Chapter 2

The end of 2006 - 12 years ago - flashback

The group of Autobots led by Optimus Prime drove back to Autobot City.

As their convoy came closer, they were greeted with no one else than Ultra Magnus approaching them. Like the others, he had been cured from the Hate Plaque when Optimus had released the knowledge of the Matrix. Behind him were standing a few of the other Autobots stationed in the city. Like him they were now back to normal.

Everything was like it should be, except for the heavy damage that both Autobot and human had received.

Right now however, the Autobot Second in Command simply made a disbelieving face.

"Optimus?" he asked, "is that really you? I mean, are you really back?" Magnus looked in Hotrod´s and Kup´s direction.

"It´s him Magnus," Hotrod stated happily. "It is no trick this time."

They all remembered all too well how the Quintessons had reactivated Optimus, only to turn him into a mind-controlled zombie to lead the Autobots into a death-trap. So it was no wonder a few people, even Optimus himself sometimes, were a bit insecure.

Magnus looked now back at Optimus, who spoke to him in a somewhat held back tone.

"Yes - Yes I guess this time I am truly back for good. It is good to see you old friend."

Now Ultra Magnus pulled his friend and leader into an embrace. It was a really strange sight, the two giant fighting machines hugging each other in a friendly manner.

Optimus saw his old lieutenant Jazz, who welcomed him in nearly the same way as Magnus did and the human Spike, who had come as Jazz driver.

"Jazz, I am happy that you are here," the Autobot leader greeted him.

"Spike." He nodded to the human.

"Optimus I´m glad that you are back. I only wish it was under better circumstances."

Spike looked behind himself at the mostly destroyed Autobot city. Insane Transformers - ironically mostly Autobots - had been marauding there for days.

"It was our luck that you were able to short-circuit Metroplex before he began to ran amok too Rodimus. You did a good job," Ultra Magnus said, looking at Hotrod.

"Thank you. But I have really enough of being leader, at least Commander of all Autobots. We have the right bot here for this anyway," he said with a small gesture to Optimus.

This statement from the younger Prime was met with applause from everybody around.

"We will repair Autobot City. Just as we will rebuild everything that had been destroyed on Earth and Cybertron," Optimus announced." His words caused even more applause

xxxxxxxx

At the same time, the Decepticons had arrived back on Chaar.

Galvatron looked at his assembled troops. Many of them were in a damaged or at least strained state. Not to mention that some were out of energon.

But that was to be expected. They all had been driven insane and running amok for a few days after all.

He told the Constructicons to first look over the other Decepticons and then check the damage to their base itself.

It was a small luck to them that as it seemed someone had been able to short-circuit Trypticon, before he had been infected by the Hate Plaque as well. Similar like Rodimus had done it to Metroplex on Earth. Good, rampaging city-robots were the last they had needed in this situation.

Galvatron decided he would give a reward to the warrior responsible, when he found out who did it.

Then he addressed his Second in Command.

"Cyclonus, tell Soundwave to contact every Decepticon who is not on Chaar right now and give them order to return to base."

"Yes Galvatron," he replied. "Soundwave are you able to make contact with everybody who is not here right now?"

"Yes Cyclonus," the communication expert answered after less than two seconds. "All units are responding," he said after a few moments.

"Ask them if they are still operational."

"Causalities none; irreparable damage none," Soundwave reported in his usual monotonous way. "But multiple light, middle and two cases of heavy damage."

Cyclonus nodded.

"Good, take Astrotrain and all currently operational shuttles and go to retrieve them," he ordered.

xxxxxx

A few minutes later

Cyclonus was now entering the throne room along with Galvatron.

The nearly ever faithful Decepticon looked at his leader, the being he had been following loyally for now two lives... before and after their reformation by Unicron.

True, at the time when Galvatron had gone insane during the last year, Cyclonus had sometimes refused orders, disagreed with his leader in front of the troops, even tricked him into going to a planet that was actually a mental asylum to cure his madness. The last one later turned out to be a trap and probably his greatest mistake. But despite that he had always acted ultimately in Galvatron´s best interest or at least it had been his intention.

Except in these last days, as the plaque had infected him. He had attacked Galvatron together with a large group of Decepticons, hunted him down, tried to kill him. And then had intentionally infected him with the Hate Plaque.

Sure, you could say hee hadn´t been himself - not responsible for his actions.

