As the sun begins to set and the stars begin to peer out from the darkness setting in, Optimus Prime, Jazz and Ironhide return to the base hours later.  Prime still looking freshly beaten and damaged from the mine explosion and scorch marks from Thundercracker and Skywarp’s bomb attack, drives in through the dusty dirt road leading to the Ark.  Riding up the mountainside in their vehicle modes, they zoom past Carly who is standing out side with Huffer and Brawn.  Casually chatting with one another, they notice the damage on Prime’s cab and stop talking as if they’ve just witnessed a terrible accident.  Carly notices how none of the robots says a word to her as they pass by and looks at Brawn and Huffer.

“Where’s Bumblebee?”

Both Huffer and Brawn shrug as they too are at a loss of his whereabouts.  Then, moments later, the small yellow Volkswagen Beatle drives up the mountainside as well.  Much slower then the others, an almost somber Bumblebee drives up towards the Ark’s entrance.  Carly sees him heading in and blocks the way with herself.  Bumblebee’s headlights shine on Carly as he sees her getting in his way.

“Please move Carly.” The sad sounding robot begs her.

“No.”, she tells him firmly. “Not until you talk to me Bumblebee, we heard from Ratchet about what happened…”

Transforming back into his robotic form, the small horn headed yellow and black robot looks down at her with weak looking eyes.

“How is Sparkplug anyway?”

Carly folds her arms as she tells him.

“Not good, nearly every bone in his body is broken.  Ratchet is trying his best to mend Sparkplug…but I think if he’s strong…he just might make it.”

Bumblebee sighs.

“This is all my fault.  I can’t believe I hurt Spike’s dad…I…I can’t face him Carly, I just can’t.”

Carly looks up at the sad little robot.

“He’s in there right now, keeping a close eye on Sparkplug as Ratchet operates on him.  I won’t lie to you Bumblebee, he was very mad at you when they brought him in.”

Bumblebee collapses down to the ground and sits with his arms curled around his legs.

“I knew it.  The first new friend I meet on this world and I end up killing his father, I should be the one on that operating table…having my circuits ripped out.”

Carly sits down with him and places her hand on his arm.

“Oh Bumblebee…you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.  Spike is mad now, but just give him some time to sink it all in.  Your heart was in the right place and you acted as any other decent being would have.  You sacrificed yourself to shield Sparkplug from the blast, if you didn’t do that…his father still wouldn’t have been around right now.”

Bumblebee lowers his head down to his folded knees and sighs.

“Yeah, yeah…Prime already tried to give me the ‘it’s not your fault’ speech.  Still, I feel awful inside…Spike is my best friend, even though we haven’t known each other for a long time, I felt comfortable with him as if we had been friends forever.  It kills me to think he’ll hate me for the rest of his life.”

Brawn and Huffer walk up to him, after over hearing his conversation with Carly, and try to console their fellow Autobot friend.

“Listen Bumblebee, Carly is right.”, Brawn says in his usual gruff voice. “Give the guy some time to blow off some steam and he’ll be back to his old self.  So buck up, huh?”

“Yeah…besides, Spike probably knows it wasn’t your fault anyhow.”, Huffer now adds. “Thing is, he’s just worried about his dad, once Ratchet patches him up he’ll be back to being your best bud in not time at all.”

Bumblebee’s eyes lower as he hears the unhelpful comforting from the other two Autobots.

“Yeah right, I’m no better then Megatron to him now.  I…I just want to be alone right now.  I’m gonna go for a walk.”

The yellow robot stands up and slowly walks down the mountainside, Carly and the others watch him as they give a look of sorrow for the poor small transformer.

“There goes a changed Autobot.” Brawn breathes out.

“We all had to change Brawn, nobody stays innocent forever.”, Huffer says as he folds his arms. “Bumblebee has to grow up sometime…its time he learned that life is more complicated then it looks.  They’ll be horrors, laughs, and even some tragedies beyond his control.  War isn’t supposed to be fun…”

Carly walks into the Ark to check on Spike and the others, as she passes by the two Autobots standing beside her, she says something that both robots seem to nod in agreement.

