Starlit's View:
"It's gonna blow!" Bulkhead cried out, a blinding white light erupting from the space bridge before either of us could get away. I felt a hard tug around my waist as we were pulled into a colorful wormhole, flashes of blues and purples flowed around me like water. As if someone broke thousands of glass windows, the deafening sound rang as the colors changed to red, purples and pinks and all at once it felt as if reality itself had shattered. My helm felt like it was going to split as echoes of the future, past and present sang around me, but it wasn't right. There seemed to be two different stories overlapping one another, voices talking over one another, the voices were familiar but the things they said were out of character. As abruptly as it started, it all ended just as quickly, with another bright flash, I was thrown out of the vortex and into a pile of rubble.
My processor spun as I tried to catch up with what happened, alerts running through my hud as my senses came back online. Slowly, I sat up trying to get the world around me to stop spinning, coughing as the dust around me settled. The stale air was my first clue that something was off.
"Where…" I stopped myself when I realized I was alone, Bulkhead was nowhere to be seen. "Bulkhead? Ratchet?" Their signals were scrambled, which I caulked up to hitting my head on the fall; until Bulkhead's signal appeared in two different locations. I balked, hoping I wasn't glitching again, but no matter how many times I reset my hud it told me the same thing, two Bulkhead's. Something is very wrong… I thought as I stood. That's when I got a clear view of where I was. But…impossible!
I was sitting in the rubble of where our base should have been, so where was everyone? Why was our base in ruins? No, not just our base but all of Detroit was in ruins! Except…Sumdac tower, which had an eerie pinkish glow against the ashy, gray sky. The usually busy and lively city was deathly quiet, the only sounds were the wind and creaks of decaying buildings.
A soft whirring noise came from behind me, forcing me to duck behind a broken piler. A broken camera bot hovered into view, barely holding itself in the air with its lopsided propeller. Something told me this camera bot wasn't looking for a tabloid shot.
The bot wobbled as it spun to catch a picture of the area, slowly inching its way past the piler I was behind. I dared to peak out as it turned the other way, only to duck again as someone blasted it out of the sky.
"Fragging Sumdac…always having to watch over us…" That voice…it couldn't be. "Why am I even here? Some bull slag, there's nothing here." I peeked around the other side of the piler to see the back of a white and black mech, who looked just like Bee. I accidentally bumped some rubble, alerting him to where I was. He turned, revealing his blood red optics and jagged mouth. Just that small glance from him shot fear down into my core.
That's not Bumblebee! And yet he had a similar signature. This imposter was also a bit less stealthy, unconcerned about how much noise his peds were making. He was easy to dodge, but he was damn persesistant.
"Fragging organic! Get out here!" He lost his patience and blasted haphazardly as I hid under a fallen piece of roof. "There…now you're not going anywhere." He cackled, optics glowing with murderous intent. "Ah for Frag sake…" he growled as more whirling noises came from the direction of Sumdac tower.
"What is all that racket?!" The front most camera bot seemed to have a two way mic, where Professor Sumdac's angry voice came from. "I told you to gather what was left of your ship! Not to blast even more of my city!" With that, a collar that was around Bee's neck lit up with purple electricity, shocking the spark out of him.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" The imposter gripped at the collar as he fell to his knees. It took everything in me to keep from jumping to his side, reminding myself over and over that that wasn't Bee. What the Frag did I get myself into?
"Never mind! Your useless ass is closer to a different problem. Another signal from your kind popped up across town! I thought I told all of you monsters to stay out, but one of you broke the rules! Go take care of it!" The camera bots rose up into the air. "And don't go goofing off…" the bots flew off, leaving the imposter Bee gasping for air on the ground.
"When I get this fragging thing off, I'm going to rip you in half." The mech clenched his fists as he grinned. "I'm gonna enjoy bathing in your blood!" His laugh reminded me of Blitzwing's, terrifying and blood chilling.
Usually tailing someone through Detroit was easy, blending in with other cars was easy when on every corner was at least one parked car. Here, there wasn't a working car in sight. For the first time, I had to rely on my brother's holo-projector, which is what Prowl trained me not to do. Unlearning something was much harder than learning it…
Thankfully, this Bee didn't notice the disappearance and reappearance of rubble and a rusty bike, but I wasn't sure who else was around. If Bee was around, were the others nearby? Did Sumdac do something to them? Wait…what about Sari? Sumdac didn't seem like he really liked us, using us as his lackies for…something.