Not been himself... Just like Galvatron had not been all this times in the past, he realized.

He didn´t know what to say.

"Mighty Galvatron, I…" he tried to say something.

"Cyclonus can you feel it?" his leader asked him. "Have you noticed? Maybe you should run a self-diagnosis."

This question surprised him. Then he started to check his systems. It was gone, he realized.

"Yes Galvatron, I do," he answered.

Finally, another curse that had plaqued them for the last years had been lifted, Cyclonus thought.

When they had been rebuilt by Unicron two years ago, he placed various predatory programs into their systems. Infiltration programs designed with the purpose to manipulate and rearrange their minds and personalities according to Unicron´s agenda.

A certain change of personality was normal for a Transformer with a new body, at least to some degree. New circuity, a new appearance and skills, all this is leading to different thinking and behavior.

This programs on the other hand had the sole purpose to bend their minds over time to his will, to make them his puppets.

It was however more than simply software. They were like an extension of Unicron himself, small microscopic pieces of his mind that were slowly trying to take them over, to change them into what he had truly wanted... creations of his design.

The corrupting programs were deactivated when the Planet Destroyer´s body had exploded. But they were still there, lying dormant in them... until now.

They were gone, erased.

"Unicron´s manipulations are removed from us now," Galvatron stated. "And not only that, the last bits of the madness that plagued me for so long are also gone."

Cyclonus looked surprised. Normally nobody even talked about the insanity in Galvatron´s presence out of fear of his reaction.

Now he brought it up himself.

"The Matrix has cured me, in more than one way," the Decepticon leader said. "I am - no we are - finally completely free of him."

He smiled. For the first time for long, Galvatron was truly something that one could call happy.

"Who had thought that the Matrix and the Autobots will be the cause of this?"

"In some sense they have saved us," Cyclonus agreed, "from Unicron and the Hate Plague. Even if they did it in first line to save everyone else."

"Yes, quite ironic," Galvatron admitted.

"What do you plan now my lord? Are you going to hold the ceasefire with the Autobots for a longer time, giving both us and them the chance to rebuild?"

That was in many senses a reasonable idea. Beside the fact that Cyclonus was someone who lived by his personal honor code, there was also a purely practical reason.

It would give the Autobots the chance to recover from the damage the plague had caused to them. A chance that they had earned in Cyclonus eyes. But it was also give the Decepticon the same opportunity. Both their sides had suffered equally under this epidemie after all.

His leader´s signs of insanity had already been decreased drastically in the last months. Ironically since their visit on the therapist planet called Torculon, that had turned out to be a death-trap, but ultimately also the turning-point from which on Galvatron started to fare better.

And now it seemed he was completely back to normal.

It felt good to have a reasonable Commander again, he admitted.

Galvatron´s true self, he knew, was very close to his own way of thinking. This was if he was honest one of the reasons for his loyalty.

The true Galvatron, he knew - the leader who had always existed beneath the layer of insanity, was someone with many traces that he admired, someone he respected and had tried to live up to in these last months.

But that was not everything. Megatron had once saved his own former self from a terrible and senseless existence and gave his life a meaning. Back then when he had been disregarded and thrown away for the first time. Eons before the same thing happened, quite literally, again inside Astrotrain.

"Yes Cyclonus, I will keep the truce with the Autobots, for some time at least. After all it will give us the chance to prepare and realize our plans as well," the Decepticon leader said.

"Let them have their time of peace," Galvatron stated. "Soon they will loose this war once and for all."

xxxxxxx

Back in the present

In the years that followed, Galvatron´s prediction had become true.

First came the creation of the Transwarp Technology, then the arrival of the Head- and Target- and a short time later the Powermasters.

In the following campaign the Decepticons had actually successfully reconquered Cybertron once again. Only for both sides to loose it forever a short time later.

... And then came Unicron´s return... and all what followed.

xxx

Right now the group of Autobots and humans were all still standing in front of the screen and watching other images from the past.

Optimus Powermaster partner - the nebulon scientist HiQ had separated from him and was taking a look at the strange devices of the pyramid. Marissa Faireborn and Daniel Witwicky standing close to him.

Daniel remembered how his father Spike had as well become temporally bonded to a Transformer as well several years ago, during the last battle against Unicron in fact. At that time it had been out of pure necessarity.

