. But now you are scrap metal walking," he said while he returned fire.

At the same time Scourge and Motormaster started to attack him from two different directions. It was just the maneuver they had planned in case something like this would happen.

One blast from Motormaster´s weapon hit the rampaging robot in the shoulder. The shot caused only minimal damage, but brought their opponent off balance and forced him to stop firing on them and it gave the rest of their group an opening.

Split seconds later another blast from Scourge hit him and then Skywarp ended it by firing a shot through his already weakened chest-plate. The three of them exchanged a short look before they took a step forward.

"And here I was told that Autobots are peaceful," Skywarp commented with some sarcasm as he was looking down at the body.

"It is a damn waste," he said with a side-glance to the dead form of Blackout. They had tried to find allies and instead lost one of their own group. "Do you still think this is a good idea Scourge?" he asked.

"I think it is our best chance, now that we are one man less probably more than ever," he replied. "But the next time we all should be prepared."

"Yes, you say it, this guy here could certainly have done something as well," Motormaster stated, pointing to Oilslick.

"I didn´t think it was necessary," the strange looking Decepticon replied. "You dealt with the situation quite well after all."

"Yes we did. But the next time you can decide to move your hide and help as well or we might decide that we don´t need you anymore," Scourge told him.

"Oh, I thought we need every man. Wasn´t that the reason why we are trying to ally with one of the other groups in the first place?"

"That might be, but if you are not moving a limb while we are attacked, then you are useless to us anyway," Skywarp retorted.

He was sure about one thing. He didn´t like this guy. Something about him just let his alarms going up.

Oilslick´s appearance was just as eccentric as his behavior. He was a large mostly black colored mechanoid. Skywarp had seen earlier that he transformed into some sort of motorcicle, but he wouldn´t have been able to tell it from the way he looked. Over his head and that was the most bizarre thing, he was wearing some kind of glass helmet.

As Motormaster had asked him, he had explained that he was an expert for chemical weapons and that it was a protection against the accids and toxins he was using. For the black seeker it was just more evidence that this guy was a creep.

"Of course, if you say so," Oilslick replied smoothly.

Skywarp had no doubt that he wouldn´t give a damn if they all died here, as long as he had a chance to escape.

"Someone is coming closer," Scourge informed them.

xxx

At the same time the group of Autobots had come closer to them.

"Did you hear that?" Sari asked.

"Blasterfire," Arcee responded. "Come." She gestured to them to move.

After a few more minutes they were beginning to make out the other group in front of them. It were Decepticons like they very soon realized. This was not what they had hoped for.

xxx

Skywarp, Scourge and the others had once again drawn their weapons.

They were waiting for the newcomers to arrive.

xxx

"Decepticons," Arcee said a warning to the others.

"Maybe we can go around them," Bumblebee suggested. But he was quickly disappointed.

"We know that you are over there," one of the Cons shouted, "come out."

"As it seems we can not," Cliffjumper commented. "Now let us go," he stated while lifting up his gun.

"We are coming," Arcee called out. "But you shouldn´t think we are harmless. We will blast you if we see anything funny."

The five Autobots and the techno-organic came out into the open, followed in some distance by the two humans.

Decepticons and Autobots finally met and pointed their weapons at each other.

"Well, nice little stand-off," Rotorstorm commented as he saw the situation.

They had just noticed the two destroyed robots a few meters next to them and got even more ready to fight.

"We want to offer you a deal," the black seeker who was standing in front of his group said to them to everyone´s surprise. He was one of the Decepticons they remembered from earlier.

"Have you made him the same offer," Arcee asked sarcastically, pointing to the dead Autobot.

"Hey, this guy attacked us," Skywarp replied. "He was so convinced that we wanted to kill him that he shot first and got himself killed instead. We only want to get out of here and our chances are better if we are working together with one of the other teams."

"I see," Arcee remarked.

"To be honest we would have also preferred a group of Decepticons, but you just happened the first ones we run into."

