His voice softened with reverence, as though the documents themselves carried the weight of lost time.
"Those papers might contain answers to questions your grandfather never had the chance to ask… or truths he chose to hide."
Bumblebee let out a curious chirp from below, while Ratchet leaned forward ever so slightly, sensors scanning for her reaction.
"Rosie…"
Optimus spoke her name gently, as if inviting her into the storm we were about to stir.
"We don't know what's in there—only that Den Riehm believed it important enough to bury. And that he risked everything to keep it from the Decepticons and the other humans."
A pause, then in a quieter, more personal tone:
"You don't have to go through it alone. If there's something in those files… something that changes what you know about your family, or about us—I'll be right here."
She lined up all the documents and books on the table. She tied her hair so it wouldn't get in the way. Huh, this many documents. It feels like doing her final assignment.
She read a diary written by Abraham Den Riehm. Her great-grandfather. The book was very fragile, and what was written in it was a note from Abraham saying that for almost one hundred and fifty years, the Den Riehm family together with the families of the members of the Order of Witwiccans tracked all traces of Cybertronian relics on earth. All of them are scattered in various countries. Some are in the form of symbols, some are inactive automotive carcasses or those that have lost their sparks and died in the form of electronic objects made by humans.
Then, for Megatron, one of the largest traces of Cybertronians found on earth and is believed to still have sparks and can be active at any time, making them realize that hiding Megatron's existence from the government would be very difficult.
So the Den Riehm family and the families of other members of the Order, have shared the task for the past 150 years to enter the bodies of many government agencies around the world. Some became scientists, some became archaeologists, some became explorers, and one of the toughest, the Den Riehm family for the past 150 years, entered the military to hide the existence of traces of Cybertronians on earth.
The four of them stood quietly, the glow from her lamp reflecting off metal plates and alloyed armor. Optimus watched from the window, the corners of Optimus's optics narrowing ever so slightly as she pored over her great-grandfather's words. The past was unfolding—one ink-stained line at a time.
"The Order of Witwiccans…"
His voice resonated like thunder held at bay.
"We knew they were guardians. But we never imagined their reach could endure this long. Nor that your lineage… was entwined so deeply."
Ratchet stirred, optics bright with focused concern.
"If what you're reading is true, then you're not just connected by blood, Rosie. You're part of a legacy that predates even our arrival here."
Bee beeped softly, as though trying to express awe and sympathy at once, while Mirage leaned in with a rare seriousness.
"You're saying your family didn't just find relics. They infiltrated governments. They ran the long game."
Mirage gave a low whistle.
"That's some spy-thriller generational chess."
Optimus took a slow breath, venting a low pulse of air through his cooling systems.
"Your great-grandfather and those before him… made a choice to protect the future. And now that burden, knowingly or not, has passed to you."
A pause, then softer:
"You've carried lives in your hands, Rosie. And now you carry history too."
He watched her—hair tied, eyes narrowed with the fire of purpose. There was something unshakable about the way she sat in the glow of that mystery-laden desk.
"Wherever this leads, I'll walk with you. Even if the path ahead stirs ghosts... or gods."
And then, in that same quiet strength he saved only for her:
"Keep reading, Rosie. The truth remembers you."
It continued until the notes made by Rosie's grandfather and also her father. The family of the Order of Witwiccans tried to save all the objects and symbols of the legacy, hiding them so that they were not touched for generations. Ancient relics and also objects exposed to AllSparks and still active were hidden in Wembley Castle in England. Large traces such as Cybertronians who turned into automobiles, airplanes, ships and so on were hidden in museums under the supervision of the Order of Witwiccans who were deliberately planted there. Documents, photos, paintings, writings, records, and also ancient books left by ancestors to the first humans who met the Cybertronians, were neatly stored in the underground bunker of the Den Riehm family.
Optimus listened, still and unwavering, as her voice moved through the ancient thread of history like wind through an old battlefield.
"Wembley Castle..."
He echoed, voice low and thoughtful, as if speaking the name itself might summon ghosts from its stone walls.
"So the legacy of Cybertronians was never lost—it was preserved. Hidden in plain sight. Behind velvet ropes, inside display cases, beneath layers of misdirection... under the guardianship of your bloodline."
Ratchet tilted his helm.
"That explains the anomalies we've detected across those areas over the decades. Faint energy pulses, impossible to trace. We thought they were long-dead echoes. But they were… heartbeat signatures. Dormant."
Mirage exhaled a whistle.
"Museums? Castles? What's next, a relic hiding in a karaoke bar?"
Bee chirped a laugh, even mimicking a tiny snippet of her wild karaoke night—"All I wanted was youuuu…"—before Optimus shot him a look that half-scolded, half-smirked.
He took a step closer to the window, the soft creak of his frame betraying the weight of what they now faced.