“War is never fun, all it does is hurt the ones we love.”

As she walks deeper into the Ark, she passes by the medical bay where Spike is keeping watch over his father.  The large doors are partially open; who can say why, Ratchet probably felt it give the room some fresh air for the humans.  As Carly looks in, she sees that Sparkplug is no longer being operated on and Spike is holding his father’s hand at the side of his makeshift bed.  The bed is one of the army cots left behind, topped with many pillows to support Sparkplug and to help him stay comfortable as his bones heal.  Carly gazes thought the door slit and listens to the two men talk.

“Spike…”

“Hi Dad.  How you doing?”

The man flinches as he tries to talk or move.

“Oh…could be better.  I’m more concerned about you.”

Spike’s eyes become hazy as he tires to hold back his tears; the sight of his broken father is enough to make him cry.

“Me?  Guess I could be doing better myself…why did you have to do it dad?”

“Spike…son, you of all people should know, I never let a job go unfinished.  Megatron and the Decepticons are an evil this world cannot afford to have again.  We saw it during World War II and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone kick us around again.”

Spike snickers a bit and smiles.

“Dad…you weren’t even in that War.”

“I know…I know…”, the man says as he smiles back.  “But my father told me everything that happened to him.  He always told me to never let evil men get away with evil, something that just always stuck with me I guess.  You mother…god bless her soul…didn’t want me to join the army when we were younger.  Now that I think back, maybe she was right, I wouldn’t have had the life I have now.  I wouldn’t have had the chance to watch my boy grow up, to be by my beautiful wife as she left me, and I might not have ever had the chance to be reunited with the son I thought I’d lost.”

Carly, still listening in, had tears dropping down her cheeks as she listened to his heart filled talk Sparkplug and Spike were having.  Spike also had some tears beginning to roll down and continued to talk with his father.

“Mom…she would be so pissed at you for doing such a half assed thing.  But I know she’d also be proud of you, she always knew you were a man of your word and that if you had to do something, you’d do it without question.  She probably knew you wanted to join the fight, be a soldier and fight for your country…but she also knew you’d fight for anyone, no matter what country, race or even…heh…alien being for that matter.  If someone did wrong in your eyes, you’d stand up and try to stop them.  That’s something that’s always stuck with me, because I learned it from the one decent man I respect in life.”

The two smile at one another and Spike helps his father wipe the tears from his face.

“Son…”, Sparkplug now adds. “Don’t be too harsh with Bumblebee.  Now I know he hurt me pretty bad…but it really wasn’t his fault.  He was only doing what he would do for anyone.”

“I know.”, Spike sighs.  “I was just so mad at him once I saw you, I wanted to break him apart and pound at him with my fists.  I was waiting to see him pull up so I could give him a piece of my mind.  But Carly told me to go and watch over you while she waited for me.  As I sat here watching Ratchet work on you, it all became clear…I began to realize that Bumblebee was just an innocent, not knowing what his actions my cause or how fragile humans could truly be.  I can’t image what he must feel like now; he must feel like he killed you with his own hands.  This war between the Autobots and the Decepticons is really becoming a stressful time, both for him and myself.  I think the two of us just need some space from one another…maybe just let the moments sink in and deal with it when we meet again.”

Sparkplug tries to move his head to look at his son at a better angle.

“You know…he reminds me an awful lot like you.”

“What?” Spike says in a questioning high-toned voice.

“Yeah, both of you are very similar in many ways.”, the tired man says as he tries to speak. “I’ve watched you two talk and kid around.  It’s like you’ve been best friends that have been around each other forever.  That’s what I saw in you both anyway.”

Ratchet comes walking up to the two men and looks down at Sparkplug.  Taking out a medical scanning device, he hovers it above the patient and looks at the findings.  As Spike looks up at him, Ratchet whispers at him as he sees Sparkplug starting to drift off into sleep.