"Strange, I feel exactly the same way," she responded, still pointing her gun at him.

"Arcee," Sari spoke up, "maybe we should listen to what he has to say."

"He is a Decepticon, we can not trust him," she stated.

"Maybe not," Bumblebee replied, "but they want to get out of here just as we do and at least they had not shot us on sight, that is as far as we know more than we can expect from the most others here. As far as we know everyone here is meant to kill us."

"That is at least what our captors intent," Sari reminded them. "Shouldn´t that be reason enough for us to do the exact opposite?"

"The techno-organic has a point here," Rotorstorm mentioned. "She is right by the way. We need allies and we don´t have the the option to be picky about them. Maybe we should try to cooperate with them, at least for the time being."

"Damn it," Arcee cursed, "well okay." She began to lower her gun a bit. "I you truly think so we could..."

"No," someone else stated. It was Longarm. "They are our enemies. What you suggest is not `logical´. They will try to destroy us as soon as they don´t need us anymore."

"Maybe, maybe not. But until them their presense might surely keep us alive," Rotorstorm claimed. "I mean, we can double our numbers here."

"I agree with him," Jack joined the conversation. He and Miko had come closer by now. "Look, we are trapped here in a death-maze right? They could truly save our lives, even if they turn against us in the moment we get out of here."

And now a human gets involved," Longarm commented. "I won´t agree to this." While he said this he moved backwards, further away from the Decepticons, as if to make a statement.

Bumblebee who was standing close to him saw that he was charging his weapon. He was still moving, in angle that seemed somewhat strange to the yellow Autobot.

"I commend that we go our separate ways," he told them. "Whoever agrees should come with me," he offered.

Cliffjumper looked as if he was clearly in agreement with Longarm and was ready to go with him. Arcee was making a move as if to follow him, but then stopped for a moment and exchanged a look with Jack who had proposed to accept the Decepticons idea.

"Jack..." she began to speak, but then she was cut off.

"Don´t move," somebody said now. It was Bumblebee. They all saw that he and Sari had their own weapons drawn. But they were not pointed at the group of Decepticons... but at Longarm.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked.

"Do you really think nobody here knows who you are?" Bumblebee addressed him. "Do you think nobody could recognize you, Shockwave?"

"We knew you from our world," Sari announced. "We only waited to know for sure that you are the same."

All of them, Autobots and Decepticons alike, froze now as they heard this.

Arcee´s gaze turned around from the other group to the grey colored `Autobot´ who had been with them since they had arrived here.

xxxxxxx

Animated universe

"No," Starscream shouted as he saw the group of Autobots who were attacking him just as he was about to activate the space-bridge and get away from this blasted universe.

Without the slightest hesitation he fired on them. But it was already too late.

Sentinel Prime had already reached him and tackled the seeker. This however turned out to be a grave miscalculation.

Starscream was thrown against the controls and suddenly the bridge´s systems were being activated, but not exactly in the way had had wanted.

Sparks of electicity flashed over the consols and a large transwarp bubble was being build up, not very unlike the last time. Before they even fully realized what was going on, a few were caught by the quickly growing energy sphere.

Moments later it was over.

"Where are they?" Bulkhead asked.

Sentinel and Optimus Prime, just as the foreign seeker, had vanished.

xxxxxxx

Somewhere else

"Were...where are we?" Sentinel asked as he had come back to his senses.

"I...I am not sure," Optimus replied.

Their surroundings? this place, whereever it was, well it looked somehow like Cybertron...a bit...in some way.

But in between the familiar mechanical contructions were growing plants. Small groves of exotic trees were right next to large metallic buildings, where they should not have existed.

The place they were standing on looked like a bizarre mixture of a metallic and a organic planet. One thing was for sure however, they were not longer home.

"Sentinel, what the slag have you done?" Optimus asked him.

"I don´t know."

Authors note: The information about `Animated Cyclonus´ backstory comes from the Transformers Animated AllSpark Almanac.