Imposter Bee stopped where a shopping mall once stood, the rotten building looking like something out of Sari's zombie movies. The entrance no longer held doors, the rusty frames had been blown open from the inside, littering the parking lot and entrance in glass. Little care was given as he entered, stomping the glass shards deeper into the cracked concrete. He was looking for one of the Bulkhead signals, but the signal from here had dampened.
Please be online, big guy… I told myself as I dodged the glass, hiding in the shadows of an old gothic clothing store. The imposter stood in the center of what looked to be a food court, or was at one time. The roof had a massive hole, missing the empty glass frame of the dome by inches. Ah slag…the impact hole looked just like Bulkhead had smashed through it.
"Great…who's the dumbaft that did that…" Bumblebee muttered as he scanned the area. I froze when I heard a pained groan off to the left. The way Bee's body tensed was like a cat getting ready to pounce on its prey, he wasn't going to hold back.
"W…wha…little buddy?" Bulkhead's voice sounded from around the corner, the imposters optics glistened as he smirked.
"Autocon…" he hissed, moving quickly to strike. That's when I made my move, dashing in front of Bulkhead and collided a kick right into Bee's chassis. His own momentum sent him flying backwards into a rusted metal safety door.
"Starlit? W-what's going on?" I pushed on Bulkhead to get him back on his feet. "Why is Bumblebee…"
"That's not Bee!" I cut him off as I heard the imposter get back up. "Run!" But the big guy was just too large to move fast enough, a white flash came flying back towards me, his stingers fully charged as he tried to hit me.
"I don't know who you two are, but I'll enjoy ripping your sparks out." This close to him I could feel the joy he was getting from this, he really couldn't wait to grab me and tear me apart. "Hold. Still!" Each swing was dangerously too close, but I was able to dodge and block with my swords. It was a matter of time until he had me back up to a wall, ready to strike when Bulkhead's wrecking ball nailed him in the side of his helm.
"Gahhhh!!!" Both bots yelled, Bee was hurled into a concrete beam which made the dome above shake. A groan from the iron beams that held the ceiling up warned us of impending collapse. Without much thought of the imposter, Bulkhead and I fled back the way I came in as the dome caved in, left side peeling away first. Bulkhead pushed me to the ground and used himself as cover as we crossed the entrance threshold, just missing the bulk of the collapse.
"You ok?" The big guy asked as he stood, shaking to dust off. "And uh…got any clue on what's goin on?" His optics reset a few times as he looked over the empty and cracked parking lot.
"I wish I had an answer." I looked up at him. "All I know is our team isn't our team. Do you think the space bridge…I don't know, opened a wormhole?"
"Uh well…I guess it could have if we didn't account for the distance traveled. But I don't remember programming it to go anywhere yet." He mused, wrecking his processor for an answer.
"Wait…then if you and I didn't set a destination, who did?" It clicked for us both.
"This world has a bridge!" We both said, having the same idea.
"But…how did theirs connect to ours?" Again Bulkhead looked just as confused as me. "And can it do it again to get us back?"
Bulkhead was able to track a faint trace of the same energy that brought us here, but lost it the closer we got to Sumdac tower.
"Huh…it's like something is masking or trying to scramble the signal. I can't pin it down but I think it's in the tower." He scratched his helm, keeping quiet in case we were trailed. A loud thump across the street made us jump, which made me quickly activate my holo projector. I stifled a gasp when I saw who it was, Prowl, only something was different. He had facial decals like a human mustache and goatee. Unlike the imposter Bee, his colors stayed mostly the same, his legs though were more gray than beige. His visor turned a deep crimson; he was scanning for something.
His optics were locked on mine, but I knew he couldn't actually see me. Still…the icy chill of fear froze me in place. The way he stared reminded me of our sire, the helplessness I felt then came rushing back.
"Prowl! Where in the slag have you been?!" Just inside the Sumdac force field was Optimus, but not ours. He was the most menacing so far, his colors matched Megatron's with a fu manchu style face piece. Prowl's face showed his destain for their leader as he glanced over at him.
"None of your business." He stood up, slowly walking towards Prime.
"There's two new autocons out there that need to be dealt with. Bumbler seen em, but they managed to escape. Find them and drag them back here. You know I would if I could." Prime pointed to the collar on his neck. Now that he said that, I noticed Prowl had one too, just like Bee. Did that mean Sumdac was controlling them?