“Come on Spike.  Lets give your father some down time.  In the morning I’ll need both you and Carly to help me transport him to the nearest hospital.  I’ve done all I can here, now he needs to be a facility where he can get more treatment and mend.”

Spike nods and looks down at his father who has now fallen into deep sleep.  Gently stroking his hair and kissing his forehead, Spike says his final words to the man as he rises from his chair.

“Love you dad.  Get better soon.”

Carly had been crying as she watched and listened to the whole conversation.  As she slowly backed away from the door she suddenly bumped into something.  Turning around she saw a big blue metal leg.  Now she gazed all the way up and saw that it was Optimus Prime, who was also standing there listening in without her knowledge.

“Prime…where…where did you come from?  I didn’t even hear you walk up?   Heh, that’s kind of strange seeing how anyone could hear the likes of you walk up.”

Optimus Prime didn’t look down, he continued to stare at the door crack and watched young Spike tuck his father’s bed sheets in and walk away with Ratchet in the other room.

“I don’t suppose you could have…seems you were too occupied with something else.”, the leader says to Carly.

“Oh…”, she says sniffling and wiping her eyes. “I didn’t mean to eaves drop.  But I was worried and wanted to see how he was doing.  Do you think the Decepticons will leave Earth tonight?  Now that they have the added power I mean…”

Prime continues too stare straight ahead.

“No.  They’ll need to repair the wounded first, fuel up the ship and make sure everything is in working order.  He’ll leave at sunrise…I know how he thinks, he’s nothing but predictable himself.”

“So much death and destruction...I guess our kind wasn’t such help after all.  We really are a doomed society.”

Prime now looking down at her and his glowing blue eyes gave a gentle look about them as he talked with her.

“I don’t think that.  You know, you humans are truly lucky.  You have such strong emotions for one another and have the greatest selfless nature within you.”

“But we’re fragile Prime.”, Carly points out. “Flawed and weak as much as any being. We break easily and have such short life spans.”

Prime raises his head up again and looks at Sparkplug sleeping in the other room.

“Perhaps that is a precious gift Carly.  It allows you to take the time to enjoy life in those short spans, it gives you dreams and memories that make you cherish all the moments you have with one another.  For you, every single day is important as the last.  For us, time is nothing…spare parts can be replaced, programs upgraded and our power cores will keep us alive for centuries.  We don’t respect life because we don’t know what it means to have a short one…or to be so fragile that we cannot live to see another day.”

Carly stares at the leader in pity, hard to believe that such a military warrior like him would be such a gentle giant.

“The Autobots aren’t the ones that don’t respect life Optimus.  You’ve done nothing but go out of your way to make sure no one gets hurt. You are a great leader of your people Optimus Prime, a role model that both robots and human should look up too.  In many ways, your more human in your thoughts and actions then most are here on Earth.”

Prime lowers his head and sighs.

“Thank you Carly.  You, Spike and Sparkplug have been dear friends to us since the very beginning…and I’m glad we met you all such as we have.  Now I know what we must do, I’ve danced around the issue and even tired to spare the worst-case scenario.  But now I know…we’re not just fighting for the freedom of Cybertron.  But for freedom of all civilized worlds itself, life must be allowed to go on, no matter the cost.”

Taking one last look at Sparkplug lying in the medical bay, He turns around and starts walking away down the corridor. Prime’s eyes flash as he says his last statement to Carly still standing behind.

“Evil men must not be allowed to get away with such evil.”

Carly watches him with curiosity.  She wonders what he meant by that, something was on his mind and she was sure they would all find out soon enough.


The blanket of stars fully appears in the dark sky and the full moon gives a well-lit glow down below on the surface of the rocky ravine. But this is not where the Ark and the Autobots reside, but rather where the Decepticons and their newly constructed ship sits.  The wounded warriors all try to make repairs to themselves and each other as they try to undo the damage the mine explosion did to them all.  Rumble, still looking dented with his back sliver weapons attached behind him hanging over like folded pipes, tries to repair Thundercracker’s wing.  The tiny bot pounds away the dents and rocks that impacted on him by using his pile drivers.   As he uses them on the Decepticon jet’s wing, it accidentally falls off.

