So, again, I've changed my outline for this chapter, quelle surprise, but thanks to Sentinel and Strika and the previous chapter, I'm now able to add a character I've missed from G1 … and if you need more information after this chapter, clearly my canon welding needs work. (I'm welding some old memories from the other shows I've watched into this, including those I only vaguely remember even after reading about them from imdb or tv tropes.)

Should be one more 'Prologue' Chapter after this, then we'll move into the series start.

What's Left Behind

Elita took a deep intake of air before she faced Speedbreaker. Despite Ratchet and Convoy Prime's concerns, Speedbreaker was not one to flirt with a femme.

"But she was a nice red-star color!"

Unless the femme had a red paintjob. Those, for some primus-forsaken reason, were fair game to flirt with.

"I don't care, Firestar was off-limits by virtue of being bonded!" Elita almost snarled in frustration. Firestar ran one of the few off-Cybertron stations, and the fact Speedbreaker was willing to alienate the older femme just to satisfy some odd quirk that insisted red-femme's were fair game to flirt with was not okay.

Getting him to understand that, however, was apparently beyond anyone's capacity. The mech would even flirt with non-sentient machines as long as they were red and shapely. Elita believed there was some sort of glitch that had gone undiagnosed or treated at this point, which was probably why he was a repair bot and not Elite Guard. Wild Ride seemed to be aware of it, while Convoy and Ratchet apparently didn't realize just how out of touch of reality the bot was.

Convoy just had Wild Ride escort his brother to his berth while giving Elita that last few clicks of refueling off so she could enjoy the spacestation before they went to their next repair.

"You know, you'd look rice with a red paintjob, just sayin'." The over-energized bot offered with a smile as his brother grabbed him in embarrassment.

"I'll take that under advisement." Elita drily remarked, and took advantage of Convoy's exasperation to head back to the cantina before she got roped into trying to discipline the incorrigible bot.

Firestar, to her surprise, was still there. Elita would've run for an office by now.

"Back so soon?" Firestar smiled at her, and put a small cube of highgrade before her.

"At this point, he's our Prime's problem, sorry about that, I know you're bonded …" Elita half-groaned the apology.

Firestar gave a sad laugh. "He was captured by the decepticon's during the war, young femme, at this point, I'm sure he's long offlined." She glanced over her remaining patrons, before looking at the young femme. "Well? Care to share what's got you so down to an old femme, young one?"

"Elita, and it's a long story." Elita admitted.

"Well, I've got the time, and you can abbreviate." Firestar smiled at her.

"… I convinced my friend who was supposed to outrank me on patrol to go to an organic planet where he ended up off-lining because of me, and my other friend, who I was courting, now acts like I don't exist, thoughts?" Elita asked drily.

"Ouch." Firestar admitted. "That's a new one." She wiped up a small oil spill on the bar. "Similar enough though, to my situation. It's gonna hurt, for a while, thinking of all the things that you could have done … It may always hurt. Things may feel out of control, so sometimes the best way to conteract that is doing something you can control." Blue optics went past Elita to a collection of holographic photos that kept changing on the wall … except for one screen, that seemed frozen.

On it, Firestar was between two mechs, all smiling. Elita looked at it for a moment. "Who was the other mech?"

"Red Alert. He didn't take Inferno's disappearance well … we both looked for a long time." Firestar sighed. "He's still looking for him, convinced the cons might've decided to use him."

"Oh." Elita looked at the trio in the picture, and absently gripped her forearms. "Do you still talk?"

"Anytime he has a lead." Firestar admitted. She gave a sad laugh. "I'm afraid I haven't quite moved on either, but I just couldn't keep fighting." A pat to her right hip. "I had to have a sub-par replacement joint, it doesn't quite mesh with my systems- sends out an error if I've been transforming too much. We decided it would be better if I stayed in one place in case … well, just in case."

"I'm sorry." Elita offered, but it felt a little hollow.

"So, what was it like? It's been ages since I've seen an organic planet." Firestar asked, and Elita almost choked.

"You've been- but I thought-?" She managed through her sputtering.

"That rule about organic planets came down after the war ended- whatever happened musta been a mess, but prior to that, well, Autobots were defending key organic planets to keep the decepticons from destroying them for energon." She snorted. "I think we lost a few bots just to curiosity because they wanted to study and explore, not fight a war."

"Wow …" Elita blinked. Optimus would've been thrilled to learn this, he was crazy about the Great War. "It was alright, I'd have said it was pretty, if the locals weren't so aggressive- we couldn't communicate with them."

"That happened a time or two during the war as well." Firestar chuckled. "As I recall, there was this weird planet-" Firestar had Elita laughing at the antics of Inferno and Red Alert on a marsh planet, where Inferno kept ignoring Red's warnings about the patches of wet ground and kept getting stuck by the time her alarm went off, letting her know it was time to return to ship. "Come back again, Elita, I had fun."

"Thanks, me too!" Elita waved and left. It had felt nice to laugh for a bit, and her calls to Wheeljack and Lio Major felt a little more hopeful than the ones previous.

Decepticon Warship: Chaar

Cyclonus struggled not to kill Tarantulas when he came to collect Nemesis for combat training. The spiderbot had claimed it was merely maintenance and he was almost finished with Nemesis, but Cyclonus recognized some the armor and components as being those Team Chaar had scrounged from remains or bought from the black market.