Once both the imposters were done talking, Prowl sped off, leaving Optimus glaring towards us.
"Fragging ninja bots…" he sneered, returning towards the tower without another word.
"We shouldn't be here." Bulkhead's voice made me jump, pulling me out of my trance. Unfortunately Prime had heard him and turned back.
"Who said that?" Both of us froze as he pulled out a blaster from his subspace. "This better not be a fragging trick again…" without warning, smoke grenades were launched towards the tower, only to be caught in the force field. This just ensured that some of it got through, blinding Prime. "All bots report back to the tower! They're here."
"You two, I know you're in there, get out now while you can!" An unknown voice yelled from behind us. Bulkhead and I looked at each other, deciding we had no other choice and went towards the voice as Prime started blasting aimlessly. "Keep up!" A silver and blue sports car pulled up, making sure we saw him before speeding off in the opposite direction.
We heard the sounds of more cars speeding towards us as we transformed and speed off, but none of them seemed to catch which direction we had fled.
We were miles from the tower, just outside the city limits where they used to mine, when the mech slowed down, circling back to cut us off. Bulkhead was the first to transform, poised to fight.
"Bulkhead!" I cried, stopping him from punching the mech. "Are you insane! He just…"
"I recognized you when you turned around…your Lon…I mean Shockwave!"
"Yes…however I don't think we have met." The sports car transformed into a mech I'd only seen in photos, but he wasn't as terrifying as our version. This Shockwave was silver with light teal-blue lines instead of being all purple; his optic was blue, but still gave you the feeling you were being scanned from the inside out.
"You may have fooled me once, but I won't fall for it again!" Bulkhead tried to get around me, only to knock me over, tripping him onto me. "S-sorry…"
"J-just get off…" I pushed myself onto my back. I heard someone approaching and looked to see Shockwave had his hand offered to me.
"Apologies, but you two do look similar to some of our enemies as well. However your sigal says otherwise. Strange how similar it is to ours…" I allowed him to help me up, looking over the red sigal he had on his chassis. He was right, it wasn't an Autobot insignia but it wasn't a Decepticon one either. It was a mix, and I bet if I had looked closer the imposters probably had a purple one more similar to ours.
"Wait…so…you're the good guys?" Bulkhead's processor seemed on the verge of exploding. "But…I don't understand! Wait…what about Sari!? What about the rest of our team!"
"Clearly, Sumdac has been up to no good once again." Shockwave turned back towards the mines. "Come, you must meet with the rest of my team. Maybe together we can solve this mess."
Along the way, Bulkhead explained that the 'Cons in our world had a base here not long ago, but it was destroyed by a space bridge accident. Apparently not in this world.
"Indeed, we can't be detected here in these caves, but we have not built anything to that magnitude down here. The conditions would be very difficult to navigate…ah Starscream, just the mech I needed." We stopped when a large seeker looked up from the desk he was at. The low light in here revealed little more than a glimpse of his red and white paint, not too distant from our own Starscream. His optics however were rimmed with a small round visor, making him appear like a doctor or a scientist.
"W-what are they doing here!?" The mech jumped back, staring right at Bulkhead.
"Now don't fret, these two are the ones we overheard the 'Bots talking about. The ones they think are on our side."
"Are they not?"
"Um…well…" Shockwave wasn't sure how to answer.
"We're on whatever side didn't destroy the city." I tried, but was met with awkward stares. "Or…not?"
"That'd be a mix of ze Deciptibots aud Sumdac." A larger mech appeared from the shadows. "We may have had a small hand in it as well, but only to fight ze 'Bots." Blitzwing had his optics on me. "Just who are jou two?"
"I'm Starlit and this is Bulkhead."
"Bulkhead?! You mean…chief engineer of the…" Starscream started.
"Woh, wait huh?! No way! I'm just a maintenance bot! Well…except I do know a lot about space bridges."
"So you're not zem. You look so much like her…" Blitzwing tipped my chin up with his pointer finger, making me look at him in the optics. His were a pale blue, but in this light I couldn't tell if his armor was gray, silver or light blue. "Expect ze optics and reversed paint color…"
"She's gone, Blitz, let her go." Shockwave put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Forgive him." I had a feeling their world's version of me was gone.
"If that's the case…the fabric of space is in jeopardy." Starscream pulled attention back to him. He was writing furiously on a projector screen, equations and something about a tear. "If that continues…"
"What cha got 'Screams?" Shockwave looked over the seekers shoulder to see what he was reading on the data pad.