“Oops.” Rumble says in a low voice.

Thundercracker looks behind his shoulder and his mouth opens in shock.  Grabbing the small mini-bot forcefully, he pulls him in close to his face.

“Why you little twit!  Watch what you’re doing, huh?  I just want the dents out and your knocking off my parts!”

Rumble giggles a bit and nervously smiles at the angry robot.

“Sorry, I didn’t know it was that bad.  I’ll…I’ll try to be more gentle next time.”

“Make sure there is no ‘next time’ Rumble…otherwise I’m liable to rip off one of your arms and smack you in the head with them!”, the Transformer says gruffly to him.

As he lets the small robot go from his grip, Rumble rubs his sore neck and looks up at him.

“Geez you’re starting to sound like Starscream.”

“Watch your mouth Rumble! Now stop your yappin’ and fix me already!” Thundercracker snaps back at him.

Rumble continues his work on the Decepticon jet, and a few feet down from him is Megatron, the leader looks out over his men as he views the amount of damage done to them.  Behind him is Hook, one of the Constructicons trying to repair most of the Decepticons, he’s looking all around Megatron for any wounds as he flashes his top light out on him that is unfolded from part of his head.

“I’ll get Prime for this…”, Megatron mumbles to himself.  “His Autobots will suffer the ultimate price when we return home.”

Looking down at Hook as he raises his right arm to see him, the Decepticon leader shouts at the tinkering Constructicon.

“Will you stop looking!!  I told you I don’t need repairs...I am virtually indestructible!  Now tend so someone who doesn’t have my unbreakable shell and lets get moving!!”

Hook sighs at the leader as he retracts his hand inwards to his arm and comes out with a new attachment.  It looks like a large green pair of tweezers that stay attached to his arm, as they clamp down at the leader; he removes something from the small of Megatron’s back.

“Apparently your not so indestructible as you thought, Megatron.”

The Leader looks at the object in amazement, snapping it out of Hook’s tweezers he gazes upon it as it shines in the moonlit night and has a transparent redness to it.

“Impossible.  My casing is made of pure sterling Dytainiuim steel…how could one small thing affect me?  Wait…this is one of the ruby crystals…that makes no sense!”

Hook puts his tweezer hand away and unfolds his regular hand again.  Taking the ruby from Megatron, he studies it closely with his optic visor.

“Energon crystal you mean…the blast must have increased its inner core power as the motion hurled it at you at a great speed.  It would have sliced through any metal or being like a sword through flesh.  Fascinating…energon crystals must have a greater yield through high velocities then remaining motionless….”

Megatron smacks the crystal out of the Constructicon’s hand and grabs him by the throat.

“Enough of your stupid theories! Repair the damage as best you can and make sure no one…NO ONE…can see it, is that understood?”

Hook gasps and tries to struggle out of Megatron’s strong, very crushing grip as he nods in agreement.

“And Hook…” The leader adds.  “If you breathe a word to this to anyone…or if I hear that you have talked at all, I shall personally make sure that your fellow Constructicons are sure to miss one less combiner in their group. I am flawless do you hear me?  FLAWLESS!!”

“Yes…ugh…my leader.  You are undamaged and…gahh…invulnerable.”, Hook says almost begging to the Decepticon warrior.

Letting the robot go from his mighty hand, Megatron continues to scowl at him and watches his movements carefully.  The Constructicon begins to patch the leader and uses a spray paint that almost matches the silver metal housing.  Hook’s skill for making damaged areas look brand new again is his specialty; if Megatron was to ever look at the spot again he’d never believe he was damaged in the first place.  But of course, the leader knows all to well that his structure has now been compromised and his thoughts will now dwell on it from this day forward.  As Hook finishes up, he bows to the mighty leader staring him down while he backs away slowly.  Megatron continues to think about the wound he received and comes to a new conclusion of where the blame lies.