Just like HiQ, his father had barely actually aged since then. Just like all who had undergone the bonding process to a Transformer - not matter if Head-, Power- or Targetmaster.

Afterwards however, Spike had asked the Autobots for every possible way to negate the bond with Fortress Maximus and become a normal human once again.

Not everybody wanted to be immortal as it seemed. His father being one of them. At least, like Spike had explained, not without Carly and Daniel. He didn´t want to live this long if it meant seeing them die.

So far the Autobots however had not managed to completely reverse the effects of the bond.

As an alternative, his mother Carly had suggested to have the Autobots extend her own life.

Even a "normal" human at their age could life for over 150 years. Mostly being an effect of modern technology and medicine. The binary bounded humanoids however would, as it looked, be around for at least several centuries.

xxx

In this moment they were watching a scene that brought up particular painful memories for both Optimus and Rodimus.

Megatron was kneeling on the ground. Optimus Prime was standing before him with his gun in his hand.

"Optimus I..." Rodimus tried to say something.

"It wasn´t your fault," Optimus responded. "It was mine," he stated.

On the monitor they saw Megatron asking for mercy. Or at least it seemed so.

xxx

"No more Optimus Prime. I beg of you."

xxx

Back in the year 2005 when this fight happened, Optimus was taken back by this. He could just not believe that Megatron, his opponent and nemesis for millions of years - his equal and opposite - would act like this.

Now, rewatching this scene from another perspective, he saw what it had truly been... a blunt and obvious trick to distract him and stall time and reach the gun that was lying close to Megatron.

And he had given him all time in the world, the present Optimus remembered, while the one on the screen continued to talk.

They all watched Megatron reaching out to the gun.

xxx

"You who are without mercy, now beg for it. I thought you were made of sterner stuff."

xxx

As he was finished with that little speech, Megatron already had the gun in his hand.

By the Matrix, Optimus thought as he saw the scene: `I am an idiot´. Looking back, he admitted he felt more than a bit ashamed that he fell for an now so obvious looking trick.

Standing next to him, Rodimus was feeling pretty much the same way. They both

On the screen they saw Hotrod - Rodimus younger self - tackling Megatron to stop him. But the young Autobot was overpowered in no time and taken hostage instead.

"I shouldn´t have gotten have gotten involved," Rodimus said.

"I shouldn´t have fallen for the oldest trick in the world. And you wouldn´t have a reason to get involved in the first place," Optimus answered.

"But I..."

"Hotrod," Optimus said, addressing Rodimus by his old name, "I was the one who had failed to secure a seemingly surrendering enemy. Instead I let him move around and grab a weapon. Megatron should have never gotten his hands on this gun. If I had just told him to stand still and hold up his hands, nothing of this would have happened.

I admit that your actions were hardly ideal," Optimus stated.

No, tackling a Decepticon far stronger than him directly had not been. By far not.

"But it was my failure that this situation came up in the first place... Megatron and I had been enemies for millions of years. But there had always been a strange kind of respect between us. I would have never expected him to act like this... and this caught me completely off-guard. And Megatron had probably counted on that.

As the humans say, he had played me like a fiddle. We both made mistakes. The difference is yours were excusable, mine were not."

"Don´t be so hard on yourself Prime," Kup told him. "Like you said, we all make our mistakes. And this is the past anyway."

"A better question should be, how does this thing even got this scenes?" Ultra Magnus questioned. "I mean, had someone been monitoring these events back then?"

"I don´t know," Rodimus answered.

"Hmm, one possible theory is that this apparatur here may be somehow accessing our minds and reading our memories," Perceptor stated.

Now the others were looking more than a bit alarmed. The idea of some foreign force somehow entering their minds was nothing they felt well with.

"Are you sure Perceptor?" Optimus asked.

"No. Like I said, it is just a theory."

The scene before them changed once again.

This time they saw Galvatron, lying in a sea of molten plasma. Then Cyclonus and the Sweeps landed and one of them dragging him out.

Right afterwards they saw how the Decepticon leader started beating or shooting his subordinates.

"This has to be how Galvatron turned insane," Ultra Magnus stated. "Who would have thought we would see it first hand some day?"

"I guess that throws Perceptors theory out of the window," Rodimus commented. "None of us had been there when this had happened. So it can´t come from our minds."

