Note: I know that I'm mixing Movieverse into the story but I can't help it – in my mind the verses are hopelessly mixed up, even if I try to stay in one or another… sorry about that.

Humans

[U 1]

"Hey Sanders what have you got there?"

"Damned if I really know exactly. Simmons gave me this … thing to try out in the next skirmish with the Cons. It is supposed to be a gun of sorts, only they couldn't try it out on anyone. 'Bots are not willing to be guinea pigs he says."

"I wouldn't be in their places, man… so now you get to shoot some Cons with it."

"If it does anything to them at all. He called it displacer, whatever that means for a weapon."

"Sounds weird. Is it supposed to be a secret or…?"

"Nah, he just said to try it on a Con and keep me eyes peeled for what it does to them."

"You get a chance soon as I hear – I have a pal at intelligence and he said that they expect an attack somewhere soon."

When the actual alarm came, NEST was ready to support the Autobots; the helis carried the ground troops, while the Air Force was alerted to work together with the Aerialbots. Together they arrived to the Nevada Solar One plant to find the Cons at their usual energon-collecting and Human-scaring activities and as per the pre-made plans they started attacking them. The USAF Raptors and the motley collection of the Aerialbots harassed Starscream and his trines until they couldn't provide aerial cover for the groundbound Cons, who got attacked at that point by Optimus and the Autobots; while the NEST forces helped the threatened workers to escape and peppered the retreating Cons with sabot rounds.

It was all going well until one of the human soldiers lifted an unusual weapon to try and sight the fast-moving Cons with it; he got off a shot that caught Wildrider in the chest but seemingly it didn't cause him any discomfort. The crazy Con hardly even noticed anything happening, much less the two little humans peering at him as he dashed over to grapple with one of the minibots.

"Hey, that's one quite useless thing if it only makes them stop and look around, ehh?" Eddards smirked at his friend who watched the moving 'Con with frustration even as he sought another one to target. He found another target and pressed the trigger to give out a continuous beam – but in mid-air the beam's almost invisible shimmering collided a silvery beam coming from somewhere else; the resulting ominously crackling, rumbling power made Sanders to release the trigger and duck behind a solar panel. But it was too late to stop firing, as the combined beam changed direction and hit Optimus straight on, throwing him far back on the impact. The Autobots reacted fast to the fall of their leader, covering him and pushing back the Decepticons, who complied by retreating, taking a measly amount of energon only, and leaving the battlefield.

"Goddammit, we're in deep shit! What the hell has just happened?"

"Hell if I know but it wasn't just us! Best if we keep quiet about it. Come on, we have to regroup over there – it seems to be over anyway."

"I hope the Big Boss is all right…"

"They are hard to kill, you know that. I don't think this little toy could do it. You saw the other one that you shot, he hardly even noticed being hit."

With the Cons retreating and the Autobots only concerned about Optimus, the human troops as usual had the thankless job of cleaning up the battlefield afterwards. Even though the Cybertronians presence on Earth was not a secret for some time they still tried to keep the actual fighting away or at least covered up from the general public. It wasn't like people enjoyed living in a war zone these days, except those who choose it as their profession; the army types, the intelligence and even the science minded ones as war has always been the greatest sponsor of invention in both races. Besides authorities were doing their best to provide funds for research so that they could hopefully in one day be able to deal with huge, intelligent, highly developed and above all hostile mechanoids from outer space on their own. It wasn't that the government didn't trust the Autobots – it was a will to be able to hold out on their own if necessary; something that came from pride but also from logical thinking.

Still, NEST had an agreement with the Autobots that they took seriously, and it was to give them back all Transformer weapons that they found on the battlefields; while they have helped humankind with civilian technologies, they had no intention of sharing advanced weaponry with a still developing race. If they invented say pulse cannons on their own, fine; but they weren't giving them to humans like it was candy. And so Starscream's handheld null-ray gun ended up in a small pile of pulse rifles and lasers to be transported to the Autobot base, and nobody thought – or dared - to examine it closer. Had they done so with the correct sensors, it would have revealed a faint trace of transparticles that were decaying slowly, taking their secret with them.