“These humans are to blame for this…if it were not for them, Prime and the others wouldn’t be a threat to us.” The leader starts to say under his breath again.  “It’s time we took care of this species once and for all.  The minute we reach the Earth’s orbit, we’ll use the energon we’ve collected and vaporize the planet!”

Starscream, having just finished his repairs, overhears the leader’s grumblings and walks over to him.

“You blamed me for wasting energon…and now you want to waste it all on killing the humans?  How typical of you Megatron, stealing my ideas and spinning them for your own.”

“Shut up, Starscream!” Megatron snaps at him. “Don’t make me reduce you in rank again for being overly lippy.”

Starscream nervously smiles and snickers.

“I…was only joking mighty Megatron.  Uhm…so we’re going to kill the humans after all?  Just when I was getting so fascinated by their structures.”

Megatron’s grim face soon upturned into a happier smirk.

“Yes, you did seem to enjoy studying those human miners.  But you really should have cleaned up your mess afterwards, those bodies began to decay rather quickly.”

Starscream chuckles as he remembers.

“I had to be very extensive in my studying of them…after all I am a scientist.  Besides, you didn’t seem to mind that Prime was blaming you for their deaths.”

“Of course not, they were only humans.  Optimus is such a weakling for those creatures; he can blame me for that if he likes…it makes no difference one way or the other.  But that still doesn’t excuse your mess Starscream…the rotting carcasses were a foul air to the caverns.” Megatron says to him with an evil smirk.

“Well, in any case…at least we know they’re biodegradable.” Starscream says back jokingly with the leader.

Megatron and Starscream share a laugh together as statement gives them humor.  A rare thing to see both Decepticons so friendly to one another, it makes the other Decepticons take notice.

“Man…that’s freaky.” Skywarp says as he watches them laugh.

Frenzy, Rumble’s twin with different colors of red and black, stops hammering on Skywarp's leg to look up and comment as well.

“Starscream and Megatron?  Laughing?  You know that can’t be good. The two of them are psychopaths…”

“Hey…” Skywarp says looking down at him.  “I’ll show you psychopath if you don’t stop looking and repair me.”

Soundwave walks up and bows to Megatron just as he and Starscream finish their hearty laugh.

“Soundwave, good to see your repairs where only minor.” The leader says proudly.  “Report on the situation.”

“The ship is complete and ready to blast off at your command.” The cycloptic yellow eye robot says to him.

“What about the energon cubes?” Starscream questions him.

Soundwave points to the stacks sitting beside the vessel and continues his report.

“Energon cubes are ready to be stored into the cargo hold.  As soon as the men are repaired I shall have them load them inside.”

Megatron smiles.

“Excellent. How much of the ruby energon did we manage to salvage?”

“Eighty percent of energy was unharmed.  We should have enough to return to Cybertron and refuel our forces there.”

Megatron rubs his chin in thought.

“Hmm…not enough to power the weapons and destroy the Earth surface. I guess I’ll have to be merciful and spare these humans…for now.  The Autobots may also try to stop us if we stay here for much longer, I know Optimus…he’ll want to halt our voyage if he finds out we’re complete.  Soudwave, How long will it take us to load up and blast off?”

The blue-sliver robot calculates the estimation in his head and looks at his leader after he’s done.

“Repairs to the soldiers…loading of cargo…preparing the ship for take off…it will be an estimated nine hours.”

“Just at the crack of dawn, eh?” Megatron says as he once again strokes his chin in thought.  “Very well…inform the others as soon as they are repaired.  We leave for Cybertron at first light and on ward to Decepticon glory!”

Soundwave bows with pride as Megatron gives the command.  And with Starscream standing beside him with a grin, the evil leader stands with his hands on his hips as if he has achieved total victory.