"You are right," Perceptor replied. "Unless of course Galvatron, Cyclonus or the Sweeps had been inside this room at one point. But that is more than unlikely."

xxx

The scene switched again:

Galvatron, Cyclonus and the Sweeps were now attacking a space-station.

"The attack on the Space-Defense Platform in 2006. With that fight the war was restarted," Rodimus remarked.

The Autobots watched on the monitor how the Cons were shooting the station until it was completely destroyed and the humans on it were either blown up or floating helpless in space.

xxx

After a few moments yet another scene:

A group of Quintessons were working on something. They saw that it was the liveless body of a Transformer - Optimus body.

The Autobot leader turned ice-cold inside.

He didn´t want to see that. They watched now how the body was reactivated, coming back to false live.

"This was how they turned me into their puppet," Optimus whispered.

The scene switched to a space-battle. Autobot ships were being blown out of space by heavy artillery.

"I have let them into a trap. Over 50 Autobots dead because I couldn´t resist their programming."

"That wasn´t you," Kup told him.

"No it wasn´t," Optimus confirmed. "That was only my body. It was the Matrix that truly brought myself back. After you gave the Matrix to me, my mind was downloaded from it." He looked at Rodimus. "But even then I wasn´t able to resist them. Not until you stopped me."

xxxxxxx

What they didn´t realized, was that unknown to them, the mysterious robot - The Fallen - and his followers had entered another room inside the pyramid.

In his hand he was holding a small pyramid device, identical to the one in the hall with the Autobots.

With a move of his hand he activated the device. A large blue sphere of energy - a transwarp sphere - formed around the four robots... and they were gone.

xxxxxxx

Back in the hall the Autobots were in, the small pyramid on the side started to glow.

A similar sphere of energy was started to be built up around it.

Without any warning the energy-sphere suddenly expanded and started to pull in all objects around it.

... And so, Rodimus and Ultra Magnus, the two Autobots standing next to it, lost their hold and were pulled into the sphere.

Then, a moment later, it disappeared.

The sphere itself, Rodimus Prime, Magnus and the small pyramid device were gone.

"Rodimus, Magnus. Where are they?" Kup yelled.

"I - I don´t know," Perceptor replied.

xxxxxxx

Somewhere else

Rodimus looked at his sourroundings after he suddenly found himself somewhere else.

Grass, trees, birds were singing, a yellow sun, this was definitely Earth. He was lying on a large field, surround by lines of trees. There was a road not far away from him.

He was not longer in orbit.

But where exactly he didn´t know.

How did he get here?

He tried to call Autobot City and Metroplex. But no answer. Even if he were on the other side of the planet they should be able to receive his call.

Wait. That had been some kind of transwarp-sphere. He was sure of it.

Was that some kind of transport-device? Possible.

The Autobot´s transwarp technology was still in development - sadly. And if it were some kind of alien technology that used transwarp, it mae sense that Perceptor were not able to identify it instantly.

But that meant...

If it was truly transwarp tech, then it meant he could have been send anywhere... in any time... or even another universe.

He was more and more getting a bad feeling about all this.

Ultra Magnus was nowhere to see.

But Rodimus was sure he had been drawn into the sphere as well. Where ever he was, it seemed he had not landed at the same place.

The one good thing about this entire situation was, while Primus may have permanently transformed him into Rodimus Prime, it was as the senior Prime still Optimus who carried the Matrix for the most time.

So at least it had not been lost with him. Even if he didn´t manage to return, the Matrix would still be with the Autobots.

But that didn´t change his own situation. He had no idea where and when he was.

Magnus was not here. But Rodimus saw something else. Something he already wished he had never seen- The small pyramid shaped device was lying a few hundred meters from him.

He walked over and picked it up. If this thing was part of the machine that brought him here - where ever here was - maybe it could help him.

Rodimus walked another short distance to the road he had seen. Then he transformed and drove off. He decided the best course of action for now would be to look around until he found some signs of civilization - either human or cybertronian.

xxxxxxx

Earth - the year 1986

The new arrival however, had not gone completely unnoticed.

Inside the Ark - the crashed Autobots ship that served as their main base in this time - the main computer Teletran One had detected the strange energy reaings, that had been caused by the intrusion into their space and time.

xxxxxxx

But they were not the only ones.

In the sky over one of the states of the East Coast of the USA, a familiar silvery colored jet was flying in the same direction Rodimus was heading.

"Interesting," Starscream thought loudly to himself, "very interesting."