But before they could transport them back to the Bots, they came to visit and were interested in the experimental weaponry that they used in the last battle. Although it was usually Optimus or Bumblebee keeping contact with humans, or Ironhide liaising the battle plans, this time it was a mech nobody seen before. Perceptor was similarly ignorant of the humans and it led to many misunderstandings until they found the sweating Sergeant who professed shooting the weapon – the soldier was quite afraid that the Autobots would blame him for any injury to their leader and it took time before he understood that they wanted the gun itself and not someone to blame. He told them that he gave it back to Simmons, and although Perceptor didn't recognize the name, some others in the Base did; Sector Seven was complicating their lives yet again and with them it would take official channels again to get hold of the weapon. Perceptor gave up at this point and Prowl started to contact the human authorities from the base, trying to get hold of anyone who went as far as even admitting Sector Seven existing. But after two days of totally fruitless and seemingly endless negotiations even he gave it up and succinctly told Jazz to get hold of either the weapon or its schematics in any way he could and make no report about it in regards to the method.

Human computers and other gadgets of course were never a great difficulty for Transformers therefore Jazz was able to hack into Simmons' laptop the first second he used the military Wi-Fi network, never mind its passwords and encoding, and from there it was only a matter of time before he hooked it up with the agency's intranet. The backup plan of Steeljaw physically breaking into the place was discarded as the plans were found within an orn and downloaded without any agents even noticing the theft. Jazz didn't like to go around their allies any more than Prowl but he hated when civilian bureaucracy engaged with military secrecy and produced an unmanageable hybrid. It hurt noone if they didn't know how he hacked their secrets as he didn't go after anything else but what they absolutely needed. They still had to get hold of a null-ray though and it would be the more difficult of the endeavors.

History

[U 1 – Autobot base]

Of course it didn't take him a lot to explode into action again; as they ended the talks and were just having the headache as to where to put the 'Con Optimus for the night cycle, it was a seemingly neutral, slightly exasperated question from Prowl that set him off.

"Would you at least give us a benefit of doubt that we don't want to kill you?"

"You dare to speak about…you abomination of a mech…!" was the only answer before Optimus was on him in a rage, pummeling Prowl's face into the floor with swift, efficient and deadly movements. The twins, not expecting such violence from him were just a klik late to react and even Prowl himself was reluctant to use force against his leader. All in all it took all of them present and some time to get him off the battered Prowl and restrain him. The recharge for him after all this was clearly going to be the in brig, no matter what message it gave to the Autobots who were already starting to spread the wildest rumours from mind-wipe to a nasty virus. They didn't want to tell the truth openly so Jazz decided to encourage the rumours; after all there was no way they could hide Optimus in the brig or trying to kill Prowl whenever they met.

Sideswipe was feeling extremely disturbed at having to guard Optimus while he was locked in the brig. It just felt wrong and he didn't know what to do with the awkward situation. The Prime was still seething, occasionally banging a fist on the walls, and murmuring low curses that the red twin didn't really want to hear at all. But his curiosity got better of him after a while; Sideswipe was not one to linger long on uncomfortable feelings, he preferred to move past them. And what better than try to talk with the mech about what he had on his mind?

"Ummm… what is it with you an' Prowl? Is he too logical for his own good in that other universe?"

Optimus came up to the bars, not caring about them crackling dangerously close, glowering at the red mech with murder in his optics; the snarled answer was barely above understandable level.

"The murderous Pit-spawn killed many of my friends – and our sparkling. He is as mad as you described your world's Megatron, only with a sparkless, cold logic to boot."

"uhh…" Sideswipe couldn't really react any more intelligently to that. If it was true – and why would he lie? – that universe he came from was not one he'd've liked to experience. He knew Prowl's capabilities and to have them coupled with murderous madness was not something he could comfortably imagine.

"Actually, who leads the Autobots there if you are a Con? Prowler?"

"That is a long story…"

"We have plenty of time you know." Sideswipe decided to record the conversation just in case; he was sure it would help the officers to understand how things were and it wasn't likely that Optimus would consent to tell it to them again with the SIC present.

"Where to start it… was it with the Kaon rebellion that the war started here?

"Sure, yeah. I was around there to boot."

"And at the time I was a new Prime with the Senate firmly in control under the thumb of Xaaron and Ratbat; and Megatron the Lord Protector?"

"If I remember correctly… yeah, something like that." The red twin never bothered much with history if it didn't concern them directly; but so much was common knowledge even if it happened eons ago. He was glad though that the recalling of history calmed down Optimus considerably – that is from smoldering rage to a barely scowling resentment. Apparently even as a Decepticon he had a storytelling streak.