In any other time or place, the thought of his master's most hated rival on the slab of a decepticon lab would've meant that they had won. Now, it threw the course of the future into doubt. Would he and his brothers even have a chance to exist? It had been this Autobot's discovery of the All-Spark that had sent into motion the events leading to Cyclonus's existence.

Optimus Prime had been a worthy opponent, one who would've earned a statue of in the decepticon halls of Remembrance. Now … he was merely a science project, unable to scream as a piece of armor was cut and spliced with another.

This wasn't right. And yet Cyclonus dare not say anything, not even to the Lady Strika, in order to try and fix this mistake in the timeline. All he could do was force the other into training, hoping that the bot that could fight and win against his lord and master, would somehow escape Tarantulas.

"There you go!" Tarantulas shoved the younger bot off the table with a cackle. "Have fun breaking that in!"

Cyclonus made no move to help Nemesis off the floor, watching stoically as the other got up, his mind far away.

With a yelp of panic, Skywarp fell, hitting the ground. Autobots! Too close! Hadn't they left this stupid rock yet? Where were the others? Had they abandoned him?

"Are you alright?" A red mech, not to be underestimated, even if Thundercracker said they didn't need to know the Autobot's designation, he had done a real number on their progenitor Starscream. "Your wing … shouldn't look like that."

"Am I going to offline?!" Skywarp panicked. "I don't wanna die!"

"Don't be silly, you're not going to die from a broken wing." The Autobot helped him up, and promptly got clung to as an ambulance went roaring past. Skywarp did his best to become smaller than the Autobot. "Let's get you patched up."

"You're gonna torture me?!" Skywarp panicked, but kept clinging to the red bot as more unknown vehicles with flashing lights sped by. "You kidnapped two of the others! Did you torture them too?"

"I'm not going to torture you- and shouldn't there be a blue one with you?"

"I don't know where he is, don't hurt me!"

"I wasn't- oh, Primus." He sighed, and commed the medic. "Ratchet, I found one of Starscream's clones … the one that panics. He's in need of a medic."

Prime had gotten him repaired, then given him a head start before trying to capture him and his remaining siblings. Back then, he wasn't sure if the Prime was either soft-sparked, or incredibly cruel the way he and his bots always let him go if he was hurt back then.

Then, when he became Cyclonus, Prime had proved honorable by Autobot and Decepticon standards, even when he became the Last Prime standing between His Lord Galvatron and his conquests of Cyberton and Earth.

This should not have been how he repaid any of the warrior's honor Prime had shown him throughout the cycles. A quick deactivation would have been better, but …

"No one Kills Optimus Prime but me!" His lord's orders were absolute.

Perhaps Megatron would kill him, that would be better than allowing this corruption. Until then, he would make sure that Nemesis survived being a decepticon.

Tarantulas watched Cyclonus leave with Nemesis, and gave a dark chuckle. It seemed no decepticon was aware of the power that slid around Cyclonus's EM field like oil on water. The decepticons were a means to an end, as had the previous regime of Cybertron. That this Cyclonus was taking an interest at all in his new play-toy was telling, and Tarantulas had been around long enough to know how to play the waiting game.

His comm. pinged, breaking that train of thought. He scurried to the bridge at Strika's request, just in time to see the communication screen flash to life.

"Strika, Tarantulas. According to the data given, you are near one of the more useful planets that Tarantulas has explored. Go now and gather as much Energon as you can find." Megatron ordered. "There's been an … incident."

Behind him, Starsceam was screeching out frustration at some one. "Not there, you scrapheap- don't you know anything?!"

"I hear and Obey, Lord Megatron!" Strika bowed.

"A pleasure to be working for you once more." Tarantulas bowed, and began to cackle.

"Don't disappoint me." Megatron warned the cackling spider, then terminated the line on his end.

"Oilslick, input our new co-ordinates." Strika ordered. "Tarantulas, prepare any equipment we'll need."

"At once, my dear lady." Tarantulas left with a chuckle. There was another wonderful benefit to having captured the Autobot, and that was having to do less of the grunt work.

Nemesis would not be happy to see him of course, it seemed the fool enjoyed his time with Cyclonus, which was almost at odds with the quiet studious mech of the autobot's past. Ah, there, a flicker of glee at fighting an opponent. It seemed his little toy had a dark side afterall, though well hidden under all the usual autobot nonsense.

"Nemesis!" Tarantulas ignored the frustration from his pet. "We have work to do!" Tarantulas cackled as Nemesis gave a short nod to Cyclonus before turning and following Tarantulas. He had some ideas of frame modifications he'd have to consider for Nemesis, upgrading the armor only worked if there was a good support, afterall.

Perhaps he'd make him taller as well, those legs needed severe remodeling or he'd be too top heavy. Or just new legs altogether.

Behind him, Optimus followed silently, praying that it wouldn't be more armor upgrades. His body hurt, the fact the organic parts were not meshing with the rest of him the way Tarantulas 'had expected' meant that parts of him tore through even the most basic of actions it felt like.

He was almost grateful when it turned out Tarantulas just wanted him to move and pack items for a trip to another planet. Physical labor, Optimus could cope with, it was being on whaterever Tarantulas deided to use for a slab that frightened him.

Okay, so there's stuff here from the old Robots in Disguise show, the Unicron Triology, and unused/hinted things from Beast Wars. next up is the last prologue chapter, and then we get to the series start.

fingers crossed folks, it's gonna get wild.