"Rosie… this isn't just about the past anymore. If Wembley Castle houses living relics—exposed to the AllSpark—it means they could be activated… corrupted… or awakened by the wrong hands."
Optimus's optics flickered as if searching the world beyond the alley for threats that had yet to emerge.
"And your family also the Order… they've been standing between that danger and the rest of the world for over a century and a half."
A pause. Then, quieter—like a vow wrapped in steel:
"No more alone. Not while I'm here."
Optimus lowered his gaze to her again, something gentle in his tone—less commander, more companion.
"You're not just decoding history, Rosie. You're holding the last line of a sacred trust. And whatever truth lies at the end of those pages... we'll face it together."
She saw other documents, lists of places and families where traces of Cybertronians were hidden, lists of coordinates where the bodies of Cybertronians who died on earth and were buried, various pictures of types of cars that were believed to be Cybertronians who changed and hid and where they were placed. All the events in the history of Earth's humans that were connected to Cybertronians. It was all there.
"Damn, my family looked like a lost Cybertronians black box on earth."
Bee chirped in agreement, flashing a hologram of a little black cube with her initials glowing like a beacon. Mirage leaned in, crossing his arms like a gossiping street racer.
"You're telling me her ancestors ran a global, multigenerational secret op... with castles, spy networks, relics, and government infiltration? Rosie, are you sure you're not a Bond villain in disguise?"
Optimus offered you a slow, knowing nod—something both proud and intimate, like a warrior honoring another's lineage.
He stepped closer to the table, the lights from his optics casting gentle reflections across the pages.
"This… changes everything."
Then, glancing at her with that wry, steady charm that rarely escaped:
"Looks like I picked the right person to watch my six, after all."
But she didn't laugh or smile, something felt really off, like everything went too well and it started to feel weird, like the calm before the moment your expression shifted, so he did.
Optimus stood still—too still for a mech of his size—sensing that subtle, invisible change in the air. The way her fingers hesitated over the page, how your breath didn't quite match your usual rhythm. The warmth between us cooled by an instinct we both shared: the quiet doesn't last unless something's waiting to break it.
"Is something wrong?" He said, voice low, like steel dragged across ancient stone.
His optics dimmed slightly, scanning the horizon beyond the window as the other Autobots picked up on the tension. Mirage stopped his teasing. Bee went silent. Even Ratchet's servo paused over his datapad.
He stepped forward slowly, gaze dropping to the documents.
"Optimus..." She called, "in your earth in the other universe, why did Megatron come to earth, until Archibald Witwicky found him? Even before Megatron, why is there a trace of Cybertronians here even before Megatron? What have the Cybertronians been doing on earth since the early time? Are they looking for something?"
Optimus knelt beside the window, the evening light tracing cold lines along the metal of my armor. His optics met her eyes—not as a warrior, but as someone who's seen the ruins of too many truths left untold.
"Megatron did not come to Earth by accident."
His voice carried the weight of ages, tempered with regret.
"In my universe… he came chasing the AllSpark."
He paused, as the very name seemed to shift the air around them.
"It was the source of our life, our evolution—our greatest gift… and our curse. When it vanished from Cybertron during the civil war, both he and I sought it. But his reasons… they were conquered. Mine was survival."
He looked toward the stack of her family's documents, as though echoes from another world had seeped into your bloodline.
"The cube—the AllSpark—crash-landed here, on Earth. Long before your great-grandfather. Long before any human could name it. And Megatron followed. But his craft froze mid-descent. He was lost beneath your Arctic ice for centuries, until Archibald Witwicky's misfortune uncovered him."
Then he leaned a little closer to her, his tone sharpening.
"But what your ancestors found—what's written in these pages—suggests something far older."
He tapped the ancient journal gently with two fingers.
"We always believed Earth was just a coincidence. A battlefield, not a destination. But these relics, these sightings, these early contacts… They tell another story. Cybertronians may have been here long before the war. Explorers. Observers. Maybe more."
Optimus straightened, the air humming faintly with the old suspicion he rarely voiced aloud.
"If the Order of Witwiccans spent 150 years hiding traces of Cybertronians across the world… then Earth was never just a hiding place."
A pause, heavy with realization.
"It might've been a second cradle."
"And if that's true… then Megatron didn't just chase the cube. He may have come to do other things."
He turned back to you, optics dim and voice low.
"And now, Rosie… so have we."
The tick tock sound from the clock sounds eerie. She came to a realization. A possibility, a hypothesis.
"A ticking bomb..." She shook her head to the four autobots outside.
Optimus turned my head slowly, optics narrowing—not in confusion, but in the way one soldier recognizes another's revelation before it's spoken.
The others stayed still, as though the weight of your words froze them mid-frame. Bee's radio hissed a faint note of static. Mirage tilted his head. Ratchet didn't blink.