"So, when I declared our faction, the Decepticons in the Senate, with Megatron backing me up with the army, it was those two Senators, Ultra Magnus with the army and Prowl as the rising force on the Autobot side, fighting for the command in the absence of a Prime as the rightful leader. They quickly disposed of Magnus, who was the most normal among them – a fatal accident as we heard that never got investigated but started a curious swath of other so-called accidents among the top Autobot ranks. After some political and real infighting they got rid of Ratbat too, and Xaaron and Prowl ruled their faction; and then started the era of the puppet-Primes."

"Gahh… what do you mean by that?" Sideswipe was truly disgusted by the expression; there was very little more revered among Autobots than the Prime who held the Matrix and to hear it degraded to this level disturbed him more than mere political infighting in the past would ever do. Not that Optimus was any happier about it seemingly – as a Prime it pained him even if those pitiful mechs were his enemies and far from being anything a proper Matrix-bearer should be.

"After I declared my allegiance and left the Autobots a new Matrix appeared in the Senate chapel – that is the place where the Matrix is kept until it finds a new bearer. They thought at first that I was killed or the Matrix left me; but eventually everyone had to accept that another Matrix turned up. They took it and advertised it as though Primus gave his blessing to the Autobot cause, after I turned against them – of course by this time it was open war so we didn't really get into philosophical arguments about the matter. Personally I think there used to be more Primes if the legends are to be believed – either the Seven or the Thirteen could have been such all with their Matrixes – and the history contained in my Matrix doesn't disprove it. Anyway, they found a Matrix-bearer – his name was Nova Prime I think - and using his naiveté and inexperience they promptly bullied him to be their puppet to sanctify their laws and actions; but as they started to fight each other again it was the Prime who got outright murdered – by Prowl's hands no less. He didn't even make a secret of it, by that time he was out in the open with his ruthlessness. After that they went through I think five or six so-called Primes before they found one to their liking – he chose a new name, becoming Sentinel Prime when he got the Matrix, and nominally he is the Autobot leader now."

"Then they are a triumvirate?"

"More or less… but Sentinel is just a puppet too who remains a Prime until he does their bidding. Xaaron cares mainly about the political power while Prowl is the real commander in the field."

"How come he is on Earth then?"

"Well, that was another can of technoworms… nobody really knows when – much less why - the third Matrix turned up, because by this time nobody went into that chapel any more. All we knew that there was this young mech, barely more than a youngling, that fought his way into the Senate chambers one day, announcing himself to be a Prime. He was young, dashing and brash and to his luck he had a shrewd old mech for a mentor; one called Kup who saved Rodimus both from becoming a pawn or dead. He became the dear of the troops, especially the hotheaded ones like himself, who weren't really liking Prowl's style and coldness. I think the one reason why Prowl didn't kill him was that he probably estimated that Rodimus would offline himself soon with the harebrained schemes he pulled in battles. After trying unsuccessfully to discredit him, they kept sending him to offworld mission, hoping to get rid of him while he solved crazy problems. He is not totally a fool, and he knows all about the other two even if he doesn't really dare to move openly against them; and that's why Prowl choose to keep an optic on him on this Earth mission, while giving up Cybertron to Xaaron. What happened to the Allspark in this universe?"

The question caught Sideswipe by surprise; he was quite engrossed by the tantalizing history of another timeline and not really sure how much he should tell to someone who was – after all is said and done – a Decepticon. His hesitation wasn't lost on Optimus who barked a short laugh before turning away from the bars and reclining on the fold-down berth to recharge – a snarled sentence marking the end of his patience and the returning of his darker mood again.

"Of course. I shall tell everything while you keep your secrets. How typically Autobot."

When he next onlined it was the other twin toting his gun and watching him through the bars. Sunstreaker knew about the conversation that his twin brother had last cycle with the prisoner and it made him curious; most Autobots knew their checkered past and how close they came to joining the other side. But Optimus did not feel like talking and so they waited in silence until Ratchet, Perceptor and Skyfire came in and dismissed the golden mech, talking over the incident once again. They already had the schematics for the human-made weapon and the scientists were quite amazed by its ingenuity; not that the neutron-type beam that it produced was dangerous to Transformers in itself but showed how inventive humans were when it came to weapons development. They had one piece of the puzzle with it but the rest of the part were still outside their grasps; the modified null-rays that Starscream used as well as a method to combine them – and somehow get a parallel universe be in synchrony with them at the same time.