"These readings…indicate that our world is about to be ripped apart! These two broke the space time continuum between our worlds. If not fixed, our worlds will try to take up the same space!" He was frantically trying to reset the reading but the same results kept appearing.
"If that happens…both our worlds, our universes' will be destroyed." I muttered. "How do we fix it? If there is a way."
"We shove you back from where you came!" Starscream was far more skittish than ours.
"Easy, Starscream." Shockwave patted his shoulder. "These two are not the ones who caused this, they just happened to be in the wrong place. Sumdac has something in his tower that caused a wormhole that so happened to connect with their space bridge."
"Er…it was a ground bridge actually." Bulkhead shyly corrected. "Which is even weirder cause it's more localized. Unless….your Sumdac made one too, which actually could be possible. In theory, if both were fired up at the same time, at the exact same moment, they could have temporarily linked, but we didn't activate ours." Bulkhead thought out loud.
"Maybe you didn't have too. Sumdac maybe a human genius, but he hasn't a clue how to use Cybertronian technology. At least not yet. Though if what you say is true, Sumdac may have "convinced" Autocon Bulkhead to build him something." Shockwave mused.
"Didn't you say the…Autocon's were under his control?" Shockwave had mentioned the collars earlier but hadn't gone into detail.
"Ze are. But only because Sumdac was able to get zose collars on dem. Wven we crashed here years ago, Sumdac found Nemesis Prime's offline head and body in a revine. From zere he build a collar that controls their base functions. Using Prime's signal, he lured the others in and grabbed most of Nemesis' team. Sentinal was ze only one that escaped but hasn't returned with reinforcements." Blitzwing explained. "Ve are lucky for zat."
"Is…Nemisis Optimus?" Bulkhead asked, but was met with a shrug.
"So they didn't want to build it in the first place…What if the space bridge or whatever they built was purposely sabotaged?" The four mech around me seemed to agree with me. "What if they rigged it to send Sumdac away and didn't account for how much power was needed; that could've blown a massive hole in this space time to connect to our half powered ground bridge."
"That's it!" Starscream jumped up with a start, making everyone jump. "Look, earlier today there was a massive energy spike near the tower! One so powerful, it's almost like a nuclear bomb went off! But there was no explosion, at least on this side!"
"E-explosion?" Bulkhead and I got the same feeling.
"Nuclear…no…" I'd been so caught up in this mess I hadn't even noticed the odd feeling in my spark til now. The bond between Bee and I felt severed, but there wasn't pain, just an emptiness that made me feel sick. I couldn't tell if he was offline or not, just an empty, static feeling.
"No…they can't be offline!" Bulkhead shook his head. "I'm sure Ratchet redirected the flow! Though…we might be stuck here until they rebuild the bridge."
"There may still be a way to get you home. There's a space bridge on the top of that tower, unfortunately it's not complete, but with all of us I'm sure we can get it running." Shockwave assured.
"Yeah right! Good luck getting up there without those twin seekers spotting you!" Starscream scoffed.
"I shink ders a way…" Blitzwing was looking at me again. "Ze twins had an infatuation with our Starlit." Why did I have a bad feeling about that? "But first ve must discuss dis with Megatron. Come." He motioned us to follow. Bulkhead and I looked at each other with some skepticism, but followed the triple changer deeper into the caves.
I had never seen the mines before, mostly cause in our universe they were blown up; the minerals that hadn't been stripped sparkled in the dim light like stars. I understood now why the signals in here were dampened to the point I couldn't sense any of the bots around me.
"Megatron, we have visitors." Blitzwings face changed to the one that was more unstable, Random, but his version didn't have such a jagged mouth. His eyes and mouth lit up a slightly darker blue than his normal face, but he was still unsettling to look at. "Haha! And der not from around here!"
"Calm yourself, Blitzwing. You know what happens when you get too excited." The deep voice of the war lord rang from around the bend. "We cannot have another incident like last ti…" Megatron stopped mid sentence when we were in view, looking between his men and us. "What…"
Megatron stood from where he had been reading a data pad; he was just as massive and intimidating as he was in our world, however his expression was not full contempt. He seemed worried, almost as if he was in shock.
"We have a lot to fill you in on." Shockwave nervously stepped forward. "It seems Sumdac maybe over his head with the Autocons."