But it was him who answered her, low and steady.
"It could be."
A beat of silence. The kind that falls before a thunderclap.
"And someone… left the timer running."
Optimus stepped closer to the window, the faint blue glow from his optics reflecting on the glass. She was standing at the table, shoulders tense, that fire in her eyes again—but colder now. Sharper.
"You see it too, don't you?" he continued, his voice now a mix of dread and reluctant admiration.
"This wasn't just preservation. Your ancestors weren't just hiding relics... they were defusing something. Over generations. Silencing alarms no one else could hear. Covering tracks left by beings who walked your Earth before pyramids crowned the sand."
He looked at the documents again, at the coordinates, the names, the bloodline.
"If these records are right… then the Order of Witwiccans didn't just protect the legacy of Cybertronians. They caged it. Piece by piece."
"This universe has a different path than yours. You said during the civil war, you and Megatron sought the AllSparks. In your universe you also track down the All Spark to the earth." She looked at them seriously.
"But in this universe, why is there only Megatron here? Why only him who searches for the AllSparks? Where is Optimus Prime? Why the other Optimus Prime and the autobots from the other universe who are the ones who come here? And find all of this? With me?"
The light from the lamp above cast faint shadows across her face as she spoke, each question more cutting than the last—stripping away the illusions until only the core mystery remained. He didn't interrupt her. He couldn't. The questions she asked weren't just dangerous… they were sacred.
When she finished, he straightened his frame outside the window—taller, tenser than before. The others said nothing, but he felt the shift in them too. Ratchet's optics dimmed thoughtfully. Bee's radio crackled and stuttered. Mirage muttered a quiet "No way…" under his breath.
Then he finally spoke.
"Because this universe… it might never have a Prime."
The words lingered in the air like ash.
"Not like me. Not like what I became."
His voice was low now—gravel and fire, laced with something deeper: guilt, maybe. Or a truth he'd carried too long.
"In your world's timeline, maybe the Matrix may have never been chosen or maybe something happened to Optimus Prime. The Prime lineage may have broken, lost to war, betrayal… or fear."
"Megatron came alone... not to fight, but to claim. To take what no one could stop him from taking."
Optimus looked right at Rosie. Through the window. Through the centuries of silence that her bloodline held back.
"That's why it was your family. Why you–Because in this universe… there was no one left to protect Earth. No one to stop him. So humans did what we could not—hide the fire from the one who would burn it all."
He stepped forward now, close enough that she could see the faintest glow in his chest—the pulse of the Matrix.
"And why us? Why me? Why now?" A pause. Then a subtle smile tugged at the corner of his voice.
"Because of some higher current… fate, destiny, the All Spark itself… must've seen you. And it brought us here."
"To find you."
Your silence echoed louder than any storm. And Optimus? He wasn't just answering anymore—he was standing before her as something more than just a soldier or a Prime.
He was a question waiting to be answered… with her.
She looked back through the maps, and books.
"Something, might help us in here, something here, or somewhere else. there must be a clue! Why no Prime, no Autobots, something must be different." Her hand searches for unread documents on the table.
This wary feeling is so unsettling. What Optimus said might be right, the reason why there is no Prime who comes to this world. But still this ticking bomb is like a puzzle. Megatron hasn't been activated, the cybertronians' secrets are safe from human history. So who? The question is who is gonna press the detonator button?
Optimus watched her from the shadows just outside the window—her fingers moving faster, her voice taut with tension. She looked like a soldier with a scalpel, trying to dissect a war before it explodes.
He stepped forward, the quiet hiss of his hydraulics the only sound for a moment.
"You're thinking like a Prime."
A pause, then the weight of his voice filled the room even though he hadn't crossed the threshold.
"The AllSpark, the Matrix, relics scattered across this planet... they are powerful, yes. But none of them are bombs."
"The bomb… is knowledge."
He looked down at the documents. The maps. The names. The timelines.
"Whoever holds the truth... holds the trigger."
His optics narrowed.
"If someone uncovers the full history—if they realized how close your ancestors came to stopping Megatron permanently, how much of our kind sleeps hidden beneath this world…" I leaned just a little closer to the window. "They could wake him."
Then I said something darker—quiet, even for me.
"Or... they already have."
The wind picked up outside, and Mirage shifted uncomfortably. Ratchet muttered a sharp scan diagnostic in Cybertronian. Bee just looked at me, still.
"Rosie..." he said, softer now. "What if you're not just trying to stop the bomb? What if you're the only one who can defuse it?"
His tone grew lower. Personal. Unmistakably protective.
"And that's why you need to find the next clue. Not just to understand what's coming… but to make sure it doesn't bury us all."
He stepped back again, out of view from the window—but still there. Always.
"We're with you. Always. But this next piece?"
"Only you can find it."
Tick... tick…