Deep in the lower levels of Area 51, sitting in a rather large yet spartan looking grey room is Doctor Archeville.  The room stretches out from the door he’s facing, like a long empty ballroom with only his chair, desk and a few file cabinets within its space.  A few extra chairs sit in front of his table, only for guests or even meetings.  Nothing is on the wall, dark grey colors with a few lights that shine down on them like an art gallery with no paintings.  Not so much as even a few plants are giving the room any sort of comfort, the luxuries apparently that Archeville can do without.  The old man sits in his chair, studying the data collected on the transformers that is being processed on his lone computer.  The computer looks nothing like the ones of usual commercial use, its design is much more futuristic looking, with a holographic screen projecting out from a singular device that is linked to the touch pad keyboard.  This is one of many devices that have been created for this special base, technology is the forefront in this place and full of devices man is yet destined to build.

As the Doctor uses his finger to shift holographic projections of data around, a soft sounding bell goes off as an automated female voice announces of who is at the door.

“Project Leader, Agent Commander Charles West is at the door and wishes to enter.”

Archeville taps his keyboard and the holographic screen turns off.

“Give me his clearance code.”

“Alpha 2115-658-2047 Project N AC West”, the drone yet unemotional female voice says back to him.

“Verified and approved.  Open the door.”, the old man says as he leans back in his chair awaiting his guest.

As the unhandled door slides open to the right, Agent West comes walking in as the sound of his shoes clicking bounce all around the empty room.  As he finally approaches Archeville’s desk he hands him a palm pilot looking device that has images of the Decepticon ship on it.

“Sir.  We’ve just gotten word that the vessel is ready for launch.  The Decepticons are repairing one another from the mine conflict and are preparing to load the ship.”

Archeville stares at the hand held computer and scrolls through the new satellite images they managed to retrieve.

“Already?  My, my, they are exceedingly proficient.  I was rather hoping the collapse of the mine would keep them contained until we could get to them…but very well…time to go to plan C, eh commander?”

The Agent looks confused, as the project leader doesn’t even glace his way as he says it.

“Sir? Plan…plan C?”

“Yes Agent West.  We must use the project weapon…”, he says to him now looking up.

“But sir…we haven’t even tested what it might do.”, the black suited man says with worry. “We have no idea if it will even work…”

Archeville hands him another data pad sitting on his table and nearly forces it at him.

“There!  Take that to the engineers and tell them to power it up.  Those are the new specifications Chip Chase sent us one that will surely give us the means to stop them from leaving this world.”

As the Agent looks at the data pad, his eyes grow even more confused and even looks more concerned then usual.

“It will take us forever to charge this up…if the estimation is correct, then we’d need a minimum of nine hours to even come to close to getting it at half power.”

Banging his fist on the table, the Doctor rises to his feet and begins to shout at him.

“Damnit I want it charged now!  I don’t care how much is in it but I want it ready to fire as soon as they begin to take off!  Is that understood, Commander!”

The man nervously nods in agreement and gives a quick reply.

“Yes, Understood.  Sir.”

The man begins to walk away and just as he reaches the door, the Doctor calls to him.

“Agent West…”, He now says in a more calm tone. “Loyalty is everything to me and to this Project.  I entrust you to see this get done as soon as possible…and…if you succeed to my satisfaction, I shall give you a job more worthy of your talents.”

Looking back at the grinning old man, Agent West understands what he means and happily grins back at him.

“Level 13?”, he asks.

“Who knows….” Archeville playfully responds.  “As I said, prove your worthy of such leadership and I will reward you.  Fail me…”

“Sir, I shall not fail" West quickly interrupts.

“Good.  Go now, bring the project weapon online and prepare to reap the rewards!”

Both men nod with satisfaction as they chuckle at one another; agent West leaves the room still smiling from his chat with the Doctor.  Archeville sits down in his chair again and looks at the pad with the Decepticon ship images.

“Autobots be damned.  I want your technology Megatron…long have I dreamed of such a moment as this.  Even in my youth.”

Doctor Archeville takes out a picture from his drawer and stares at the darkly framed image of his younger self in uniform.  The very young looking man in the old faded black and white picture is wearing the full dress of that of a special officer of the Nazi youth core.  As he gazes at the image of his former self, the man smiles and giggles softly in the large echoing room.