Everything was completely upside down here, making my processor hurt. During our meeting, it was explained to Bulkhead and I why Nemisis, who turned out to be Optimus is our world, was here. Just like our Prime's team, they crash landed but everything was reversed. Deciptibots were the ones who had the Allspark when the Autocons attacked them, forcing them through a space bridge that flung them to Earth. The Deciptibots were the ones in a fifty year stasis while the rest of the Autocons were either captured by Sumdac or crash landed in the city.
For now, the 'Bots were letting us stay with them until the rest of them arrived to help with this mission. Starscream hated it, but understood that we were just as stuck with it as he was. Without each other, we could lose literally everything.
Bulkhead chose an alcove across from me, he didn't want to leave me alone, but the caverns these bots used were only big enough for one oversized bot. I promised I wouldn't wonder off, but I was too much of a curious fem to just settle for the night. Making sure the big lug was asleep, I silently crept away to explore more of the caves.
I'd never seen anything like the mines before, the way they connected to another cave system was fascinating, but clearly unintentional. The humans had at least left the cave alone, keeping its natural beauty intact. With only my headlights to cut through the dark, I carfully mapped my way deeper into cave.
"You shouldn't wonder to far, fraulein." Blitzwing's voice from behind me almost gave me a spark attack. I spun around too fast and tripped on a stalagmite, nearly falling into the small cluster, and would have if he hadn't grabbed my arm and practically lifted me into the air. "Apologies, I didn't mean to frighten jou." He gently placed me on my feet.
"S-sorry it's just, our Blitzwing would have…well I would be talking to you for sure." With only our headlights on, he looked quite terrifying. "Not that you would…" Stop babbling… I told myself.
"Right, jou did said something about zat. Zhough, jou are a surprise to us as well. I…ve…" Never in my life did I think I'd see a Decipticon…er…bot, blush. "Of course jour Sire was elated to hear jou were returning…"
"S-Sideways is alive?" I was suddenly paralyzed with fear. "He…he can't be." Blitzwing stopped me from backing into the stalagmite cluster again, looking at me with consern.
"Starlit, I haven't a clue what he did in jour world but he adored jou here. You were his pride and joy, though he hated seeing you "join" ze Cons. Of course there was a reason you did…you were a trained spy…"
"But, you said my optics…"
"Jou thought they were red? No, Purple actually. A shade brighter zan your armor color." The way he cupped my face in his hands was almost charming, so caring and sweet I forgot for a moment that in our world we're enemies. "F-forgive me!" He quickly let me go, looking away before he said something he shouldn't.
"Erm…anyway as I was saying, these caves go for miles. It vould be easy to find jourself lost without a way for us to track you. Besides, did isn't the prettiest area." He tilted his head, gesturing for me to follow him. "Ze humans mined almost everything dey could, except dis one area where zey missed." He jumped down into a lower cavern, reaching up to me to catch me. "It's ok, I promise dis isn't a ploy." I sighed, going against everything my systems told me and jumped down into his arms.
Blitzwing was right, this lower area was beautiful! Crystals and a few gems adorned the stalagmites and stalactites, and when he hit them with his light the entire cavern shimmered. I stepped forward, using my lights to make the crystals look like they were dancing.
"Wow….how did they miss this?! It's…"
"Beautiful, indeed it is." I turned to him, seeing he was looking at me. Please don't…don't look at me like that!
"Listen, Blitzwing, you know I'm not her, right?" He blushed again, clearly embarrassed.
"Of course! I mean, jou look a bit like her, but jou definitely aren't. My Starlit was a bit more harsh, never saw ze beauty in nature. I suppose living with the Autocons did that…I apologize again if I made jou uncomfortable."
"It's ok. I'm sorry she's gone….if you don't mind me asking, how did she…?" The pained look on his face told me it was brutal.
"Ze one called Bumblebee took her offline in front of me and Sideways. He and Prowl discovered who she was…her own brother held her arms back as Bee…plunged his stingers into her spark." What?! "Ve tried to get there before, but ve were too late. She passed in my arms." I couldn't imagine how hard that must have been, but I could feel how much it hurt him. "Sorry, I can't…" I put a hand on his forearm.
"You don't have too, I'm so sorry…" I allowed him to hug me, his huge arms practically smothering me, but it wasn't threatening. In fact he was gentle, which was unexpected. If it wasn't for the fact that I was happy with Bee, I might have let Blitzwing indulge in his fantasy of having his Starlit back, but I wouldn't. It would be cruel to do that, only for me to leave again when the bridge was ready.